Page 46 of Zorro

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the extra keycard the hotel had given him. Other than his words, his presence. It was all the promise he had to show her he meant business. He would let her inside…fuck…she was already inside. He wanted the same thing. Yeah, yeah, he told himself. You’ve been waiting too long for this. She needs to be pushed. Whatever she’s facing had to do with him. He was sure of it, and he wasn’t about to let her handle that shit on her own. This was just to offer it if she ever wanted a place to land that wasn’t wrapped in noise and expectations.

He crouched low and slipped it under her door with careful precision. The gesture felt too good, but it was mixed up with fear, desire, compassion that gutted his soul, and something he couldn’t name that scored what was left after all that gutting.

My spare keycard is on the other side of the door. Use it, he typed. I’ll be back in my room tonight. Come to me because you need me. I can’t just do nothing. I can at least hold you.

He stared at the door another moment, breathing like it hurt.

The hallway was dim and silent as he walked back toward the elevators, each step heavier than the last.

His teammates didn’t say much about the shift between them, not directly, and it was a good move on their part. He was one step away from all-out war. The silence at breakfast had been thick, D-Day had bumped into him, and Zorro was sure it was on purpose. Instead of him saying, “Sorry.” It was “Watch where you’re going. Oh, wait. You don’t do that.”

Gritting his teeth had become commonplace and headaches were the result. He could feel it, simmering in the glances they exchanged when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Buck’s easy jokes had dried up. Blitz was quieter than usual. Professor had that edge behind his eyes like he was doing math he didn’t like.

D-Day…Christ, D-Day looked like he was one syllable away from kicking something through a wall.

But no one said a damn word. Except D. He didn’t miss one opportunity to needle. Joker…in that glacial, terrifying way of his, just watched, and the tension mounted below the surface like a time bomb.

He didn’t have the strength to handle D-Day and Everly’s silence. He had no explanations he could offer because she was shutting him out, and they’d seen enough by now to understand. Everly Quinn was in his blood. She was hurting, and he didn’t know how to reach her.

But he knew she’d kissed him like he was her one and only chance to live. That wasn’t just some idle kiss. That was a woman who had been waiting for his mouth.

He wasn’t giving up.

Not until she told him face-to-face that he no longer belonged.

Maybe not even then.

Everly stood just inside the entrance to the gift shop, blinking like she’d forgotten how to function in artificial light. The cool blast of air conditioning was a slap against her overheated skin, a jolt that only emphasized how raw she felt inside. She hadn’t slept. Not really. Not since the Welcome.

Not since him.

Zorro’s texts still burned behind her eyes. The soft ache of them, the need in them, undid her in quiet waves. The keycard, God, the keycard, was a weight in her pocket that she couldn’t stop touching. Her fingers grasped it like it might steady her.

It didn’t.

It made it worse.

The truth was she wanted to use it.

That was the part she couldn’t seem to exorcise. Not the guilt. Not the grief. Not even the humiliation of seeing herself through others’ eyes. It was the want. The bone-deep, chest-caving, soul-starving want to walk down the hall, open that door, and fall into Zorro’s arms like it would fix something.

But it wouldn’t.

Would it?

That was the battlefield she never let surface. She didn’t hate Mateo Martinez because he was Special Operations. She hated him because he tempted her to want. To want recklessly. To want loudly. To want in a way that couldn’t be measured on a surgical checklist or hidden behind a podium. To want him.

Wanting, in her world, had always been dangerous. Wanting had gotten her Rob.

Focus…she was here for antacid.

That was the official excuse. A tidy reason. Palatable.

Her stomach was eating itself alive with anxiety and guilt, and her chest felt like it was trying to crush itself from the inside out. It felt like shame lodged under her ribs, right beneath the ache Zorro’s texts had left behind.

The gift shop smelled like sunscreen and cheap sugar. Beach towels hung like exhausted flags near the back and displays of T-shirts and woven straw bags fought for dominance between spinning racks of tourist trinkets and keychains shaped like Sugarloaf Mountain. An entire shop engineered for delight. She could barely breathe.