Page 37

Cyclone

T he first thing I felt was her.

Soft, warm, and tangled up in me like we’d been made to sleep this way forever.

Jude lay with her back against my chest, her legs woven between mine, one hand resting over the pulse in my wrist like she needed to make sure I hadn’t disappeared.

I stayed still, not wanting to break the moment.

Outside, the sky was pale gray. Gentle, steady rain tapped against the window. The storm had come and gone sometime during the night, but the air still felt heavy with something unfinished.

I didn’t care.

Not yet.

Not while I had her here.

Her breathing was even, but I felt the shift in her body when she woke. There was just the tiniest hitch of breath, a slow blink, and her fingers tightened slightly over mine.

She didn’t move right away.

Neither did I.

Then, after a few long seconds, she whispered, “You’re still here.”

“Yeah,” I said softly against her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A pause.

Then, a breath of a laugh. “I half-expected to wake up and find it was all a dream that I imagined you. That I imagined peace .”

My chest ached.

I slid my hand up, brushing my thumb gently over the inside of her arm. “It’s real, Jude. I’m real. This is real. No one will ever take this away. I love you, and I will always love you.”

She rolled to face me, her hair a mess, eyes still shadowed with everything she hadn’t said yet.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted. “I haven’t been with anyone since my Tyler.”

“Do what?”

“Wake up next to someone and not immediately start building walls. Not to calculate escape routes. Not brace for the worst. I love you, but will my past always be in our way?”

I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Then don’t try to do it all at once. Just start here. With me. Right now.”

Her eyes searched mine. “I meant what I said last night. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

“Then you won’t be,” I told her. “Not while I’m breathing.”

She smiled, small but real. “That’s a big promise.”

“It’s not a promise,” I said, leaning in to kiss the corner of her mouth. “It’s a fact.”

She let out a shaky breath and nestled closer, her head resting under my chin.

And for a while, we just stayed like that.

Wrapped in silence.

Wrapped in each other.

The outside world would come soon enough, with answers, threats, maybe worse.

But in this bed, in this moment, Jude wasn’t a ghost from the CIA or a woman on the run.

She was mine.

We were still tangled in each other when the knock came.

Three sharp raps on the front door.

Not urgent. But not casual either.

Jude stiffened in my arms.

She didn’t speak.

She didn’t have to.

I felt it in the way her breath caught. The way her body went still, like she was bracing for something she couldn’t name.

“It’s okay,” I murmured, already sliding out of bed. “I’ll get it.”

She sat up slowly, wrapping the sheet around her like armor.

I grabbed a T-shirt off the floor, yanked it on, and crossed the room in three long strides. One quick glance out the front window told me what I needed to know.

River.

I cracked the door open. “This better be good.”

He held up both hands. “Sorry to drop in, but… we’ve got something.”

My gut tightened. “Bad?”

River’s mouth flattened. “We found another sighting. A different camera feed. Not from the pier. From last week.”

Behind me, I heard Jude’s footsteps approach. She stood beside me in my shirt, eyes sharp despite the haze of sleep.

“Where?” she asked.

River met her gaze. “At a gas station off Highway 74. A car matching the description of one tied to your old ghost site pulled in. Same guy behind the wheel. He didn’t go inside. Just sat. Waited. Watching the pumps. Like he was expecting someone.”

Jude’s expression darkened. “That’s how they operated. Intercepts. Extraction points.”

I stepped in. “So what—you think he was here before she saw him?”

River nodded once. “And it gets better. Oliver ran the plates. They’re fake—but the shell company the car was rented under? It links back to one of the CIA’s oldest cover firms. One they shut down three years ago.”

I felt Jude’s breath hitch beside me.

River hesitated. “You were never just collateral damage, were you?”

She didn’t answer right away.

Then, quietly: “No. I was the mission.”

The silence after that was thick.

I reached for her hand, grounding her. “What’s our next move?”

River looked between us, jaw clenched. “We find out what he wants. And we get to him before he gets to her. ”

Jude’s grip on my hand tightened.

And just like that, the quiet was over.