Page 31

Logan

The nightmare ripped me from sleep like a grenade blast. My hand shot toward the nightstand, fingers searching for the Glock that should’ve been there. The familiar weight. The textured grip. The tool that meant survival.

Nothing.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I rolled out of bed, bare feet hitting cold marble. Where was my weapon? Where the hell was I? The room was wrong—too soft, too quiet. No diesel fumes. No distant mortar fire. Just the hum of air conditioning and?—

Lauren.

She lay curled on her side, honey hair spread across the pillow like silk. One hand tucked under her cheek, the other reaching toward where I’d been. The sheet had slipped down to her waist, revealing smooth skin marked by the bandage over her ribs.

Puerto Rico. The hotel. We were safe.

I forced air into my lungs, trying to slow my racing pulse. My hands shook as I scrubbed them over my face. Sweat cooled on my skin despite the room’s perfect temperature.

Safe . The word tasted like a lie.

I closed the bathroom door behind me with a soft click. I cranked the shower to scalding and stepped under the spray, letting the water pound against my shoulders. Steam filled the glass enclosure, but it couldn’t wash away the feeling crawling under my skin.

Mateo Silva was dead. The mission was complete. Lauren was alive. Everything had gone according to the revised plan, considering the cluster it had turned into.

So what the fuck was wrong with me?

My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I pressed them flat against the tile, watching water swirl down the drain. Pink traces from cuts I didn’t remember getting. Story of my life—wounds I couldn’t recall accumulating.

Stand down. Mission’s over. She’s safe.

But my body didn’t know how to stand down. Adrenaline still flooded my system like I was back in that jungle, waiting for the next threat. In the field, that kept me alive. Here, in this five-star fortress, it just made me feel like I was coming apart at the seams.

I stayed under the spray until the water ran cold, then toweled off with automatic movements. The mirror showed a face I barely recognized—hollow eyes, three days of stubble, a fresh scar along my jaw I hadn’t noticed before.

I looked like what I was: a killer pretending to be human.

The bedroom was lighter now, dawn painting the walls pale gold. Lauren hadn’t moved, still lost in whatever dreams found her here. I pulled on yesterday’s pants, grimacing at the dirt still ground into the fabric. My shirt was beyond salvaging, stiff with dried sweat and someone else’s blood.

I needed to get back to my team’s suite. Get fresh clothes. Get my head straight. Get the hell away from this woman before?—

That was when I saw it.

The bruise wrapped around her upper arm in perfect finger-shaped bands. Four distinct ovals where my fingers had gripped, a thumb mark on the opposite side. Purple-black against her pale skin. Fresh enough that the edges still looked angry.

My stomach dropped.

I flexed my right hand, watching the tendons move. Then I placed it in the air above the bruise, not touching, just hovering. The marks aligned perfectly. My hand. My grip. My failure to control my strength when it mattered.

When? Using her as a shield at the dock? Those terrifying moments when I’d held death to her temple, gripping her tight enough to sell the performance? Or in that seedy safe house room when trauma and need had tangled together until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began?

She hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t flinched when I touched her last night. Just let me put my hands on her again like I hadn’t already marked her. Like I wasn’t exactly what I’d always known I was—too broken for gentle things.

I sank into the chair by the window, unable to look away from those bruises. The morning light streaming through expensive curtains illuminated every detail—the way the purple deepened to almost black at the center, the perfect spacing that screamed grabbed too hard, held too tight.

My hands started shaking again. I clenched them into fists, nails biting into my palms. The pain helped, gave me something to focus on besides the way she’d trusted me. The way she’d looked at me like I was something more than a weapon pointed in the right direction.

She shifted in her sleep, and the sheet slipped lower. More bruises along her ribs, older ones from the jungle mixing with fresh marks. A catalog of failures written on her skin.

I needed to leave. Now. Before she woke up and looked at me with those green eyes that saw too much. Before I had to watch her realize what I already knew—that getting close to me meant getting hurt.

But I couldn’t move. Just sat there staring at the evidence of what I’d done, what I always did. Left marks. Even when I tried to save people.

Especially then.

The suite’s walls—papered in what was probably hand-painted silk—felt like they were shrinking. All this luxury, crystal chandeliers and Italian marble, and I was the thing that didn’t belong. Too many sharp edges for soft furnishings.

Lauren made a small sound in her sleep, fingers curling into the pillow. Trusting. Peaceful. Everything I’d never be again.

She was good. Not naive like I’d accused her of being, but genuinely good. The kind of person who delivered babies in war zones and stayed with dying men so they wouldn’t be alone. The kind of person who saw injured things and tried to heal them instead of walking away.

The exact opposite of everything I was.

Last night had been selfish. Using her warmth to chase away the cold that lived in my bones. Pretending for a few hours that I could be the kind of man who touched without bruising.

She deserved someone whole. Someone who could hold her without calculating pressure points. Someone who woke up from dreams instead of combat flashbacks. Someone who could give her more than purple souvenirs and borrowed time.

I finished dressing in silence, movements instinctive from years of predawn exits. Boots laced tight. Wallet. Room key. Everything I’d brought fit in my pockets—traveling light meant leaving fast.

At the door, I turned back one last time. She’d rolled onto her stomach, face turned toward where I’d been lying. The morning light caught in her hair, turning it to spun gold. Beautiful. Unmarked, except where I’d touched her.

I stepped into the hallway and let the door click shut behind me. No goodbye. No note. Nothing to suggest this had been anything more than proximity and adrenaline.

It wasn’t the most honorable way to handle the situation, but it was the kindest. Lauren would eventually be able to appreciate the surgical precision of it. The kind of cut that healed fastest.

My footsteps echoed on marble as I headed for the elevator. Each step put more distance between us, which was exactly what she needed. What we both needed.

By the time she woke up, I’d be gone. Just another ghost from a week she’d probably want to forget.

The elevator opened with a soft chime. I stepped inside and hit the button for the team’s floor, not looking back.

Mission accomplished. Asset secured. Time to move on to the next one.

That was what I told myself as the doors closed, sealing me away from the best thing I’d never deserve.

The hallway on the tenth floor looked identical to the one I’d just left, but the air felt different. Familiar. Military-grade coffee and gun oil bleeding through the door of suite 1012. My people. My world.

I knocked twice, paused, knocked again. Old habits.

Footsteps approached the door. The sound of locks disengaging—multiple dead bolts, from the sound of it. Jace peered through the cracked door, weapon likely in hand just out of sight, before recognition hit.

“About time you showed up.” He stepped back, letting me in before immediately securing the door behind me.

The suite was command central compressed into luxury accommodations.

Laptops covered the dining table, surveillance feeds running on multiple screens.

Weapons cleaned and sorted on the coffee table.

Ty sprawled on the couch, already showered and dressed in fresh clothes that made me acutely aware of my own disaster state.

“Well, well.” He sat up, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. “The walk of shame in yesterday’s jungle couture. Bold choice.”

“We knocked on your door an hour ago.” Jace didn’t look up from whatever he was typing, fingers flying across keys with the speed of someone who’d hacked into too many secure systems. “Figured you were enjoying the thread count. Guess we were wrong.”

They knew exactly where I’d been. No point denying it.

“Error in judgment.” I headed for the coffeepot, needing something to do with my hands. “Won’t happen again.”

“Error in judgment?” Ty swung his feet to the floor, that particular gleam in his eye that meant incoming bullshit. “Brother, most of us call that getting lucky. But sure, let’s go with error in judgment if it helps you sleep at night.”

“Leave it alone.”

“I’m just saying, beautiful doctor, life-and-death bonding, actual chemistry? That’s not an error. That’s a fucking unicorn in our line of work.”

The coffee burned my throat, but I welcomed the pain. “Most unicorns don’t end up with bullet wounds because of me.”

“Most unicorns aren’t badass enough to save their own lives.” Jace finally looked up from his laptop, pushing wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Sounds like she handled herself pretty well out there.”

“Yeah, she really did. She survived despite me, not because of me.”

“Bullshit.” Ty stood, crossing to the weapons table with that loose-limbed grace that fooled people into thinking he was harmless. “Look, I get it. Post-mission crash is hitting you like a freight train. But don’t rewrite history because your brain chemistry’s doing the mambo right now.”

My hands tightened on the mug. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”