Page 35

Logan

The Citadel Solutions office elevator crawled upward like it was fighting gravity. I stabbed the button for our floor again. Worthless piece-of-shit technology. Everything in Denver moved too slow when you hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours.

My reflection in the polished steel doors looked like someone who’d crawled out of a cave. Three weeks of beard growth, hair that hadn’t seen scissors since before Ukraine, and eyes that screamed exhaustion. At least I’d grabbed a shower at the airport. Small victories.

The doors finally opened, and I stalked down the hallway, already ten minutes late. My go-bag thumped against my hip with each step, still packed with gear from Somalia. Just enough time to dump my shit at my apartment and haul ass here for this mandatory meeting Jace had texted me about.

Voices carried through the conference room door. Multiple voices. Not just the usual suspects.

I pushed through and froze.

Ethan sat at the head of the table. Not on a video screen from his ranch, but actually here, in the flesh. His eyes tracked over me, cataloging every detail of my disaster state. Great. Just fucking great.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Ty leaned back in his chair, that shit-eating grin already in place. “And by cat, I mean whatever feral animal’s been using you as a chew toy.”

“Traffic. Sorry I’m late.” I dropped into an empty chair, ignoring how my ribs protested the movement. Three weeks of sleeping on rocks and dodging local militia had left their marks.

“From the airport?” Jace didn’t look up from his laptop. “Because your flight landed two hours and seventeen minutes ago.”

Of course he’d tracked it.

Movement to my left caught my attention. Ben Garrison sat quiet, as always, his Belgian Malinois, Jolly, lying at his feet. Though lying was generous since the dog’s tail never stopped moving and his mouth hung open in what looked like a perpetual grin.

The K-9 handler looked exactly the same as when I’d last seen him—maybe eighteen months ago? Calm, steady, the kind of guy who let his work speak for itself. The contrast between handler and dog couldn’t be more stark—Ben radiating zen while Jolly vibrated with barely contained energy.

“Ben.” I nodded. “Didn’t know you were back.”

“Got in last week.” His hand dropped to Jolly’s head, an absent gesture. “Long-term protection detail wrapped up.”

Ethan cleared his throat, drawing attention back to himself. “Now that we’re all here, let’s continue.”

The look Ty shot Ethan might as well have been a neon sign saying See? Told you he’d show up looking like death . Jace made a similar expression, subtle but there.

My jaw tightened. They’d been talking about me. Fan-fucking-tastic.

“As I was saying,” Ethan continued, sliding a tablet across the table, “we’ve got three potential contracts on deck. The journalist extraction in Bangladesh looks like it might resolve diplomatically, but we’re keeping an eye on it.”

Words washed over me without sticking. Something about a corporate executive in Mexico City. Security assessment for an embassy that had recent threats. Normal shit. The kind of missions that used to light me up, get my blood moving.

Now, it all sounded like white noise.

My mind drifted to my recent missions, body on autopilot while Ethan outlined logistics of future ones. Somalia, hunting down leads on a kidnapped aid worker. Before that, Ukraine. Before that… Christ, I couldn’t even remember. The missions blurred together.

When was the last time I’d eaten something that didn’t come from a ration pack? The thought surfaced uninvited, dragging another with it. The last real meal someone had made for me was juane wrapped in bijao leaves, still warm from?—

No.

I shut that down hard, clenching my fist under the table. Eight weeks of practice had taught me exactly how fast those thoughts could spiral. Think about the food, then Elena’s gap-toothed grin, then the clinic, then green eyes and honey-blonde hair and?—

“Logan?”

I blinked. Four faces stared at me, waiting.

“Sorry. What?”

“I asked about your availability.” Ethan’s tone stayed neutral, but I caught the concern underneath. “For upcoming missions. I’m sure you want to take a little time off.”

“First available international slot.” The words came automatically. “Sooner, the better.”

The room went still.

“That would be your seventh consecutive deployment without a break.” Jace finally looked up from his laptop, blue eyes sharp behind his glasses. “In two months.”

“So?”

“So that’s not sustainable.” Ty leaned forward, all traces of humor gone. “It’s not even human.”

“It’s my job.”

“No.” Ethan’s voice carried that particular note of command. “Your job includes operational readiness. Rest. Recovery. Not grinding yourself into dust playing action hero.”

Heat crawled up my neck. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.” Jace snapped his laptop shut. “You’re trying to commit suicide by mission, and we’re not going to enable it anymore.”

Holy fuck. The words hung in the air like a flash-bang.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard him.” Ethan stood, hands flat on the table. “Seven deployments, Logan. Back-to-back. No breaks, no downtime, just jumping from one firefight to the next like you’re trying to catch a bullet with your name on it.”

“That’s bullshit.” I shoved back from the table, ready to walk. “I’m doing my job. Sorry if that makes you all uncomfortable sitting here in your climate-controlled?—”

“Don’t.” Ty’s voice cut through my building tirade, all traces of his normal jovial tone gone. “Don’t pull that field versus support shit. We’ve all been there. We all rotate out to rest properly between fieldwork. You don’t. We all know what you’re doing.”

“Which is?”

“Hiding.” Jace’s quiet response hit harder than shouting would have. “You’ve been in perpetual motion since Puerto Rico.”

My hands curled into fists. Across the room, Ben shifted slightly, staying out of the confrontation but watching. Smart man.

“I don’t have to listen to this.” I stood, chair scraping against the floor.

“Yeah, you do.” Ty stood too, blocking my path to the door. “Because we give a shit about you, even when you’re being a self-destructive asshole.”

“Move.”

“Make me.”

For a second, violence crackled between us.

My body coiled, ready, almost eager for the physical release of a fight.

Ty saw it, welcomed it even, that reckless grin spreading across his face.

I’d sparred with him a few times—what he couldn’t match me with in strength, he made up for in speed and agility.

“Logan.” Ben’s calm voice cut through the tension. “When’s the last time you went home for more than a gear swap?”

The unexpected question made me blink. “What?”

“Home. Your apartment. When did you last spend a full night there?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. The answer was too pathetic to voice.

“Brother, I’ve got my dog right here and none in this fight.” Ben scratched behind Jolly’s ears, not looking at me. “But let me say this—it’s hard to face what you’re avoiding when you never stop moving long enough to let it catch up.”

“Yeah,” Ty snickered. “Just take a seat and put your feet up. Or we can skip all the hair-braiding, get-in-touch-with-your-feelings shit and fight this out like we’re not pussies.”

The younger man had no idea how much I wanted to. So fucking much.

“Enough.” Ethan’s command filled the room before I could respond. “Both of you, sit down.”

Neither Ty nor I moved.

“That wasn’t a request.”

Something in his tone—maybe the echo of all the missions we’d survived together—made me step back. Ty held my gaze a moment longer before dropping into his chair.

I remained standing. “I’m taking the next international mission. That’s final.”

“No,” Ethan said simply. “You’re not.”

“You can’t?—”

“I can and I am.” He pulled out a folder, thick with papers. “This is your medical workup from the Somalia extraction. Want to know what the medic wrote? ‘Operative shows signs of extreme exhaustion, malnutrition, and multiple untreated injuries. Recommend immediate stand-down for recovery.’”

“Field medics always?—”

“This is from Ukraine.” Another paper. “Six bruised ribs, partially torn rotator cuff, refusal of medical treatment.”

Fuck. “Ethan?—”

“Bangladesh. Second-degree burns on left forearm, festering knife wound that required eleven stitches, again refused follow-up care.” He closed the folder. “Should I continue?”

The list of injuries I’d been ignoring suddenly felt heavier. My left shoulder throbbed on cue, reminding me why I’d been favoring it for weeks.

“People need help,” I said finally. “I’m good at helping them.”

“We all know that isn’t what this is about,” Jace said. “This is about Corazón. This is about Lauren Valentino.”

Unreasonably, red hazed my vision. The words that wanted to emerge would burn bridges, end friendships. I bit them back, barely.

“I’m done here.” I headed for the door.

“Logan.” Ethan’s voice stopped me with my hand on the handle. “Two weeks mandatory stand-down. That’s an order. You deploy again before medical clearance, you’re done at Citadel.”

Fine. “I’ll take the downtime starting today.” I grabbed my go-bag and headed out the door.

The hallway stretched empty and too bright. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, making my exhaustion feel heavier. I made it halfway to the elevator before my legs decided they’d had enough. The wall was right there, solid and cool, so I leaned against it.

Eight weeks. Eight weeks of keeping her out of my head during daylight. Eight weeks of her finding me anyway when exhaustion finally won and I had to sleep. Green eyes and steady hands and the way she’d trusted me even when I held death to her temple.

My knuckles ached. When I looked down, fresh splits had opened across old scars. Apparently I’d been punching walls in my sleep again. The medic in Somalia had asked about it. I’d told him to mind his own business.

Christ, they were right. All of them. I was trying to outrun something that lived in my own head.