Page 177 of Enemy of My Enemy

The sting of second choice left a sour taste in his mouth. He wanted to be Jack’s everything, like Jack was for him. Not Jack’s settlement.

Scott’s words, though, plucked at his wounded heart. He squinted, a question in his eyes.

“Yeah. He picked you, even before he knew what she was. He was out of his mind all week long, walking around like a damn zombie. He couldn’t function. Like someone had pulled the plug on his sanity. We all were freaking. Welby took over in the Residence keeping eyes on him ’cause I couldn’t be near the man. Not after what he did to you.” Scott sighed, hard. “We watched her, but we also watched him. I thought he might put a bullet in his brain. I went and took back the gun I gave you.”

Ethan’s head whipped up.

“Look, he told her about you from day one. He never tried to hide you. And, he defended you guys and your relationship, even though it seemed like everyone and their mother wanted him to jump right back in with her.”

Ethan swallowed. “Did they—” He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t ask. Jealousy was an ugly, sour thing, but it lapped at his blood, burned at the base of his spine.

“No. Didn’t even sleep in the same room.”

He didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t know how to feel, how to process the bitter relief.

Scott kept going, barreling through Ethan’s wildly swinging emotions. “He ended up outside Horsepower begging me to track you down. After you went on your little mission, by the way.” Scott glared. “Thanks for that.”

“What did he say?” Ethan braced himself, staring at the ground as he picked dirt from beneath his nails.

“He said he had told her he loved you and only you and that you were the one for him. Forever. Told her he couldn’t be with her because he was in love with you. He said he wanted to grow old with you. Not her.”

His eyes slammed shut. His jaw wavered, trembling. He’d long believed he loved Jack more than Jack loved him, but to walk away from the resurrection of a woman he thought was his wife? Jack had loved her to the depths of his heart, he truly had. Ethan had always known that, and in some paradoxical way, that truth had made Jack’s walking out on him both easier and harder to understand and accept. How could he compete with the first love of Jack’s life?

But Jack chosehim.

Ethan reached for his neck, for the chain that hung there. He’d turned the rings over countless times on the drive from Jeddah to Russia, believing Jack was dead and gone and they were all he had left, twin monuments to what they had discovered together.

His hands found nothing. “Fuck.”

Metal clanged, something heavy hitting the table in front of Scott. He opened his eyes.

Scott had his hand palm-down on the table, covering something.

He lifted his hand away, revealing Ethan’s matching rings. “You said he’s thrown everything away. I bet if you ask him, he’ll say that coming here and finding you alive means he’s found everything he truly cares about.”

Ethan cradled them both in the palm of his hand. A war zone at the end of the world was hardly the time or place for any kind of dreaming about the future, but for a moment, he let his heart go.

He imagined the look on Jack’s face as Ethan dropped to one knee. How he’d wrap him up, swing him around and kiss him breathless after sliding the ring on. What would their wedding look like? Some kind of state affair? A billion journalists vying for the best photo? Or something private? Just the two of them hidden on a quiet beach somewhere?

An ache weighed down his dreams.

He could still imagine it, though. Still see the two of them together forever. Could imagine Jack old and gray and holding his hand, still with that smile in his eyes.

Would they ever get there? With Madigan ripping apart their lives over and over again?

Damn it, how had it all gone so wrong? How had everything ended up this way? He could imagine a future with Jack, dream of their wedding, but a madman loomed on top of the world and they were buried in a desolate war zone, wounded, struggling to survive, and planning an attack to try to save the world.

Again.

He didn’t want to be a hero. He didn’t want to have the world hanging on his decisions. He just wanted to love Jack.

And, his heart still throbbed, wounded deep in the cracks and crevices. Lingering anguish, a canyon in his soul, painted in memories of Jack walking out. The way his heart had gone cold, freezing over, when Jack had pulled away.

He closed his fist around the rings and the broken chain and shoved them in his pocket.

* * *

Chapter 59