Page 50 of Hide From Me (Chaotic Love #3)

Jon chuckles, but his laugh is dry—almost hollow. “Yeah. It was nice in the beginning: a clean faction, good morals, and pretty women.”

I can almost hear the grin in Jon's voice, tempting me to smile with him.

“There was only one that stood out to me, though. And by God, did she live up to her name—I just didn’t know it at the time.”

We move together down the steps, each footfall echoing softly in the dark. The air here smells like rust and wet stone, reminiscent of an old crypt.

“It started simple—flirting in the mess hall, sparring that got a bit too intimate, and late-night firing range sessions that evolved into something more.”

There’s a weight to his voice now, not from regret but from the burden of memories that become rotten if left too long.

He pauses at a landing, nodding for me to check the door on the right while he angles left.

“I started sleeping in her quarters,” he says more quietly. “We had real dates: candlelight dinners made with MRE heaters and pilfered whiskey. For a while, it felt like we were civilians, as if we weren’t ghosts waiting to disappear with a classified mission.”

“Got eyes on you, again.” Delilah interrupts, so I look up through the gaping hole. It's as if a hundred-ton weight fell through the ceiling, creating a perfect line through the building.

“What happened?” I ask, my voice low. The way he speaks is reminiscent of a bedtime story, where you wonder if the dragon burns the prince or if the princess is saved from the tower.

“Her father hated it. He hated me. He thought I’d ruin her focus and claimed I’d be her downfall. So he started pushing her hard, extreme training, off-the-books stuff that would’ve gotten him stripped of rank if the higher-ups had found out.”

His voice goes even again as if he's reciting a script, but the way his jaw tightens and the vein in his neck pulses says otherwise.

“She changed overnight. One minute we were planning a weekend off-grid, and the next she was begging me to run. She said she’d leave everything if I’d just go with her.”

The words echo down the stairwell, heavy enough to drown out even the static in my comms.

“But I couldn’t. This job… this life… It’s in my blood. I couldn’t leave, even for her.”

He exhales slowly, like he’s trying to burn out the memory with his breath.

“She baited me. Told me to meet her in her room and said she understood, that she’d take what I could give.

” His laugh is bitter and sharp. “I showed up, and her father was there. He stripped me of my rank and blacklisted me from Bay. And she just stood there, watched it happen, and smiled like she’d been waiting for that ending all along. ”

“Shit.” The word slips out before I can stop it. My chest aches, but I’m not sure if it’s for him or because I’m picturing Raylen. It’s a completely different scenario, but it’s just as easy for someone to decide you’re not worth it anymore once they find out the real you.

Jon smirks, but there’s no warmth in it. “Don’t worry. Everyone’s story is different. Some get it right the first time. Others… well, they take a few scars before they figure it out.”

Jon looks up as we stop under the jagged makeshift skylight. The moon’s glow spills in just enough to catch Delilah’s silhouette on the roof. She’s still, her scope glinting faintly through the broken glass like a second pair of eyes watching over us.

Jon nods at her. “Just don’t wait too long, Moe. If you think it’s right, don’t let it slip through your fingers.”

The words hit deeper than they should. My throat goes tight, and I force a swallow.

“Shit’s deep. You said she lived up to her name?”

Jon starts walking again, casually, like it’s nothing. Like he wasn't just staring at the ceiling, like Delilah was brighter than the moon.

“Karma.”

My world narrows to that one word.

My lungs freeze. My boots root to the floor.

The sound of my grandfather shouting my mother’s name rings in my ears, replacing Jon's voice. Flashes of red hair sprawled across that cracked concrete floor in the warehouse flood my mind.

Oh God, not now.

My breathing becomes shallow, forcing me to loosen my grip on my gun and wrap my arm around my waist, trying to ease the pressure that’s tightening around me.

Jon keeps talking, oblivious to how the name is gutting me. “She definitely was my price to pay for whatever evil I had done in my life.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “It’s funny you kind of remind me of her. Not that you seem like a bad omen but the red hair—”

Before he can finish, his fist shoots up, and we all freeze.

Two figures are in the corner of the greenhouse—kneeling, hands zip-tied, shoulders slumped. One of them is bleeding.

The mission snaps back into focus, and I tighten my grip on my gun as I sweep right, hugging the wall, my heart hammering like a drum. Jon signals to King to fan out.

Something has shifted.

I don’t hear it. I feel it.

It’s as if the air is holding its breath as tightly as I'm holding my own just to keep it steady. Like we’re standing in the pause between the lightning strike and the thunder.

And I know— I know —the storm’s about to hit.

“Three on your nine,” Delilah snaps over the comms, her voice sharp and commanding. “One’s got an automatic.”

Everything detonates at once.

Gunfire erupts—a frenzied, deafening roar of metal and heat tearing through the greenhouse as if it were made of paper. The first round misses me by inches. The second doesn’t. It grazes my shoulder in a blistering slice, and pain surges through my nerves as if I’ve been branded.

“Fuck—” I hiss, but I don’t stop moving.

My hand finds Jon’s vest, yanking him down with me just as another burst of gunfire shatters the air above. We hit the floor hard, momentum tearing us apart mid-roll. I crash into a rusted display rack, the jagged metal biting into my ribs as glass explodes overhead like a rain of daggers.

I duck, pivot, and fire—two quick shots.

Two silhouettes crumple to the ground, but the third is still moving – still charging – and I can't fucking move. I'm too focused on watching Jon groan and roll onto his back from the force of colliding into the floor.

King intercepts without hesitation, as if he were born for this moment. His blade flashes in the dim green glow of our goggles. One clean arc, one wet impact, and then—silence.

Just like that.

My ears ring as I remain frozen, but Jon is already up and moving fast. Before I can process his movement, his blade is out, slicing through the zip ties on the hostages. His voice is steady and clipped: “Clear.”

I let out a breath, tossing my head back and kneeling behind the counter, my hand clamped over my shoulder.

Blood seeps through my glove, sticky and hot, but I barely register the pain anymore.

My focus is on Jon—on the precise, practiced way his hands move and the way his night-vision goggles hang lopsided around his neck, abandoned.

There's a glint of something stormy in his eyes, barely visible through the chaos.

A fucking superhero. Not a monster.

“Mission almost accomplished,” he barks, his tone shifting back to steel. “Delilah, call for evac. Time to get the hell out of here.”

Delilah’s voice cuts in a minute later, breathless yet controlled. “Move fast. We’ve got heat signatures swarming the perimeter—company’s coming, and they don’t look friendly.”

I can feel it in my ribs—the rush of time speeding up, every second suddenly sharper and deadlier.

Jon yanks the second hostage to their feet as if they are weightless. “King, take point. Monster—rear. We move.”

We push out the way we came, back through the stairwell that smells like mildew and remnants of war.

Every step echoes with a drumbeat of dread as water drips from unseen cracks, mingling with the metallic tang of blood and gun oil.

My boots slide slightly on something wet; it could be whatever's falling from the ceiling, or it could be worse. I don’t care enough to look down and check .

The roof hits us like a slap—cold wind howling, and clouds swirl like ink spilling across the sky, making one of the victims cry out.

Delilah is crouched behind an HVAC unit, her eyes locked onto the horizon, rifle tracking movement that we haven’t yet seen.

“We’ve got four minutes before they’re on us,” she says, urgency pulling at the edges of her voice as she jerks her chin toward the evac chopper that crests into view, slicing through the air like a blade.

Its lights are faint under the cloud cover, almost ghostly.

Distant thunder growls like something awakening.

One of the hostages stumbles, but King is already there, wrapping an arm around them and hauling them toward the rope as soon as it drops, clipping them in as if he’s done this a thousand times. I suppose he’s not a monster either, but he’s not—

Jon is with the second hostage in an instant, strapping them in, but his eyes flick toward the far edge of the rooftop. There’s movement—shadows shifting.

Flashlights. Gleaming barrels. Figures spreading out.

“Delilah, cover the northwest! King, take the lead with the first package!” Jon shouts.

The rope hums as the first hostage ascends, a faint scream trailing after them, swallowed by the wind and distance.

Jon turns back, and I follow his gaze as it shifts to the last rope and then to the flood of hostiles gathering below.

“Jon!” Delilah yells just as Jon opens his mouth.

“I’ll stay,”

Just like that.

As if it’s already decided.

It’s not, though. It’s not just his decision anymore, whether he knows it or not.

Raylen was right. I deserve more. I deserve to be selfish. I deserve to be happy.

He doesn't get to take that away when I just found him.

“No,” I snap, too loud and too raw .

The way he turns is too slow, too controlled. Here I am again, barking orders at a superior as if I have no common sense, but at least I always do it for the right reasons.

“They’ll be on us before the second bird gets here. Someone has to hold them off while you get the rest out. That’s my call.”

The minute those words leave his mouth, I see him for what he is.

Not just the mission leader. Not just the soldier forged in fire.

But the man who once held something fragile in his hands and refused to run.

He let it shatter because he thought it was the right choice, and he’s lived with that decision ever since.

I see him as proof.

Proof that maybe—maybe—I’m not broken beyond repair.

I move before I can think.

He’s clipping the rope to the second hostage’s vest when I slam into him with my shoulder, hard enough to knock him off balance.

“What the hell—?”

I rip the clip from his hands and finish the job myself, fastening it into the back of his vest and yanking the release.

“Thank you, Jon,” I whisper more to myself than to him.

His eyes snap to mine, wild with disbelief. “Moe—”

But I’m already turning and running.

Gunfire erupts from across the street, slamming into the rooftop in bright sparks. I don’t flinch. I don’t stop. I grip the rope still dangling through the gaping hole in the roof and jump without thinking. My boots hit the floor hard enough to echo like thunder.

As soon as I hit the bottom level, I meet them.

Masks. Rifles. Trained stances.

They’re not fast enough, though.

My body moves before my mind can catch up. Muscle memory and instinct take over. The blade in my hand becomes an extension of my rage. The first goes down, gurgling. The second barely raises his gun before the butt of mine slams into his throat.

Adrenaline doesn't just pump; it screams.

And all I can think about—all I can feel—is her.

Raylen .

The girl who makes scowls and chaos feel like safety. The one who flinched her way through a confession that no one else would have survived telling. The one who thinks she’s unlovable because of what she did.

I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. I just want to get back to her.

Because for the first time since I was a kid, I know who the hell I am.

I’m not my mother’s volatility. I’m not my grandfather’s shadow. I’m not the false fronts I wear like armor.

I’m his son.

That has to mean something.

Gunfire kisses the wall near my head. I dive, roll, and return fire. Two drop; one screams.

My shoulder is bleeding again. I feel it soaking through my shirt, hot and steady, but it only sharpens my focus. I push deeper into the darkness. Away from the roof. Away from Jon.

More boots thunder in from the stairwell. I slam the butt of my gun into one soldier’s face, hearing bone crack. Another raises his weapon, so I break his stance with a knee to the gut and a shot to the chest. I’m not counting bodies anymore. I’m not even thinking. I’m surviving .

The rumble starts above in the distance but it’s growing.

The second bird.

Hope crashes through me like a defibrillator, so I shove back up the stairwell, one blood-slick hand on the railing, body screaming with every movement only pushing through because I know I’m not alone. They’re still coming.

But so is the light .

Not just the chopper’s floodlights that skim the roof— her . It’s the thought of her pulling me forward like gravity.

The second evac bird hovers above the rooftop, gunner firing warning bursts into the perimeter.

The rope drops—thick, swinging, a lifeline out of hell through the jagged opening of the roof and I sprint for it.

I don't flinch as another shot rips through my thigh, but no matter how strong adrenaline is making me feel in this moment, I can't fight the scream I let through my teeth as I leap, grab the rope, and clip in.

The bird lifts and the rooftop falls away beneath me. The war fades to smoke and static.

I might be bleeding and shaking but I’m alive. My head falls back against the cold floor of the chopper and I tilt it just enough to watch as the black smears into the sky as my body starts to give out.

It’d be smart to start a game plan of how fast to get to a med bay or which way I need to word my mission report but all I can think about is her.

Raylen .

I don’t care what she’s done. I don’t care what monsters she’s fought. I can help her face them just like I’ve made harmony with mine.

And in all that dark, violent , stormy peace—

I’ll let her know she’s the only light I’ll ever follow home.