Page 9 of Holding the Line

Marsh muttered under his breath, “Need to get that guy out of here.”

Movement outside caught his eye.Marsh leaned forward, narrowing his eyes.

Eli was walking again.Towel slung over one shoulder.Heading toward the pool.

Figures the guy would be a swimmer.Built for it.Everything about him was sleek and efficient in motion, like a panther wearing boards shorts, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and slip on sandals.

Feeling a little ridiculous—and more than a little stalkerish—Marsh wheeled himself away from the window and over to his security interface.One of his own designs.State-of-the-art, facially intelligent, encrypted beyond standard military grade.

He tapped into the pool camera.

The feed popped up.And for a moment, Marsh forgot how to breathe.

Eli peeled off his long-sleeved shirt.The light above him glinted off bruises.Dozens.Some fresh, others in sickly stages of healing.Purple, yellow, brown.Spilled across ribs, shoulders, arms.

Marsh leaned closer, fury and something else rising in equal measure.

Then, Eli turned and Marsh turned the air blue in his lab with inventive curses.

Scars.Faint but unmistakable.Straight, parallel, cruel.Cane marks.He’d seen them before—in places no one talked about.

Eli dove into the water with a grace Marsh had never seen up close.No hesitation.No wasted motion.Just clean, pure movement.

And then he swam.

It was like watching poetry.Which made no fucking sense, but was apt on this occasion as far as he was concerned.Eli cycled through all four strokes—breaststroke, freestyle, backstroke, butterfly—with an ease that spoke of years, and thousands of hours of training.He cut through the water like he belonged there.

Marsh watched, riveted, as lap after lap went by.Eli never faltered.Never slowed.He just continued to swim.Marsh lost track of time, lost himself in the seamless way the man cut through the water, and was startled a little when Eli suddenly startled in the water.

Marsh’s gaze darted to another camera.Someone had entered the pool building.

Eli swam to the edge like his life depended on it.Hauled himself out, grabbed his shirt and towel, and vanished off-screen before the other person rounded the corner.

Didn’t want to be seen.

Marsh sat back, gut twisting.

He understood that kind of shame.Of covering pain, hiding trauma.He’d lived it.Was living it.

But that didn’t explain why Eli’s scars felt like a punch to his own chest.

He closed the feed.

Sat there for a long while in silence, thoughts looping.

Eli.That mouth.Those eyes.That pain.

He didn’t want to care.

Didn’t want to be seen as something broken that needed fixing.

He wasn’t going to dinner at Ezra and Ricky’s.

He was sick of the concerned glances from the team, sick of being the project no one wanted to admit was failing.

Let them eat pasta and pretend everything was fine.

He’d stay here.