Page 117 of Rescued By the Alpha SEAL

His expression doesn't change, but something sharpens in his stance. "That's not enough. I know there's more."

I pull Logan's mission log from my bag next, photographs tucked between its pages like pressed flowers. Each one documents what Granger wants erased—faces, dates, coordinates. The truth he's killed to keep buried.

"Bishop's mission log," I say. "The last evidence."

That earns me a real smile—the kind that reaches his eyes and makes them colder. "You're a good girl, Carter. Now, what are your terms?"

"I'll give you the drive and mission log. And I won't have any evidence left to tell the truth."

"In return?"

"Leave and never come back."

Silence stretches between us, broken only by the soft pattern of snow against leaves.

I watch him consider it, weighing options behind that calculated stare. He has no reason to refuse. His mission was always about keeping Echo-13 buried. If I can't expose it, he wins.

He steps closer, boots crunching in fresh powder. The laser sight shifts, settling directly over my heart.

"What makes you think that's my only mission?"

37

GRANGER

The words slide off my tongue like honey: "What makes you think that's my only mission?"

I savor the way Sloane Carter's face drains of color, her bravado crumbling like sand between my fingers. There's something beautiful about watching hope die—the way it starts in the eyes, spreads to the lips, settles in the shoulders like lead.

I've seen that look before, in targets far more seasoned than this girl playing at being a martyr.

How predictable.

They all think the same way, these idealists with their noble sacrifices. As if throwing themselves on the sword somehow saves everyone else. As if death is the grandest gesture of love.

But death is just an end.

Clean. Final. Useless.

No, what I need is something messier. Something thatlingers.

Snow drifts around us in lazy spirals, coating the forest in pristine white. The laser sight from my rifle paints a scarlet dot over her heart—steady, unwavering.

Just like the oath I took. The one Logan forgot.

"Then why are you here?" Her voice barely trembles. I'll give her that much—she has steel in her spine.

"Silencing you is only secondary." I let each word land like stones in still water. "My primary mission is to bury everything related to Echo-13.Everything."

There it is—the flash of understanding in her eyes. The realization that spreads like poison.

Everythingmeans more than files. More than evidence. It means the men who carry the memory. The brotherhood that betrayed its purpose.

The Forge.

"I'm glad you came to me," I say, and I mean it. "You'll be the reason Logan and his brothers die."

My former brothers.