Page 21 of Rescuing Ally, Part 2 (CHARLIE Team: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists #8)

TWENTY

Tide Pools

HANK

The conversation replays in my head like a tactical briefing gone wrong. Gabe’s words from the gym, sharp as broken glass: She’s mine. Not ours. Mine. Like the years between us meant nothing.

Like Ally’s choice meant nothing.

I’ve heard him say a lot of stupid shit over the years. Reckless plans. Dangerous theories. The kind of explosive thinking that makes him brilliant in the field and impossible to predict.

But he’s never tried to split up what we had.

Never tried to claim exclusive ownership of the woman we both love.

The surf crashes against the rocks twenty feet away, salt spray catching the afternoon light. Seagulls wheel overhead, their cries mixing with the constant rumble of waves.

It should be peaceful.

It should help me process this mess between us.

Instead, it gives me time to think, and I don’t like the direction of my thoughts.

An hour passes. Maybe two. The sun drops closer to the horizon, turning the ocean surface into molten gold.

The team spreads out across the beach—Blake and Rigel comparing rock formations, Walt carving something on a piece of driftwood, Carter examining a tide pool with the focused attention of a detective studying a crime scene.

Everyone’s getting restless. Hungry. The kind of low-level agitation that comes from forced downtime when your mind wants to be anywhere else.

I separate from the group, walking toward the far end of the beach where the cliff curves inward, creating a series of deep tide pools cut off from the main shoreline. The water here is crystal clear, undisturbed by the larger waves that pound the outer rocks.

My boots splash through ankle-deep water as I move from pool to pool.

Sea anemones cling to the rocks like green and purple flowers, their tentacles swaying in the gentle current.

Hermit crabs scuttle between patches of seaweed, carrying their borrowed homes on their backs.

Small fish dart between underwater crevices, silver flashes against the dark stone.

Perfect miniature ecosystems, each one complete and balanced. Each one exists in isolation while connected to something larger.

Ally, Gabe, and I—three separate people who became something more when we came together. A system that worked because each part understood its role, its boundaries, and its purpose.

Until Malfor tore it apart.

Until fear made Gabe claim ownership of something that belonged to all of us. Until I let pride and anger drive a wedge between us when we need each other the most.

I crouch beside one of the larger pools, watching a sea star slowly make its way across the bottom. Methodical. Patient. Focused on the simple task of moving from one point to another despite the obstacles in its path.

The water reflects my face back at me. I’m tired, but underneath the exhaustion, there’s something else. The need for Gabe and me to be solid.

For the foundation to hold.

Without that, I’m not sure I can get through this .

I don’t want to end things with Gabe, but there’s still friction between us. A fight and some words don’t erase that. He apologized, admitted he overstepped, but there’s lingering uncertainty in my mind about whether we can trust each other with the thing that matters most.

Whether I can trust him with her.

A wave larger than the rest crashes against the outer rocks, sending spray shooting thirty feet into the air. The mist drifts over the tide pools, carrying the scent of the deep ocean and ancient salt, reminding me that some forces are greater than one individual.

Some things require working together to survive.

Footsteps crunch through the rocky shore behind me. Every muscle in my back tightens. I don’t need to look to know who it is. Gabe’s got a particular kind of presence—wired too tight, shoulders buzzing with tension, jaw clenched like he’s trying not to scream.

He’s been circling me all damn day like a dog that knows it pissed off the alpha and doesn’t know how to fix it.

“Got a minute?”

“Not really.” The words scrape across my nerves, brittle and forced, and I don’t bother turning around.

I look around the beach—at Blake skipping stones, at Rigel cataloging tide pool specimens, at the rest of the team scattered across the rocks.

“Well, what the fuck are you gonna do for the next couple of hours? Just sit there and keep ignoring me?”

His voice has an air of something. It’s strained and desperate. Like he knows he fucked this up and doesn’t know how to reel it in.

“I’m not ignoring you.” My voice remains flat, controlled. “I’m processing.”

“Processing, what? We worked things out at the gym and then at home.”

My laugh comes out sharp, bitter. “You think a couple of punches fix this?”

“What I said was wrong. I didn’t mean it.” The words feel clumsy, inadequate. “I just… I need us to be good.”

“There’s nothing good about this.”

I need space, need oxygen, need distance before I forget how many years we’ve stood side-by-side in blood and fire.

But Gabe grabs me.

Hand wrapped around my forearm, tight enough to make my skin pulse with heat. It stops me cold.

“You don’t understand.” The desperation creeps into his voice despite my efforts to control it.

“I need us to be solid. You’re the only anchor I have right now.

I’m going to slip up. Say stupid shit and do even stupider shit.

If things aren’t right between us, I don’t know if I can get through this. ”

I uncross my arms and turn to give him a long look. Something shifts in his expression.

“Don’t worry about it. We’re good.”

“We’re not good.” His words come out hard. “If we were good, this wouldn’t feel like shit.”

“If you need to kick my ass again, just do it already. We’ve got plenty of time, and I’ll take the hits.

I earned them.” The words spill out fast, ragged, like they’ve been clawing at the back of his throat and he’s finally letting them loose.

“Whatever you need to do, just—fucking do it. I want to fix this.”

“What I need,” I grit out, voice low and shaking with restraint, “is for you to give me some space and leave me the fuck alone.”

I need him to take it back. Not with words. With something deeper. Something that says he understands the line he crossed.

He’s already bracing, like he knows what’s coming. Shoulders squared, mouth drawn in that stubborn line that used to mean loyalty and brotherhood. Now it just looks like a wall I want to tear down with my fists.

“You sure about that?” he asks.

“Yeah. I’m sure.” But I’m not. Too much anger and hurt stir in my blood. I take a shot because I fucking need to take it.

My fist slams into the side of his jaw before I know I’m moving.

A clean hit.

All my fury coiled into that single, punishing strike. His head whips sideways, his body dropping like I cut his strings. He hits the rocky shore hard, a grunt punching out of him as he rolls.

He doesn’t get up.

For a second, he lies there, blinking at the sky like he’s trying to make sense of gravity.

Then he groans, pushes up on one elbow, and spits the blood trailing from his mouth.

He swipes at it with the back of his hand, eyes finding mine with a look that might’ve been disbelief if it weren’t for the edge of something else.

Pain. Shame.

“What the fuck, Hank?”

“You told me to take a swing,” I growl, stalking forward. “I did. You gonna bitch about it now?”

“I didn’t think you’d actually—” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t have time.

My boot connects with his ribs, hard and fast. He folds around the impact with a sharp curse, arms curling in as he drops to his side, teeth bared in pain.

“Shit! Fuck, man—what the hell?” He coughs, dragging in a breath through clenched teeth, voice tight and raw. “That’s not cool—kicking a man when he’s down.”

I stand over him, breathing hard, fists still clenched, chest heaving like I’ve just come out of combat.

“That?” I snarl, voice low and vibrating with rage. “That’s nothing. That’s a whisper of pain compared to what you did. What you said.”

He’s still gasping, still doubled over, but his gaze finds mine again, and this time there’s no disbelief—just regret.

Honest, heavy regret.

But I’m not ready to hear it. Not now. Not with her missing. Not with all of them gone and everything unraveling at the seams.

“You don’t get to tear us apart when she needs us the most.” My voice shakes, not from weakness, but from the weight of everything crumbling between us.

“I know,” he mutters, wincing as he sits up straighter. “I fucking know.”

“Then why the hell did you say it?”

He doesn’t answer. Just sits there in the grit and rock, blood smeared along his mouth, and for the first time in eight years, I don’t recognize him. And that scares the shit out of me more than any mission ever has.

Because if I can’t trust him now—when everything’s on the line—then what the fuck do we have left?

And if this falls apart… We all do.

Gabe wipes at his mouth again, smearing blood along his jaw. He still doesn’t stand. Doesn’t argue. Just looks up at me like he’s trying to find the right words in the middle of the wreckage he created with a single goddamn sentence.

Then, finally, quietly, he says, “She’s not mine. Never was. She’s ours. She chose both of us, and I know that. I knew it was wrong when I said it—I just… I was scared. Fucking terrified. Of losing her. And now…”

“What about now?”

“Now, I’m losing you and that fucking kills me, all because I should’ve kept my mouth shut.” His voice cracks on the last word, and it lands like a punch in my chest.

But I don’t let it show. I can’t.

Not now. Not with Ally missing. Not with the others gone and time slipping through our fingers like sand we can’t hold onto.

I drag in a breath, slow and shaky, chest still tight from the swing I threw and the ones I didn’t.

“We’re not doing this.” My voice comes out low, rough. “You broke something, and I don’t have time to figure out if it can be fixed.”

He nods once, like he knew that was coming. Like he knows he deserves it.

“Ally needs us whole.” My gaze stays on him, brutal and unflinching. “I’ll do whatever the hell it takes, and I know you’ll bleed for her just like I will. This thing between us needs to take a back seat. It’s a distraction that’s dangerous.”

“I know.” Gabe presses a hand to his ribs and nods again, slower this time. He understands, and maybe that’s all I need right now.

I step back, chest heaving, pulse still pounding like a drum in my head. The crunch of boots behind us snags my attention, heavy and purposeful.

I glance down at Gabe—still on the ground, blood running from his mouth, and feel the weight of everything we almost lost. Everything we still might lose. Eight years of side-by-side, live- or-die trust. Of knowing without speaking. Of never once having to question where we stood. Until now.

I hold out a hand, my breath burning in my lungs. Gabe takes it, and I pull him to his feet. We turn and find Ethan watching us. He’s still a few feet back, arms crossed, jaw tight. He doesn’t speak right away. Just drags his gaze from Gabe to me and back again.

“We got a problem here?” Ethan’s voice cuts through the salt and wind, sharp as ever. “You said you were good. I can’t have this?—”

“We’re fucking right as rain.” The words are steady, but they’re not enough.

“I need more than that.” Ethan doesn’t blink.

“Tensions are high enough without this shit between the two of you. The whole team is rattled. We’re all dealing with the same shit.

Our women are missing, and two of my best guys are throwing punches in the dirt.

Don’t tell me the two of you are “right as rain.” Don’t fucking insult me.

I’m going to ask once, and you better answer me clean—do we have a problem that’s going to fuck with the success of this mission? ”

“We’re good.” Gabe doesn’t look at me when he speaks.

“We’re good,” I echo Gabe’s words.

Ethan watches us a second longer, like he doesn’t quite believe it. Then he shakes his head, snorts under his breath, and mutters, “This is why you don’t share women.”

It hits harder than it should, even if it’s meant half as a joke. Gabe doesn’t react, but the words land between us like another grenade, just in a different place.

Ethan doesn’t get it. None of them do.

They don’t understand that I don’t know how to hold a woman without Gabe by my side. Or that he feels the same. We need each other. Always have.

Whatever this thing is between us, it’s not about sex.

It’s never been about that. It’s deeper than friendship.

Deeper than the blood of brothers. It’s not clean and it’s impossible to describe, but it’s everything.

It’s the way we move in sync. The way we balance each other.

It’s how I can feel his pulse from across a room and know exactly what he’s about to do before he does it.

I need him in ways I’ve never been able to put into words, and as much as he broke something in me the second he said she’s mine , he needs me just as much as I need him. Maybe even more so.

But none of that matters right now.

What matters is Ally and the rest of our women.

All that matters is bringing them home.

So I push my anger down. I shove it so deep I don’t have to feel it until this is over. Until they’re safe. Until I can bleed in peace.

“We’re solid,” I say again. This time with more weight behind it. I feel the shift in me. The determination to do whatever it takes to bring Ally home. I’m done fighting with Gabe. I need my friend standing beside me. The rest?

We’ll figure out the rest later.

Ethan gives us one last look, then jerks his chin toward the rest of the team, already gathering by the waterline. “Good. Saddle up. Manic Mitzy is ready for us.”

As he walks off, Gabe limps beside me, quiet and slow.

We don’t speak. Not yet.

This mission just became the only thing holding us together. I’ll be damned if I let either of us fall apart before Ally’s back in our arms.

Because none of this means a damn thing if we don’t get her back.

“We’re calling a truce.” My voice is low but firm. No edge, no venom. Just finality. “We’re calling it because we don’t get to fall apart right now. Not when she’s out there. Not when she needs both of us.”

He turns toward me, and I catch the side of his face—bruised, smeared with blood, jaw clenched around whatever emotion he’s still swallowing.

“I’m with you,” he says quietly. No hesitation. No ego. “We get her back. Together. You and me. Like it’s meant to be, and I’m going to make it up to you.”

I nod once. It’s not absolution. Not even close. But it’s something. I glance out toward the surf, where the tide creeps in like time, slow and merciless.

For a second, we stand there—two men held together by loyalty and the ghost of the woman we’d burn the world down to protect.

It’s not forgiveness, but we’re no longer at war. Gabe and I stand together. As we always have.