Page 40 of Secret Hope (Hope Landing: New Recruits #5)

Everything hurt with a specificity the physician in Kenji couldn’t help cataloguing.

The ringing in his ears—ruptured tympanic membrane, probably bilateral.

The fire in his ribs—at least two more cracked, possibly fractured, definitely compromising his breathing.

The beam across his left thigh—crushing weight that sent lightning up his spine with each micro-movement, femoral artery intact but circulation compromised.

And somewhere deeper, beneath the obvious trauma, something vital pulsed with wrongness that made each heartbeat feel borrowed.

But he was alive.

Barely.

He blinked through the cocktail of grit and blood that had turned his vision into a red-tinged kaleidoscope.

The ballroom—that monument to expensive elegance—had become Ground Zero.

Emergency lighting strobed through clouds of settling dust, casting everything in a horror-movie flicker.

Electrical fires sparked from severed cables overhead, their smoke acrid and chemical.

The debris wall he'd created rose like a monument to desperate engineering, still groaning threats of further collapse.

Through gaps in the wreckage came sounds that didn't fit the narrative of organized pursuit. Not gunfire. Not tactical movement.

Panic.

Civilians.

He turned his head—a mistake that sent the world spinning—and peered through twisted rebar toward the commotion.

Bodies were emerging from everywhere. Hotel guests in torn designer clothes stumbling from whatever shelters they'd found.

Kitchen staff in stained whites, clutching each other.

A woman in a cocktail dress, one shoe missing, mascara streaking her face as she sobbed for someone named David.

The hurricane's eye had arrived.

Nature's cruelest joke—thirty or forty minutes of false calm, blue sky visible through the devastation above, before the storm's back wall slammed down with renewed fury.

In that deceptive window, terrified people were fleeing their compromised shelters, not understanding they were trading one danger for another.

"—contain the situation!" Webb's voice cut through the chaos, professional calm fraying at the edges. "No one leaves the building!"

"Sir, we can't—there's too many?—"

"Then establish a perimeter! Use non-lethal if you have to!"

Through his limited view, Kenji watched Vega stalk back to his team as they pivoted from being hunters to crowd control. Professional killers suddenly playing emergency responders, trying to corral panicked civilians without creating an incident that couldn't be explained away later.

You're buying us time, aren't You? he thought, recognizing divine intervention when he saw it.

He tried to shift, to take advantage of the distraction.

The attempt sent agony rocketing through his side—something definitely wrong internally, maybe organ damage, certainly bleeding.

His left leg remained pinned, the beam's weight a constant crushing presence that had reduced sensation below his knee to pins and needles.

A cry escaped before he could bite it back.

"Kenji!"

The voice hit him like adrenaline straight to the heart. Muffled by tons of debris but unmistakably her.

Cassidy.

He turned toward the sound, neck muscles protesting. Through the architectural carnage, he spotted movement. Then, impossibly, her face appeared in a gap barely wider than his fist—dust-covered, tear-streaked, but the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"Cass—" His voice came out raw, sandpaper against his throat.

"You're alive," she breathed, immediately trying to reach through the opening. Her fingers stretched toward him, and he could see fresh cuts on her palms, real blood mixing with the fake they'd so carefully applied earlier.

"More or less." He attempted his trademark grin, though it felt more like a grimace. His vision kept trying to gray out at the edges. "Still handsome, though, right?"

The joke was weak, but it was all he had. If these were their last moments, he didn't want them filled with tears.

But tears came anyway, welling in her green eyes as she took in the full scope of his situation. "You're bleeding—your leg—Kenji, we have to?—"

"Hey." He cut her off gently, recognizing the spiral of panic building in her voice. "No time for triage."

The words came out steadier than he felt. Each breath was getting harder, something wet rattling in his chest that spoke of internal damage. But she didn't need to know that.

"You need to go," he continued, already reaching for his tactical vest with movements that sent fresh agony through his ribs. "Right now. Vega’s distracted, but it won't last."

Her head shake was immediate, violent. "I'm not leaving you."

His fingers found the backup piece—a compact Glock 43 he'd lifted from one of the unconscious guards. Nine rounds, one magazine. Not much, but in her hands it might mean the difference between capture and escape.

"You have to." He pushed the weapon through the gap, their fingers brushing in the exchange. Her skin was cold, shaking. "Take this. Go with Sophia and Spencer. Find cover until my team arrives."

She accepted the weapon but didn't move, those green eyes boring into his with an intensity that made his chest tight for reasons that had nothing to do with injury.

"Cassidy—"

"No." One word, but it carried the weight of everything between them.

"Cass," he tried again, gentling his voice the way he'd learned to do when talking someone through shock. "This isn't poker. Sometimes you have to know when to fold."

The poker metaphor was deliberate, speaking her language. But the moment the words left his mouth, he saw them hit her like physical blows. Her face crumpled, the controlled mask she'd worn through every crisis finally, completely shattering.

"I don't want to fold," she whispered, and the raw honesty in it nearly broke him.

He reached through the gap, ignoring the way the movement tore at damaged muscles. His fingers found hers, wrapping around them with what strength he had left. Her skin was soft beneath the grime and blood, warm and alive and everything he was about to lose.

"This isn't giving up," he said, pouring every ounce of conviction into the words. "It's trusting the people you love to finish the game."

The people you love.

The words hung between them, finally spoken aloud. Not in the heat of passion or the desperation of near-death, but here in this quiet moment between heartbeats, between breaths, between the ending and whatever came after.

Her eyes searched his face, drinking in every detail like she was memorizing him.

And then he saw it—everything she couldn't say aloud.

The love that had grown from that first desperate alliance.

The faith that had sustained them through impossible odds.

The future she'd imagined that was crumbling with each second.

It was all there in her eyes, clear as any declaration.

And he knew his own gaze was answering, telling her without words that he felt it too. That he'd fallen for her somewhere between the poker tables and the prayers, between the storms and the silence. That leaving her was the hardest thing he'd ever have to do.

"You better come back," she managed, though they both knew the lie in it.

He nodded, not trusting his voice. The false promise sat like ash on his tongue. They both knew the math. Pinned, injured, with Vega's team minutes away from returning. His survival percentage rounded to zero.

She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the debris between them. He felt rather than saw the kiss she pressed to the twisted metal—a benediction, a goodbye, a promise of her own.

"I have to go," she whispered.

"You do."

"Kenji—"

"Go." The word came out rougher than intended, but if she stayed another second, his resolve would crumble. "Now."

She pulled back, and he caught one last glimpse of her face—strong and shattered and beautiful—before Sophia's voice called urgently from somewhere beyond.

Then she was gone.

The gap in the debris began closing almost immediately. The building's weight redistributing, settling, sealing. Plaster dust rained down like snow. Metal groaned a death song. In seconds, the small window between their worlds vanished, leaving only solid wreckage.

Kenji let his head fall back against broken concrete, staring up at the flickering emergency lights. Each breath was a conscious effort now, something wet and wrong in his chest making the simple act of existing feel like drowning in slow motion.

Alone.

But not forsaken.

"Lord," he whispered to the failing lights above, "she's Yours now. Keep her safe. I'm trusting You with what I can't protect anymore."

The prayer felt different than his desperate bargaining during the gambling spiral. This was surrender, pure and simple. Placing the most precious thing in his life into hands infinitely more capable than his own.

The civilian chaos was dying down, Webb's voice carrying new authority as his team established control. Soon—minutes, maybe less—they'd return to finish what they'd started.

Time to make his last play count.

Kenji drew the deepest breath his damaged ribs would allow and shouted into the dust-choked air:

"Hey Vega!"

The background noise ceased instantly. Even the civilians seemed to quiet, animal instinct recognizing a predator's challenge.

"You still hiding behind your hired guns?"

He forced a laugh that tasted like copper and felt like glass in his throat. But it carried the right note of mockery, the kind of disrespect that would demand personal attention.

"I thought you wanted to finish this yourself," he continued, each word carefully chosen to prick at ego and pride. "Or are you scared of one broken SEAL?"

Footsteps approached through the haze. Not rushed. Not angry.

Measured.

Patient.

Death taking its time.

Xavier Vega emerged from the dust like something from a nightmare—immaculate despite the destruction, brushing debris from his jacket with the casual disgust of someone removing an insect. Two gunmen flanked him, weapons raised and ready, but Vega himself remained unhurried.

"The SEAL dies a hero," Vega observed, his voice carrying that particular mixture of amusement and boredom that belonged to men who'd ordered too many deaths to find them special anymore. "How predictable."

Kenji met his gaze steadily, seeing the soulless calculation there. This wasn't a man anymore—just appetite wrapped in expensive clothes, a black hole where humanity should live.

He couldn't move. The beam across his leg had seen to that.

He couldn't fight. His body was failing system by system.

But he could still stand witness. Even if it meant dying on his knees, he could face this with the same courage Cassidy had shown. With faith instead of fear.

"You know what's really predictable?" Kenji asked, surprised to find his voice steady despite everything. "Men like you thinking you've won. Right up until you haven't."

Vega's smile tightened slightly—the first crack in his armor.

Behind him, through gaps in the wreckage, Kenji caught a glimpse of open sky. The eye of the hurricane, peaceful and blue and impossible. In thirty minutes, maybe less, the back wall would hit with renewed fury.

But thirty minutes was a lifetime. Long enough for Knight Tactical to close in. Long enough for Cassidy to escape. Long enough for God to work whatever miracles He had planned.

Kenji had played his part. The rest was out of his hands.

"You talk about predictable," Vega said, drawing his weapon with practiced ease.

"Let me tell you what I predict. You die here, forgotten in the rubble.

Your woman dies running. Your team arrives to find bodies and stories of tragic accidents.

The storm takes the blame, I take my submarine, and life goes on. Predictable as sunrise."

The gun rose, barrel centering on Kenji's forehead.

"Any last words, hero?"

Kenji thought of Cassidy's face in that gap between worlds. Thought of his team racing through the storm. Thought of grace that covered all sins, even the ones that had brought him here.

"Yeah," he said, meeting death with a smile that was finally, genuinely peaceful. "You're wrong about the sunrise. It's not predictable at all. It's a miracle. Every single time."

Vega's finger tightened on the trigger.