Page 142 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“You're the man I love. The man I want to wake up beside when this nightmare is finally over. The man I want to build a life with, whatever that looks like.” He drew a shaky breath. “I've spent this entire war pulling the trigger when someone tells me to. I've killed men whose names I'll never know, whose faces I see every time I close my eyes. I'm not losing you because you had to prove you can bleed too.”

The words hit like artillery fire, precise and devastating. I stared at him, throat working, trying to find something to say that wouldn't sound trite or defensive.

“I'd rather risk dying doing what only I can do,” I said slowly, carefully, “if it gets you home.”

Tom's expression crumpled. “And I'd rather carry you out of a hundred collapsed huts if it means you're alive to argue with me about it.”

“We're both idiots,” I said, and my voice broke on a laugh that was half sob.

“Yeah.” Tom's thumb traced circles on my wrist, over the pulse point where my heart hammered visible. “Yeah, we are.”

We sat like that for a long moment, not speaking, just breathing the same air and holding onto each other like we were the only solid things in a world gone mad.

The curtain rustled.

We sprang apart instinctively, Tom's hand dropping from my wrist, both of us turning toward the sound with the guilty reflexes of men who'd learned to hide.

Finch stood at the gap in the curtain, expression unreadable.

My stomach dropped. How long had he been there? How much had he heard? Tom's declaration, the way we'd been holding each other, everything that could destroy us laid bare in a hospital ward.

“Captain Finch.” Tom's voice was steady, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. “I was just checking on Mr Pembroke's condition.”

“So I see.” Finch stepped through the curtain, letting it fall closed behind him. He looked at Tom, then at me, then at the space between us that suddenly felt enormous and damning.

The silence stretched. I could hear my own heartbeat, could feel sweat prickling along my spine despite the chill of the infirmary.

Then Finch reached into his coat and pulled out the Black Book.

My breath stopped.

“This belongs to you, I believe.” He held it out to me, and I took it with trembling fingers, hardly daring to believe what was happening. “I'm returning it.”

“You... you didn't...”

“I didn't read it.” Finch's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. “I had it examined by a trusted colleague. She confirmed that the contents are personal rather than operational. Encrypted diary entries, she said. Nothing relevant to national security.”

I clutched the notebook to my chest, feeling the familiar weight of it, the worn leather cover, Bea's stitched initials. All my secrets, still secret. Still mine.

“Thank you, sir.” The words came out hoarse.

“Don't thank me. Thank the evidence that cleared your name.” Finch's gaze moved to Tom, sharp and assessing.

“Just doing my job, sir.”

“Your job.” Finch's mouth twitched, something that might have been amusement or irritation. “Your job is security detail. Escorting personnel between buildings. Not conducting surveillance operations or tackling armed traitors in snow-covered fields.”

“The situation required improvisation, sir.”

“Indeed it did.” Finch was quiet for a moment, studying us both with those pale, penetrating eyes. “The situation required a great many things that fall outside standard protocol. Quick thinking. Unconventional analysis. The willingness to act on instinct rather than procedure.”

He pulled up a chair, sat down with the careful movements of a man whose body ached in ways he'd never admit. For the first time, I noticed how tired he looked. How old. The raid had taken something from all of us.

“I've been doing this work for a long ass time,” he said quietly. “Intelligence. Security. The endless game of secrets and lies. And in all that time, I've learned that the most valuable assets are rarely the ones that follow the rules.”

I didn't know what to say. Didn't know where this was going.

“The most valuable assets,” Finch continued, “are the ones who care enough to break the rules when breaking them is the right thing to do. Who see past protocol to the people it's meant to protect.” His gaze moved between us, and I felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with my injuries. “The ones who have something worth fighting for beyond duty and country.”