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Zorro stood with his hand against the smooth veneer of her door, head bowed like he was praying to it. He wasn’t even sure what he expected anymore. A sound. A movement. A word. Anything .

But the silence had been unbroken for almost two days.

No replies. No footsteps.

No Everly.

He’d knocked the night before. The night before that.

Softly. Respectfully. Then, with increasing desperation, he’d stood there, fists balled at his sides, willing her to open it.

Willing her to let him in. But there’d been no response, no flicker of light beneath the door, just a void that stretched wider every time he reached for her.

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the door.

“Talk to me,” he whispered, knowing she couldn’t hear him. “Say something, Doc. Yell at me. Fight with me. Just don’t shut me out like this.”

The door stayed cold beneath his skin.

He fished out his phone, thumb hovering over the messages he’d sent. Unread. All of them. Each one rawer than the last. He didn’t know what scared him more—that she was hurting in silence or that she didn’t want him to be part of the pain.

He typed anyway.

Talk to me. I’m going nuts. Let me help with whatever you’re going through.

The dots didn’t come.

He waited.

A minute. Two.

Then the screen lit.

You can’t fix this. No one can. I need time. Space. Please just leave me alone.

He read it once.

Then again.

The words hit so hard his breath held, then released in a painful rasp. Not because she was wrong. But because she believed it. That was the part that gutted him.

Time. Space. Alone.

He stared at those syllables like they’d been dipped in poison.

He knew exactly what it felt like to believe that.

To think that if he just pulled away, pulled inward, the ache would dull.

That if he isolated the wound, it wouldn’t bleed so loudly.

But he also knew that was the lie. That was his lie.

The one that had almost broken him more than once.

The one that whispered, You’re the only one who can carry this.

He tapped back.

Alone? When has anything ever been solved by being alone? Let me back in, querida .

Still nothing.

His heart thudded. Heavy. Miserable.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the extra keycard the hotel had given him.

Other than his words, his presence. It was all the promise he had to show her he meant business.

He would let her inside…fuck…she was already inside.

He wanted the same thing. Yeah, yeah, he told himself.

You’ve been waiting too long for this. She needs to be pushed.

Whatever she’s facing had to do with him.

He was sure of it, and he wasn’t about to let her handle that shit on her own.

This was just to offer it if she ever wanted a place to land that wasn’t wrapped in noise and expectations.

He crouched low and slipped it under her door with careful precision. The gesture felt too good, but it was mixed up with fear, desire, compassion that gutted his soul, and something he couldn’t name that scored what was left after all that gutting.

My spare keycard is on the other side of the door. Use it , he typed. I’ll be back in my room tonight. Come to me because you need me. I can’t just do nothing. I can at least hold you.

He stared at the door another moment, breathing like it hurt.

The hallway was dim and silent as he walked back toward the elevators, each step heavier than the last.

His teammates didn’t say much about the shift between them, not directly, and it was a good move on their part.

He was one step away from all-out war. The silence at breakfast had been thick, D-Day had bumped into him, and Zorro was sure it was on purpose.

Instead of him saying, “Sorry.” It was “Watch where you’re going. Oh, wait. You don’t do that.”

Gritting his teeth had become commonplace and headaches were the result. He could feel it, simmering in the glances they exchanged when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Buck’s easy jokes had dried up. Blitz was quieter than usual. Professor had that edge behind his eyes like he was doing math he didn’t like.

D-Day… Christ , D-Day looked like he was one syllable away from kicking something through a wall.

But no one said a damn word. Except D. He didn’t miss one opportunity to needle. Joker…in that glacial, terrifying way of his, just watched, and the tension mounted below the surface like a time bomb.

He didn’t have the strength to handle D-Day and Everly’s silence. He had no explanations he could offer because she was shutting him out, and they’d seen enough by now to understand. Everly Quinn was in his blood. She was hurting, and he didn’t know how to reach her.

But he knew she’d kissed him like he was her one and only chance to live. That wasn’t just some idle kiss. That was a woman who had been waiting for his mouth.

He wasn’t giving up.

Not until she told him face-to-face that he no longer belonged.

Maybe not even then.

Everly stood just inside the entrance to the gift shop, blinking like she’d forgotten how to function in artificial light.

The cool blast of air conditioning was a slap against her overheated skin, a jolt that only emphasized how raw she felt inside.

She hadn’t slept. Not really. Not since the Welcome.

Not since him .

Zorro’s texts still burned behind her eyes. The soft ache of them, the need in them, undid her in quiet waves. The keycard, God , the keycard , was a weight in her pocket that she couldn’t stop touching. Her fingers grasped it like it might steady her.

It didn’t.

It made it worse.

The truth was she wanted to use it.

That was the part she couldn’t seem to exorcise.

Not the guilt. Not the grief. Not even the humiliation of seeing herself through others’ eyes.

It was the want. The bone-deep, chest-caving, soul-starving want to walk down the hall, open that door, and fall into Zorro’s arms like it would fix something.

But it wouldn’t.

Would it?

That was the battlefield she never let surface.

She didn’t hate Mateo Martinez because he was Special Operations.

She hated him because he tempted her to want.

To want recklessly. To want loudly. To want in a way that couldn’t be measured on a surgical checklist or hidden behind a podium. To want him.

Wanting, in her world, had always been dangerous. Wanting had gotten her Rob.

Focus…she was here for antacid.

That was the official excuse. A tidy reason. Palatable.

Her stomach was eating itself alive with anxiety and guilt, and her chest felt like it was trying to crush itself from the inside out. It felt like shame lodged under her ribs, right beneath the ache Zorro’s texts had left behind.

The gift shop smelled like sunscreen and cheap sugar.

Beach towels hung like exhausted flags near the back and displays of T-shirts and woven straw bags fought for dominance between spinning racks of tourist trinkets and keychains shaped like Sugarloaf Mountain.

An entire shop engineered for delight. She could barely breathe.

In the center of it all stood a lovely woman, blonde with an edge of steel tension tucked beneath a sun-kissed smile.

She wasn’t a tourist. One of the tactical types attending the conference.

Everly recognized the posture, shoulders relaxed, but eyes alert.

A woman who’d spent time in rooms that didn’t forgive weakness.

She was grinning at a rack of shirts like she was planning a very specific act of mischief.

“Think this is too sedate for a Cajun madman?” the woman asked, holding up a navy-blue Hawaiian button-up dotted with restrained pineapples and vaguely suspicious parrots.

Everly blinked. The question caught her completely off guard. A laugh escaped before she could stop it. Soft. Startled. Real. It broke loose like a bird from her throat. “Absolutely,” she said, her voice hoarse with too much silence. “That shirt’s not screaming enough.”

Without thinking, she reached for a hideous pink flamingo monstrosity, fluorescent birds in sunglasses, palm trees dusted with glitter, the kind of color that might qualify as a minor war crime under the Geneva Convention.

It was the kind of shirt Rob would never wear.The kind of shirt Zorro would. Especially if she asked him to. Especially if he thought it would make her laugh. She held it out between two fingers. “Now this,” Everly said, “is perfect for a madman.”

The woman laughed, really laughed, and took the shirt with a nod of fierce approval.

“He’d wear this. Open. No undershirt. Swagger into a debrief like it’s Mardi Gras in hell.”

Everly’s heart squeezed, tight enough to hurt. What a wonderful-sounding man. She had one. Maybe. If she were brave enough to reach for him. The keycard burned against her hip. Sharp enough to bite.

She gave a faint smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her shoulders stayed tense beneath her linen cover-up, her breathing too shallow.

The woman went still. It was subtle, the way her head tilted, studying Everly without intrusion. But she saw it.

Everly hated how fast she recognized the kind of gaze that dissected without cutting. How much of herself she couldn’t seem to hide.

“You okay?” the woman asked, voice soft but certain.

Everly didn’t answer. Her throat closed on the truth. Then, too quietly to be meant for anyone, she whispered, “It must be nice…having that kind of madman.” A man who made you laugh. A man who didn’t ask you to shrink. A man who didn’t resent the light you carried.

Before the woman could answer, the air shifted behind them with the kind of precision that only came from years of operating on instinct.

“Did someone say madman?” The voice was warm, familiar. Gator? “Damn right it’s nice, Dr. S. Come here, babe.”