Page 51

To move. To fight. To finish this. But the hallway wavered, and all he could see was Everly, her mouth open in a scream, agony on her face. Blood on the floor. Bear motionless. Flint down. The girls shaking, sobbing beneath him.

He lost his footing, his legs slipping out from under him, his heart filling with agony.

She bent down and pulled Bear’s tactical knife from the sheath on his vest, his eyes like steel, his expression encouraging. Gunfire cracked the air, sharp, vicious, like bones splintering against steel. She ran.

There was nothing but purpose in her movement, no thought but to get to him, a seismic pull to stop this brutal human being from ending Zorro’s life. Her feet slammed into the ground in rhythm with her pulse, her body moving faster than thought, faster than fear.

That unbearable truth detonated in her chest, obliterating everything else.

The world funneled into one narrow, harrowing certainty.

If she didn’t move, if she didn’t act, if she let terror freeze her in place, Mateo Martinez would die, and she would die with him. She couldn’t let that happen. Wouldn’t.

All that was left was the impossible rage and aching refusal to live in a world without him.

The knife was slick in her hand, her grip too tight, her knuckles white with fury. She saw the man raise his weapon, saw the line of his body tighten for the shot. She pushed harder. Her body screamed. Her mind shattered. But her heart…

Her heart roared as his teammates glided into the hallway, but they couldn’t help him. Only her.

With a scream that tore from somewhere primal, she closed the distance, dropped low, and with all the precision her trauma training had ever taught her, she slashed, surgical, cruel, efficient, straight through the back of the attacker’s knee.

Tendon and flesh gave way in a single wet, sickening snap.

He went down screaming, his trigger finger jerking too late. The shot fired harmlessly into the ceiling as he crumpled forward in agony.

But she didn’t stop.

Didn’t hesitate.

She pivoted with brutal momentum, dropped down to her knees, both hands wrapped around the hilt now, and drove the blade down. Fast. Hard. Right into the base of his skull. The knife sank to the hilt in a spray of red.

He jerked once. Dead weight crumpled to the floor.

Everly stumbled back a step, chest heaving, hand still clenched around the handle as if she didn’t trust herself to let go.

Her breath hitched, caught between a sob and a scream, the copper scent of blood choking the air around her.

Her hands shook, her body trembled, her lungs gasped like they couldn’t catch up.

The savagery didn’t vanish. It clung to her like fire, coating her skin, burning beneath her fingernails, radiating through her marrow.

But she didn’t regret it.

Couldn’t.

The oath? The one she’d sworn in med school, recited in white coats and ivory halls?

It was never meant to make her watch him die, and fuck it, she wasn’t going to sacrifice him for it.

For the first time in her life, the Hippocratic oath bent. Not for the greater good. Not for objectivity. Not even for justice.

It bent for him .

For the man who risked his life and patched up wounds while bullets flew.

For the man who held newborns in jungles and joked while blood dripped from his ribs.

For the SEAL she should’ve hated but couldn’t stop dreaming about.

For the only person who’d seen her rage and grief and hadn’t turned away.

She could live with blood on her hands.

She could live with breaking the rules, shattering the silence, drowning in the violence.

But she could not, would not , live in a world without Mateo Martinez.

Not again. Not ever.

She turned toward where he lay. Still. Too still.

The scream that tore from her throat was raw enough to break glass. "Zorro!" She was already moving. Unequivocally his, and for the first time, she knew it. Not from a kiss. Not from a confession. But from the bone-deep, soul-carving certainty of a woman who had just killed for love.

Bear didn’t know if Zorro was alive. Flint hadn’t moved.

The thought hit like a blade to the gut, sharp and brutal.

His boy, his partner, lay still on the tile, a dark shape sprawled across blood-slick marble, so quiet.

Too still. The floor was a war zone, and his own blood was cooling fast. He hugged those girls to him tightly as they sobbed into his neck.

“It’s all right, ?ik’ala pi . My little ones. ”

“Uncle Bear. Are you okay?” Fifi asked, her voice high and breaking.

He swallowed the fear rising in his throat, shoved it down deep. “I’m okay if you two are okay. How’s that?”

“You saved us, Uncle Bear. Just like you always promised,” Cami sobbed.

He couldn’t speak for a second. Flint still wasn’t moving. He forced himself to breathe, slow and quiet, even as a fresh wave of pain twisted through his side, and something worse cracked through his chest. He couldn’t look. Not yet. If Flint was gone…

He smiled faintly, kissed the top of each dark head, and closed his eyes for a breath. Their small bodies were trembling, sticky with tears and Icee syrup, but alive…his chest heaved…safe.

That was all that mattered.

Then it hit.

A deep, twisting heat, sudden and sharp, blooming just below his ribs. Not the sear of the bullet, that had come and gone. This was the aftermath, the raw throb of tissue torn and blood leaking slowly and steadily into places it shouldn’t.

His breath stuttered.

The girls didn’t notice. They were still holding on like he was made of stone.

He tightened his grip, but the pain flared in response, deep and grinding, like something vital had been cracked open. His jaw locked. His vision blurred at the edges.

“Easy,” he murmured, voice softer now. “Uncle Bear’s just catching his breath.

” He pressed the girls tighter, bowing his head, resting his cheek against the crown of Fifi’s head, the scent of her baby shampoo, innocence, firecracker charm, and her love for him grounding him when he desperately needed it.

He breathed in her hair like it could hold him together.

In his heart, he whispered to the Great Spirit. Don’t take him, please.

Zorro’s nieces were safe. He’d shielded them with his body, an unspoken promise to Zorro’s whole family. Fifi would ride again. Cami would draw so many trees. Dani would see her daughters grow. For him…that was enough.

“I told you not to get killed. Dammit, Bear.” Bailee’s voice crashed through the haze, raw and fierce, yanking him back.

“How dare you defy me?” Her voice cracked, rising with fury, thick with fear.

It tore through him worse than shrapnel, not her words, but what was buried underneath them.

Rage was just the language she used to mask what she couldn’t say out loud.

She wasn’t yelling to save him. She was yelling because she couldn’t lose him.

He heard what she couldn’t hide, and it made him ache to live.

She slammed her palms down on his wound, anchoring him with fire and desperation.

He grunted, more out of instinct than pain.

It all felt far away now. Suddenly he was floating.

Like water was rising around him, lifting his body free from weight.

He took to water without effort, a landlocked man who understood its pull, its danger, its promise.

He didn’t fight it. He read it. He knew what it meant to go under. To carry the weight. To hold his breath until the task was done. He was still holding it.

If she touched him like that again, with fire and faith and the kind of honesty he wasn’t built to survive, he’d lose it in a single exhale.

One breath and it might be the death of him.

Bailee shouted. “Help him!”

Professor’s face appeared above him. “Flint,” he said, barely audible. Help him,” his voice a dwindling plea.

Before he could even think, further darkness slammed into him. He heard drums. A painful whine, his heart catching…Flint. A soft murmur of voices. Then a hard command from Professor, “Don’t you fucking die on us, Bear,” his voice broke. “Goddammit!”

The hard pressure of Bailee’s hands was the only thing that tethered him, then the soft, aching sound of his Grandfather Ray’s voice. I cannot lose another grandchild.

The ache of it all wrapped around him, sank deep.

Bear, helpless now, slipped into the inky black.