Chapter 21 - Beckett
Beckett
Cleanup was chaos. Gage tagged vehicles for extraction, Oliver barked coordinates into comms, Cyclone tore into Hydra’s drives like a man starving. The desert sun beat down, turning the blood on the ground dark and sticky.
But my focus never shifted. Not once.
Elara stood off to the side, back straight, vest hanging loose where the strap had torn in the fight.
She looked untouched to anyone who didn’t know better—controlled, polished, every inch the untouchable mask Hydra had built.
But I’d seen her fight. I’d seen her crack. And I wasn’t about to look away now.
“Cole.” Oliver’s voice cut in, sharp. “You gonna stand there staring, or you gonna help me secure the scene?”
I didn’t flinch. “She stays with me.”
Oliver shot me a look. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Not the point.” My voice came out like gravel. “Hydra’s got eyes everywhere. Convoy was just a piece. They’ll come looking to clean this mess. And when they do, she’s their target. So she doesn’t leave my sight.”
Oliver muttered under his breath, but he didn’t argue. Gage gave me a side-eye that said he didn’t trust her any more than I did—but he trusted me to keep her locked down. Cyclone didn’t even look up, too deep in his data.
I crossed the distance to her, boots crunching over dirt and glass. She tracked me with those ice-blue eyes, calm and steady, like she’d been expecting me.
“You’re glued to me from now on,” I said, voice low enough for only her. “Where I go, you go. No exceptions.”
Her chin tilted, defiant. “And if I don’t?”
I stepped in closer, close enough that the desert heat wasn’t what made her breath hitch. “Then I make you.”
For a heartbeat, silence stretched between us, tight and sharp as barbed wire. Then her lips curved—no smile, no humor. Just that dangerous edge she wore like perfume.
“Careful, Cole,” she murmured. “You sound like you’re protecting me, not guarding me.”
My jaw clenched. “Maybe there’s no difference.”
I meant it. And that scared me more than Hydra ever could.