Chapter 45 Elara
Elara
The safehouse wasn’t much more than four walls, a kitchen table, and stale air heavy with old coffee and sweaty men. The Golden Team fell into rhythm the way soldiers always did—checking weapons, patching wounds, unfolding maps like they’d been born for this kind of chaos.
Beckett never stopped moving. He paced between the window and the door, rifle slung loose across his chest, every muscle coiled like steel ready to snap. The others trusted the walls. He didn’t.
I leaned against the table, pistol stripped down beside me. My hands worked automatically, but my head felt like a hornet’s nest. Every Hydra face flashed behind my eyes. Every memory I tried to bury crawled back up my throat.
“You haven’t asked,” I said finally. My voice broke the low hum of activity in the room.
Beckett’s head snapped toward me, eyes sharp. “Asked what?”
“Why Hydra won’t let me go. Why, they’ll chase me to the ends of the earth if they have to.” I forced myself to meet his stare. “What I took from them. What I know.”
The room stilled. The Team didn’t look up, but I felt them listening. Waiting.
Beckett’s jaw worked, a muscle twitching hard. He didn’t press. Didn’t demand. He just crossed the room and stopped in front of me, shadow falling over the table.
“You’ll tell me when you’re ready,” he said, voice low, almost rough. “Until then, don’t think for one second I’m letting you walk back into their hands. Not while I’m still breathing.”
The weight of his words settled like iron against my chest. I should’ve argued. Should’ve pushed him away. But instead, the fear that clawed at me wasn’t about Hydra finding me. It was about them finding him. And what I’d do if I lost him.