Chapter 13 #3
“You did that, Emily,” he said, steady and unflinching. “With your goddamned amazing instincts. With your persistence. With your willingness to trust us.” His thumbs brushed the heat of her cheekbones, grounding her in every word. “You helped us possibly save those Marines.”
Her breath stuttered, caught between disbelief and something deeper, something sharper.
She searched his eyes as if waiting for the catch, the caveat, the moment he would dismiss her contribution as accident or luck.
But there was nothing there except that sincere steadiness and the rasp of conviction in his voice.
Her throat tightened. “I hope we find them alive,” she whispered, the protest faint even to her own ears. “I was just…trying to finish what I started.” Her hand trembled against his wrist, fingers curling like she needed the anchor. “I didn’t even know…”
The words trailed off, hollow with awe and fear in equal measure. What he was telling her, what he saw in her, was bigger than jaguars and data cards. Bigger than proving she wasn’t the girl who had walked away and left her sister unguarded.
Her chest squeezed, tears pricking her eyes.
“I never thought anything I did would matter like this. Not in your world. Not life and death.” She shook her head, a wet laugh breaking free, more fragile than amused.
“You…you make it sound like I belong here. Like I’m not just some complication you have to drag around. ”
Her voice cracked on the last word. She dropped her gaze, but his hands stayed firm on her face, steadying her like she was something worth holding onto.
His thumbs brushed the wetness at the corners of her eyes, a touch gentler than his voice.
“Complication?” he rasped, the word grinding out like gravel.
“Hell no. You’re the reason those Marines, if they survived, are going to go home to their families.
Don’t ever think you don’t belong, Shortcake. Not after this.”
For a beat, the cave held nothing but the sound of her uneven breathing and the steady drum of his heart under her palms. The admission cost him, she could see it in the tightness of his jaw, in the way his gaze burned through her like he’d just handed her something he didn’t give lightly.
Then the weight of reality snapped back in, sharp and unrelenting. He drew in a breath, released her face, and the softness hardened into command.
“Gather your stuff. We’re leaving, now.”
His voice had dropped into that flat, lethal register she was already beginning to recognize, the tone that didn’t bend, didn’t soften, didn’t allow for debate.
He turned, shoulders squared to the cave mouth, then halted mid-stride.
When he looked back at her, her stomach sank.
National security…has to stay classified. Oh, God. No.
Her gut clenched at the grim finality in his eyes. She knew, before he even opened his mouth, that the next words would gut her.
“I’m going to have to take your laptop, your SD cards, and all your notebooks.” His voice strangled. “You can’t tell anyone about any of this.”
The world tilted.
Her heart lurched, the sound of blood roaring in her ears louder than the cicadas outside. Her laptop held everything. Months of data, meticulously logged field notes, her images of Sombra, Luz, Brío. The very marrow of her work, her PhD, her future. Without it…
This was an utter disaster.
She forced down the panic clawing at her throat, but it tasted like ashes.
He knew every hour in this jungle, every page, every byte of information was a promise to her sister that she wouldn’t abandon her, not again.
His duty dictated that he had to rip it from her hands with nothing more than grim necessity.
She swallowed hard, staring at him, the weight of the cave pressing in.
Deep down, she knew this wasn’t cruelty.
It wasn’t even personal. He was doing his job, his brutal, unforgiving job, in a place where compromise could get them all killed.
She knew it. But knowing didn’t stop the devastation curdling in her chest.
This was her life. Her completion. Her doctorate. Her graduation. Years of sacrifice funneled into files he could erase with one careless order. Because of him, she wanted to be done with it. Let it all go and move on to something…
She couldn’t finish the thought. All of it was so overwhelming. She’d punished herself for so long with the wrong men, doing penance for that sweet, young girl she had been, and now that she had found a man who did things to her she’d never felt before, she was losing a huge chunk of who she was.
He released a long breath, his chest expanding with it, then reached out. She sidestepped, her boots scuffing against the stone.
His hand froze midair. For a second, just a second, his eyes flickered with something raw, a flash of hurt so quick it almost undid her. Almost.
She steeled herself against it. Against him. Against the sting of what this meant. Her brain struggled to absorb the reality, her heart tearing in two as her life was wrested from her hands into government custody.
The truth clawed through her like a blade.
The man she had fallen for, the man she was sure she loved, was royally, utterly screwing her.
Yet, beneath the anger and grief, she knew, God , she knew, he had no choice.
He had taken an oath, one that demanded sacrifice not just from him but from everyone in his orbit.
Protecting America meant protecting its weapons, its secrets, its men.
Men who had needed the SEALs more than she ever had.
This was Brawler stripped bare, not just a warrior, but one with the integrity to tell her the hard facts straight, even knowing it would devastate her academically, emotionally, personally. That kind of courage came with a cost, and today she was paying it.
She couldn’t bear to look at him, not with that knowledge raw in her chest. She turned away, needing space, needing distance. Later, she could unravel what it meant. Later, she could face the truth of who he was and what it meant for her. Not now.
Her voice broke as the tears threatened, her throat spasming around the words. “I’m just going to grab my stuff from the pool…”
She slipped behind the stone wall before he could answer.
The second she was hidden, her back hit the rock and the sobs tore loose, soft and wrecked.
Tears streamed hot down her cheeks, her heart breaking all over again.
She muffled the sound with her fist, not willing to gut him with the sight of her crumbling, even if some of those tears were for him.