Chapter 20
20
CHERISE
M arseille, France
24 Hours Later
The sun is setting pale and thin over Marseille, casting long, golden streaks across the harbor. It shouldn’t feel familiar—not anymore. Not after everything that's happened, but it does. The scent of brine and diesel, the distant clang of metal on metal, the voices bouncing off stone alleyways like they’re echoing from another life. We had a home here once; one of many homes we owned. Tried to have a life. Tried to be a wife. A partner. Tried to be safe... to live my life.
Our entry into Marseille yesterday was quiet—surgical, even. No Cerberus backup, no visible footprint. Just three forged identities, burner comms, and a clean drop into a city I once tried to call home. Logan handled the logistics, securing us rooms above a shuttered tailor’s shop tucked between two forgotten alleys. The place smells faintly of cedar and dust, the type of scent that disappears the moment you stop noticing it. Sparse, functional, unremarkable. The walls are thin; the floors creak in the corners, but it’s safe. Contained. And for now, it’s ours.
The day has been spent tracking Hector, my ex-husband, across Marseille, until we finally found him holed up on a sleek, sterile yacht moored at one of the outlying piers in the Vieux-Port—the same one he used to vanish for days at a time. I never set foot on it during our marriage. It was reserved for ‘business’ and the kind of extracurriculars that shredded any remaining illusion of fidelity. Just another betrayal in a long list. Another reminder that, to Hector, our marriage was never a bond—it was a transaction. A useful lie wrapped in vows he never intended to keep.
Nick keeps a steady hand at the small of my back as we move through the narrow side streets, blending into the evening bustle like we belong here. Every gesture is deliberate—his presence more than just protective, it’s commanding. Each quiet directive he gives, every flick of his eyes, draws me deeper into the mission. Not just as an observer, but as a partner who knows her place in the plan. Logan stays a half block ahead, eyes sharp behind mirrored glasses, sweeping the crowd and murmuring into his comm link as he updates our perimeter checks. We’re a unit. Tight. Focused. And I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
"You're clear," Logan says over comms. "Target location confirmed. Yacht moored right where Cherise said it would be. Same vessel from the intel drop. He's onboard."
Nick doesn’t break stride. “Confirm security,” he says, voice low but commanding, gaze already scanning the far end of the dock. He doesn’t look at Logan, doesn’t need to—the question is a formality. It’s the stillness in him that grabs me, that cold, relentless calm he wears like armor. Like nothing surprises him anymore. Like he’s already calculated a dozen ways this could end and is prepared to face every one of them.
"Four guards on deck. Two visibly armed and two in tailored clothes pretending to be crew. No civilians. They look like they're waiting for something."
"His final shipment before disappearing. We make our final approach in one hour," Nick says, steering me back to the surveillance van in the harbor parking lot.
We've found him—Hector. The man who once stood beside me in a church, looked me in the eye, and vowed to love, cherish, and protect me. The man who promised me forever.
All lies. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
Instead, he berated, insulted, threatened, belittled, and dismissed me as if I didn't matter. And for a time, I believed him. Little did I know I was only being used as bait to draw out a man from my past. Hector was supposed to love me, but all I was to him was disposable.
I met JJ that night at the gala—dressed in borrowed confidence and barely holding together the threads of my composure—and she gave me a flicker of hope I hadn’t realized I was suffocating without. Just a glance, a card, a quiet question—‘Do you need help?’—and something inside me cracked open. For the first time in years, I felt seen. Not by a man who wanted to own me, but by a woman who saw through my performance and gave me the first breadcrumb out of the dark.
That night started the ball rolling. It led me to finding Nick and bringing us back together again in ways I never could have imagined. My ghost from years ago came back to life. Most would kill for the opportunity to have a loved one come back from the dead... I am not too proud to say I feel guilty for feeling so lucky.
The harbor is quiet this time of year. The tourists are fewer, the locals used to ignoring the power players that drift in and out of their port. No one looks twice at the sleek, white yacht that glints under the dying light, its name painted in expensive black script. It's one of many, just another power player flaunting their status. It's not the smallest or the largest, which says a lot.
I wait behind the wheel of the surveillance van, eyes fixed on the monitor. The feed is clean—no glitches, no interference. I watch Logan melt into the shadows of the dock's west side, a flicker of movement with a mission behind it. Nick comes from the east, all coiled purpose and lethal calm, every step calculated. Their coordination is effortless, a testament to muscle memory and battlefield trust. My heart lodges in my throat, beating against bone, but I keep it hidden. My hands rest steadily on the control panel, not because I’m calm—but because I have to be. Because they need me focused. Because I’m done being afraid.
Logan is in position. He’s crouched low near the gangway, one hand on his weapon, the other adjusting the comms loop tucked discreetly behind his ear. His voice cuts in like a wire drawn taut, tension running through every syllable. "East flank is blind for the next ninety seconds. If we’re going, it has to be now."
"Copy."
Nick moves, and he’s a force of precision. The takedown of security is fast—lethal and flawless. He comes in low from the blind side, sweeping the legs out from the first guard with brutal efficiency, the man hitting the deck before his brain has time to register the strike. A silenced shot takes out the second, a clean center-mass hit that drops him like a marionette with cut strings.
Logan appears on the port side like a phantom, neutralizing the third guard with a chokehold so swift it leaves no time for resistance. The fourth panics and bolts, but he doesn’t get far—Nick fires, one suppressed round into the back of his head, which sends him tumbling into the water. The splash barely registers before the yacht is silent again. No alarms. No shouts. Just the eerie quiet of a war already won.
Nick and Logan enter the luxury lounge like predators closing in. The space gleams with marble and indulgence—an opulent haven now tarnished by the blood of Hector’s security detail. A symphony of violence unfolds with ruthless precision, the chaos orchestrated and executed so cleanly that it barely qualifies as noise. Nick and Logan make brutal and lethal work of all those who surround Hector and those he works for.
Hector Pardo, dressed in a linen shirt too crisp to match the fear in his eyes, stands cornered near the glass bar, hands twitching at his sides like he’s calculating an exit that doesn’t exist.
Nick steps into the frame of the tapped security feed, a silhouette of lethal calm. The air is thick with finality. He doesn’t shout, doesn’t posture. He simply speaks, his voice low and resolute.
"Put your hands where I can see them." There’s no room for misinterpretation. Not anymore.
Hector does as he's told, but his eyes—those eyes I once looked into and saw a future—are already lying. Already calculating. He lifts his chin, that polished confidence slipping back into place like an old suit of armor. "You don’t have to do this," he says, voice slick with the same manipulation he always used. "We can make a deal. I have contacts, money, insurance. Whatever you want—just say it. I can disappear. You never have to see me again."
"I want silence." Nick's voice is lethal.
I’m already moving before I realize it, leaving the van and storming down the dock, my boots hitting the boards with too much force to be stealthy. Logan steps into my path, hand outstretched, but I shoot him a look—sharp, unwavering. He steps aside without a word to me, but I hear him over the comms.
“Incoming. You owe me a beer.”
I need to see Hector—need him to look me in the eye and see that I’m not the woman he broke. Not anymore. I want him to see who I’ve become. I want to watch the fear dawn in his face when he realizes it’s not Nick who will end this. It’s me.
Logan lets me pass without trying to restrain me. He just watches with that unreadable calm I’ve come to know. But when I reach the lounge Nick shifts his position. Not aggressively, not with force, but with precision—putting himself between me and Hector, like a shield he refuses to lower. It’s protective, yes, but also possessive. It’s a reminder: I’m his, and no matter how this ends, no one touches what belongs to him unless he allows it.
Hector’s eyes widen when he sees me. "Cherise, baby, you don’t have to let him..." His voice is laced with that same syrupy condescension I remember too well—weaponized affection sharpened by years of manipulation. But there’s fear now too, buried just beneath the surface. It curls in his posture, in the way his gaze darts to Nick and then back to me, like he’s trying to decide which one of us is the real threat. He doesn’t realize—yet—but it’s me.
I cut through his pathetic rambling with a voice colder than steel. "I only want to know one thing, Hector. Why?"
"Why, what, baby?" Hector's voice is sickeningly sweet.
"Why did you spend our entire marriage trying to get close to Nick? Did you always know he was alive? Was it all just a long con? I want the truth, Hector. Why him? Why go through me to get to him?"
Nick remains silent, but his eyes are locked on Hector with a sharp, unblinking intensity. There’s no threat in his posture, no visible tension in his stance—but the weight of his focus is suffocating. He's waiting. For truth. And he wants it as much as I do.
"Baby, I don't know what you're talking about." Hector lies right through his teeth.
Nick’s jaw flexes, his patience unraveling thread by thread. He lifts the gun, slow and deliberate, and presses the barrel against Hector’s temple. His voice drops to something colder than ice—controlled, lethal.
“Call her that again, and the next sound you’ll hear will be your skull hitting that wall. Now answer her fucking question.”
Hector lifts his hands higher, palms out in a mock gesture of surrender. He takes a breath, eyes narrowing as he looks at Nick. "Your team was too close to the edge of something none of you understood," he says, his voice oily. "You didn’t even realize how close you were to exposing the entire corridor. We had to test the perimeter. See if the leak was real." He huffs a bitter laugh. "You wouldn’t fucking break. We tried everything. Interrogation, deprivation… threats." He flicks his eyes to me. "Even her."
Nick’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t move. Hector shrugs. "You're a tough bastard, Ryeland. That much I’ll give you. I would've cracked. Hell, most people would’ve. But you just disappeared behind those dead eyes. Wouldn’t let us in. Not once."
My stomach churns. But there’s a fierce heat in my chest, too. Nick never broke. Even when I thought he had. Even when he let me believe he was dead. He was still protecting me. Still fighting.
Pride explodes in my chest. Nick was true to his country and his team, never giving up the intel, no matter how much he was tortured. Now I get why he let me think he was dead. He'd already been through hell and back, and he was just protecting me.
"You used me all these years just to get at Nick." It's a statement, not a question, but Hector nods.
"I did." He smiles and tweaks his head towards Nick. "It worked, didn't it?"
"You already survived him. We’re here to finish this," Nick says as he looks to me for the briefest of moments, but it was enough of a window for Hector. He moves swiftly. Stupidly. Desperately. I see him reach for the pistol I always knew he had hidden under any desk he ever owned.
I don't hesitate and pull my weapon and shoot, aiming straight for the heart, just like in the movies, but this is all new to me and the shot lands center mass. The recoil snaps up my arm, but I don’t flinch. Hector starts to collapse, and I think for a moment that it’s over, but Hector doesn’t know he’s dead yet and raises his gun, aiming not at me, but at Nick.
I shoot again, and this time, I hit the mark. Hector glances down at his chest and crumples with a shocked gasp. I’m glad he had time to realize that I was the one who took him down without thinking twice. He falls to the floor and doesn’t get up.
I don’t move for several seconds. I just stand there, watching as the man who tried to own me bleeds onto the white marble and polished teak floor.
"Clear," Logan says after a moment.
Nick doesn’t speak. Just takes the gun from my hand and guides me back off the boat.
* * *
Cerberus safe house
Outside of Monte Carlo, Monaco
The safe house is quiet. Tucked into the edge of a cliff, windows flung wide to the endless sound of the wind kissing waves and gulls calling overhead. I sit on the edge of the bed, still in my tac gear, the adrenaline ebbing from my veins like the tide pulling back from the shore. My hands rest in my lap—scarred, steady, and stained with a finality I never thought I’d live to see. They aren’t shaking. Not even a tremble, and that, more than anything, makes my chest tighten.
Because it means I’m not in shock. I’m in control.
Nick kneels in front of me, his hands steady as they settle on my thighs, grounding me with nothing more than the quiet strength of his presence. "Breathe," he says, his voice low, coaxing, like a tether anchoring me to the here and now.
He strokes my hair, slow and rhythmic, like the world hasn’t ended and we’re allowed this quiet moment. He says nothing when the first tears slip down my cheek—doesn’t hush them, doesn’t ask for more from me. He just gathers me in his arms and holds me like he’s willing to carry every shard I’ve been shattered into and piece me back together without question.
I press my forehead to his, exhale, and let it all fall.