Chapter 2
Reed stood frozen in his office doorway, watching Elena’s retreating figure disappear around the corner toward the elevators.
Every muscle in his body screamed at him to call her back, to run after her, to tell her he was sorry.
But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the roaring in his ears.
He’d done it. He’d actually sent her away.
The woman he’d mourned. The woman he’d loved. The woman whose ghost had haunted every relationship he’d attempted for the past five years.
She was alive. She was real. And he’d just thrown her out of his office like she was nothing.
Reed maintained his rigid posture until the elevator indicator showed it was descending—fifteen, ten, five. When it reached the lobby, something inside his chest exploded.
He stumbled back into his office, closed the door, and let out a sound that came from somewhere so deep inside him he didn’t recognize it as his own voice. It was raw, primal, the howl of a wounded animal that had been shot and left to bleed.
The door burst open almost immediately.
“Mr. Star?” Sarah’s worried voice cut through his anguish. “Sir, are you—”
“Leave! Now!” Reed shouted without turning around, his hands braced against his desk as he fought to stay upright.
The door clicked shut, leaving him alone with five years of carefully suppressed grief clawing its way to the surface.
No. No. No. This can’t be true.
The memory crashed over him like a tsunami—standing beside that coffin in the rain, watching it disappear into the earth while believing what remained of Elena’s body was inside. The weight of the dirt hitting the wood. The finality of it.
Something inside his soul had died that day and never come back to life.
The wound inside his heart that had finally begun to scar over had been ripped open, and blood was oozing out of him.
As a SEAL, he’d been good at compartmentalizing things like violence and death and horrible things.
But this... this was different. This was Elena, alive when she should be dead, real when she should be memory.
He put a hand over his heart and began to pace, sucking in deep breaths, trying to use the techniques his team psychologist had taught him years ago.
But he wasn’t calm. He wanted to punch the window in front of him, wanted to destroy something, anything, to make the external world match the chaos inside him.
But that was imbecilic thinking.
Reed fell back on his training and dropped to the floor, pumping out push-ups even though it had been years since he’d officially trained for operations.
He’d never given up the running, lifting, and push-ups that kept him sane.
The physical exertion was the only thing that could quiet the storm in his mind.
One. Two. Three.
Elena’s face when she said she loved him.
Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.
The way she’d looked at him in his kitchen five years ago.
Thirty. Forty. Fifty.
The sound her voice made when she whispered his name.
After pumping out fifty, he got to his feet, chest heaving, and grabbed his phone. There was only one person who would understand this kind of pain. Only one person who’d seen him at his worst and still called him brother.
Walker answered on the second ring. “Reed? What’s wrong?”
“She’s alive,” Reed said without preamble, voice hoarse.
Silence stretched across the line. Then, carefully, “Who’s alive?”
“Elena. Elena Vasquez. She just walked out of my office.”
More silence.
When Walker spoke again, his voice was cautious. “Brother, Elena’s been dead for five years. You went to her funeral. Maybe you should—”
“She’s not dead!” Reed exploded, then forced himself to lower his voice. “She was just here. In my office. Using a fake name, but it was her. She’s alive, Walker. She’s been alive this whole time.”
“Okay. I’m listening. What did she say?”
Reed began to pace again, the words pouring out of him. “She said she had to fake her death. Said there were people after her, after the WATCHDOG technology she created. She said if they found her, they would have killed anyone she cared about—including me.”
“So she let you believe she was dead to protect you.”
“That’s what she claimed. She said the technology is being used now. That people are dying. She had evidence, documents, everything laid out like some kind of corporate presentation.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Reed.” Walker’s voice was patient but firm. “What did the evidence show?”
Reed stopped pacing and rubbed his face. “I don’t know. I couldn’t... I couldn’t focus on anything except the fact that she was sitting there breathing when I buried her five years ago.”
“So you didn’t actually listen to what she was telling you.”
“I listened enough. She came to me because she’s in trouble and she needs someone with resources to save her.”
Walker was quiet again. Then, with a trace of his old sarcasm: “And you told her to take a hike.”
“I told her I couldn’t help her.”
“Why?”
The question hit Reed like a physical blow. “Because... because she destroyed me, Walker. Because I spent two years in therapy trying to learn how to function without her. Because she let me grieve for nothing. Because—”
“Because you’re scared.”
Reed cursed under his breath. “I’m not scared.”
“Brother, you just told me the woman you’ve been mourning for five years walked back into your life and asked for help, and you threw her out without even listening to what she had to say. If that’s not fear, I don’t know what is.”
“She left me,” Reed said quietly, the words cutting his throat on the way out. “She made the choice to let me believe she was dead. For five years.”
Walker was silent for a long time. So long that Reed started to wonder if the call had dropped.
“Bro,” he finally said desperately, “what should I do?”
Walker let out a light laugh. “Dang, bro. That woman … she messed you up for awhile.”
Reed didn’t want to talk about the years of pain that only his brother would know about. Pain that Walker had witnessed him going through. “Yeah.”
Walker sighed. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do,” Walker said gently. “Deep down, you know what you should do.”
Reed cursed again, louder this time. “I have to go.”
“What are you going to do?”
Reed sucked in a long breath, his eyes falling on something he hadn’t noticed before. On his conference table, where Elena had been laying out her documents, was a single business card. “Track her down, then go talk to her.”
“Did she say where she’s staying?”
Reed grunted, moving closer to the table. The card was simple, expensive looking. No name, just an address for a hotel downtown. “No, but she left a card with an address.”
“Cool,” Walker said, and Reed could hear the approval in his brother’s voice. “Call me if you need anything.”
Reed sighed, pocketing the card. “Yep.”
He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Five years ago, Elena had walked out of his life to protect him from people who wanted to kill him. Today, he’d watched her walk out again because he was too much of a coward to face what her being alive meant.
But maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t too late to stop being a coward.
The elevator ride to the lobby was the longest thirty seconds of his life. But this time, Reed wasn’t watching the numbers go down with relief.
This time, he was going after her.