Chapter 28 Damian
Damian
The farmhouse settled into a rare lull, River finally shut up for once, Cyclone buried in his data. But my focus wasn’t on the map, or the tracker, or even Hemsley’s trail.
It was on her.
Morgan sat curled on the couch, blanket wrapped tight, papers scattered around her like she was trying to build a fortress from ink and fear. Her recorder was clutched in her hand again, red light winking, her lips moving in that soft murmur she thought no one heard.
I did.
Not the words, not exactly — but the cadence, the way her voice shifted when she stopped talking to us and started talking to herself. It was raw. Unfiltered. More truth than most soldiers gave their shrinks.
And it slipped under my skin in a way bullets and knives never had.
Bloody hell. She was beautiful.
I’d noticed before — the hair catching the light, the stubborn tilt of her chin, the fire in her eyes, even when her hands shook.
But now… now I couldn’t look at her without my body reacting, heat coiling low in my chest, tightening.
It was instinct, primal, the kind I’d trained a lifetime to suppress.
And failing.
River caught me watching and smirked again. Bastard. I looked away, jaw clenched, but the damage was done. I wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all myself.
I told myself it was natural. Protecting her, being close, fighting side by side — anyone would feel the pull. But that was a lie. I’d dragged civilians out of fire before, seen courage and loyalty burn bright in people who shouldn’t have survived. None of them had burrowed into me like this.
Morgan Tate wasn’t just a civilian. She was a bloody hurricane dressed in soft words and nervous smiles, and I was standing right in the path of it.
And if I wasn’t careful, she’d tear down every wall I’d spent my life building.
I tightened the strap on my rifle, forcing my mind back to the mission. Hemsley. Caldwell. Luthor. That was the battlefield. That was the fight.
But when Morgan’s laugh — small, startled, real — drifted across the room as River muttered something to her, it hit me harder than gunfire.
And for the first time in years, I realized I was in more danger sitting in this bloody farmhouse than I’d ever been in the field.