Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Stryker
The rotor wash tears at us as I climb the last few steps into the helicopter, Allie tight in my arms, her face buried against the side of my neck like she’s trying to disappear inside me.
The medic reaches for her.
I bare my teeth. “Back off.”
Hawkeye’s voice cuts through the roar before the medic can answer. “Let him be.”
Right damn order.
I move to the bench seat along the wall, strap in, and keep Allie anchored in my lap, her legs draped over mine, her fingers still fisted in my jacket like she’s bracing for an impact that hasn’t come yet.
The doors slam shut.
The world shrinks to metal and vibration and the deafening thump of blades.
Allie flinches hard at the noise, and she curls in more tightly.
“Hey,” I murmur against her ear. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Hawkeye drops into the seat across from us, strapping in with the efficiency of someone who’s done this too many times to count. His eyes go straight to Allie, assessing, sharp.
“How’s the arm?” he asks.
She doesn’t answer, doesn’t even lift her head.
I tighten my hold, glaring at him. “She’s in shock.”
“I can see that.” His tone stays cool, clinical. “I need to know if she’s bleeding through the bandage.”
The medic gives me a cold stare. “Let me get a look—”
“You can look when I say you can look.” My voice is low, dangerous even to my own ears.
Hawkeye’s attention zeros in on me.
But he doesn’t bark back. Doesn’t challenge me.
He studies me the way he studies explosives—patient, calculating what sets them off.
“Allie.” His tone is even as he addresses her, not me. “I’m not trying to separate you two. I’m trying to make sure you live through this flight.”
She pulls in a thin, ragged breath. “I’m fine.”
That’s not true. She’s ice-cold in my arms.
The medic looks at me, hard. “I need to check her blood pressure.”
“Reading won’t be accurate around her coat.”
The woman sighs. “Ma’am…” She attempts to appeal to Allie. “If we can just have you pull one arm up a little…”
She doesn’t respond.
Finally the medic gives up.
Hawkeye’s jaw clicks once. “Stryker. I need the rest of the sitrep.”
I shake my head. Not happening. Not with her in my arms.
Hawkeye grabs his phone. If it pinged, I didn’t hear it over the chopper’s noise.
After studying the screen, he gives me a hard stare. “Looks like you took out three hostiles.”
“Yeah.” No sense denying that. The way the bodies fell, the shell casings, all lines up.
“Had a previous shot. Allie’s gun? Doesn’t match unknown civilian’s firearm.”
She gives the tiniest nod.
“One was taken out by one of their own rifles.”
I lift a shoulder. “Allie saved my ass.”
Hawkeye shifts, bracing his forearms on his knees and gives her an assessing look. “Nice work.”
Allie jolts. A small, broken sound leaks from her throat.
Jesus.
The impact of everything that happened doesn’t hit me till now. This is a normal mission for me, nothing I haven’t seen a thousand times. But this is likely her first kill, and that causes trauma.
I thought this was all about Hawkeye and why she’s on the run from what may be Russians.
No doubt that factors in, but she also got grazed by a bullet and watched her rescuer get shot.
By my reckoning, she should be half comatose by now. I pull her more tightly against me.
Against her ear, for her only, I say, “Breathe with me, sweetheart.”
When she doesn’t, I coax her a second time. “Match my rhythm.” Using every trick I know, I try to bring her back into her body.
Against my jacket, her fingers twitch. Then she makes a broken noise—fear, grief. “It’s m-my fault.”
Goddamn it. Of course she believes that.
“Hey.” I angle her chin just enough that I can see her eyes. “Not your fault. None of this.”
Her lip trembles.
I trace one of her eyebrows. “Just stay with me.”
Hawkeye watches us, his expression unreadable.
“We’re ten minutes out,” he says, finally. “The Winter Park safehouse. Dr. Brandt on standby.”
The words should steady me.
They don’t.
Because Allie is still shaking so violently; I can feel it in my bones.
Because she’s gone pale.
Because she keeps drifting—eyes fluttering, breath hitching.
Because when the turbulence hits, she lets out a tiny, terrified sound and hides her face in my chest.
I cradle the back of her head with my palm.
“Not letting you go,” I whisper. “Not for one goddamn second.”
And I mean it.
Finally the helicopter banks, and snow-covered ridges blur beneath us.
Hawkeye’s on his mic, coordinating with Bravo, his voice a low rumble under the mechanical roar.
But my focus stays where it belongs—on the woman trembling in my arms, the woman who survived hell today, the woman I almost lost.
The woman who’s coming to mean more to me than anyone ever has.
I will burn the world to protect her.
The helicopter descends toward the safehouse—its silhouette a sharp set of rooflines tucked against a rise of pines, tall windows glowing with warm, amber light.
I know they’re reinforced. The entire place has been designed to look like a high-end mountain lodge instead of what it really is: a fortress.
Allie stirs weakly against me as we hit turbulence again.
My heart tries to punch a hole through my ribs.
The bird drops lower, the rotors kick snow across the clearing in a wide halo, and the safehouse comes into full view.
The skids touch down, and the medic unclips first.
Hawkeye stands, bracing a hand on the overhead rail. “Let’s move out.” Even above the deafening roar, his voice is clear.
I’m already up, Allie in my arms, her cheek pressed to my chest as if the sound hurts her.
“Careful—pressure on the arm—”
I shoot the medic a glare so cold that she shuts up mid-breath.
We hit the snow, the cold biting through my boots as I cross the short stretch to the safehouse steps. The front door swings open before we reach it—Dr. Brandt in a thermal vest, gloves on, a trauma kit slung over his shoulder.
“Stryker.” He scans Allie with quick, sharp eyes. “Inside. Stat.”
I shoulder past him and move through the foyer—a warm burst of pine, fire, and heated air wrapping around us.
Hawkeye enters behind us, shaking snow off his jacket. Brandt gestures toward the main room—a wide space with a stone fireplace, discreet medical lights, and a leather couch positioned near the window.
“Lay her here,” Brandt says.
“No.” I tighten my grip.
Hawkeye exhales hard. “Stryker.”
“Not happening,” I snap. “She stays with me.”
Brandt glances at Hawkeye—asking permission without asking.
Hawkeye lifts a hand, silent, controlled.
“Let him hold her.”
Smart man.
I sit on the couch with Allie still in my lap. The windows cast soft light over us—cold blue from the snow, gold from the fire. She blinks once, disoriented, lashes fluttering against her cheek.
“There you are,” I whisper. “Stay with me, sweetheart.”
Brandt kneels beside us, opening gauze, saline, sutures. A faint chemical tang from the antiseptic drifts up.
“Allie,” he says gently. “I’m going to need to clean and close the wound, all right?”
She nods a fraction. “I’m keeping my jacket on.”
My woman is stubborn, I’ll give her that.
“How about if I hold onto it and promise no one else will touch it?” I offer.
Even though she looks up at me, her eyes are unfocused.
“It will stay with us.”
Allie offers the faintest nod, and I carefully help her out of the jacket, internally cursing myself when she winces.
He begins working—careful, slow, clinical—while Hawkeye positions himself on the other side of the coffee table, arms folded. Watching. Thinking.
Calculating.
His gaze flicks over me. Then Allie. Then back to me.
He wants answers.
Too damn bad.
He’ll get them on my terms.
Brandt flushes the graze with saline, and Allie jerks with a sharp inhale, turning her face into my neck.
The cold sting always hits first.
I grip her waist more tightly, unwilling to let her twist away.
“I know.” My voice scrapes. “I know, sweetheart.”
Her breath trembles against my skin.
Brandt works efficiently, securing the bandage. A quick wrap, firm pressure—standard field closure. “She’s stable,” he says. “But shock’s still a risk. Adrenaline crash too. She needs rest, fluids, and heat.”
“She’s not leaving my sight,” I say before Hawkeye can open his mouth.
“I wasn’t going to suggest it,” Brandt replies evenly.
But Hawkeye—
Hawkeye does what Hawkeye does best.
Leveling his gaze on Allie, he asks the question I don’t want anywhere near her.
“Who extracted you?”
Allie goes rigid against me.
She seems tiny, silent, terrified.
Protective instincts hit me so violently that I nearly stand, nearly put myself between Hawkeye and her even though she’s in my arms. “Back the fuck off.”
He doesn’t.
Of course he doesn’t.
“We don’t have the luxury of waiting.” His voice is practical, flat. “I’ve got a team out there. Inamorata. You took fire. Hawkeye is risking a lot for a woman we don’t know. And we need to know what the hell we’re up against.”
Her breath fractures.
I hate that he’s right.
If I were in his seat, I’d be saying the same things. But I have zero fucks to give. “You can wait. She just survived a goddamn ambush.”
“I’m aware,” he says coolly. “Doesn’t change the fact we need intel.”
“I said you can wait.”
In the quiet of the room, Inamorata’s voice crackles through Hawkeye’s radio.
“Primary scene is ninety percent sanitized,” she reports. “Bodies secured. Tracks buried. Debris loaded. Rabbit’s trail goes cold twelve minutes north. Could be regrouping. Could be gone. Unclear.”
Brandt clears his throat. “I’ve got to side with Stryker here. She needs to lie down. Give her a bit of time, and your answers will come.”
“First fucking sensible thing I’ve heard all damn day.” I scoop her up and carry her down the hallway, past the warm glow of the windows, toward the bedroom at the end.
Her head lolls against my shoulder.
Her wound has been taken care of. And for now, she’s safe. No one is getting the better of Hawkeye’s best teams.
But the moment she opens her beautiful blue eyes again… I have to ask her what the hell she’s running from.
And I already know that I won’t like the answer.