Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lyra
The darkness isn’t empty.
It’s thick and heavy, pressing on my chest, on my lungs, on my eyes, until I’m sure I’m trapped under something massive and cold.
Breathing hurts.
God, everything hurts.
A pulse throbs at my temple, slow and uneven, and for a moment, I’m convinced I’m still in the snow. Still on my back. Still hearing gunfire. Still seeing Remy—
No.
I jerk my mind away from the memory as if I’ve pressed my hand to a hot stove.
When I try to lift my head, it feels like it’s glued in place.
Then a gentle warmth spreads across my hip. Not heat—warmth. Human. Solid. Anchoring.
A hand.
The realization hits in slow waves, trickling into place like thawing snow.
Stryker.
“You’re okay. I’m here.”
I try to swallow, but a pathetic sound slips out—something between a sigh and a whimper.
The weight beside me instantly shifts. Fabric rustles. Then…
“Allie?”
His voice is low and reassuring, chasing the demons from my darkest corners.
Slowly I force my eyes open.
The light stings, and the room seems to swim.
There are wood beams above me, a soft amber glow from a lamp, and shadows dancing across the wall.
I’m not sure where I am or what time it is.
Stryker is sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing tactical gear, still armed, still watching me like the world might explode if he looks away for even a second.
His forearms rest on his thighs, hands clasped loosely, but there’s nothing relaxed about him. His muscles are coiled tight, like he hasn’t moved in hours. His eyes—God, his eyes—are rimmed red, maybe from exhaustion, but he’s focused entirely on me.
“Welcome back.” His voice cracks, the break barely audible, but I hear it.
I shift, and pain flares up my arm, white-hot and sharp. I gasp.
He’s instantly leaning toward me, one hand rising instinctively before he stops himself—like he’s afraid to hurt me or afraid I’ll flinch.
“Easy.” The word is rough. “Just… Go slow. You’re safe.”
You’re safe.
The words hit a raw, vulnerable place deep inside me, making my chest tighten and my eyes burn.
I remember the snow. The ambush…
Stryker’s heroic arrival.
And…
The way one of the bad guys raised his gun.
I had no thought other than protecting the man who meant more to me than anyone ever had.
Desperately I grabbed the unfamiliar rifle and clenched my frozen fingers around the trigger.
I had to do it.
The recoil slammed through my bones.
Then he was falling…
The way his body—God—
I whimper and turn my face away.
I’d had to do it. But how will I ever live with myself?
“Allie.” His voice drops lower, coaxing, grounding. “Look at me.”
I don’t want to.
If I do, I might fracture into a million pieces.
“Allie. Please.”
Another breath trembles out of me, and I force my eyes toward him.
His brow is creased, and there’s pain flashing through his expression. “You scared the hell out of me.”
I shake my head, and pain ricochets through it.
He did all the dangerous things…leaped off a moving snowmobile, drew gunfire to protect me. “I scared you?” My voice is barely a whisper.
His jaw flexes. “Yeah. You did.”
My throat closes. I don’t know what to say. And I’m not sure I even remember how to breathe.
Slowly, slow enough that I could pull away if I wanted, he reaches for me.
He brushes a strand of hair from my cheek, fingertips grazing my temple, and that’s all it takes.
My emotional dam breaks.
Hot tears tumble down my face.
I cover my eyes, ashamed, overwhelmed, unraveling faster than I can stop it.
“Hey. Hey—no.” His voice roughens as he catches my wrist, pulling my hand gently away. “Don’t hide from me, sweetheart.”
But I want to. I want to hide from everything.
“I—” My voice shatters like glass. “I killed someone.”
His jaw is tight, angular, his dark eyes both compassionate and no-nonsense at the same time. “There was no choice, Allie. It was him or me.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.” He strokes my cheekbone. “But it makes it true.”
A sob pushes up my throat. I bite it down, but he sees it anyway.
Stryker shifts, sliding an arm behind my back, lifting me with slow, careful strength until my forehead rests against his chest. His heartbeat thuds beneath my ear—solid and steady, a rhythm I can cling to.
“I’ve got you.” His voice holds conviction. “We’ll get through this. Together.”
His scent fills my lungs—cedar, cold air, gunmetal, and raw masculine strength.
I sink against him, trying to stop shaking, but the tremors just keep coming.
After a long moment, when I’ve regained control, he moves me a little bit away from him. “We need to talk.”
My stomach twists.
But of course we need to talk.
He deserves answers, and he’s put off Hawkeye as long as he can.
“This isn’t an interrogation.” He rubs slow circles between my shoulder blades.
Still, I close my eyes. Talking, answering questions, an interrogation. They’re really all the same thing.
“I have to understand what you’re running from. So I can protect you.”
The words completely undo me.
No one—no one—has ever said anything like that to me.
Even my own father constantly put my life at risk, and never more so than this time.
“Honestly I don’t know.”
“Then…?”
I meet his eyes, seeing the ridges furrowed between his brows.
“I don’t even know what I have.”
“Keep going.”
A shiver crawls down my spine. “Before my father was murdered, he stashed a ceramic fob and a locket in my go bag.”
“The locket you wear.”
I nod, and he waits for me to go on.
“Told me he’d found our pathway to a bright new, shiny future.” One where I didn’t have to run, to hide ever again. For a couple of months, until Remy told me my dad had been gunned down in a vehicle and bled out from a gut wound, I’d had hope that this time, things really would be different…
“Go on.”
This is the moment, the one I’ve been dreading since the second I learned who he was. The one I can’t outrun anymore.
I drag in a breath that shakes all the way to my bones. “My name is Lyra Moreau.”
He goes very, very still. I don’t have to tell him anything more. Stryker knows exactly who I am and everything that means.
There’s nowhere left to hide. And after everything I’ve done to him, he deserves the whole truth.
But my heart is breaking.
After this, he will never look at me the same again, and he’ll have no choice but to but to turn me over to the authorities and walk away from me.
“I’m sure I’m on some Interpol wanted list.” I take a steadying breath. “My father lifted the Hollingsworth Collection.” I bring my chin up, unflinchingly meeting his gaze. “Hawkeye has spent years looking for me and my father.”