Chapter 29
29
ISABEL
T he SUV rumbled beneath me, a quiet, steady hum that did nothing to ease the storm churning inside my chest. I sat in the back seat, my leg bouncing, my fingers twisting together as I stared out the tinted window at the streets of Folly Beach.
Somewhere out there, Ryker was walking straight into danger.
I had known he was a soldier, of course, had known he had faced death before. He had been forged in fire, tempered by war, built to endure what most men couldn’t.
But that was before I knew him. Before I had felt the heat of his skin against mine. Before I had memorized the exact way his breath hitched when I traced my lips down his stomach. Before I had tangled my fingers in his hair, pulled him closer, whispered his name against his mouth like a prayer.
Before he had made me his.
Before I had made him mine .
Now, it wasn’t just some abstract awareness that he lived a dangerous life. Now, it was personal.
Now, every second that passed without knowing if he was okay was a blade carving through my ribs.
And Will—God, Will. My brother, my protector, the only family I had left. He was out there too, trapped in some unknown hell, at the mercy of people who had already proven they had none. I didn’t even know if he was still breathing. Didn’t know what they had done to him.
The not knowing was unbearable.
But with Ryker? It was something else entirely.
I clenched my fists in my lap, my nails biting into my palms. I had never felt this way about anyone before—not Will, not past boyfriends, not even my dad, and he had been my everything when I was little.
This was different.
This was love.
The realization struck me with the force of a freight train, knocking the breath from my lungs.
I loved him.
Fiercely. Desperately. Without logic or hesitation.
I loved Ryker Dane.
And if he didn’t make it out of this alive—if neither of them did—I wasn’t sure how I would survive it.
“I love Ryker Dane,” I said out loud, as if proclaiming it made it true. Maybe it did.
This wasn’t the love I had known before.
Not the steady, grounding love I had for my dad—the kind that wrapped around me like a warm coat. Not the fierce, unshakable love I had for Will, built on shared childhood memories, on late-night talks, on the kind of bond that only came from surviving loss together.
This was different .
This was consuming.
It was raw and unrelenting, something that had taken root inside me without my permission, spreading through my veins, wrapping around my ribs like it had always been there, waiting for me to notice.
It was the kind of love that made me ache. That made my pulse stutter when I thought of him, that made every touch feel electric.
It was the kind of love that terrified me.
Because it meant if I lost him, I wouldn’t just grieve him. I would break.
The two men Ryker had assigned to watch me sat up front, their focus split between the road ahead and the steady stream of radio chatter murmuring through their earpieces. They barely spoke, only exchanging the occasional low, clipped update.
“Scout’s made it to the pier.”
I blinked, tearing my gaze from the window. “Who’s Scout?”
The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Ryker.”
Something in my chest tightened. “That’s his call sign?”
A curt nod. “Has been for years.”
Of course, it was.
It suited him. A scout went in first. Assessed the danger. Paved the way for the others. Took the risks no one else wanted to.
A leader. A protector.
The weight of it settled deep in my bones. He was out there alone, walking into God knows what, and I was stuck in this SUV, useless, waiting.
I could barely hear the transmissions crackling in their earpieces, but I caught snippets—codes, coordinates, quick confirmations spoken in the kind of practiced shorthand that only men like them understood.
The pit in my stomach grew.
This must be how people feel when they’re trapped in a car that’s skidding toward a cliff, powerless to stop the inevitable drop. When they’re standing in the ocean, watching a massive wave crest on the horizon, knowing there’s nowhere to run. When they’re strapped into a plummeting plane, the world tilting out of their control.
It was a specific kind of terror—the kind that seized your chest in an iron grip and refused to let go. The kind that made your body want to run, even when there was nowhere to go, no action to take. The kind that left you frozen in the space between hope and horror, waiting for impact.
And right now, that impact had a name.
Ryker.
Will.
Both of them were out there somewhere, and I was stuck here, helpless, waiting.
Then my phone rang.
The sudden sound made me jump, my heart stuttering against my ribs. I yanked it from my pocket, my pulse hammering as I stared at the screen.
Unknown Number.
I hesitated.
It was probably nothing. A telemarketer. A wrong number. I didn’t have time for this?—
But something in my gut told me to answer.
I swiped the screen. “Hello?”
There was a pause, then a man cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. Hi. This is gonna sound weird, but I work at a rental car company out near the airport.”
My grip on the phone tightened. “Okay? ”
He hesitated. “A guy came in a couple of days ago and prepaid for a car. Said he might not be able to return it himself and to call this number if I didn’t hear from him within forty-eight hours.”
My stomach plummeted.
I swallowed. “What was his name?”
“Didn’t leave one,” the man admitted. “Paid in cash, didn’t ask questions. Just said to deliver a message if I didn’t hear from him.”
The breath in my lungs turned sharp, tight. “What message?”
There was a rustling sound on the other end, like he was flipping through papers.
Then—
“Department 77.”
I blinked. “What? What does that mean—Department 77?”
“That’s what he said, ma’am. I have no idea.”
The words meant nothing to me. They could’ve been a street address, a government code, a phrase in a foreign language for all I knew. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
I parted my lips, about to ask something else, when the guy driving turned in his seat, his gaze locking onto me with laser focus.
“What did you just say?” His voice was sharp, cutting through the air like a knife.
I blinked. “I—I don’t know. Some guy just called and told me to pass along a message.”
The guy in the passenger seat stiffened. “Say it again.”
I swallowed, the hairs on the back of my neck rising. “Department 77.”
The shift in the car was immediate .
The driver reached for his radio, pressing a button on his vest. “Say again?”
I glanced between them, my chest tightening. “Department 77.”
Silence.
Then—all hell broke loose.
A sharp crackle of static burst through their radios, followed by the sudden spike of voices shouting through their earpieces.
“Did she just say Department 77?”
“Confirm that right fucking now.”
“Scout, do you copy?”
Neither of the men up front had time to process what was happening before?—
BOOM.
The explosion ripped through the night, an ear-splitting roar that sent shockwaves through the SUV, rattling the windows, shaking the entire vehicle like a toy in a giant’s hand.
My scream caught in my throat as the force of it slammed into us, the air vibrating with raw, unrelenting power.
I didn’t even need to look. I knew where it had come from.
The pier.
Through the windshield, I saw it—flames erupting, swallowing the wooden structure, shooting skyward in an inferno of orange and red. The air turned thick with smoke, the acrid scent of burning wood and gasoline seeping into the car, into my lungs.
People were screaming, running. Their silhouettes were frantic against the backdrop of fire and destruction.
My heart stopped.
Ryker .
Ryker was on that pier.
“Oh my God,” I choked out, my fingers scrambling for the door handle. “We have to?—”
The driver was already throwing the SUV into drive, his face set in stone. “Hold on.”
The tires screeched against the pavement as we shot forward, the echoes of the blast still ringing in my ears.
I could barely breathe. Could barely think.
Because Ryker had been right there.