3. The Exile
THREE
The Exile
WYATT
The silence inside the cab of the truck is absolute.
We left the gravel access road ten miles back, but my body hasn't registered the shift to smooth asphalt. My nervous system is still vibrating. A dangerous, jagged hum running under my skin.
It isn't the adrenaline from the shot. That faded the moment we cleared the valley.
It's the ghost impression of her body pressed flush against my back.
On the dirt bike, she had no choice but to hold on. Her thighs wrapped tight around my hips, gripping me with every sharp turn and violent surge of the throttle. Her chest flattened against my spine, the soft swell of her breasts burning through the thick layers of my tactical jacket.
She clung to me like I was her only anchor to the earth, her fingers digging fiercely into my stomach.
I'm trained to compartmentalize. To lock down the physical responses that compromise a mission.
Right now, that training is failing.
My blood runs hot. A dull ache settles low in my groin. I grip the steering wheel, my knuckles stark white against the dark leather. I have to lock this down.
If I can't suppress the visceral, primal reaction her proximity drags out of me, surviving the next twenty-four hours in a confined space is going to be impossible.
I cut a glance across the center console.
Addy sits rigid in the passenger seat. The canvas messenger bag rests on her lap. Her hands are folded over it, protective and still. She hasn't asked a single question since we hit the highway.
No hysterics. No panic. Just cold, analytical processing.
Through the glass of a scope, from a mile and a half away, she was striking. A lone, fierce woman owning her isolation.
Up close, at arm's length, her profile is exquisite.
The sharp, clean line of her jaw. The sweep of her dark lashes. The stray strands of her braid framing a face that could bring a man to his knees. She's terrifyingly beautiful, and she has absolutely no idea the effect she's having on the air in this cab.
I force my eyes back to the road.
Thirty miles deep into the Bighorn Mountains, I ease off the accelerator. I hit the turn signal and drop the heavy truck off the paved highway onto a rutted, overgrown two-track trail. The thick canopy of lodgepole pines swallows the sunlight, plunging the truck into immediate shadow.
We crawl up the incline for two miles. The trail ends abruptly in a small clearing.
The cabin sits tucked against a sheer rock face. Rough-hewn logs. A tin roof. Built for hunters or men who need to disappear. It doesn't exist on any county plat map.
I kill the engine.
"We're here."
I open the door and step out into the mountain air. The temperature is dropping as the afternoon bleeds away. I walk to the tailgate and drop it with a metallic clang.
Addy climbs out of the passenger side. She doesn't hover by the door or seek shelter.
She steps clear of the vehicle, assessing the tree line.
Her hand rests near her hip, inches from her holstered Glock.
She's an accountant who traces digital ghosts, but she has the situational awareness of a seasoned operator.
It's another contradiction that tightens the knot in my gut.
I grab the dirt bike by the handlebars and the subframe.
The machine weighs three hundred pounds. I brace my boots against the dirt, engage my core, and haul the bike out of the truck bed.
After fifty hours holding a rigid prone position in the freezing cold, the lift is pure agony. The locked muscles in my back and shoulders tear in protest. A sharp pain lances down my spine, a warning from a body that has been pushed past its physical limit.
I don't wince. I don't let out a breath. I lock my jaw and guide the front tire down, letting the suspension absorb the impact.
I kick the stand down. My hands are trembling, but I force my fingers into tight fists to hide it. I can't afford to show her weakness. Not when I'm the only thing standing between her and a heavily armed syndicate.
When I turn around, Addy is watching me.
Her eyes are locked on my chest, tracking the rapid rise and fall of my breathing. The lift strained the fabric of my thermal shirt, pulling it tight across my shoulders. Her gaze trails down the line of my torso, dropping straight to the front of my tactical pants.
She goes perfectly still.
I'm semi-hard. The physical arousal from the dirt bike ride hasn't faded. Feeling her wrap her legs around my waist, her chest pressed to my spine for three miles, did catastrophic damage to my self-control. There is no way to hide the rigid strain against the fabric. I know exactly what she sees.
The temperature spikes.
She catches me tracking her gaze. A sharp flush of pink colors her cheeks, but she doesn't look away. She holds her ground.
Jesus.
"Inside." I issue the command harsher than I intend. I grab my hardshell drag bag from the backseat and shoulder past her, leading the way to the porch.
I unlock the deadbolt and push the door open.
The cabin is small. Two hundred square feet of utilitarian necessity.
The air inside is dead, smelling of cold ash and pine dust. The main room is a combined living and kitchen space.
A cast-iron wood stove sits in the corner.
A scarred wooden table. A kitchenette with a propane burner and a hand pump for the sink.
I drop my rifle bag onto the table. It takes up half the available surface area.
"There's no electricity." I keep my back to her as I survey the room. The walls feel like they're closing in. "Propane for cooking. The wood stove is your heat source. The bathroom is through that door. Gravity-fed shower, cold water only."
She steps further into the room, her boots quiet on the scuffed floorboards.
She tracks the layout. Her eyes sweep the kitchen, the stove, and finally land on the far corner of the room.
The bed.
It's a single timber frame pushed flush against the back wall. A double mattress covered in a thick wool blanket.
There is only one.
She looks at the bed. She looks at me. She calculates the square footage of the mattress and the undeniable reality of two adult bodies sharing that confined space.
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating.
Being in a truck cab was dangerous. Being locked inside a remote cabin with one bed is a powder keg.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to close the distance between us, to push her back against that mattress and see if she tastes like the creek water I watched her bathe in.
I clench my jaw, fighting the violent urge to cross the room.
She swallows hard. The movement bobs the column of her throat.
"I'll take the floor." I cut through the tension before it strangles my better judgment.
"I didn't ask you to." Her voice is quiet. Steady.
I meet her gaze. "I'm offering."
I turn away before the heat in her eyes completely compromises my judgment. I reach into the tactical pocket of my jacket and pull out a thick, black satellite phone.
"Lock the door behind me."
She frowns. "Where are you going?"
"Outside. I have to make a call."
"To who?"
"To the men who are going to get you out of here."
I step outside and pull the heavy wooden door shut. The deadbolt slides home a second later.
The solid, metallic thud of the lock is exactly the physical separation I need. The heavy timber of the door puts a barrier between us, but it doesn't shut out the scent of her skin or the memory of how she looked at me when she realized there was only one bed.
The air inside that cabin was seconds away from spontaneous combustion.
My body wants her with a violent, undeniable demand.
It's a primal reaction, stripped of logic and fueled by the adrenaline of a successful extraction.
I've spent my entire adult life mastering my physical impulses, learning how to flatline my heart rate and suppress my humanity to pull a trigger.
But being in the same room with Addy Hart destroys all of that discipline in seconds.
Right now, she is vulnerable, hunted, and entirely dependent on me for survival. The absolute last thing she needs is a broken, morally compromised killer who can't keep it in his pants.
The freezing mountain air hits my face, doing absolutely nothing to cool the hot burn in my blood. I walk to the edge of the wooden porch and stare out at the dark, impenetrable wall of lodgepole pines.
I power on the sat-phone.
The screen glows a harsh green in the fading light. I punch in the encrypted sequence. A number I haven't dialed in four years. A number I swore I would never dial again unless I was bleeding out in a ditch.
Hell, even then I wouldn't dial it. I'd bleed out first. The pride of a Harrison doesn't break easily.
But this call isn't for me. It's for her.
Keeping her near me is a tactical risk I can't afford. I'm a target. Ares will send a small army into these mountains to finish the job. Right now, ensuring her survival means swallowing my bitterness and reaching out to the last man in the world who would ever grant me a favor.
My thumb hovers over the call button. The plastic feels freezing against my skin.
The phantom weight of my older brother's voice echoes in my head. You killed an innocent man. You're no brother of mine.
Frost.
When we got out of the military, Frost went to work for Guardian HRS.
He put his tactical skills to use protecting high-value targets.
I took the lucrative path. A freelance hitman for the underground syndicates.
A career completely lacking in morals, even if I justified it by picking my contracts and only putting evil men into the ground.
We're both professional killers. Frost just does it under the guise of a legitimate, morally superior banner. Violence isn't the differentiator between us.
The difference was what happened four years ago. The wrong job. The hit where I pulled the trigger on a corrupt broker's intel, and an innocent man died in the crossfire.
Frost cut me off immediately. He had to. Guardian HRS operators don't harbor men who cross that line. So I embraced the darkness. I became the ghost they expected me to be. I became the Reaper.
For four years, I've hunted the broker who set me up. I've dismantled the Ares syndicate piece by bloody piece, trying to earn back my brother's trust by finally doing what I should have done years ago—protecting the innocent instead of executing the guilty.
But Frost doesn't know that. To him, I'm still a morally bankrupt, sociopathic killer. A pariah.
I press the call button and lift the phone to my ear. My heart beats a slow, steady rhythm against my ribs.
It rings once. Twice.
"I thought I told you never to contact me again." Frost's voice is absolute ice. The cold contempt cuts straight through the digital static.
I close my eyes. The rejection hits exactly as hard as I knew it would, a physical ache settling deep in my chest. "This isn't about me."
Silence stretches over the encrypted line. Heavy and unforgiving. He doesn't hang up. That's the only victory I'm going to get.
"I have a woman who needs protection. The Ares syndicate just tried to put a bullet in her head." I grip the wooden railing of the porch, the rough grain biting into my palm. "I pulled her out, but I can't keep her safe alone. And you're the only one I trust to take her."