14. Lucas
LUCAS
Wynn stayed beside me.
For once in her life, she did exactly what I asked.
I didn’t trust it to last.
Samir hung between Boone and me as we climbed the narrow trail toward the extraction point.
Every step jarred my injured arm.
Every movement sent pain burning through my shoulder.
I ignored it.
The young man’s breathing had become shallow.
Too shallow.
“Stay with us,” Wynn said.
She walked close enough to keep two fingers pressed against the pulse in Samir’s neck.
“He’s losing too much blood.”
“I noticed,” Boone grunted.
“We need Janice.”
“We need to reach the transports,” I said.
Hawk followed twenty yards behind us, his rifle trained on the trail.
Adam moved between us and the ridgeline.
An entire enemy force was regrouping somewhere below.
We were running out of time.
Wynn stumbled.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
I shifted Samir’s weight toward Boone and caught her arm.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“Then why did you fall?”
“I tripped over a rock.”
I glanced down.
Blood covered her pants.
Most of it belonged to Samir.
Not all of it.
A dark stain spread along her left thigh.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I caught my leg on the rocks. It’s a scratch.”
I stopped.
Boone nearly lost his grip on Samir.
“What are you doing?”
“She’s injured.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re limping.”
“I’m walking.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Keep moving,” Adam ordered. “We’ll examine everyone at the extraction point.”
I looked toward him.
“She’s bleeding.”
“So are you.”
I glanced at my arm.
The bandage Wynn had wrapped around it was soaked through.
I’d forgotten about the wound.
“It’s nothing.”
Wynn raised one eyebrow.
“That sounds familiar.”
Boone laughed.
I glared at him.
“You want to carry Samir by yourself?”
His laughter ended.
“Nope.”
“Then keep walking.”
“Yes, sir.”
We continued up the trail.
Wynn remained at my side.
Close enough that her shoulder occasionally brushed mine.
Each accidental touch hit me harder than enemy fire.
Six years.
I hadn’t seen her in six years.
I’d convinced myself I was over her.
That the divorce had been necessary.
That she was happier without me.
I’d signed the papers because I loved her.
At least, that was what I’d told myself.
But looking at her now, battered and exhausted, I wondered if love had been the reason at all.
Maybe I’d signed them because I was a coward.
I could storm an enemy compound.
Walk into gunfire.
Face an army without hesitating.
But when Wynn told me she couldn’t keep living half a life, I’d let her go.
No argument.
No fight.
Not even one damn question.
She deserved someone who came home every night.
Someone who didn’t vanish for weeks without explanation.
Someone who wasn’t always one mission away from dying.
So I had released her.
I never stopped to ask whether she wanted someone else.
Or whether she only wanted more of me.
“Lucas.”
Wynn’s voice pulled me back.
“What?”
“You’re bleeding worse.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve already used that lie.”
“It isn’t a lie.”
“Your sleeve is soaked.”
“Wynn—”
“I can wrap it again.”
“While we’re carrying a dying man up a mountain?”
She frowned.
“That was unnecessarily dramatic.”
Boone looked at me over Samir’s body.
“He isn’t wrong.”
“I don’t remember asking you.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“You’re doing a terrible job.”
“Story of my life.”
Despite the pain, I almost smiled.
Then a rifle cracked behind us.
Hawk fired immediately.
“Movement on the lower trail!”
Adam turned toward the sound.
“How many?”
“Several.”
Another shot.
“One fewer now.”
I adjusted my grip on Samir.
“Extraction point?”
“Less than a quarter mile,” Adam answered.
“Hawk can’t hold them alone.”
“I know.”
He looked at Boone.
“Get Samir and Wynn to the transports.”
Wynn’s eyes narrowed.
“I don’t need?—”
“Don’t.”
The word came out sharper than I intended.
Her mouth closed.
Adam glanced between us before motioning toward me.
“You’re with Hawk.”
I lowered Samir carefully.
Boone took my side of the young man’s weight.
Wynn caught my wrist.
“Lucas.”
Her fingers were warm.
Familiar.
Far too easy to remember.
I looked down at her hand.
The gold band she’d once worn was gone.
Mine had been gone for years too.
But I could still feel its weight.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Yes.”
I met her eyes.
“I can.”
“Lucas—”
“Go with Boone.”
The fear in her eyes stopped me.
Wynn had never been afraid for herself.
Not in the warehouse.
Not when the sniper fired.
Not while returning for Samir.
But she was afraid now.
For me.
I leaned closer.
“Go.”
For one second, I thought she might refuse.
Then she released my wrist.
“Come back.”
Two words.
Quiet.
Simple.
They struck deeper than anything she could have said.
I nodded.
“Always.”
Wynn stared at me.
We both knew that wasn’t true.
I hadn’t always come back.
Not when it mattered.
Boone began moving up the trail with Samir.
Wynn took one reluctant step after them.
Then another.
She looked back once.
I waited until she disappeared around the bend.
Only then did I turn toward the gunfire.
Adam was watching me.
“Not a word.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
He smiled.
“Thinking isn’t against the rules.”
“It should be.”
We moved downhill.
Hawk lay prone behind a broken ledge, firing measured shots toward the enemy below.
He never rushed.
Never wasted ammunition.
Every time his rifle spoke, another fighter stopped advancing.
“Status?” Adam asked.
“Three moving along the eastern wall. Two behind the ridge. One trying to flank us through the wash.”
“Trying?”
Hawk fired.
The shot echoed between the mountains.
“Not anymore.”
I dropped beside him and scanned the trail.
The enemy fighters moved differently now.
Slower.
More carefully.
They had learned what happened when they rushed the Brave.
“They’re buying time,” I said.
Adam studied the valley.
“For what?”
I adjusted my scope.
Then I saw him.
A man crouched behind a rock nearly four hundred yards away.
He wasn’t advancing.
He wasn’t firing.
He held a radio in one hand and binoculars in the other.
The binoculars weren’t directed at us.
They were pointed toward the extraction site.
“He’s watching the civilians.”
Hawk shifted his scope.
“I see him.”
“Don’t shoot.”
Hawk glanced at me.
“Why?”
“He isn’t calling out our positions.”
Adam followed my line of sight.
“Then what is he doing?”
The man raised his radio and spoke.
A second later, engines roared somewhere west of us.
My blood turned cold.
“He’s reporting the evacuation.”
Adam keyed his radio.
“Boone, status?”
Static crackled.
Then Boone answered.
“We reached the extraction point.”
“Get everyone loaded now.”
“They’re working on Samir.”
“You don’t have time.”
A rumble rolled through the mountains.
Not an explosion.
Engines.
Multiple vehicles.
Fast.
Coming from the north.
I looked through my scope again.
The man with the binoculars had shifted his focus.
His gaze tracked the medical transport.
Then moved to the second vehicle.
He wasn’t studying the entire group.
He was searching.
For someone.
“Boone.”
My voice hardened.
“Where’s Wynn?”
“She’s with Janice near the medical truck.”
The observer’s binoculars stopped.
His entire posture changed.
He had found what he wanted.
Wynn.
This wasn’t about the aid workers.
Not anymore.
Maybe it had never been.
“Hawk, take him.”
Hawk’s rifle fired.
The observer dropped behind the rock.
But before he disappeared, he pointed directly toward the medical transport.
The approaching engines grew louder.
Adam looked at me.
“You think they’re after her.”
“I know they are.”
The attackers at the warehouse had known Wynn was a journalist.
They’d burned her notes.
Destroyed her photographs.
But they hadn’t killed her.
They had ordered the prisoners moved instead.
Because someone wanted her alive.
“Adam, they’re not trying to stop the evacuation.”
“They’re trying to take Wynn.”
I was already on my feet.
“Lucas—”
A deafening explosion split the air.
Flames rose above the western ridge.
Exactly where the extraction team waited.
“Boone!” Adam shouted into the radio.
Static.
Nothing else.
“Boone!”
Gunfire erupted in the distance.
Heavy.
Sustained.
The kind of fire designed to overwhelm before anyone could respond.
Then Boone’s voice broke through.
“We’re under attack!”
Another explosion shook the trail.
Screams carried across the mountain.
My chest tightened.
“Wynn?”
“I lost sight of her!”
The world narrowed.
The mountain vanished.
The enemy vanished.
Everything vanished except those four words.
I lost sight of her.
I started running.
Adam and Hawk followed.
Branches tore at my clothes.
Rocks shifted beneath my boots.
Pain ripped through my wounded arm.
None of it slowed me.
“Boone! Find her!”
“I’m trying!”
A vehicle burst through the trees ahead.
Dark.
Armored.
Unmarked.
The rear doors flew open before it stopped moving.
Men poured out.
Not local fighters.
Professionals wearing black tactical gear.
They ignored the civilians.
Ignored the extraction team.
Every one of them moved toward the medical transport.
Toward Wynn.
I raised my rifle and fired.
One man fell.
The others scattered.
“Wynn!”
No answer.
Smoke covered the extraction point.
Civilians ran between the vehicles.
Medics dragged the wounded behind anything that might stop a bullet.
I couldn’t see her.
Then a scream cut through the chaos.
Wynn.
I followed the sound.
Two men had her near the tree line.
One wrapped an arm around her waist.
The other tried to force a black hood over her head.
Wynn drove her elbow into the first man’s throat.
He staggered.
She kicked the second in the knee.
He cursed and struck her across the face.
Something inside me broke.
Not bent.
Not cracked.
Broke.
I fired once.
The man holding the hood collapsed.
The other spun Wynn in front of him and pressed a pistol against her temple.
“Drop the weapon!”
I stopped.
My rifle remained trained on his head.
He dragged Wynn backward.
Her emerald-green eyes locked on mine.
Fear lived there now.
But beneath it, trust.
She believed I could save her.
The man tightened his grip.
“I said drop it!”
I slowly lowered my rifle.
“Lucas, no,” Wynn whispered.
The pistol dug harder against her temple.
“On the ground!”
I bent my knees.
My rifle moved toward the dirt.
The man smiled.
He thought he’d won.
He didn’t know Wynn.
And he sure as hell didn’t know me.
Her gaze shifted toward my left hand.
Once.
Then back to my face.
The same silent signal we’d used years ago whenever we wanted to escape a dinner party.
Three taps beneath the table.
One glance toward the door.
Ready?
Always.
I opened my left hand.
Three fingers.
Two.
One.
Wynn dropped.
I fired.
The bullet struck between the man’s eyes.
He fell backward without making a sound.
Wynn hit the ground.
I reached her as his body struck the dirt.
My arms closed around her.
She pressed both hands against my chest.
For one terrible second, I couldn’t let go.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did he shoot you?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?—”
“I’m okay.”
I pulled back just enough to see her face.
Blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
A bruise already darkened her cheek.
Rage burned through me.
Wynn touched my face.
“Lucas.”
“I’m here.”
“You came back.”
The words nearly destroyed me.
I rested my forehead against hers.
Gunfire still surrounded us.
Men shouted.
The wounded cried out.
But for one heartbeat, there was only Wynn.
“I told you I would.”
Her fingers curled into my shirt.
“You told me that before.”
I closed my eyes.
Six years of regret settled between us.
“I know.”
The gunfire began to slow.
Adam and Hawk had reached the extraction point.
Russ fired from behind the lead transport.
Boone dragged the last attacker away from the medical truck.
The ambush was ending.
But the mission had just changed.
I looked at the dead man beside us.
Black tactical gear.
No insignia.
No identification.
A satellite phone was clipped to his vest.
These men hadn’t come for the convoy.
They had come for Wynn.
I picked up the phone.
A message glowed across the screen.
TARGET CONFIRMED.
RECOVER WYNN SPENCER ALIVE.
ELIMINATE EVERYONE ELSE.
Wynn read the words over my shoulder.
The color drained from her face.
I looked into her emerald-green eyes.
“What did you uncover?”
She didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
The fear in her expression told me everything.
Wynn knew exactly why these men wanted her.
And whatever secret she carried, someone was willing to slaughter every innocent person around her to keep it buried.