15. Wynn
WYNN
Lucas didn’t release me.
Not completely.
One arm remained locked around my waist while he studied the message on the dead man’s phone.
TARGET CONFIRMED.
RECOVER WYNN SPENCER ALIVE.
ELIMINATE EVERYONE ELSE.
The words blurred.
Children.
Doctors.
Aid workers.
Samir, bleeding inside the medical transport.
All of them had nearly died.
Because of me.
“Wynn.”
Lucas’s voice sounded far away.
I couldn’t stop staring at the screen.
“What did you uncover?”
“I didn’t know.”
My voice barely worked.
“I swear, Lucas. I didn’t know they would come after the convoy.”
“I didn’t ask if you knew.”
His arm tightened.
“I asked what you found.”
Gunfire still cracked near the western trail, but the worst of the ambush had ended.
Adam and Hawk moved between the bodies, checking weapons and searching for identification.
Russ helped the extraction team secure the civilians.
Boone stood near the tree line, watching for another attack.
Everyone was working.
Everyone except me.
I was standing in Lucas’s arms while the consequences of my choices bled around us.
A medic hurried past carrying bloodied gauze.
Samir.
I pulled away.
“I need to help Janice.”
Lucas caught my wrist.
“No.”
“He could die.”
“So could you.”
“Then stop wasting time arguing with me.”
His silver eyes hardened.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what these men want.”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
The words struck like a slap.
I jerked my hand free.
“I have never lied to you.”
“You’re lying now.”
“I said I don’t know!”
“Then why did you look terrified when you read that message?”
“Because armed men just tried to drag me into a vehicle!”
“No.” His voice dropped. “You were scared before that.”
I stepped back.
Lucas followed.
Not threatening.
Protective.
Always protective.
Even when I didn’t want him to be.
Especially then.
“You recognized something in that message,” he said. “I saw it on your face.”
“You don’t know me well enough to read my face anymore.”
Pain flashed through his eyes.
I regretted the words instantly.
But I couldn’t take them back.
Lucas nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
His voice was quiet now.
Too quiet.
“I don’t know what you’ve done for the last six years. Where you’ve lived. Who you call when you’re afraid. Whether there’s someone waiting for you back home.”
My heart twisted.
“There isn’t.”
The answer escaped before I could stop it.
Lucas went still.
I looked away.
This was not the time.
Not here.
Not surrounded by bodies and burning vehicles.
But Lucas had heard me.
“There’s no one?”
“No.”
His gaze moved over my face.
“Why not?”
I laughed once.
There wasn’t anything funny in it.
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
“I know.”
The admission took some of the fight out of me.
Lucas looked down at the phone again.
“But I need to ask you something else.”
He turned the screen toward me.
“Whoever sent this knows your full name. They know exactly where you are, and they knew which transport you were standing beside. That means someone has been tracking you.”
I wrapped my arms around myself.
The mountain air suddenly felt cold.
“I received a file.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Lucas’s jaw tightened.
“Wynn.”
“I’m telling the truth. It came from a source whose identity I never learned.”
“What kind of file?”
“Financial records.”
“Belonging to whom?”
“I don’t know that either.”
He stared at me.
“It was encrypted,” I explained. “I couldn’t open most of it.”
“But you opened something.”
“A list of transactions.”
“What transactions?”
“Money moving between shell companies, private military contractors, and charitable organizations.”
Lucas’s expression changed.
The anger disappeared.
The soldier took its place.
Focused.
Controlled.
Dangerous.
“The humanitarian convoy.”
“I thought one of the organizations funding the refugee camps was stealing aid money.”
“Were they?”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“The money wasn’t being stolen from the organization. It was being funneled through it.”
“For what?”
“Weapons.”
Adam’s voice came from behind us.
We both turned.
He walked closer, carrying a black backpack taken from one of the attackers.
“You found evidence that a humanitarian organization was trafficking weapons?”
“I found payments.”
“That isn’t proof.”
“I know.”
“That’s why you came here,” Lucas said.
It wasn’t a question.
I nodded.
“One company appeared in the records repeatedly. Meridian Strategic Holdings.”
Adam glanced toward Lucas.
I saw the silent communication pass between them.
“You know the name,” I said.
Adam didn’t answer immediately.
Lucas did.
“Meridian provides security contractors to governments and corporations.”
“They provide more than security.”
“What did you find?”
“Every time Meridian received a payment, a village was attacked within forty-eight hours.”
Silence settled between us.
“Not random villages,” I continued. “Places near pipelines, mining sites, proposed military bases, or transportation routes.”
Adam’s expression hardened.
“They were clearing the land.”
“Yes.”
Lucas looked toward the dead men in black.
“And using local fighters to hide who was giving the orders.”
“Yes.”
I pointed toward the attacker’s phone.
“The men who took the convoy weren’t supposed to kill me. They were waiting for Meridian to arrive.”
“To recover you,” Adam said.
“Not me.”
I shook my head.
“The file.”
Lucas stepped closer.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have it.”
His stare sharpened.
“The guard burned my notebook and destroyed my camera.”
“You said the file was digital.”
“It was.”
“Where is it?”
“I hid a copy.”
“Where?”
I hesitated.
Lucas saw it.
Of course he did.
“Wynn.”
“If Meridian finds out?—”
“They already know.”
“No. They know I received it. They don’t know where I put it.”
“And neither do we.”
“That’s the point.”
Lucas moved closer until only inches separated us.
His voice dropped low enough that only I could hear.
“People nearly died today. Samir may still die. I watched a man put a gun against your head.”
His control cracked.
Just a little.
Enough for me to hear what lived beneath it.
Fear.
“You don’t get to protect that secret more than you protect yourself.”
“I’m trying to protect everyone.”
“You always say that.”
My breath caught.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you keep putting your life on the line because you think the truth matters more than you do.”
“Sometimes it does.”
“Not to me!”
The words tore out of him.
Raw.
Loud.
The few people close enough to hear us went quiet.
Lucas didn’t seem to notice.
His silver eyes held mine.
“You matter more to me.”
My heart stopped.
Adam silently moved away.
So did the others.
Lucas looked as stunned as I felt.
As though the truth had escaped before he could lock it down again.
“You don’t mean that,” I whispered.
His expression shattered.
“After everything that happened today, you still believe I don’t mean it?”
“We’re divorced.”
“I know.”
“You haven’t seen me in six years.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know me anymore.”
“I know that too.”
His hands closed around my shoulders.
“But I knew your voice the second you said my name inside that warehouse. I found you in a canyon filled with terrified people. I ran down a mountain because a rifle was pointed at you. And when that man held a gun against your head…”
Lucas stopped.
His hands began to tremble.
I had never seen Lucas tremble.
Not once.
Not during the night we learned his best friend had died.
Not when he came home with a bullet wound and told me it was only a scratch.
Not even when I placed divorce papers in front of him.
But he trembled now.
“I couldn’t breathe,” he said.
The words were barely audible.
“I could see him pulling the trigger. I could see you falling. And all I could think was that the last thing I ever did for you was let you believe I didn’t love you enough to ask you to stay.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“Lucas…”
“I signed those papers because I thought you’d be safer without me.”
“You never asked what I wanted.”
“I know.”
“You never fought for us.”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
“I know, Wynn.”
One tear escaped.
Lucas caught it with his thumb.
The gentle touch nearly destroyed me.
“I waited,” I whispered.
His hand stilled against my cheek.
“What?”
“After I gave you the papers, I waited three weeks before I filed them.”
Lucas stared at me.
“I thought you might come home. I thought you would call or show up at my apartment. Or get angry. Anything.”
Another tear slipped free.
“But you signed them the next morning.”
Lucas looked as though I had shot him.
“My commander told me we were deploying.”
“I know.”
“I thought if I didn’t sign them immediately and something happened to me…”
“You thought you were setting me free.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t want to be free.”
His eyes closed.
The pain on his face was almost unbearable.
“I wanted you to choose me.”
“I did.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You loved me. But you didn’t choose me. There’s a difference.”
Lucas opened his eyes.
“Then let me choose you now.”
The world went silent.
I searched his face.
He meant it.
In that moment—bleeding, exhausted, and surrounded by the wreckage of an ambush—Lucas meant every word.
But fear still lived inside me.
The same fear that had destroyed us before.
“You’re saying that because you almost lost me.”
“I’m saying it because I did lose you.”
His hand slid around the back of my neck.
“And I’ve regretted it every day since.”
A medic rushed from the transport.
“Dr. Turner needs another pair of hands!”
The moment broke.
Reality crashed back around us.
Samir.
The civilians.
Meridian.
The file.
I stepped away from Lucas.
“I have to go.”
His hand fell to his side.
For one terrible second, I saw six years ago reflected in his eyes.
Me leaving.
Him letting me.
Not this time.
I caught his hand.
“I’m not running away.”
His fingers tightened around mine.
“Where’s the file?”
“Geneva.”
“What’s in Geneva?”
“A safety-deposit box.”
“Under what name?”
I looked into those unforgettable silver eyes.
“Wynn Spencer.”
Lucas stopped breathing.
“I never changed it.”
“What?”
“My last name.”
I had filed the papers.
Sold the house.
Built an entirely new life.
But I had never stopped being Wynn Spencer.
Lucas stared at me as though he didn’t know whether to pull me into his arms or demand an explanation.
I gave him the only truth I had left.
“Maybe some part of me was still waiting for you to come back.”
Then I released his hand and ran toward the medical transport, leaving Lucas standing alone with the knowledge that neither of us had ever truly let the other go.