16. Lucas
LUCAS
Wynn Spencer.
She had kept my name.
For six years, I’d imagined her building a new life without me.
A new home.
A new career.
Maybe a new man.
I’d forced myself not to search for her.
Not to ask mutual friends how she was doing.
Not to type her name into an internet search bar at two in the morning just to see her face.
I’d told myself staying away was the kindest thing I could do.
All that time, she had still been Wynn Spencer.
And she had hidden the most dangerous evidence she’d ever uncovered inside the old joint safety-deposit box we’d opened in Geneva while we were married.
Maybe some part of me was still waiting for you to come back.
Her words wouldn’t leave me.
Neither would the image of her standing in our kitchen six years ago.
Divorce papers between us.
Her emerald eyes dry.
Her shoulders straight.
I’d mistaken her control for certainty.
I’d thought she wanted me gone.
Now I understood.
Wynn hadn’t been asking me to sign those papers.
She’d been asking me to stop her.
And I hadn’t.
“Lucas.”
Adam’s voice pulled me back to the mountain.
He stood beside the armored transport, watching the medics load the last civilians.
“We need to move.”
I glanced toward the medical vehicle.
Wynn was inside with Janice.
She knelt beside Samir, one hand pressing gauze against his wound while the other held an IV bag above him.
Blood covered her clothes.
Her hair had come loose from its tie.
A bruise darkened her cheek.
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Adam followed my gaze.
“She kept your name.”
I looked at him.
“You heard that?”
“The entire mountain heard most of it.”
I closed my eyes.
“Fantastic.”
“For what it’s worth?—”
“It isn’t.”
He ignored me.
“I don’t think any of us realized how much you still loved her.”
“I didn’t realize it.”
Adam studied me.
“That’s a lie.”
“Yes. It is.”
I looked toward Wynn again.
“I knew.”
I had always known.
Loving Wynn had never been the problem.
Living without her had been.
Adam leaned against the transport.
“What are you going to do?”
“Get her out of here.”
“After that?”
“Find out who Meridian works for.”
“And after that?”
I turned toward him.
“Do we really need to have this conversation beside a burning vehicle?”
“No.” He smiled. “But you’ve avoided it for six years. I’m afraid if I wait, you’ll find another war.”
I didn’t smile back.
“I’m going to Geneva.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s the only answer I have.”
Adam nodded toward the medical transport.
“She gave you another chance today.”
“No. She told me she waited. That isn’t the same as another chance.”
“It sounded like one.”
“It sounded like the truth.”
One I should’ve learned six years ago.
Adam’s expression turned serious.
“Then don’t waste it.”
Before I could answer, Hawk approached carrying the satellite phone we’d taken from the dead attacker.
“I found something.”
He handed it to Adam.
“What?”
“The target order included a live tracking-beacon ID.”
I frowned.
“A beacon attached to what?”
“I don’t know yet.” Hawk opened the location history. “But it was less than two miles from us during the attack.”
Adam straightened.
“Another enemy team?”
“That’s what I thought.” Hawk pointed toward a series of coordinates. “But the beacon moved after the attack.”
I studied the latest location.
My blood went cold.
“That’s us.”
Hawk nodded.
“The beacon is inside the extraction convoy.”
Adam’s hand immediately went to his weapon.
“We’re carrying their tracker.”
“Or someone inside the convoy is carrying it for them,” I said.
We looked toward the vehicles.
Medics.
Soldiers.
Civilians.
People moving everywhere.
Someone among them could still be reporting our location.
Adam keyed his radio.
“Russ, lock down the perimeter.”
“Already moving.”
“Boone, no vehicles leave.”
“Copy.”
I looked toward the medical transport.
Wynn was sitting inside a metal box that someone could track from anywhere in the world.
I started toward it.
“Lucas, take Hawk with you,” Adam ordered. “Find that beacon.”
Hawk fell into step beside me.
I climbed into the medical vehicle.
Janice looked up from Samir.
“What happened?”
“We’re compromised.”
Wynn’s eyes found mine.
“How?”
“Something inside this convoy is transmitting our location.”
She slowly lowered the IV bag.
“From here?”
“Possibly.”
Two medics exchanged frightened looks.
I swept the interior.
Medical bags.
Blood supplies.
Blankets.
Equipment cases.
Personal belongings recovered from the warehouse.
One canvas bag sat beneath the bench.
Wynn’s name was written across the side.
I pointed toward it.
“Is that yours?”
“Yes. They returned it after the rescue.”
“Who did?”
“One of the soldiers.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know.”
I pulled the bag into the center of the floor.
“Don’t touch it,” Hawk ordered from the doorway.
He climbed inside carrying a handheld scanner.
Wynn moved closer to Samir.
I placed myself between her and the bag.
Hawk passed the scanner over the canvas.
The device emitted a faint, intermittent chirp.
“There’s something in there,” he said. “Open it carefully.”
I slowly unzipped the top.
Inside were the belongings taken from Wynn at the warehouse.
A broken camera.
A torn notebook.
Two shirts.
A passport.
A pair of boots.
And a small silver necklace.
Wynn inhaled sharply.
“What?”
“I lost that months ago.”
I looked at her.
“Where?”
“I’m not sure. I thought I left it in Turkey.”
Using forceps, Hawk removed each item and scanned it separately.
The camera.
Silent.
The notebook.
Nothing.
Then he passed the scanner over the necklace.
The device screamed.
Everyone inside the transport froze.
I stared at the silver compass pendant.
I remembered it.
I had given it to Wynn on our first anniversary.
So she would always find her way home.
My stomach turned.
“Someone planted the transmitter inside the pendant,” Hawk said.
Wynn looked at me.
“I swear I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“Whoever took me knew about the necklace.”
“Or someone has been following you longer than you realized.”
Hawk placed the pendant inside a shielded evidence pouch.
The scanner fell silent.
Janice stared at the bag.
“Can they still find us?”
“Not through this.” Hawk looked toward the tree line. “But they know our last location.”
As if summoned by his words, a high-pitched whine cut through the air.
My blood froze.
“Drone!”
I grabbed Wynn and pulled her to the floor.
“EVERYONE OUT!”
The medical transport erupted into chaos.
Janice covered Samir’s body.
The medics scrambled toward the rear doors.
I shielded Wynn beneath me.
“Lucas, Samir!”
“We can’t move him fast enough.”
“We can’t leave him!”
The whine grew louder.
Closer.
A loitering munition.
We had seconds.
Adam appeared at the rear door.
“Hawk’s got it!”
Automatic gunfire thundered outside.
The drone screamed overhead.
Then an explosion ripped through the trees less than fifty yards away.
The transport rocked.
Windows shattered.
Metal groaned.
I covered Wynn’s head as glass and dirt rained over us.
For several seconds, no one moved.
No one breathed.
Then Samir moaned.
Janice immediately checked his pulse.
“He’s alive.”
Wynn pushed against my chest.
“Lucas?”
“I’m here.”
“You’re crushing me.”
I lifted my weight.
“Sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
No.
I wasn’t.
I would gladly risk a few bruises if it meant keeping her alive.
Her eyes moved over my face.
“You’re bleeding again.”
I touched my forehead.
My fingers came away red.
“Glass.”
“Sit down.”
“We don’t have time.”
“You need stitches.”
“I need to get you to safety.”
“I am not the only person here.”
“You’re the only person they’ve tried to kidnap twice.”
Wynn opened her mouth.
I raised one finger.
“Don’t argue.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
I stared at her.
She sighed.
“I was going to point out that they also fired a missile at the entire transport.”
“That’s arguing.”
“That’s accuracy.”
Even Janice laughed.
The sound was brief.
Exhausted.
Necessary.
Then Adam climbed into the vehicle.
“We’re moving to the secondary extraction point.”
“How far?”
“Six miles south.”
I looked toward Samir.
“He won’t survive that road.”
Janice shook her head.
“He won’t survive if we stay here.”
Wynn lifted the IV bag again.
“I’ll keep pressure on the wound.”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“Lucas.”
“The transmitter was inside your bag.”
“And now it isn’t.”
“We don’t know if there’s another.”
“Then search me.”
Silence filled the transport.
Hawk looked away.
Janice suddenly became very interested in Samir’s bandage.
Adam coughed into one hand.
Wynn realized what she’d said.
Color climbed into her cheeks.
“I meant with the scanner.”
“I know what you meant.”
My voice sounded rougher than it should have.
Her eyes held mine.
For the first time since I’d found her, something other than fear and pain passed between us.
Heat.
Familiar.
Dangerous.
Completely inappropriate.
Wynn lifted her chin.
“Then stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know exactly what.”
Six years disappeared again.
I remembered her beneath me.
Her hair spread across our pillows.
Her breath against my skin.
The quiet way she used to say my name when there was no one else in the world.
I stepped back.
“Hawk.”
He held out the scanner without turning around.
“Handle it yourself.”
Coward.
I took it.
Wynn stood in the middle of the transport and held her arms away from her body.
I passed the scanner over her shoulders.
Down her arms.
Across her waist.
Neither of us spoke.
The scanner remained silent.
I crouched and checked her injured leg.
The jagged rock had cut a shallow groove along the outside of her thigh.
More blood than damage.
I kept scanning.
Her boots.
Her pockets.
Her belt.
Nothing.
When I stood, Wynn was watching me.
“So?”
“You’re clean.”
“Disappointed?”
I almost choked.
Her mouth curved slightly.
Not a smile.
But close.
There she was.
My Wynn.
The woman who could make me forget how to breathe with a single look.
Then the radio on Adam’s vest crackled.
“Commander, we found someone trying to transmit our position.”
Adam raised the radio.
“Where?”
“Behind the lead transport.”
“Alive?”
“Barely.”
“Identification?”
A pause followed.
When Boone answered, every hint of humor had disappeared from his voice.
“You’re going to want to see this.”
Adam looked at me.
“Stay with Wynn.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Lucas—”
“If someone inside this convoy is working with Meridian, I want his name.”
“So do I,” Wynn said.
I turned.
“You’re staying here.”
“He was tracking me.”
“Exactly.”
“He may know who sent me the file.”
“Wynn—”
“Don’t ask me to sit quietly while someone else decides what happens to my life.”
I stared at her.
She wouldn’t bend.
She never had.
That was part of what I loved about her.
It was also going to put me in an early grave.
“Stay behind me.”
She grabbed a medical kit.
“Only if you stop bleeding on everything.”
I almost smiled.
Together, we climbed out of the transport.
Boone waited near the lead armored vehicle.
A man lay on the ground at his feet.
He wore the uniform of the extraction team.
Blood spread beneath his body.
One hand still gripped a radio transmitter.
Wynn stopped beside me.
“I know him.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Who is he?”
Her face lost all color.
“He gave me the drive.”
I looked at her sharply.
“You said you didn’t know your source.”
“I don’t. He left the drive with me and disappeared before I could learn his name or ask any questions.”
The wounded man opened his eyes.
He looked at Wynn.
Then at me.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he whispered.
Wynn dropped to her knees.
“Who are you?”
His breathing rattled.
“Geneva…”
“What about Geneva?”
“They know.”
My hand closed around Wynn’s shoulder.
“Who knows?”
The man’s gaze found mine.
“You don’t understand. Meridian isn’t the organization.”
His body convulsed.
Wynn grabbed his hand.
“Then what is it?”
The man struggled for one final breath.
“A weapon.”
His fingers went limp.
The transmitter fell into the dirt.
Wynn stared at him.
I stared toward the road ahead.
Somewhere beyond these mountains, an organization powerful enough to command private armies was waiting.
They knew about the safety-deposit box.
They knew Wynn had hidden the file in Geneva.
And now they knew I was with her.
I pulled Wynn to her feet.
“What do we do?” she asked.
I looked into her emerald-green eyes.
Six years ago, I had let her face the world without me.
I wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
“We get everyone off this mountain.”
“Then we go to Geneva.”
She studied my face.
“And after that?”
I took her hand.
This time, I didn’t let go.
“We finish what you started.”