17. Wynn
WYNN
Lucas held my hand all the way back to the medical transport.
Not because I needed help walking.
Not because he thought I might fall.
Because he wanted to.
His palm was rough.
Warm.
Familiar.
I couldn’t remember the last time we had held hands before today.
Maybe it was the morning he came home with another set of deployment orders.
That evening, I placed divorce papers on our kitchen table.
Lucas signed them the following morning.
I waited three weeks before filing them, hoping he would call.
Hoping he would come home.
Hoping he would finally fight for us.
He never did.
Now we were walking toward another battlefield.
Together.
Adam pulled open the transport door.
“We leave in sixty seconds.”
Janice sat beside Samir, monitoring the unit of blood flowing into his arm.
“How is he?” I asked.
“Alive.”
Her expression told me how fragile that answer was.
Two medics secured Samir’s stretcher as Lucas helped me inside.
I expected him to release my hand.
He didn’t.
He climbed in after me and took the seat directly across from mine.
Only when the doors slammed shut did our fingers separate.
The engine roared.
The transport lurched forward.
Outside, soldiers shouted to one another as the convoy began moving.
Hawk rode in the lead vehicle.
Adam and Boone took the second.
Russ rode behind us with the rest of the extraction team.
Lucas sat with his rifle across his knees, his gaze moving constantly.
Windows.
Doors.
The wounded.
Me.
Always me.
I pressed a clean bandage against the cut on my thigh.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m watching.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“If I were staring, you’d know.”
Heat climbed into my face.
Janice looked down quickly, but not before I saw her smile.
I pointed toward the dried blood on Lucas’s forehead.
“You still need stitches.”
“You still need to tell me everything about Geneva.”
“I already told you.”
“You told me there’s a safety-deposit box.”
“That’s everything.”
“No.”
Lucas leaned forward.
“You haven’t told me which bank, who helped you maintain it, or why you kept the box we opened together.”
The teasing disappeared.
I looked toward Samir.
His eyes remained closed.
The steady beeping of the monitor filled the silence.
“Banque Laurent.”
Lucas’s expression tightened.
“I remember.”
“You should. We opened it together.”
“I remember signing documents after you told me it would make traveling for work easier. I didn’t realize you’d kept it.”
“I had help maintaining the account.”
“From whom?”
“An attorney named Elise Moreau.”
“Can we trust her?”
“I thought so.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It’s the only answer I have.”
The vehicle struck a hole in the road.
Pain shot through my leg.
I tried not to react.
Lucas noticed anyway.
He moved from his seat and crouched in front of me.
“Let me see.”
“It’s fine.”
“Wynn.”
“I cleaned it.”
“You wrapped a bandage around bloody pants.”
“They’re the only pants I have.”
“Then take them off.”
Janice coughed.
One of the medics suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
Lucas didn’t appear embarrassed.
I was embarrassed enough for both of us.
“Not in front of an audience.”
His eyes darkened.
“Later, then.”
My heart skipped.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
I lowered my voice.
“You were never this bossy before.”
“Yes, I was. You just listened better.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
It disappeared almost immediately.
“Elise Moreau. When did you last speak to her?”
“Eleven days ago.”
“Before the convoy was taken?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her where you were?”
“No.”
“Did she know what was inside the box?”
“Only that it contained documents.”
“Then how does Meridian know about Geneva?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer sounded weak even to me.
Lucas sat beside me.
Our shoulders touched in the narrow transport.
“What happened eleven days ago?”
“Elise called and said someone had tried to access the box.”
“Using whose identification?”
“Yours.”
His entire body went still.
“How?”
“The man had a passport with your name and photograph.”
Lucas’s silver eyes turned cold.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How?”
“You knew how to reach the Brave.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You knew my name.”
“That doesn’t mean I knew where you were.”
“Adam would’ve found me.”
“And what was I supposed to say?”
I turned toward him.
“Hello, Lucas. I know we haven’t spoken in six years, but I hid financial records in the safety-deposit box we opened while we were married, and now someone has forged your passport to steal them?”
“Yes.”
His answer came without hesitation.
“You should’ve said exactly that.”
“I didn’t want to bring you into this.”
“You didn’t. Whoever forged my passport did.”
“That isn’t the only reason.”
Lucas studied my face.
“Then why didn’t you call?”
Because I missed you.
Because I wanted one place in the world where our names still belonged together.
Because some foolish part of me believed that if anything happened to me, the bank would eventually find Lucas Spencer.
And then he would know I hadn’t forgotten him.
I couldn’t say any of that.
Not yet.
“I knew Meridian would search for accounts under my name.”
“But the box is held jointly.”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve emptied and closed it years ago.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Why?”
I looked into his eyes.
“You know why.”
Something shifted between us.
Lucas’s voice dropped.
“I want to hear you say it.”
An alarm sounded from the front of the transport.
Red lights flashed overhead.
The driver’s voice exploded through the radio.
“Roadblock!”
The transport swerved violently.
Lucas threw one arm around me as we slammed against the wall.
Samir’s monitor shrieked.
Janice grabbed the stretcher.
“Hold him!”
Brakes screamed.
The vehicle fishtailed across loose gravel, then stopped hard enough to throw everyone forward.
Lucas pulled me beneath him.
A second later, gunfire hammered against the armored sides.
The medics dropped to the floor.
“What’s happening?” Janice shouted.
Lucas raised his rifle.
“Another ambush.”
A voice came through his earpiece.
“Hawk to Brave. The road is blocked.”
“How bad?” Lucas asked.
“Two trucks. Concrete barriers. Multiple shooters in elevated positions.”
Adam’s voice followed.
“Reverse the convoy.”
The driver shouted from the front.
“Negative! Vehicle behind us!”
Another burst of gunfire struck the rear doors.
We were trapped.
Lucas looked through the narrow armored window.
“How did they get ahead of us?”
“They knew the secondary route,” I said.
He turned toward me.
Only the extraction team knew where we were going.
The dead source hadn’t been acting alone.
Someone else inside the convoy was working for Meridian.
The lights went out.
Samir’s monitor switched to emergency power.
Darkness swallowed the compartment.
A metallic thud landed on the roof.
Lucas’s expression changed.
“Down!”
An explosion erupted above the front compartment.
The vehicle lifted.
For one impossible second, we were weightless.
Then everything crashed sideways.
Metal screamed.
Glass shattered.
My head struck something hard.
The world spun.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying against the ceiling.
No.
The vehicle had rolled.
Smoke filled the compartment.
Someone screamed.
One of Samir’s stretcher restraints had torn loose.
The stretcher had tipped sideways, trapping Janice beneath its frame.
A medic wasn’t moving.
“Lucas?”
No answer.
Panic surged through me.
“Lucas!”
A hand closed around my ankle.
I kicked instinctively.
“It’s me.”
Lucas emerged through the smoke.
Blood ran down one side of his face.
His rifle was gone.
“You hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
He crawled over me, checking my arms and legs.
“I’m okay.”
“You hit your head.”
“So did you.”
“I’m fine.”
I almost laughed.
Of course he was.
Lucas Spencer could be crushed inside an armored transport and still insist he was fine.
Janice groaned.
“Help me.”
I crawled toward her.
Lucas braced himself against the overturned cabinet and lifted one side of the stretcher frame.
I grabbed Janice beneath the arms and dragged her free.
Her wrist bent at an unnatural angle.
“Broken,” she gasped.
“Can you move?”
“Yes.”
Samir’s monitor began emitting one long, steady tone.
Janice looked toward him.
“No.”
She scrambled across the ceiling, ignoring her injured wrist.
“Samir!”
The young man wasn’t breathing.
Janice pressed two fingers against his neck.
“No pulse.”
She looked at me.
“Wynn, start compressions. Center of his chest. Hard and fast.”
I placed one hand over the other and began pressing.
Janice positioned herself beside Samir’s head while the conscious medic crawled toward us.
“Hold pressure on the wound,” she ordered him.
Blood soaked through his gauze instantly.
Outside, gunfire surrounded us.
Someone pulled on the rear doors.
Once.
Twice.
The metal hinges groaned.
Lucas found his rifle beneath a medic’s bag.
“How many rounds?” I asked.
“Not enough.”
The rear doors jerked again.
The locking mechanism began to buckle.
Lucas moved between us and the entrance.
“Medic, take over compressions.”
The medic moved into my place without hesitation.
Lucas held out his sidearm.
“Wynn, take it.”
I stared at the pistol in his hand.
“I haven’t fired one in years.”
“You remember how?”
“Yes.”
He pressed it into my palm.
“Safety is off. Finger outside the trigger guard until you’re ready.”
“I know.”
His eyes held mine.
“If they get through me?—”
“Don’t.”
“Aim for the center of the chest. Keep firing until they stop moving.”
“Lucas.”
“I need to know you can protect yourself.”
“I need to know they won’t get through you.”
The doors buckled inward.
Lucas turned toward them.
“I’ll do my best.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“It’s all I have.”
Another metallic crash shook the doors.
The hinges tore halfway free.
A gloved hand appeared through the gap.
Lucas fired.
The hand vanished.
A man screamed outside.
Gunfire tore through the rear doors.
Lucas dropped.
“Lucas!”
He rolled behind an overturned cabinet.
“I’m good!”
The shots stopped.
Then a voice called through the damaged door.
“Wynn Spencer!”
My blood froze.
“We don’t want the civilians. We don’t want the Brave. We only want you.”
Lucas looked at me.
I saw the answer in his eyes before he spoke.
No.