Chapter 12 Julia
Julia
The hospital smelled like antiseptic and rain.
Frank was undergoing surgery. The hallway outside the operating room was silent except for the rhythmic squeak of nurses’ shoes and the hum of the fluorescent lights overhead—too much like the station where all of this started.
I sat alone on a vinyl chair, my hands still streaked with his blood. Every time I blinked, I saw the way his eyes had gone glassy before Hawk pressed his hand over the wound.
A soft knock pulled me out of it. Hawk leaned against the doorframe, jacket half-unzipped, hair damp from the storm. His voice was low.
“Doc says he’s gonna make it. Bullet missed anything vital.”
Relief hit me so hard it almost hurt. I pressed a hand over my mouth, nodding.
“Thank God.”
He stepped closer. “He’s lucky you were there.”
“No,” I said quietly. “He’s lucky you were. He can’t stay here. They’ll try and shut him up.”
He didn’t argue, which somehow made it worse.
Across the hall, Aaron and Jace were talking to the sheriff, their voices low but sharp. Miles was somewhere near the security desk, running background checks on every deputy in the building. The air felt charged—too many secrets bouncing off the walls.
Hawk crouched beside me, resting his forearms on his knees. “They’ll keep Frank sedated for a few hours. When he wakes up, we’ll get names. Then he’ll go with Delta Five, and they’ll keep him safe.”
I shook my head. “It has to be Torres. Whoever set this up knew how to cover tracks.”
“Then we dig until they run out of places to hide.”
I stared at him. “You always make it sound so simple.”
“It is,” he said softly. “You just have to want it bad enough.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The hum of the machines filled the silence.
Finally, I whispered, “When I saw him fall…I thought we’d lost him.”
“You didn’t lose him,” he said. “Did you call your aunt and uncle?”
I looked up. His eyes held mine, steady, unflinching. Too much there—loyalty, guilt, something deeper that scared me more than bullets ever could.
“Hawk—”
He stood abruptly, tension breaking the moment. “Come on. Aaron wants you to see something.”
They’d set up a temporary ops room in one of the hospital conference suites. Monitors glowed against dark windows, displaying data feeds from the sheriff’s servers. Miles pointed at one screen where a file had just appeared.
“Deputy Torres logged in less than an hour ago. Tried to access Frank Marlow’s personnel record.”
Aaron’s jaw tightened. “He’s covering his tracks. Where is he now?”
“Last GPS ping from his patrol cruiser shows him headed south on Route 11.”
“That’s twenty minutes from here,” I said, already reaching for my jacket.
Aaron started to object, but Hawk cut him off. “She’s coming.”
“Fine,” Aaron said. “But we do this clean. No sirens, no lights.”
The night stretched ahead, blacktop slick with rain. We followed Torres’s signal down twisting roads until it disappeared near the old water-treatment plant—the same plant that had been decommissioned after the mine closed.
Boone’s voice came through the comms. “Thermal shows one vehicle inside the fence. No movement yet.”
Hawk parked behind a stand of trees. “Julia, stay behind me.”
“Not this time,” I said. “He tried to kill my cousin to cover his ass.”
He hesitated, then nodded once. “Together, then.”
We moved through the mud toward the building. The air stank of rust and stagnant water.
Inside, Torres was bent over a table covered in files and a laptop. He looked up, startled, when our lights hit him.
“Torres!” I called. “Step away from the computer.”
He froze, eyes darting between us. “You don’t understand—”
“Then explain it.”
“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt!” he blurted. “They said it was just intel—nobody was supposed to die.”
“Who’s they?” Hawk demanded.
Torres swallowed. “The man from Washington. He said he’d make the department look good and secure new funding for us. I never knew it was cartel money until it was too late.”
Aaron’s voice crackled over the comm. “Get him secured. We’ll take the statement back at base.”
But Torres shook his head, panic rising. “You don’t get it—they’re everywhere. They’ll kill me before sunrise—”
A single shot shattered the air. Torres jerked, eyes wide, and collapsed.
Hawk was already moving, pulling me behind a concrete pillar as more gunfire ripped through the room.
“Sniper!” he hissed. “Roof line!”
Aaron’s voice exploded over the channel. “We’ve got shooters inbound—two vehicles from the south entrance!”
Hawk leaned out just long enough to fire back. “Julia, stay down!”
“Not a chance.” I grabbed Torres’s laptop, hugging it to my chest. “Whatever he was working on, it’s evidence.”
“Then hold onto it.”
Boone and Jace stormed through the side door seconds later, rifles up, clearing the space with brutal precision. By the time the last echo faded, the only sound was the rain pounding on the roof.
Aaron appeared in the doorway, scanning the scene. “Everyone alive?”
“Barely,” Hawk said.
Aaron’s gaze fell on Torres’s body, then on the laptop in my hands. “You just became our primary witness, Detective.”
I exhaled shakily. “I’ll make sure they’re all buried deep.”
“You and me both,” Hawk said, his hand brushing mine, grounding me even as adrenaline still burned through my veins.
Aaron turned to his team. “Get the drive secured. Whatever’s on it just costs a man's life—and probably leads straight to D.C.”
An hour later, back at the cabin, the room buzzed with quiet chaos. Miles had the laptop cracked open, data streaming across the screen.
“Encrypted files, multiple layers,” he said. “But I can already tell—these aren’t police reports. They’re financial transfers. Offshore accounts, dummy corps. Some of them trace back to federal contractors.”
Aaron’s mouth tightened. “Then Torres was telling the truth.”
Hawk looked at me. “You okay?”
I nodded, though my hands still trembled. “Just another day in Copper Cove, right?”
He reached out, fingers brushing mine. “You did good tonight.”
“That’s not what it feels like.”
“It never does,” he said quietly. “Until it’s over.”
I met his eyes, exhaustion giving way to something deeper. “What if it’s never over, Hawk?”
He hesitated, then took my hand fully, his thumb tracing a slow line along my palm.
“Then we keep fighting,” he said.
For once, I didn’t pull away.
He took my hand and guided me to his room.
Where a table full of maps and papers was stacked in neat piles.
“You should lie down and get some rest. I think you should take a break. This is going deeper than we thought. I think you need to back away and let us handle this. We can’t go barreling in. We have to keep our heads.”
My blood snapped hot. “Don’t you dare put this on me. You’re the one barreling after him like some mountain bull with a death wish! I will not back away!”
His head snapped up, eyes burning. “Because someone has to! And I’m not letting you be the bait he’s salivating over. They want to take you out.”
I shoved him, hard, chest to chest. “You don’t let me do anything, Hawk. I’m not yours to protect like some fragile thing you tuck away!”
His hands caught my arms, grip rough, holding me in place. “The hell you’re not mine.”
The air charged between us, hotter than any firefight. My heart hammered, fury and want tangling so tight I couldn’t tell one from the other.
I should’ve pushed him back. Should’ve walked away. Instead, I fisted his shirt and yanked him down into me.
The kiss was hard, angry, teeth and fire. His mouth crushed mine, fierce and claiming, and I gave back every ounce of it. His hands slid up into my hair, anchoring me, while my body pressed flush against his, desperate, reckless.
When he broke for breath, his voice was ragged, raw. “You drive me insane. Just like you always have.”
I gasped against his lips, biting back a shaky laugh. “Good. Now you know how I feel.”
And then we stopped talking.
The map on the table crumpled under my back as he lifted me onto it, his body pinning mine, heat pouring through me in waves.
Boots scuffed on wood, papers fluttered to the floor, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought—if whoever is messed up in this wanted to see us break, he’d never get that satisfaction.
Because Hawk and I didn’t break.
We burned.
“Julia,” he moaned.
His mouth claimed mine again, rough and demanding, as if every word we’d thrown at each other needed to be burned away.
I yanked at his shirt, fingers fisting in the fabric until it tore loose from his waistband.
He growled into the kiss, deep and low, then lifted me higher on the table, sending maps and radios to the floor with one sweep of his arm.
“Hawk—” I gasped as his lips traced down my throat, his three days of whiskers scraping heat into my skin.
“You don’t listen,” he muttered against me, his voice dark, vibrating through my bones. His hands slid under my jacket, palms hot on my ribs. “You never listen.”
“Then make me,” I hissed, arching into him, daring him.
He did.
His mouth found mine again, hard enough to bruise, as his hands stripped my jacket and shirt in one furious motion. My breath caught as cool air hit my bare skin, then his heat was on me again, pinning me, grounding me.
I clawed at his belt, ripping it loose, every move fast and desperate.
The table creaked under us as he shoved my legs apart, stepping between them like he’d been born to fit there.
His hands gripped my thighs, pulling me closer, until I felt the solid, undeniable truth of just how much he wanted me.
“Hawk,” I whispered, not angry now, not even close.
His eyes met mine, blazing with something that was equal parts fury and devotion. “You’re mine, Julia. Always.”
The words undid me.
He surged into me in one fierce motion, and the world fractured. My cry broke against his mouth as he swallowed it, devouring me like he couldn’t get close enough. Every thrust was rough, urgent, but underneath the anger was desperation—like he had to prove I was here, alive, his.
I clung to him, nails digging into his shoulders, back arching as the bed shook under us. I wondered when he had carried me to his bed. My body moved with his, every slam and drag winding me tighter, pulling me to the edge.
“Say it,” he demanded, breath ragged. “Say you’re mine.”
I bit his lip, tasting copper and fire. “Always.”
He groaned, the sound ripped from his chest, and then we were both lost. The world narrowed to heat and heartbeat, to the pounding rhythm of us breaking apart and holding together all at once.
When it ended, when the quake left us shaking and breathless, he stayed there—forehead pressed to mine, sweat and soot and salt on our lips.
No more words. No apologies. Just the raw, unshakable truth between us.
Outside, thunder rolled across the mountains again—the sound of another storm on the horizon.
And for the first time, I wasn’t sure if it was the weather or the war coming for us next.