Chapter 31
THE RELEASE
SARAH
The safe house is a blur.
Details register in fragments—a nondescript building somewhere between Nevada and Seattle, Cerberus infrastructure that materialized when Ghost made a call. Brick walls. Heavy curtains. A bed that someone made with military precision.
The team disperses with the efficiency of people who’ve done this before. Halo and Ghost to the comms room, already coordinating with Guardian HRS about antidote production. Brass working logistics. Thorne … Thorne disappears into a room at the end of the hall and closes the door.
No one follows him.
Julianna Stratton is somewhere. Under guard. I don’t care where.
My father is dead.
I keep waiting for the feeling to arrive—grief, relief, something.
But there’s just this hollow space where emotion should be, like a room that’s been emptied of furniture.
I know the feelings will come eventually.
They always do. But right now, I’m operating on fumes and muscle memory, moving through the motions of survival because stopping isn’t an option.
“Sarah.” Torque’s voice. Close. He approached silently.
I turn. He’s standing in the doorway of a room I don’t remember entering. Still in his tactical gear, dust from the canyon coating his shoulders, a streak of something dark across his jaw that might be oil or might be blood.
He looks exhausted. Wrung out. Alive.
“You should eat something,” he says. “Or sleep. Or—”
“I don’t want to eat.” The words come out sharper than I intended. “I don’t want to sleep.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t push. Just watches me with those eyes that see too much. “What do you want?”
The question lands somewhere deep. What do I want?
I’ve spent my entire life knowing exactly what I wanted. Order. Control. Distance from my father’s shadow. A career built on merit instead of manipulation. Rules that meant something. Walls that kept me safe.
I got all of it. And right now, standing in a safe house with my father’s blood still drying on the floor of a Nevada dam control room, none of it feels like enough.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
He crosses the room. Slowly. Giving me time to stop him if I need to.
I don’t.
“That’s okay.” He’s close now. Close enough that the scent of the desert is on him—dust and sweat and something warmer underneath. “You don’t have to know. Not tonight.”
“I’ve always known.” My voice cracks. Just a little. “That was the whole point. Know what you want. Make a plan. Execute. Don’t let anyone see you falter.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
A laugh escapes me. Broken, wet, and entirely without humor. “My father’s dead. Phoenix is still alive. The man who saved my life almost killed the only person who can help us stop it. And I’m standing here in dirty tactical gear having an existential crisis.”
“Sounds about right.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“No.” His hand comes up. Hovers near my face without quite touching. “It’s not. It’s very human. You’re still standing. Still fighting. Still here.” His fingers brush my cheek—featherlight, barely there. “That counts for something.”
The touch undoes something in me.
I move. My hands fist in his tactical vest, pulling him toward me with a desperation I didn’t know I was carrying.
Our mouths meet.
Not gentle. Not careful. Not the controlled, measured kisses I’ve offered other men in other lives. This is hunger. This is need. This is years of walls crumbling in a single devastating instant.
He responds immediately. His hands come up to cup my face, tilting my head back, taking control of the kiss with an authority that makes my knees buckle. I let him. God help me, I let him, and it feels like flying.
“Sarah.” He breaks the kiss just far enough to speak. His breath is ragged. His eyes are dark. “We don’t have to—”
“Stop talking.”
I kiss him again. Harder. My fingers find the straps of his vest, fumbling with buckles I don’t understand.
He laughs against my mouth—a low, rough sound that vibrates through me. “Let me.”
His hands replace mine on the straps. Efficient. Practiced. The vest hits the floor with a heavy thud.
“Your turn.” His voice is gravel.
I’m still wearing tactical gear too. Body armor. Utility belt. Layers of protection I strapped on this morning when I thought the hardest thing I’d face today was a canyon full of drones.
My hands are shaking as I reach for the buckles.
His hands cover mine. Steady them.
“I’ve got you.” The words are soft. Almost tender. “Let me.”
I let him.
He undresses me like he’s unwrapping something precious. Each buckle unfastened with care. Each layer is removed and set aside. His eyes never leave mine—watching for hesitation, for doubt, for any sign that I want him to stop.
I don’t want him to stop.
When the armor is gone, I’m standing in just the thin base layer I wore underneath. Exposed. Vulnerable. Everything I’ve spent my life avoiding.
“Sarah.” He says my name like a prayer. Like a question.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Something shifts in his expression. The careful restraint gives way to something hungrier. Something that makes heat pool low in my stomach and my breath catch in my throat.
One moment I’m standing; the next I’m pressed against the wall, his body a wall of heat against mine, his mouth claiming mine with an intensity that steals every thought from my head.
This is what I’ve been missing.
Not just physical contact—I’ve had that before, carefully controlled encounters with carefully selected partners who never pushed past my boundaries because I never let them see the boundaries existed.
This is surrender.
This is letting someone else drive. Closing my eyes and trusting.
His hands are everywhere. Sliding under my shirt, tracing the line of my spine, pulling me closer until there’s no space left between us. I arch into him, chasing sensation, desperate for more.
“Tell me what you want.” His mouth moves to my jaw. My neck. The sensitive spot behind my ear that makes me gasp. “Tell me.”
“I don’t—I don’t know …”
“Yes, you do.” His teeth graze my collarbone. “You’re just afraid to say it.”
He’s right. God, he’s right. I know exactly what I want. I’ve always known. I’ve just never let myself have it.
“You.” The word tears out of me. “I want you. All of you. I want to stop thinking. Stop analyzing. Stop being so goddamn careful all the time.” My voice breaks on the last word. “I want to let go.”
“Then let go.” He pulls back just far enough to meet my eyes. His are dark with want, but underneath that—tenderness. Understanding. “I’ve got you.”
Something cracks open in my chest. The last wall. The final defense.
I let go.
He carries me to the bed.
I should object. I’m perfectly capable of walking. But his arms are around me, and his mouth is on mine, and walking seems like a waste of energy that could be better spent elsewhere.
The mattress hits my back. He follows me down, bracing himself above me, a wall of muscle and heat and barely restrained want.
“You’re still dressed,” I manage.
“Observant.”
“Fix it.”
He laughs—that low, rough sound again—and pulls back long enough to strip off his shirt. He kicks off his boots. The tactical pants follow. Then he’s back, skin against skin, and the sensation is so overwhelming I forget how to breathe.
“Breathe,” he murmurs against my throat. “I need you conscious for this.”
I inhale. Exhale. Force my lungs to cooperate.
His mouth traces a path down my body. Collarbone. Sternum. The valley between my breasts. Each kiss is deliberate. Worshipful. Like he’s mapping territory he intends to claim.
“Levi—”
“I’ve got you.” His hands find the waistband of my underwear. Pause. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
The last barrier disappears.
I’m exposed. Completely. Nothing between us but skin, want, and the trembling recognition that I’ve never been this vulnerable with anyone.
He looks at me like I’m something worth protecting.
“You’re beautiful.” The words are simple. Sincere. “You know that.”
“I—”
“Not a question.” He kisses my hip. My thigh. The inside of my knee. “Statement of fact.”
My hands fist in the sheets. “Levi, please—”
“Please, what?”
I don’t have words. Just need. Just the desperate, aching emptiness that demands to be filled.
He understands anyway.
When he finally, finally settles between my thighs, I’m trembling. Not from fear—from anticipation. From the overwhelming awareness that everything is about to change.
“Look at me.”
I force my eyes open. Meet his gaze.
“Stay with me,” he says. “Right here. Right now. Just us.”
“Just us,” I repeat.
He pushes forward.
The world narrows to sensation. Pressure. Fullness. The stretch, burn, and impossible rightness of his body joining mine. I gasp—or maybe sob—and his mouth finds mine again, swallowing the sound.
“Okay?” The word is strained. He’s holding himself still, every muscle rigid with the effort of not moving.
“Yes.” I wrap my legs around him, pulling him deeper. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
He doesn’t.
Time loses meaning.
There’s just movement. Rhythm. The endless push-and-pull of two bodies learning from each other. His hands in my hair. My nails dig into his back. Words that might be his name, or might be prayers, or might be nothing but sound.
The tension builds. Coils. Threatens to snap.
“Let go.” His voice in my ear, ragged and urgent. “I’ve got you, Sarah. Let go.”
I shatter.
The world dissolves into white noise, sensation, and the overwhelming release of finally, finally surrendering control. He follows me over the edge moments later, his body going rigid, his breath a broken groan against my throat.
We collapse together. Tangled. Trembling. Transformed.
For a long time, neither of us speaks. There’s just the sound of breathing slowly evening out. The weight of his body half-covering mine. The strange, unfamiliar peace of being held without expectation.
“Hey.” His voice is rough. Soft.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
I think about the question. Really think.