Chapter 6 Sabine
SABINE
The house is quiet when I unlock the door and step inside.
My bag drops to the floor near the door and I kick off my boots.
It's been a long day, and my mind has suffered the strain of too much stress.
I want a drink and dinner and to unwind, but I can't have any of that because I have a man in my house.
I have to play nurse or mother and pray he's not like Bryan in any way.
I hear movement in the bathroom and start to move that way, and when I round the corner I find Jace sitting on the closed toilet lid with his jeans pushed down around his knees and fresh gauze scattered across the tile floor.
He's trying to clean the wound himself with clumsy hands and uncoordinated movements.
I can see immediately just looking at him that he's still feverish, maybe worse than this morning.
The bandage I applied is soaked through with blood and sickly yellow puss, and when he reaches for the antiseptic bottle his hand shakes enough that half the liquid spills onto the floor instead of the gauze.
"Give me that…" The command comes out automatically. I'm exhausted and running on no sleep, and years of giving and taking orders have given me an edge. "You're making a mess and doing more harm than good."
He looks up at me in a daze, and I think he'll argue, but his shoulders drop slightly and he sets the bottle on the counter. He's on something too, some sort of pain meds, I'm assuming.
"Where'd you get all this?" My hands gesture at the supplies scattered across the bathroom, the bottles of antibiotics and pain medication that definitely didn't come from my first aid kit. "These aren't over-the-counter."
"I robbed a pharmacy, okay?" His irritation is noted. I guess that probably comes from the pain, or the high. Either one could do it. "Couldn't exactly walk in and ask for the shit, could I?"
The answer shouldn't surprise me but it does anyway, and the frustration that's been building since I left for work this morning finally finds an outlet as I snap, "You robbed a pharmacy."
"Yes." His eyes meet mine, and there's a challenge in his gaze, daring me to make an issue out of what he already knows was necessary. Drawing more attention to what we're doing is a bad idea. But I suppose letting him go septic and die is a worse idea.
"With a gun, I assume." My hands are already reaching for the antiseptic and fresh gauze. I'll still bitch at him, but there's no sense in wasting the perfectly good supplies. "In broad daylight, in a neighborhood where people pay attention to this sort of thing."
"It was handled—and don’t worry, no one saw my truck." The defensive edge in his tone makes it clear he doesn't appreciate the interrogation, and I have to resist the urge to pour the entire bottle of antiseptic directly onto his wound just to make him shut up.
"We can't draw attention to ourselves if we're going to work together. Every move you make that puts us on anyone's radar makes this harder, and I don't have the luxury of cleaning up your messes while trying to keep my own career from imploding."
"I needed antibiotics." He winces when I push a little too hard, and I don't regret it.
"What the fuck did you want me to do, Staff Sergeant?
" I bristle at how he emphasizes my rank like it's a curse word.
"Sit here and hope the infection cleared itself while you were at work pretending everything's normal? "
That's clearly meant as an insult, and something flares in my chest because I've spent two years being dismissed and undermined by men who thought my authority was negotiable.
"I would've had you wait until I got home so we could figure it out together instead of going rogue and robbing the first pharmacy you found. "
Throwing the gauze and gritting my teeth, I gesture wildly with my hands. "Like call a fucking army medic friend of mine. I have other ways to get shit without stealing. You need to listen to me."
"I don't take orders from you." He shifts on the toilet seat and winces at the movement. "I'm not in your chain of command and this isn't a military operation. You want my help finishing your vendetta against Bryan, that's fine. But don't mistake cooperation for subordination."
The words are designed to put me in my place and remind me that he's not one of my soldiers and I can't boss him around the way I'm used to doing.
The problem is that I'm too tired and too frustrated to care about his ego right now, and the bottle of antiseptic in my hand provides a perfect opportunity to end this argument before it escalates further.
My hand tips the bottle and pours the liquid directly onto his open wound without warning, and the reaction is immediate and satisfying.
He jerks back with a shout that echoes off the bathroom tiles, his hand flying to his thigh and his face contorting with pain that cuts through whatever response he was about to give me.
"Feel better?" My voice stays calm while I set the bottle aside and reach for clean gauze. "Or do you need another reminder that antagonizing the person who's keeping you alive is a bad tactical decision?"
He glares at me with his hand still pressed against his leg and his breathing turns harsh.
But he doesn't say anything. This is a standoff, and neither of us is willing to back down until finally, he moves his hand and lets me continue working.
The fight goes out of his posture and he just sits there while I clean the wound properly and apply fresh bandages, his jaw clenched and his eyes fixed on the wall above my head.
For not being ex-military, he sure acts like a trained soldier at times.
That makes me wonder what sort of life he's had and how he was raised. When I finish taping the gauze in place, I sit back on my heels and meet his eyes. "Why did you agree to help me?"
He licks his lips with a glower on his face, then rakes his teeth over his bottom lip before eying me. "You had a gun to my fucking head. And I wasn't sure I had a choice."
"And you came back after robbing that pharmacy… You could've gone anywhere." My hands gather the used supplies and dispose of them in the trash. "You could've just killed me in my sleep, planted a bomb or something, and finished your list…"
I've got most of everything picked up before he even sighs heavily, and I still don't have answers.
I know for me that I need his muscle and the way he thinks like a criminal.
If not, some of these men on the list will be a handful.
But I have to question them all to see who will fight with me. But I don't see what's in it for him.
When he doesn't answer, I turn and walk out. I don’t think I'll ever get a straight answer out of him. He's using me, no different from the way I'm using him, and that's it. Right now, it's a functional partnership, and that's all I need.
I head to the kitchen and pull out a frozen pizza from the freezer. Then I set the timer on the oven and set the temperature to four hundred degrees before turning back to tear the pizza box open. When I hear his footsteps behind me, I steady myself.
Jace Morelli owes me nothing at all. I could very well have killed him.
I still could. I bested him at full strength.
I could take him right now with the fever and the stab wound.
But unlike him, I really am not a murderer.
I don't want to kill. Not even Jason Bryan.
He's a lowlife dirtbag, but he deserves a fair trial and a life in prison where he'll rot for the things he did. A bullet is too easy, too quick.
"I'm sorry he hurt you…" Jace's voice is soft, a rumble that makes goosebumps rise on my arms.
"What do you mean?" I don't turn around to face him because I have no one to answer to but myself. I don't know what he knows or how he knows it, but I know Bryan buried things deep.
"I read your journal, Sabine. I know what he did to you."
Those words make me freeze. When I left this morning, I knew he would go through my things.
I just didn’t think he'd actually read my diary.
I pegged him as more of the "take her money and run" sort of person.
This feels like a violation, but also like a relief. I don't have to say the words to him.
I can't say any words to him anyway. I'm frozen there, planted like a thirty-year oak with no way to articulate the storm of emotion just those words bring up in my mind and heart.
Footsteps cross the kitchen behind me and then his hands are on my shoulders. He doesn't try to turn me around or force me to look at him. He just stands there with his hands on my shoulders while I shake and struggle to breathe through the memories that won't stop flooding back.
Bryan is a pig, a monster of a man, and I hate him. I hate what he did to me. I hate how I hate myself because of what he did to me.
Then Jace's hands slide down my arms. He moves closer until he warps them around me and rests his chin against the crown of my head, and I break.
Tears well up, and my chest heaves. I've never been able to let this out, never a tear over this because I'm trained to push that emotion away. But somehow in his arms, I let it flow.
"They dismissed everything," I sob. "Pushed me out of Special Forces, stuck me behind a desk… And Bryan walked away clean. The fucker!"
The shaking is getting worse and tears are burning down my cheeks, years of refusing to cry finally catching up with me in my own kitchen while a man I tried to kill yesterday stands behind me offering silent support.
I haven't cried since the night it happened because breaking down means admitting that what Bryan did ruined me and that he won.
"I will help you take that bastard down." His arms tighten around me, and the baritone of his voice rumbles through me. "Whatever it takes, however long it takes. We're gonna expose that motherfucker for everything he's done and make sure he pays for all of it."
I'm crying silently with my face turned away and my hands still gripping the counter. Jace doesn't move or try to force me to look at him, and somehow, that makes it easier to let the tears fall without feeling weak or exposed.
Something about him makes me feel safe. Maybe it's the fact that he's outside the military system that failed me. Maybe it's the understanding in his voice when he promised to help. Maybe it's just exhaustion and desperation making me reach for any anchor I can find in the chaos of what's coming.
But standing here in my kitchen with his arms around me while I cry for the first time in years… I'm grateful he's here.
The tears slow eventually and I straighten, wiping my face with the back of my hand and taking a shaky breath that feels cleansing now. Jace's hands slide from my shoulders and he steps back to give me space, and when I finally turn to face him, his expression is serious but not pitying.
"Thank you." The words feel inadequate, but they're all I have, and he nods once in acknowledgment before limping back toward the bathroom to vanish and give me privacy.
I don't know how to reconcile what just happened except that I’m finally doing what I should've done years ago when this all happened, and somehow, the man who came here to kill me has had a sudden change of heart.
I can only hope that change of heart lasts.
Otherwise, I may as well just let him finish what he started. Because I'm as good as dead.