Page 48 of Protect Thy Enemy

Chapter Sixteen

Holden

Her question lingers, gnawing at the edges of my mind.Do you know someone named Leo?

I’ve spent years avoiding that name, boxing it away with everything else I failed to protect. But today, it all came rushing back.

Leo was more than a friend. He was the best damn agent I’d ever seen. Until the day he wasn’t. I still see his face in the shadows, the confidence in his grin right before everything fell apart.

And my father? He’d have said Leo made his own mistakes. That loyalty was a liability. My father always knew how to strip emotions from a mission, like carving flesh from bone. But what did that get him in the end? A flag folded over his chest and a son who swore to do things differently.

Now here I am, with Leo’s shadow, his own flesh and blood, and I can’t decide if helping her is honoring his memory or inviting the same destruction back into my life.

My gut reaction had been to lie, to shut down any possibility of her digging further into a name that could unravel everything. But the look in her eyes wasn’t just curiosity. It was vulnerability, raw and unguarded, something I’d never seen from her before.

She doesn’t know. That much is clear. Arden had no idea who her father really was or what he meant to me.

I shouldn’t feel relief. Relief isn’t something I deserve when I’m the one who made a promise to a man with a dying wish. “Take care of her, Holden.”Leo’s voice echoes in my head, as sharp and unyielding as it was back then.

But the truth? I’ve done a terrible job of keeping that promise. I’ve been harder on Arden than I’ve been on anyone else, and for what? To convince myself she’s just another rookie? To pretend I don’t see him every time I look at her?

But that’s not the part that’s messing with me. It’s the pieces of her that are only hers—the quiet determination, the way she always gets back up. It’s maddening and magnetic, and I hate that I see her more clearly than I ever saw him.

The way her shoulders tense before she speaks, the spark in her eyes when she stands her ground, it’s there. But there’s something else, something else uniquely hers. Restraint.

Leo charged forward without hesitation. Arden stops just long enough to doubt herself before stepping into the storm. It makes her different, but I’m not sure if that will save or break her faster.

I rub a hand over my face, the tension in my chest tightening like a vise.

The knock on my door comes before I can spiral any further. I straighten, letting the familiar mask of indifference settle over me.

“Come in,” I call.

“You better be glad I like you,” a familiar voice says as the door swings open, and she strides in without waiting for an invitation. “I could get fired for giving you this.”

Alyssa.

I set my gun back on the table, following her into the living room. She moves like she owns the place, which she might as well. She’s been here countless times, though never for anything personal. It’s always business.

She plops down on the couch, brushing her coat back as she gets comfortable. Outside of Tate and Ma, she’s the only other person to ever sit on it.

But I barely register her presence.

Because no matter how much I try to focus on the present, Arden’s voice still lingers.

And I hate that it does.

“I know, and I appreciate it, Alyssa,” I say, grabbing the coffee I left on the counter.

“Yeah, yeah.” She waves off my thanks. “Where are they?”

Alyssa’s not like the others in intelligence. She’s efficient, blunt, and doesn’t dance around the edges. Plus, she’s Beckett’s ex. The same one he was dating when he fucked my fiancée.

I guess you can say we bonded over a mutual disdain for him, though I try to keep that history buried.

Alyssa, however, is very vocal about her hatred of Beckett.

“Over there.” I point at the small end table by the window where a stack of unsealed baseball cards rests. They were my grandfather’s, something I inherited after he passed. They’re worth more than I’ll ever need, but I have no use for them.

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