Page 93 of Over the Edge

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me down onto the bed. I was strong—at least I had been before spending two weeks flat on my back healing—but Ethan was a mountain. I had no choice but to do what he said.

He paced and I could all but see the steam rising from his head.

“You want to know why she killed Moreau instead of bringing him in?” I asked after several charged moments of silence. “Because while we were paralyzed by those drones, he put his hands on her. Touched her when she couldn’t move, couldn’t defend herself.”

Ethan stopped moving like he’d hit a wall and his face drained of color. “She didn’t include that in her report.”

“Of course she didn’t. She knows what the team thinks of her—that she’s just filling Maya’s shoes. That she’s expendable. That her trauma doesn’t matter as long as the mission gets completed. She deserves better from her team and her leader.”

“You’re right.” Ethan’s broad shoulders dropped and he scrubbed his face with both hands. He suddenly looked exhausted. “She needs you, Flynn.”

I looked up sharply, searching his face for any sign he was manipulating me. Ethan and I had history—complicated, messy history that had left us both with scars that went deeper than skin. Trust didn’t come easy between us, not anymore.

“That’s quite an admission coming from you,” I said carefully. “Considering you spent the first half of the mission trying to keep us apart.”

A shadow passed over his face. “I was wrong.”

Now that was unexpected. Ethan Voss admitting he was wrong was about as common as snow in the Sahara.

“Say that again? I think I might still have neural damage affecting my hearing.”

His lips twitched. “Don’t push it, Shepherd.” Then the almost-smile faded. “Maya’s death... it messed me up. I couldn’t see past it. Couldn’t accept anyone taking her place on the team.”

“Lyric never tried to take her place. She just wanted to do the job and be accepted.”

“I know that. Now.” Ethan looked down at his hands, flexing them as if testing their strength. “Watching you nearly die in that helicopter... it brought back Yemen. All of it.”

The name of that godforsaken country hung between us, heavy with unspoken history. Seven years of silence, of blame and guilt and things we’d both said that couldn’t be unsaid.

“Yemen was a clusterfuck,” I said finally. “Bad intel, worse timing, and decisions made under impossible pressure.”

“I made the wrong call,” Ethan said flatly.

I couldn’t hide my wince. I’d always wondered if he regretted coming back for me that day. Now I knew for sure. “Yeah, you should’ve left my dumb ass. Command would have considered me an acceptable loss.”

“I don’t leave my people behind,” Ethan replied with unexpected vehemence. “Not then, not now.”

I blinked. Despite everything, despite the years of resentment between us, Ethan had never stopped considering me one of his people.

“Don’t look at me like I’ve grown another head.” He scowled. “Going back for you was the right call, and every single man there that day agreed. I never regretted it. The wrong call—he one I regret—was moving up the timeline based on intel my gut told me not to trust. I knew it was thin, but you were so certain, and I was under pressure from command to deliver results, so I sent my guys into that kill zone. I’ve carried that,” he added, his voice dropping to nearly a whisper. “Every mission since. Every team I’ve led.”

I stared at him, caught off guard by this voluntary breach in his carefully constructed defenses. In seven years, he’d never once acknowledged any part of that clusterfuck had been his decision, his mistake. It had always been mine—I was the one with the dirty informant, the faulty intel. I was the one who disobeyed orders in my desperation to salvage the mission. “If I hadn’t gone back in after you ordered us out, they’d all still be alive. We both fucked up.”

Ethan nodded. “And Perez, Jackson, and Chen paid for our mistakes. They deserved better from both of us.”

I nodded, unable to speak past the sudden tightness in my throat. Tommy Perez, with his collection of bad jokes and worse tattoos. Nick Jackson, who’d been three weeks away from becoming a father. Henry Chen, the newest member of our unit, barely twenty-two and still believing he was invincible.

“I made sure their families were taken care of,” Ethan said, his eyes now fixed on some point beyond my shoulder.

I hadn’t known that. It was so characteristically Ethan, handling the responsibility without fanfare, without seeking absolution or recognition.

“They were good operators,” I said. “Good men.”

“Yes.” Ethan’s agreement was simple but heartfelt. “The best.”

It wasn’t warm and fuzzy, but it was the closest thing to closure we were likely to get. Some wounds never fully heal—they just become part of you, changing how you move through the world.

Ethan nodded, a ghost of relief passing across his features. He produced a thick envelope from under his jacket and dropped it on the end of the bed.

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