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“I do.” I had. Too damn well.

“Then you have to know what she needs isn’t a saint or saints? She doesn’t need us to parachute in and out. She needs apackaround her.” He pointed the blade at me. “A pack that will defend her and let her defend us. She told you herself, don’t you remember?”

“She said to use her like a weapon.” I remembered. “We did. It put her in O’Rourke’s crosshairs.”

“She was already in them.” Lunchbox huffed out a breath. “We’d have to be pretty fucking stupid to think his appearance there has nothing to do with Reznik’s in Monaco. Reznik is involved. Grace is on their lists. We were there. It’s not a huge stretch to link us to her.”

“After the chateau, O’Rourke has his supposition confirmed.” If I’d been closer, I could have just ended it right there and right then. Eliminating him took a lesser priority than getting Grace out.

“Well, we can’t exactly put the cat back in the bag.” He finished cutting up the last of the potatoes and rinsed off the knife, then the board before he washed his own hands. Only when he was done and drying them did he face me again. “Even if we could, I wouldn’t.”

“No?” I raised my brows. “Tying her to us only adds fresh targets to her back.” For anyone who wanted to get to us, shewould be the leverage they needed. We’d kill them. All of them. But it wouldn’t take the target off.

It wouldn’t let her go home.

“No, I wouldn’t. Because A, the guys want her. They want her and they care. B, I’m not backing off. Not now. Not after she’s let me see her. All of her.” He sounded damn near reverent. “I wasn’t interested in retreating before, I damn well won’t now.”

He went to the cabinet and pulled out a bowl before he retrieved eggs.

“So either you step up or just get the fuck out of the way, Cap. Don’t make us choose between you and her.” He cracked the first egg into the bowl. “She needs us. We need her. If you were honest with yourself, you’d admit that you aren’t immune. It’s that simple.”

We both wanted to protect her. That was obvious. But he wanted to dive in with her. No tempering with restraint or caution. He was as lost as Voodoo and Alphabet were.

“She’s not ready for this,” I said, rising with my empty coffee cup. “She’s not ready for what we are.”

Lunchbox laughed. “None of us were ready.” He spread his arms. “Yet here we are.”

“They key is wechosethis life.”

“You think she hasn’t?” He looked genuinely shocked as I split the remaining pot between his cup and my own. Then I took the time to set up another one. “You’re not that blind, Cap. You can’t be.”

“She didn’t choose,” I reminded him. “She was kidnapped. Assaulted. Raped. Kidnapped again. Physically abused. Then she’s been attacked repeatedly—that’s not choosing, Legend. You damn well know that.”

We didn’t generally rely on the names we were born with, choosing to be the team we were.

“Cap, Alphabet didn’t choose to have his leg blown off. He didn’t choose to be so wrecked that he needed a dog to help him with episodes and to manage his PTSD. Doc didn’t choose to—” He cut off there and sighed, hands braced against the counter.

“We signed up,” I reminded him. “Each and every one of us signed up, trained, and went into our service with our eyes open. Were we betrayed? Yes. Did it cost us? Yes. Doc went into that conflagration to get Alphabet. There isn’t a single one of us who wouldn’t have done the same damn thing.”

Facing him across the island, I met his gaze and didn’t flinch.

“Everything that’s happened to Grace… everything from the time they took her until we got to France, even some of it here, has not been because of her choices.”

“She asked for our help.”

“I know she did. We’re going to help her.” That wasn’t even a question. “But she wouldn’t be here out of choice. She’s here because the choices of others have forced her hand.”

Lunchbox bowed his head, his throat convulsing once before he snapped it up to stare at me. “Look me in the eye and tell me she doesn’t belong with us. That she doesn’tburnfor every single one of us in a different way.”

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

I’d held her when the nightmares came and the fear tried to tear her apart. I’d fought that fear, using her own body to wrest her free of it.

“You care about her. I get it.” Lunchbox’s voice was deceptively quiet. The coffeemaker hissed and spit as it brewed. Outside, the sky grew lighter. “You’re just trying not to drown in it. But me? I’ll drown. Happily.”

I sighed. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. They’d all go over that cliff and into the rapids. They’d let the water sweep them away.

After a moment, Lunchbox went back to cracking eggs as he cleared his throat. “So now we’ve got a problem. We’ve got Reznik and O’Rourke, alive and hunting. And we’ve got Grace, running hot and not stopping to breathe. So what’s our move, Cap?”

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