Page 128 of Zorro

Bear’s jaw dropped. “He flew to the Philippines?”

Buck nodded solemnly. “Used your phone. Booked a ticket. Then vanished like a lovesick commando.” Buck sighed. “There’s a text here, Bear.”

“Read it,” Bear said, unable to keep the smirk off his face.

“Sorry, man. I’m good for the cash, and you know where I live.”

Bear lost it and laughed.

Joker ran his hand down his face. “Goddammit, Martinez. Whose clothes did he confiscate? How could he have gotten—” He reached into his back pocket. “Fuck. He stole his phone back while I was sleeping. That sneaky, ninja bastard.”

D-Day muttered, “That’s one determined bastard.” But that’s a Navy SEAL in action. Strung out on meds, stealing hospital scrubs, most likely, ninjaing his phone back from a sleeping, lethal CO with the same skills, like taking candy from a baby. Yeah, we’re in the midst of Operation Lovesick, and he’s owning our asses. Wounded, recovering…damn, LT. You gotta give him props.”

I’m going to give him a boot in his ass,” Joker said.

Buck looked at them both. “Sounds like we’re forming a posse, boys.”

“You bringing rope, Buck?”

Buck laughed. “I’ll take any chance I get to rope that son of a bitch, but no, he’s wounded and lovesick. I do have a heart.”

“Even if it is two sizes too small.” D-Day deadpanned.

Bear winced as he laughed. “Dammit, get out of here before you break open my stitches. I need updates.”

Joker’s jaw ticked. “We’re not letting him pull this stunt alone.”

Bear, still reeling, exhaled. “He’s high on Everly crack, cut him some slack.”

Buck grinned, tossing Bear’s phone back on the bed. “Exactly why we’re going after that outlaw pain in the ass.” He looked at the others. “Let’s ride.”

Bunawan District Hospital, Agusan del Sur province, on the island of Mindanao, Philippines – Twenty-Four Hours Later

Everly watched her final patient leave with a nod and a thank-you that barely registered. The door clicked shut, and the silence that followed felt heavier than it should have. Her smile, the one she’d pasted on all day, fell away the moment her face was alone again. It had only lived in her facial muscles anyway.

She pulled out her phone.

Three more texts from Zorro. She had kept her responses short so he would rest. Her heart clenched so hard it felt like someone had gripped it in their fist and squeezed. She set her hands on the gurney, fingers splaying wide, grounding herself in the cold metal while everything in her threatened to come unglued.

Zorro.

Going down.

The weight of his body as it collapsed. The way she had killed that man to protect him, fast, brutal, surgical. She still saw it when she closed her eyes. Heard the blade hit bone. She’d had nightmares. Still did. But she couldn’t regret it. She wouldn’t.

She had always known what he was. What he did. The kind of force he carried in every muscle of his body. She’d seen it up close now, the way he moved when lives were on the line, the power he wielded, not just to destroy but to protect. That was what undid her. That was the part that shook her to her marrow.

This was the man she loved.

The man she wasn’t sure she could live without.

Her body trembled with the need to see him, to touch him, to reassure herself he was alive. She knew she was driving him crazy. Again. But she had to leave. She hated it but she’d had no choice. She wasn’t going to tell him what she needed to tell him over text or the phone, especially not until she had clarity. Not this thundering ache that clouded every decision.

But it hurt. God, it hurt. Her flight left in four hours, and she wished she could sprout wings and just fly to him now.

If it hadn’t been for finishing out her contract with Doctors for the World, she would have been in San Diego already. Sitting beside his hospital bed, fingers tangled with his, making jokes about sponge baths and bad cable.

In Rio, before she left, Joker’s team had returned to the field. BOPE had gone back in after Black Dawn. The insurgent cell was shattered, Batiste dead, taken down when Bear had rescued Bailee the first time. It could have been worse—should have been worse. But it hadn’t been because of his team, because of that impossible unity she had only ever seen the surface of in Niamey.

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