Page 38 of Zorro

The words slipped out like a confession. Unwelcome. Unpolished.

Pippa frowned for a moment, her eyes flashing with conviction. Her smile didn’t vanish, but it shifted into something quieter. Truer.

“Every woman deserves someone like my husband. Passionate, dedicated, and kind. He only sees me, always.” She gripped Everly’s hand. “Love is blind to everything but what matters. Don't waste your time on men or memories that don’t touch your heart, move you, or make you happy.” That hit Everly like a gut punch. Not because it was cruel. But because it was so…foreign. Intimate in a way that felt almost painful.

For the first time, Everly felt like she was staring at two people who had seen the worst and somehow built something beautiful anyway.

Something that didn’t diminish in the face of trauma.

Something that was more real than she’d ever imagined.

It left her aching with a longing she didn’t have a name for.

Two hours later, showered and unable to believe that was her in the mirror, she went across the hall to show Pippa the whole effect. She lifted her hand to knock, but before she connected, she heard, muffled, but clear enough, “Everly,” Pippa said. “She’s the one, right? Her husband…he refused to leave Shifa Unity Hospital when you were tasked with neutralizing those insurgents outside Kabul.”

Joker’s pause was brief, but the silence felt like a crack of thunder.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s her. Fucker refused to leave. Civilians were already evacuated, the hospital was marked, and we had a hard exfil deadline. I’ve never met anyone more arrogant in my life.”

Everly’s breath caught. She stepped back instinctively, but the words kept coming.

Pippa blew out a soft breath. “That’s saying something, considering who you work with.”

Her voice softened, just enough to make Everly lean in, to ache with the need not to miss a syllable.

“It was kind of you,” Pippa said. “Never telling her. Letting her keep her memory intact. Most wouldn’t have been that generous, especially when she still blames the military for what happened. You could’ve told her. You had every right.”

Joker’s voice came quiet, stripped bare. “To what end? She was already wrecked from the blast. From watching him die. But if you ask me? He never deserved her.”

“God, Elias. I love you so fucking much,” Pippa said.

Everly stood in place, every molecule in her body suddenly dense and trembling, her vision narrowing to a single point of sound. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. The walls around her husband’s legacy weren’t just cracked, they were splintering.

He stayed? He refused to evacuate? He was warned?

The uniform she’d condemned might not have cost her Rob. Maybe it tried to save him. Maybe, God, maybe the man she’d idealized, defended, mourned, had been more flawed than she ever allowed herself to see.

Joker, the man she thought a battle-hardened uniform, had stayed silent. Carried that weight. Chosen compassion over blame. She hadn’t seen that coming. Not from him. Not from any of them.

Her pulse pounded in her ears. Grief, anger, and something sharper than either, doubt, twisted beneath her ribs.

She turned away, but the ground beneath her had shifted. With Joker’s terse words, something inside her would never look at Rob…or Zorro’s team…the same way again.

The curtained hallway behind the stage buzzed with muffled sound, polished shoes against laminate, the soft hiss of headsets, murmured cues. But to Everly, the air felt too thin, like the walls were pressing inward, a crush of silence after what she’d just heard.

She found Madeline adjusting note cards near the lectern, face composed, lips moving silently as she rehearsed. Everly didn’t hesitate. She walked straight toward her, voice low, breath unsteady.

“Did you know Rob was warned?”

Madeline blinked, startled. Her fingers went still over the edge of the podium. “What?” Her eyes widened. “Wow, you look amazing.”

Everly took a half-step forward, her voice cracking. “Did you know? Did he…was he warned before the strike?”

The silence that followed spoke more than any answer. Madeline’s eyes widened in slow horror, the color draining from her face.

“I…I begged him to leave,” she whispered, stunned. “He said they’d overestimated the threat to cover their asses. He refused. Called it a scare tactic. Oh God, Everly…”

Everly couldn’t breathe. Her knees buckled slightly, a cold rush swarming her skin like something had slipped beneath it and started unmaking her from the inside out.

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