Page 83 of Zorro

She nodded once. Barely.

He looked at her, eyes dark, steady. “But it’s dangerous, Everly. For guys like me, tunneling too deep gets you killed. You lose your angles. You lose your six. You lose yourself.”

Her breath shivered.

“I’ve seen it happen. Brilliant operators. Gone. Not from a bullet. From tunnel vision.”

His hand covered hers and he slipped his arm under her body and dragged her against him. God, he wanted her all over again.

“So I get it now,” he said. “What you did. After Rob died. You didn’t freeze. You tunneled. Your three-foot world shrank to whatever patient was bleeding in front of you. Whatever kid you could drag back from the edge. You locked the rest out so you wouldn’t feel the holes.”

Tears slid sideways across her temple. Silent.

“You’re right. It works,” he whispered. “Until it doesn’t.”

Her hand moved, just slightly. Reached for his wrist. Anchored there.

He swallowed. “You lived inside that trauma. Day after day. Country after country. In places that smell like blood and diesel and shit. I’ve been there too. I know what it does to a body. To a soul.”

Her lips parted, but no words came.

So he gave her his.

“You’re not weak,” he said, voice breaking. “You were just surviving. The best way you could. If I had lost one of my brothers in that blast? If I thought someone had let it happen? I’d have hated every fucking operator in uniform too.”

Her breath hitched, and her grip on his wrist tightened.

He shifted, just enough to slide his arm beneath her head. Drew her against his chest, into his arms. His voice stayed close to her ear, a murmur built for battlefields and confessions.

“But you’re here now. You’re back. I’m right here in your three-foot world, Everly. I am not letting go.”

She sobbed once, small, broken.

He kissed her temple.

“I’m not afraid of your grief,” he whispered. “I’ve carried worse. Just don’t ask me to walk away from you now. I couldn’t. Even if I wanted to.”

She didn’t respond with words.

She just burrowed closer, tears soaking his skin, her breath stuttering against the curve of his throat.

“Did you know?”

He frowned at the mortification in her voice, and it hurt him to hear it. “Know what?”

“That Rob lied to me, lured me into that blast. He said it was the military’s fault when all along, he was warned to evacuate. His ego won out over his life…and mine.”

“That fucking bastard,” Zorro said, his anger like a blast of fire through his blood. “I’d kill him if he wasn’t already dead.”

“He hurt me, Mateo. So badly before we went to Afghanistan,” she whispered.

“How. Tell me how, and I’ll fix it. I’ll heal it. I’ll give you my truth.” Her breath hitched and she cried harder. He pulled her body tighter against him. “Give me all your pain. I can handle it.”

“He took the contract that was meant for me. He was always undermining me, every step, and I swallowed it. I thought I was being the perfect wife.” Her bitterness burned him. “He said I was too good for anyone to love.”

Zorro stiffened. “He said what to you? Goddammit.”

“It had a nasty meaning. He meant I was such a know-it-all bitch, no one would ever love me.”

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