Page 89 of Duty Compromised
“Noted,” Ethan said dryly. “But since Dr. Gifford is the only reason we have a chance of stopping this thing, maybe focus on the mission instead of your feelings.”
He was right. I knew he was right. But every protective instinct I’d developed over years of security work screamed that Charlotte belonged behind layers of protection, not heading into the lion’s den with us.
Except she’d been in danger from the moment she’d created the Cascade Protocol. Hell, she’d been targeted, attacked, nearly killed multiple times already. At least here, with us, I could protect her directly.
The van slowed as we approached where we’d be leaving Charlotte—an abandoned office building that had seen better decades. Windows were boarded up, graffiti covered most surfaces, and the parking lot looked like a minefield of potholes and broken glass.
“Home sweet home,” Ethan muttered.
He pulled around back, out of sight from the main road. The warehouse where the buy was being held was a couple hundred meters down the road. Charlotte would still be too close to the action for my liking, but at least not in the same building.
“Donovan, you’re on protection detail with Charlotte,” I said as everyone started moving. “If things go sideways?—”
“I got it.” My brother nodded, understanding the weight of that assignment. If things went bad, his only job was getting her out alive.
I helped Charlotte set up in one of the offices. Her equipment spread across a dusty desk—the laptop, the stabilizer, various cables and devices I didn’t recognize.
“This should work,” she said, fingers flying across the keyboard. “I can monitor the Protocol’s frequency from here and deploy the countermeasure when you give the signal.”
I watched her work, memorizing the way she bit her lower lip when concentrating, the little furrow between her eyebrows when something didn’t compute correctly. We’d never had that conversation we were supposed to have. Never talked about what happened at the motel, what it meant, where we went from here. There hadn’t been time.
Now I wished I’d made fucking time.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she said without glancing up.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to memorize my face.”
I reached out, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Maybe I am.”
Her fingers stilled on the keyboard. She looked up at me then, those green eyes holding mine with an intensity that made my chest tighten.
“You’re coming back,” she said. Not a question. A statement. An order from someone used to dealing in absolutes and proven theorems.
“That’s the plan.”
“No.” She stood, closing the distance between us. “Not the plan. A certainty. You come back to me, Ty Hughes. That’s nonnegotiable.”
The fierce determination in her voice nearly undid me. This brilliant, awkward, beautiful woman who approached human interaction like complex equations had just claimed me as hers. And God help me, I wanted to be claimed.
“Charlotte—”
She kissed me.
It wasn’t gentle or tentative. She kissed me like she was trying to anchor me to this moment, to her, like she could keep me safe through sheer force of will. Her hands fisted in my tactical vest, pulling me closer, and I forgot about the mission, the danger, everything except the taste of her mouth and the way she fit against me.
When she finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
“Come back to me,” she whispered.
I cupped her face in my hands, brushing my thumbs across her cheekbones. “Always.”
The word hung between us, heavy with promise and possibility. Then Ethan’s voice crackled through the comms.
“Five minutes to showtime. Volkov needs his wingman.”
I pressed my forehead to Charlotte’s for a heartbeat, breathing her in. Then I stepped back, shifting into operational mode. Personal had to wait. The mission came first.
