Page 28 of Damian
She let out a breath that sounded like something I wanted to keep forever. For once, she didn’t tuck her chin or hide behind the recorder. She let the relief wash across her face like a sun-blink.
Without thinking, a foolish, human thing—maybe the only honest thing I’d done in weeks—I stepped toward her until the space between us was paper-thin. Close enough to see the tiny tremor at the edge of her lip. Close enough that the smell of rain and her hair filled my senses.
“Stay inside tonight,” I said, voice low. Not a command so much as a want carved into stone.
She nodded. “Promise.”
I almost reached for her hand. Not for command. Not for mission. For the small human tether that says you’re still here and I’m still here and we might both survive the next dawn.
But the radio in my ear barked—Cyclone’s urgent, clipped voice—and the moment cracked. Duty slid back into place like armor. I stepped away, because that is what soldiers do. We carry the weight and we fold our needs into the pockets of the mission.
Outside, the farmhouse lights burned like lighthouses in the rain. Inside, Morgan pressed the child to her chest and hummed low, the melody threading itself through the room and, for a second, through me.
We were closer to the truth now. Closer to Ruby. Closer to the people who thought they could trade children like merchandise.
Closer, too, to a line I’d been avoiding: when the job and the man who did the job began to bleed into the person who wanted a different thing entirely. I didn’t know where that line would be drawn.
All I knew was this: whatever it cost, I’d walk it. And if walking it meant keeping Morgan safe—no matter how much she upset whatever careful life I’d built—then I’d do it.
For her. For Ruby. For all the children. For the small, stubborn mercy of the world.
The kids were taken to the authorities, who would give them back to their families.
33
Damian
The radio chatter still hissed faint in my ear, but the farmhouse had gone quiet again—too quiet for my head to match. My pulse hadn’t come down from the op, every muscle still tight like I was waiting for a door to kick open.
River had parked the van by the barn, Cyclone already inside cataloging the intel haul, his fingers flying over keys. The kids we pulled out were tucked in blankets near the fire, Morgan hovering like a guardian angel with her recorder forgotten on the table.
I leaned against the doorframe, rifle slung low, and told myself I was here to guard the perimeter. Truth was, I couldn’t stop watching her.
Her hair was damp, sticking to her temples. Her voice was low, steady, whispering some melody I didn’t recognize as she coaxed a child to drink water. Every move was patient, deliberate, like she’d done this before—held people together with nothing but tone and stubbornness.
Bloody hell. My chest ached.
River caught my eye as he handed off a thermal blanket.His brow lifted in that way that said he knew exactly where my head had gone. I ignored him. Habit. I’d been ignoring his smirks since Bagram. But this time it wasn’t just camaraderie he was smirking at—it was weakness.
I pushed off the wall, scanning the windows, reminding myself of the threat list. Hemsley. Caldwell. Luthor. The Holloway Trust. Every name was a reason to keep distance, every reason carved deeper than instinct.
Still, when Morgan looked up—just a flicker of her eyes toward me—it pinned me to the spot harder than any firefight. There was no fear in her gaze anymore, not tonight. Only something else. Trust, maybe. Or worse.
I’d seen what trust does. It frays. It cuts. It bleeds out on some dirt road and leaves you with nothing but ghosts.
And yet… part of me wanted to hold onto it anyway. Wanted her to keep looking at me like that.
I dragged my gaze away, tightening the strap across my chest, forcing breath steady. I wasn’t here to be wanted. I was here to finish a war I’d been fighting too damn long.
But for the first time in years, the battlefield felt like it was shifting under my boots. And it had Morgan Tate’s face written all over it.
34
Damian
The farmhouse had that fragile hush that follows a storm — not empty, but full of small, careful sounds: the whisper of a blanket, the soft breathing of children who had finally slept, the low scrape of a chair as someone moved without waking the rest. I stood in the doorway and watched Morgan by the window. Rain tracked a slow path down the glass and caught the light like tiny, obedient stars.
She looked smaller in the dim than she had in my memory of her voice — less a hurricane and more a steady flame. She’d done something tonight that had nothing to do with plans or lists: she’d made a child feel safe. That was sacred work. It made the rest of what we did feel like paperwork and wind.
