Savannah James was having a good week. The two children rescued from South Sudan had identified two individuals known to work for General Lawiri as the market’s primary muscle. Now all she needed to know was who Lawiri’s partner was, because the whole operation had been far too well managed for the likes of Lawiri. Add to that Etefu Desta had broken under CIA interrogation and they had a solid lead for bringing down the Djiboutian minister who’d conspired with him to steal water from Djibouti. And her friend—well, the closest thing she had to one here, anyway—archaeologist Morgan Adler, was on the base for a few days. Savvy would have a chance to pick her brain for insight into the growing problem of artifact smuggling in the region.

But best of all, Sergeant Cassius Callahan was in the gym, oblivious to Savvy’s presence as he sparred with Pax.

Both men had pared down to simple exercise shorts and boxing gloves, and they both had sculpted, beautiful, sweaty bodies. Pax, slightly taller and broader, bore the dusky complexion of a southern European, while Cal was chestnut-skinned, hard-muscled perfection.

Their battle was friendly but still a competition. Like all Special Forces, they wanted to be the most alpha in the Army, and would happily take out their best buddy to prove it.

She enjoyed watching Cal when he didn’t know she was there.

It was twisted, how she wanted him yet relished pissing him off. He never balked at letting her know how little he respected her, which of course meant she was determined to show him how much she didn’t give a fuck.

But still, watching him as he battled his best friend was hot as hell. Sweat glistened on his brown skin.

She hated how attracted to him she was.

Yet she couldn’t stop looking. Wanting.

She needed to get laid. It was that simple. But being CIA…made casual sex very complicated. Male undercover operators were encouraged to use prostitutes. For some reason, women weren’t granted the same dubious license.

She knew the exact moment when her presence registered with Cal, because he dropped his guard and Pax nailed him in the jaw.

“Shit, Cal, what’s wrong with you?” Pax said in lieu of apology.

Cal merely grunted and jabbed with his left. Game on. The two sparred and Savvy turned to the free weights. Maybe Morgan would spar with her later. Scratch that. Morgan was probably still in a cast. Savvy lost herself in the pain of her workout, forgetting Cal, Pax, and Morgan as she pushed herself to the limit and beyond.

She switched from weights to pull-up bars, then moved on to barbells. She was coated with sweat, muscles shaking with fatigue, when a shadow loomed over her, drawing her attention. She racked the barbell, knowing from the damn tingle in her neck exactly who stood behind her. Was it his scent? Whatever it was, it was unconscious.

And irritating.

“You shouldn’t do that shit without a spotter.”

Easier said than done. Most people disliked her. She was an unrepentant, manipulative spook. “Are you volunteering, Sergeant Callahan?”

“No.”

“Then fuck off.” But she said it sweetly, because she was nice that way. She lifted the bar again and resumed her bench presses. She grunted as she forced the bar upward, each press harder than the last even though the weight hadn’t changed.

She hated bench pressing. Hated weight lifting. But it was better than ninety percent of her other options in that moment, so she forced the bar upward. She’d reward herself for this awful workout with ice cream tonight. A poor substitute for sex, but it would have to do.

Her arms shook, but she did it. Again and again. She knew her breaking point, and she was one press away. One more and she’d be done.

She held the bar an inch above her chest, gathering her strength, when hands swooped in and lifted and racked the bar.

Her muscles rejoiced, but her brain balked. She’d been coiled and ready to go—like a sneeze that never happened—and the denial of the last pain irked. “I didn’t ask for your help, Sergeant Callahan.”

“I don’t give a fuck, Savvy. You were done.”

There he was, using the nickname again. When Morgan insisted on calling her that, Savvy had fantasized about hearing Cal say it in a hot, breathless voice. This wasn’t the same.

She bolted upright, her legs straddling the bench as she twisted to face him. “No one tells me when I’m done.”

He circled around her, hovering above, his handsome face a hardened mask of dislike. He leaned down to her ear and whispered. “Sweetheart, you can’t fake it with me. I know when you’re done.”

The innuendo ran across her nerves, and it took all her training in masking emotion to hold back a shiver.

Fuck, he was dangerous. Worse, he knew it.

He tossed her a towel. “Hit the shower.”

Special Forces were all egotistical assholes, and Cal was the worst of the bunch. She scanned the room for Pax. He, at least, respected her. But she and Cal were alone.

“I’m not in your chain of command, Sergeant, and even if I were, I’d outrank you.” As a SAD officer, her training matched his, but she worked alone, and her rank was…undefined. But then, he didn’t even know she was in SAD. The only thing people here knew about her was that she didn’t seem to be an analyst and wielded a strange amount of power for a case officer. But then, her position was unique, given that she’d been an analyst once upon a time, followed by case officer, before going through the equivalent of special forces training so she could join the ranks of the Special Activities Division.

She held Cal’s gaze and caught the heat. He liked her asserting her secret rank. He was curious about her.

“Why are you messing with my boy Bastian?” he suddenly asked.

His boy? Bastian outranked him. She rolled her eyes. “I’m not messing with Bastian.”

“You’re fucking with his mind, manipulating him. Twisting the screws. I saw the way he looked at Brie Stewart on the carrier deck. And she didn’t look at him at all. People are going to get hurt.”

“He’s a grown man and a Special Forces officer. I think he can take care of himself. And if Gabriella Prime gets hurt, it’s her own damn fault for not coming clean from the get-go.”

“Her name is Brie Stewart. But all you see is a Prime, right?”

Fuck.

“I don’t answer to you, Sergeant. And for the record, we’re on the same damn side. If Brie Stewart has information that can explain what happened in South Sudan, I need to know what it is. Bastian understands that.”

Cal just glared at her, holding her gaze.

She felt a charge as energy pulsed between them. Then he broke the spell by turning and leaving the gym.

Brie sat at a corner table in Barely North, the same place where she’d first met Bastian, her eyes fixed on the door, eagerly waiting for him. They’d been helicoptered to the base earlier in the day and separated upon arrival. Bastian had gone to meet with his team and SOCOM, and she’d been assigned a CLU, where she’d settled in before checking in at the medical clinic, then meeting with Savvy.

Day had faded into evening, and Bastian promised to meet her here as soon as he was free. She fiddled with the straw in her Coke, lost in memories of the night before.

The way he’d kissed her with aching slowness. Gently. Sweetly. He’d made her tremble with need, then delivered what she wanted, but on his terms. He’d employed a seductive tenderness that had been impossible to prevent or resist.

She was falling for him. Hard.

She doubted he’d been out of her thoughts for even a minute since she’d slipped from his bed at dawn after three rounds of making love over the course of the night.

The door opened and was held wide by the Green Beret she’d met on the carrier. Sergeant Blanchard. A blonde woman on crutches entered the club. She headed for a table, but Blanchard pointed in Brie’s direction, and the blonde changed course and paused before Brie.

“Brie Stewart, I’d like you to meet Dr. Morgan Adler,” Blanchard said.

The blonde held out her hand, “Morgan, please. Savvy has told me about you.”

Brie received the handshake. “Call me Brie. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard about you too, from Bastian. Are you going to be on base long?”

“Only a few days. I need to visit sites my crew recorded on the survey after I broke my ankle.” She glanced down at her leg and frowned. “Then I’m heading back to the US.”

Brie knew the woman’s broken ankle had something to do with how she knew Bastian, but the mission—assuming that was what it was—was classified, so Bastian hadn’t said anything beyond telling her about the Linus fossil and archaeological survey Morgan had completed for the Djiboutian government.

Morgan had been at Camp Citron when Brie was here in March, but they hadn’t met. “Would you like to sit down?” Brie asked.

Blanchard’s arm slipped around Morgan’s waist. “No. Bastian will be here soon, and we’ll grab another table.”

“I just wanted to say hi because Savvy said you gave her information on artifact trafficking in South Sudan, and I was curious about what you’ve seen.”

That had been a small part of the reason for her visit in March. The slave market was the primary reason, but artifact trafficking was also an issue there. After all, there’d been a hut devoted to antiquities in the market. “I’m afraid I don’t know much. My work there wasn’t archaeology related, but I know several sites were being actively looted and suspect Boko Haram was behind it. They’re getting bolder as they move out of Nigeria.”

“I’d love to see the site locations on a map. Archaeologists haven’t been able to work in South Sudan since the civil war started, and we have no information on what damage has occurred at known sites. Next week, I’m meeting with a professor at William & Mary who is doing artifact analysis of the Djibouti tools. One of his students is creating a database to track sites that are disappearing or being looted due to war. The focus is primarily Syria, but any information you have on South Sudan would be welcome.”

“I should have time tomorrow,” Brie said. It would feel almost normal to discuss this with Morgan. “But fair warning, my specialty is cultural anthro, not archaeology, so I’m not the expert you might be hoping for.”

“No problem. In grad school, I was even friends with some cultural students.” Morgan winked at her.

Brie laughed, remembering the endless jockeying for superiority between the subdisciplines in the anthropology department. “And I even hung out with archaeologists—when the linguists were busy.”

Morgan grinned. “At least the linguists are clean.”

The door opened again, and Brie’s heart rate kicked up at the sight of Bastian. He looked good in jeans and a T-shirt as he crossed the room. She could swear he was even more handsome today than he was yesterday. She was officially addicted.

He reached Morgan’s side and draped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze. “Morgan, good to see you again. How’s the ankle?”

She kissed Bastian’s cheek. “Healing, but not fast enough for my liking. How’s the head?”

“Thick, as usual.” Blanchard snickered.

“I’m fine, but SOCOM won’t let me return to duty for another three days.”

“Slacker,” Blanchard said.

Bastian laughed and released Morgan. He circled the table to Brie. She looked up, and he dropped a kiss on her lips. “Hi, sweetheart.”

His casual, boyfriend-like greeting surprised her, but it shouldn’t have. He hadn’t hidden their relationship on the carrier, so she wasn’t sure why she suspected he would here. Maybe because she’d figured SOCOM would frown on them being involved.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Morgan said to Brie. “Enjoy your evening.”

She hobbled to a table on the other side of the room, Blanchard at her side.

Bastian dropped into the seat at Brie’s side. “How has your day been?” he asked as he signaled for the waiter.

“Boring, you?”

The waiter arrived, and Bastian ordered a soda. Brie stopped him. “Don’t worry about me if you want to drink. I’m fine.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, I’d love a beer, but the doc wants me to avoid alcohol for a few more days.” The waiter left, and he draped an arm over her shoulder and settled into the bench seat next to her. His lips tickled her ear as he said softly, “I missed you today. I’ve gotten used to having you by my side twenty-four/seven.”

She got a warm feeling in her chest. This wasn’t good.

Withdrawal was going to hurt like a bitch.

They ordered dinner and chatted about their separate days. It felt almost normal, like this was a regular date. Which, Brie supposed, it was.

After dinner, he walked her back to her CLU. She was walking easier now and had gone without the cane since arriving on base, but it waited in her CLU, if she felt like she needed it.

He followed her inside her unit, closed the door, and leaned against it. He spread his feet apart and pulled her into his arms. Slouched as he was, they were face-to-face, lip-to-lip.

He did that thing where he kissed her so slowly, so sweetly, she was sure she was going to melt with the tenderness. The kiss was precious. Warm. Sincere.

Then it gained heat, turning hot and seductive. As her mouth clung to his, she tugged on his T-shirt. She leaned back and pulled it over his head, then ran the flat of her hand across his tattoo and down his abs.

“You have the most beautiful body. I love touching you.” She slid her hand downward, into his pants, and touched him some more.

His erection was thick and ready for her. She wanted him to take her here, up against the door, but they both had some healing to do first. “When we’re both better, I want you to fuck me against the wall.”

His mouth took hers in a hot, deep kiss, then he raised his head and grinned. “Deal.”

He scooped her up, and she protested. “You aren’t supposed to—”

He silenced her with a kiss, which ended when he lowered her to the cot. “My head is fine. The docs are overly cautious. I could return to duty tomorrow, but I didn’t fight them because I wanted time with you.”

“I’ll only be here for a few more days.” Then she would go to Morocco. She’d decided that today.

He stretched out next to her. “Exactly. And I want to enjoy every moment we have.” He unbuttoned her top, pulled aside a bra cup, and cradled her breast, then leaned down and licked her nipple. “For the record, I’m enjoying right now very much.”

He freed her other breast from its cup and moved to straddle her, leaning down to take turns licking and sucking each. “God, how I love your tits,” he said, then sucked on a nipple. She clenched her pelvic muscles as heat suffused her. His play with her breasts made her wet.

He reached beneath her and undid the bra. His knees pressed on her open shirt, and she giggled when he realized he couldn’t get the bra off without removing the shirt he was kneeling on as he straddled her. “I seem to have created some kind of Gordian knot.”

The giggle turned into a full laugh. Her left arm was also pinned by shirt pulled taut by his knee, so she couldn’t help him extract her from the garment. “Whatever will we do?”

“Move lower,” he said, scooting his knees down, kissing her belly as he went lower. He stopped and ran his tongue around her belly button, then moved on. Arms now freed, she could sit up and remove bra and top, but she liked the direction he was going and pretended she was still trapped.

He reached the waistband of her skirt, and instead of reaching around to unzip it, he rose on his knees and pulled the skirt up, bunching it in a band around her hips. He slid a finger beneath the crotch of her panties and stroked her clit.

Pleasure shot through her, and she let out a soft groan.

“You are so fucking hot,” Bastian said, his gaze fixed on his hand and her center. He flicked her clitoris again. And again. And she wanted him inside her. Now.

“Get naked,” she said.

He yanked off her underwear, only being careful as he pulled it over her bandaged thigh. Freed, she spread her legs wide, bending her knees. Opening herself to him. But he still wore his jeans.

“I was referring to you, not me,” she said as she tried to reach for his fly.

He laughed and put his mouth on her. She let out a yell as pleasure jolted through her. He brought her to a fast orgasm with his stroking tongue. She came apart, her body curling to cradle his head as his mouth relentlessly licked and sucked.

She collapsed back, panting. “Okay. Get naked now?”

He unbuttoned his fly, freeing his erection, fished a condom from his pocket, rolled it on, and then, in one smooth stroke, slid deep inside her. Pleasure coursed through her on a sweet wave. He stretched her. Filled her. The delicious sensations made her shudder. His thrusts came hard and fast, and she clenched around him, loving the friction against her G-spot.

She came again, a sharp ripple of pleasure that triggered a sound that was more scream than moan. Bastian’s hand covered her mouth—the unit walls were thin metal sheets—and he came in silence, his body quaking between her thighs.

He dropped beside her and pulled her to him so they were lying on their sides.

“Neither of us got naked,” she said, glancing down at her skewed bra, open shirt, hiked-up skirt, and his open jeans.

He got up from the bed, removed the condom, and headed to the sink at the back of the unit. “Hey, I’m not wearing my shirt.”

She laughed. “Because I pulled it off you.”

“I was impatient. I needed to taste you.”

She peeled off her shirt, bra, and skirt and tossed them on the floor. “I like it when you’re impatient.”

He returned a moment later, naked at last.

She shifted on the cot to make room for him. “The military really isn’t interested in providing beds that accommodate two people,” she said.

“Definitely not.” He settled on the narrow bed, gathered her against him, and kissed her temple. “But it doesn’t stop anyone. The no-fraternization rules on Navy vessels never stop anyone.”

Neither of them served in the Navy, and they’d merely been patients in the medical facility, so maybe the rules hadn’t applied to them. Regardless, it was clear—right down to the doctor giving her condoms—that no one cared if she and Bastian fooled around.

As far as the cot went, she liked the confined space, liked being pressed against him. Frankly, she didn’t even mind if he snored and hogged the bed. She just wanted to be with him. Wanted every moment she could get of this.

“I Skyped with my parents today,” he said. “They said the whole tribe gathered at the longhouse to watch the ceremony on the carrier on the big screen. My dad said everyone cheered the first time they recognized me standing behind you, then Dad leaned toward the computer camera and said, ‘Your mother cried, seeing you in your uniform, wearing your green beret.’ Then he added, ‘We are so proud of you, son.’”

“Oh, Bastian. They must miss you so much.”

“I told them I’d visit when this deployment is over, and my mom cried again. And then I felt like a shit.”

She ran her hands over his bare shoulders, pulling him closer. “I understand the double-edged sword of hurting a mother’s feelings out of self-protection.” She knew that pain all too well. “The guilt is hard, but you were right to take care of yourself first these last years.”

“She’s my elder. And my mom. And I made her cry. That might make me the worst Indian ever. And fuck, I’ve never seen her cry before.”

“Bastian, those were happy tears. She loves you. She wants to see you. And she cried when seeing you on the aircraft carrier because she’s proud of the man you are and the soldier you became—even when she would have held you back from that path, she’s proud.”

He ran his fingers through her hair. “Maybe.” His hand slid down to her cheek. “How long have you stayed away from your family?”

She stiffened. “My situation is a little different.”

“I know. But how long? When was the last time you saw your father and brothers?”

“Eight years ago.” The day she found out about Micah. The day everything changed.

“Tell me about it?” he asked softly.

“No.”

“Why not?”

She rolled to her back, looked up at the ceiling. “This is just a fling, Bastian. You don’t need to know the ugly details.”

“What if I don’t want it to be just a fling? What if I want to know the ugly details?”

What if she didn’t want it to be just a fling either?

It was too risky. “Please don’t ask for more,” she said. “This ends when I leave Djibouti.”

“Why, Brie? I might not know where this is going, but I do know this is more than casual sex. I know flings. I’ve had dozens. So have you. This is different. Shit. I’ve never told anyone about Cece, about my parents.”

And that was the problem. The talking. And the fact they’d slept together—without sex. This was…intimate.

And when he kissed her, she felt exquisite. Like he cared about more than just getting inside her physically. And when he was inside her, she felt a connection that went beyond friction hitting nerve endings built for pleasure.

The last time she’d felt anything remotely similar to this, the man had been Micah. “Relationships aren’t in the cards for me. But we can enjoy now.”

“Why, Brie?”

“Remember how my family wanted me to screw that guy when I was eighteen? Well, my father was pretty pissed I didn’t live up to my end of a bargain I never agreed to.” She grimaced, remembering when Alejandro had been sent back to Costa Rica because someone on the staff had spotted her slipping into his room.

She’d sold some of her jewelry and sent him money, which he’d used to pay for college and medical school, so in the long run, he’d come out fine, but her father’s treatment of him had been wrong just the same.

And she had no more jewelry left to sell.

But what happened to Alejandro was the least of her concerns. “After that, my dad told me I could screw around all I wanted, but in the end, if I didn’t marry Nikolai Drugov, he would dissolve my trust fund.”

Bastian sat bolt upright. “The Russian oligarch? He was the man you were expected to screw?”

“He wasn’t an oligarch then. He was a weaselly oligarch-in-training. My dad has wanted our families to align since I was a teen. My dad figures the best way to secure loyalty in business is shared grandkids or some other bullshit. All I know is I was expected to marry the creep, while no one insisted JJ or Rafe marry Lucya—Nikolai’s little sister.”

“Is that why you were disinherited? Because you refused Drugov?”

“No. That didn’t happen until years later, because I—” Shit. She shouldn’t have started this.

“Because you what?”

Her stomach churned. This would matter to Bastian. A lot. But the full truth was horrible, and there was no telling the first part without telling the last. She took a deep breath. “I made sure the Northwest oil pipeline project failed.”

Bastian stiffened. “What do you mean? You were the advocate for construction. I sat in that meeting. I listened to all the PE bullshit. Most of which was said by you.”

She closed her eyes. Every word he said was true. She’d been a shill. But once she’d learned about the Traditional Cultural Property and what it meant to the tribes, she’d done what she could to fix things. She crossed her arm over her chest, creating a barrier between her and Bastian as she rubbed her other arm. “I funneled information to the reporter who wrote all the articles that ended up killing the project. The information on the TCP. Prime Energy’s illegal altering of the negative environmental impact data. Micah got the proof he needed to kill the project from me.”

“You were the leak? You knew Micah Rogers?”

She wasn’t surprised Bastian knew the reporter’s name, especially given how closely he’d followed the oil pipeline project. Her fingers worried over a raised freckle on her right elbow, a spot she always rubbed in moments of stress. “Yes. We were lovers for several months.”

Bastian sat up, scooting away from her. She missed his body heat. Hated how this would change his opinion of her. Micah’s death was her fault.

She rolled over and stared at the thin metal CLU wall. “He didn’t know I was using him. I left the papers out, where he would conveniently find them when I was in the shower. I always gave him enough time to take pictures.”

In the end, it was one of those pictures that had killed him. Later, he’d been interviewed about the series of articles he wrote that took on Prime Energy and won, and included in the magazine spread were a few of the documents he’d obtained from an unnamed PE whistleblower. Several of the documents had been altered using a key only her father had known—a specific lowercase o had been filled in, looking like an ink misprint. She hadn’t known that her copy was the only one with that particular solid o, hadn’t known the pages had been altered at all. But then, she hadn’t known her father suspected someone was leaking documents and she’d led them right to Micah.

From there, it had only required a search of her credit card bills—along with an illegal search of Micah’s accounts, easy work for a man with Mafia ties—to see they’d concurrently visited the San Juan Islands on three different occasions.

She told Bastian this, then cleared her throat. “I was devastated when I heard about the helicopter crash that killed him. I was in grad school at Portland State, but home for the holidays when I heard the news. It was a tense visit to begin with, because I was clean and sober but hadn’t parted ways with my family yet. I still figured I could do good for the company, that I could make sure PE followed environmental law and did real, ethical environmental justice evaluations. I made the mistake of sharing my thoughts with JJ and Rafe.”

She pulled up the blanket, wishing she hadn’t stripped after they had sex. Wishing she hadn’t started this, because no way would Bastian let her stop talking now. “I’d heard about the news helicopter crash, but it was twenty-four hours before they released the pilot’s and the reporter’s names. When I heard Micah was on the helicopter, I lost it. Right there, in front of my brothers and father as we watched the news, I made it clear I’d cared about Micah. I couldn’t hide it.” She would never forget the smirk on her father’s face.

“I fled to my room. After crying for an hour, I pulled myself together to try to figure out what I could do for Micah’s family. The news said he had a wife and three-month-old baby.”

“Was he married when you were sleeping with him?” Bastian’s voice was stone cold.

“No. We’d broken up two years before—before he’d written the damning articles about the pipeline. He met his wife a few months later. He was a good man. He never would have cheated, and I don’t poach. Ever.” She gripped the edge of the blanket, pulling it higher. “I found a meal delivery service and tried to order gift certificates to provide meals for his wife and baby, but the order wouldn’t go through. My credit card account had been closed.

“I called the bank and learned my accounts—all of them—had been shut down. I was broke—completely cut off. So I marched down to my father’s study and demanded to know why. He presented the proof of the filled-in o, said he knew I’d been the leaker, and he’d seized my trust fund—which was under his control until I turned thirty—and was discontinuing my allowance, which had been set up when I quit working for the company to enroll in grad school. He said if I wanted back in the family fold, if I wanted my trust fund reinstated, all I had to do was withdraw from grad school and marry Nikolai Drugov. It was the only way I could prove my loyalty.

“I told him I was fine being broke, that I’d never marry Drugov or any man he chose. That my body wasn’t part of his business deals.” She cleared her throat. “He countered that I’d used my body to betray PE to a reporter, now I would use my body to make amends.”

She wished she could read Bastian’s reaction, but she could barely look at him. Her gaze shifted everywhere but his face, only catching him peripherally.

“The timing of Micah’s death and my outing as the leaker couldn’t have been a coincidence. I accused him of having Micah killed. He denied it. But I know he lied.”

“That crash was investigated by the NTSB,” Bastian said. “They determined the cause was mechanical combined with pilot error. It was all over the news.”

She raised a brow. “You don’t think my family could arrange that? They’re in bed with the Russian Mafia. They killed Micah because I betrayed them. I think they’d figured out that I cared about him, and my reaction upon learning the news only confirmed it.” She cleared her throat. “Loyalty is the number one thing in my family. They didn’t give a damn when I was using drugs, sleeping around, didn’t care how I lived my life. But I betrayed them. So they went after a man I’d cared about and made his new wife a widow, his three-month-old child fatherless. The pilot was just collateral damage, and every bit as heartbreaking.”

“You loved Micah?” Bastian asked quietly.

She shrugged. “Maybe. I broke things off when I started to care about him. I couldn’t keep using him. I couldn’t tell him how I felt. It was best just to walk away, so he could write the articles.”

“He copied the papers. So he was using you too.”

“It wasn’t exactly a relationship based on trust.” She finally met Bastian’s gaze, and he didn’t seem to hate her. But who knew how this would sit with him over time. “I talked to the FBI about the crash. They reviewed the NTSB findings and said there was no evidence of any tampering with the helicopter. The pilot might’ve had a medical emergency that compounded the mechanical failure. It was hard to tell given the condition of his remains.”

She gripped the top edge of the blanket, rubbing the smooth edge against her palm. It was a sensory comfort as she saw in her mind that last confrontation with her family. The bile that rose as she finally saw that not only did her older brothers not give a damn about their baby sister, but that all three men were straight-up evil.

She’d fled to her room to pack a bag, grabbing her jewelry and anything else she could sell. Her father had met her at the door, alone, ensuring there were no witnesses to his final words. “Fuck around all you want, but remember what happens to people you care about.”

It was the closest he came to admitting he’d had Micah killed. She knew her father’s ruthlessness well. He didn’t bluff. And now he had a way to control her even without money.

She’d never gotten serious about a man again. It was too big a risk.

She met Bastian’s gaze, and fear pulsed through her. She cared about him. If something happened to him because of her, she’d never be able to crawl out of the hole of self-loathing.

“I think you should go,” she said.

Bastian’s nostrils flared; his body went tense. “What the hell? What aren’t you telling me?”

She gathered her haughtiest demeanor. “This is my CLU, and I’m telling you to leave.”

“Is this because you think your family will come after me like they did Micah? Micah’s articles crushed a billion-dollar project. Did you ever consider that’s why they had him killed? That it has nothing to do with the fact that you’d cared about him?”

That might have been their motive at first, but her dad’s final words still rang in her ears. “My dad isn’t done with his revenge. He threatened anyone I care about.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I can take care of myself.”

Panic seized her. That was exactly the kind of attitude that would put him at risk. He didn’t realize her family would never attempt a frontal assault. They’d use surrogates like Senator Jackson to undermine him with the military, or they’d go after his tribe. They’d strip him of everything that mattered to him before delivering a final killing blow that would look like an accident—or suicide. “Put your clothes on and get out.”

He stared at her, his face tight with anger. His hands clenched and unclenched as his chest rose with heavy breaths. “Fine. I’ll go now. But we aren’t done here.”

He jerked on his pants and donned the T-shirt, his movements angry, his eyes showing hurt.

This was for the best. He might think he was invincible, but she knew better. No one was invincible against the kind of pain her family would inflict.