Darkest Before Dawn

Hancock sighed. “I am.”

The others looked at him in surprise.

“If I thought the other option was the best option, then I wouldn’t drug her.”

No one asked the obvious question, but it was there in every single face and in their eyes. They waited in silence for their team leader to explain.

“Honor can’t know that we’re actually pretending to deliver her, and she can’t be conscious for more reasons than the fact that Maksimov made it a condition. She’s simply too honest. All you have to do is look at her face, into her eyes, and you see the truth. Maksimov would never believe her to be what she should appear as. A scared, beaten-down captive about to be turned over to a monster. So I have to drug her, and . . . I have to fucking lie to her.”

He said that last with blistering rage, a bitter taste filling his mouth. It was a necessary evil, one that would save her life and, if they were lucky, take Maksimov out in the process. But it didn’t mean he liked deceiving her. Again. He fucking hated it. Especially after what they’d shared the night before. And even more, she’d given him her unconditional trust. The mere thought that for even one moment she could think he’d betrayed her made him sick to his soul.

“We do what’s necessary,” Viper said, his tone quieter than normal.

“Good mojo,” Mojo said by way of agreement.

“You know it’s the only way,” Conrad said, but Hancock could see the other man’s equal dislike of the deception. And his guilt. He could read Hancock. Conrad had always had the uncanny knack of reading his team leader, and he knew just how much Hancock hated what had to be done just as he’d known how much he’d despised the initial mission of handing Honor over and walking away.

“Yes. It is,” Hancock said. “Now, we need to come up with a plan. A damn good plan. There is no margin for error. Maksimov has to be taken out, and Honor can not be harmed in any way. She, not Maksimov, is the primary goal. Yes, we’re using her as a way to get close enough to Maksimov to take him out. But Honor’s safety comes before all else. Even if it means Maksimov escapes us. Again.”

“We’re on it,” Cope said immediately.

And then, as a team, they all turned to face Hancock, at attention, something they hadn’t done since they’d left the military.

“You have our word. We will protect Honor Cambridge with our lives,” Conrad said formally.

In turn, each of the remaining men repeated Conrad’s vow, and Hancock’s heart swelled with pride. They were hated, reviled. Their own government, whose dirty work Titan had done for years, had turned on them and tried to execute them. When that hadn’t worked, the government had put a bounty on their heads.

His men were good men. Good men who’d done terrible things in the name of justice. And for the fucking good of the many. Had saved lives, even the lives of the very people who sought their death. They worked under no banner, no country. They had no true homeland. And they would always be hunted by the few remaining who even knew of their existence.

The very country they had fought so tirelessly to protect—and still protected—had denounced them all. Branded them with the worst insult they could have possibly levied given just how many acts of terrorism they’d prevented. Terrorists. Traitors to their country. The country they would have given their lives for. They were stripped of honor, already declared officially dead before becoming the black ops group Titan and they’d been robbed of their citizenship. They had no home, no place anywhere to call home. No loyalty to anyone save themselves. Their cause, their mission, was still the same. That much had never changed even when everything else had. Protect the innocent. Hunt the evil. Regardless of nationality.

And his men had never once wavered. They’d stayed true to Hancock and to the principles they’d set forth when they were forced to go out on their own. Rogue. Through it all, Hancock had never been able to summon hatred for the country he still considered his, even though she did not claim him as one of her own. He loved America. He loved her people. His hatred was reserved for the few who’d betrayed them and put into motion a decade of eluding assassins, all the while fighting the good fight.

Last night had shaken him on many levels. But perhaps the most profound of all was that for the first time since his country had rejected him, leaving him no place to call home, he’d finally found home in Honor’s arms. She was home. And nothing had ever felt so right—so peaceful and soul soothing—in his life.

“I have one more request,” Hancock said, as formal as his men had been. “If I go down. If something happens to me, get the hell out of there with Honor. Under no circumstances can she end up in Maksimov’s hands, even if it means abandoning the mission and letting the bastard go free. I know our creed has always been to never leave a fallen teammate. But I ask this of you because I would gladly trade my life for Honor’s. She deserves no less. She deserves to live. She serves a greater purpose and the world is a better place with her in it.”

“If we fail, it will only be because we all are dead,” Viper said by way of a vow.

The others nodded in agreement.

“We’ll get her home,” Conrad said softly. “One way or another. I’ll protect her with my last breath.”

CHAPTER 30

HANCOCK carefully balanced the tray in one hand while he opened the door to his bedroom with the other. He walked in to see Honor dressed as he’d requested in comfortable trousers and a T-shirt. Only her feet were bare and she was perched cross-legged on the bed and gifted him with a welcoming smile that was like a knife to the gut.