Not soldiers from here.
Something else entirely.
I stare at him. “Who are you?”
His jaw tightens like he doesn’t have time for this.
“Your ride out.”
“I’m not leaving.”
He blinks. Once
Like maybe he expected gratitude.
Then his expression turns cold enough to freeze the whole damn country.
“Yeah,” he says. “We’re going to have a problem.”
3
Russ
I’ve been shot at in six countries.
Blown out of vehicles twice.
Stabbed once.
Had a building come down around me in Syria and a river turn red beside me in Colombia.
And somehow, standing in the middle of a half-destroyed clinic arguing with a furious American doctor while gunfire cracks outside might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.
“I’m not leaving,” Olivia Taylor snaps.
Up close, she’s even more dangerous than the photo suggested.
Not because she’s armed. Not because she’s trained.
Because she means every word.
Her blue eyes blaze, her chest rising too fast. A strand of hair sticks to the dirt on her cheek. Blood stains her sleeve—probably not hers.
She looks at me like if she had a scalpel, she’d use it.
Behind me,Miles leans into the doorway and fires two controlled shots toward the road. “Russ, little busy here.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Olivia points toward the children being rushed inside. “I’m not abandoning them.”
“You’re not helping them dead.”
“They need medical care.”
“And you think they get more of that if the regime puts a bullet in your head on camera?”
She flinches.
