Page 63 of Defending Van

“Again with the telling me what I can and can't do.” She huffed, annoyed, but not really, because it was clear that his overbearingness was coming from guilt and concern. “Please, Van. I need to show you, I think …” Was she crazy for thinking this? Was she way off course here? There was only one way to find out. “Please, I think that I might know where he keeps his files. Where you’ll find what you need to bring down the other head of the ring. Let me show you.”

For a long moment, he just looked at her, but then he gave a sharp nod and scooped her into his arms, lifting her off the floor, wincing. She knew that even if the Kevlar had stopped the bullet from piercing his skin, it would have left a horrible bruise, probably cracked ribs, and he had to be in more pain than she was, or at least as much.

“Okay, show me where,” he said.

Not going to argue over being carried, she pointed to a spot on the wall. “There. That’s where he kept looking. I thought at first he was eyeing up all the tools, talking to someone about what he was going to do to me, but his gaze wasn't right. I had ages to watch him. I looked around a lot, too, trying to figure out what my options were. Right here,” she said when he carried her over to where she’d pointed. “I was thinking that he would like keeping his files on Azure down here, in his own little torture chamber instead of up in an office.”

“Sit here,” he said, setting her down on the table after he pushed the tools out of the way. Then he felt around the wall where she’d indicated. “Whoa, sweetheart. You are on fire today,” he said a moment later as he pried open a panel of the wall, reached inside, and pulled out a leather-bound book. “First you killed the head of a trafficking ring, and now you’ve found what we need to bring Azure crashing down.”

September 3rd

10:58 A.M.

“Nothing?” Van asked into his phone as he looked at the woman sleeping in the bed beside him.

It had been a whirlwind of activity the last twenty-four hours. After Makayla had led him to a journal hidden in the secret cabinet in the basement wall, he’d thought it was all over. Through the comms unit he was still wearing, he’d updated the Delta Force team on what had happened. While he’d held Makayla in his arms, unable to let her go, the special forces team had rounded up all the staff on the property, and Van had called Griffin.

Knowing he needed a story to plausibly explain why one of the two heads of the trafficking ring was now dead, he’d told the second in command that Asahi Watanabe had lost his mind. Thankfully, the phone call that had kept Makayla alive long enough for him to find her turned out to have been to Asahi Watanabe’s partner. Apparently, the man had been ranting about punishing Makayla for showing him up and wanting to destroy her, while his partner had wanted him to calm down, and send her back with Van and the mercenaries so she could be resold.

When Van, quite honestly, told Griffin that Asahi Watanabe had held a gun on him and threatened to kill him—of course, without mentioning that it was because he’d threatened the man first—he had been expecting it to go one of two ways. Either Griffin reported this information to their remaining boss, who ordered his execution, or the other partner, now solely in control, was happy enough to agree that Asahi Watanabe had become unstable and thus a liability.

Thankfully, it had been the latter.

Without having to worry about walking back into an ambush while he had an injured woman with him, they were able to clean and bandage Makayla’s wounds, leave Azure to clean up at Asahi Watanabe’s mansion, however they saw fit, and left the staff bound but alive and ready for Azure to deal with. Before heading to the airport, they’d stopped by a Prey-vetted doctor to receive medical treatment for his girl, then got on a plane to fly home.

Well, Makayla couldn’t go home, not until the whole Azure thing was settled, but he’d claimed to Griffin that he hadn't arrived in time to stop Asahi Watanabe from killing her, so Azure should believe her dead and not a threat. She’d be staying at Prey along with Nathan and Emma, and Mateo and Ally, until everything was safe and she could go back to her life.

Everything was supposed to be perfect, almost over, all they needed was to figure out a plan on how to take down the one remaining head of the ring in such a way that they got everyone else at the same time.

Only now he’d gotten the worst news possible.

Almost the worst move possible, he corrected as he reached out a hand to sweep it along Makayla’s silky chestnut locks spread out on the pillow. Losing her would have been worse, but until this was resolved, she was never going to be safe, and she would have to spend every second of every day locked up in this building so no one could glimpse her.

“Nothing,” his boss said through the phone.

“So, it’s useless?” he asked. Everything he’d put Makayla through by taking her back to that house was for nothing.

“No, not useless,” Falcon assured him. “But until we get the code to decipher the ledger, it can't be used to end Azure.”

“Which means I won't just be going in to bring them down,” he said slowly, already knowing what he had to do. “I need to go back in. My cover is still good, I haven’t lost trust, and with Nathan and Mateo gone, then Josh injured thanks to Makayla, they’re down numbers, so they need me. It’s the only way to try to get close to the remaining head of the organization.”

Maybe Nathan and Mateo hadn't been able to figure out who one of the heads of the ring was, but he had, and he knew how to get to the man. But it meant going back undercover, leaving Makayla behind when she was vulnerable and needed him. It was the right thing to do and yet … he couldn’t bring himself to one hundred percent commit. Not until he discussed it with Makayla first. If she wasn't okay with him leaving and not being able to have any contact with her, he didn't think he could do it.

“Falcon, I …”

“Need to talk it through with Makayla first. It’s fine. If you can't do it, we’ll figure out a way to make things work with what we have. Same way we did when Nathan had to leave, and then Mateo.”

“I'd be letting everyone down if I don’t go back.”

“You're being human, Van, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll be by to see you and Makayla for lunch. Maybe we can bring in Nathan and Mateo. Together we can all brainstorm the best way to do this.”

With that, Falcon was gone, leaving him holding his phone in one hand while he stared at the woman asleep beside him. Could he leave her this soon? Between sleeping on the plane, then debriefing when they got here, showering and eating, then falling back into bed, they hadn't had much time to share just getting to know one another.

He didn't want to leave.

That hit him over the head like a ton of bricks.

His job had always been all he had. He was the ultimate lone wolf, he didn't rely on others and he didn't let others in. He played his role to perfection, because being empty inside was who he’d always seen himself as being.