Page 168 of Scars of Fate

Too complete.

They were waiting.

The copilot lifted a radio from his vest.

“I have the asset.”

Static answered.

Then a man’s voice spoke in Farsi.

The same voice we had heard in the background of the satellite call.

“Bring her to the northern ridge.”

Lucas looked at me.

He recognized it too.

Someone who had been aboard the helicopter during that call was here on the mountain.

And he was commanding the enemy team.

The copilot gestured with his pistol.

“Stand up.”

I began to move.

Lucas caught my arm.

“No.”

“If I don’t, he’ll shoot you.”

“If you do, he’ll shoot everyone.”

The copilot’s smile widened.

“He understands.”

Lucas’s fingers tightened around my arm.

Less than a minute earlier, he had told me he loved me.

I hadn’t answered.

Not because I didn’t love him.

Because the words had frightened me more than the bullets.

Loving Lucas had never been the question.

Surviving that love had been.

But now, with a weapon aimed at his chest, I understood something I should’ve known six years ago.

There was no safe way to love someone.