Page 112 of Nothing to Fear

Better for her to have seen firsthand the misery and wretchedness permeating his job, his life. His soul.

The rest of the flight had been tense. He’d kept his distance on the other end of the plane, with Castle and Ares. Neither busted his balls about Willow, keeping the conversation to straight-up shop talk about how to rescue the sister and maximize their chance to capture Daedalus for interrogation. Once they’d landed, they’d moved rapid-fire into separate vehicles and headed to the Gray Box.

The cars screeched to a halt in front of the grand gray building, and they all poured out onto the concrete under the glare of the sun.

Willow ran around to the steps leading to the entrance. “Gideon, I need to talk to you.”

“Not now.” If he had it his way, they’d bypass this conversation and simply return to the way things were before they went on the run—as if that were possible. “I’ve got to gear up.”

She threw herself in front of him and wrangled him to a standstill, her small hands fierce and tight on his arms. “It’s important. Please.”

Reece clasped his shoulder. “We’ll get the gear. You can take ten minutes, man.”

Ten? Hell, Gideon didn’t want to take one. He was in no rush to tear out his own heart by having the conversation with her.

“I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” Maddox said to Willow. “You shouldn’t be alone until we have Amanda in custody.”

Gideon spun on his heel and stalked off to the far end of the parking lot, not stopping until he was under the canopy of trees and surrounded by hedges.

Willow hustled alongside him, and when he came to a halt, she faced him with a shaky smile. The warmth emanating from her hit him with the explosive force of shrapnel, but the look in her eyes nearly made him double over from the vicious weakness softening him.

“You’re safe,” he said with a reflexive coldness that startled even him. “My assignment is done. What do you want?”

She recoiled, the tentative smile slipping from her face. Everything inside him locked with regret. “I wanted to talk to you about what happened on the plane.” Willow reached for him.

He struggled against the electric pull to be near her, like trying to fight gravity, and shuffled backward. His fingers flexed with a gut-wrenching ache to touch her, to be touched by her, but he had to be strong and do the right thing.

“What you saw,” he said, “that’s what I do. It’s who I am. Sorry I sickened you. Frightened you.”

“I’ve read about the things you’ve done, interrogating people at CIA black sites. But I got sick because I’ve never seen anything like that before. I wasn’t prepared. Gideon, I wasn’t afraid of you. I was afraid for you.”

What the hell? He was the monster who served in the shadows, snuffing out lives in the darkness. Others feared him, not for him.

“I saw how taxing your job is, how much you sacrifice for it.” Pure love poured off her. “It must be so hard not to lose yourself amid such horror. To remember that it’s okay to relax, to let light in, to heal from the scars it must leave on the inside.”

No one ever worried about him, but she did. Having a front-row seat to see exactly what he was capable of hadn’t terrified her, hadn’t sent her running to find normal.

Not only did he have to protect her from him, he had to protect her from herself. She wasn’t thinking straight. No sane woman would choose him or still think of him as a hero after what he’d done on the plane.

If she did, her head needed to be examined. Kelli had been smart to want to bail.

“I can’t do this,” he said, his lungs constricting.

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I didn’t want you to think my feelings have changed after what I saw. This isn’t the time or place for this discussion. I just wanted you to know. Maybe I can stay with you for a few days while I figure out where I’m going to live, and we can sort through things.”

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck to ease the discomfort crawling over him. “My place is a hot mess.” I’m a hot mess. “You wouldn’t be happy.” Not in the long run. “I don’t have the capacity…the room for your…” Softness. Tenderness. Love. “Stuff.”

“Everything burned down. I don’t have any stuff.”

She was a real expert at painting him into corners. Why couldn’t she make this easier?

“I know you have to go,” she said. “Tonight, we can talk about us.”

“There is no us.” He strained to maintain his composure despite the battle raging inside. He was fighting for the selfless side to win. On the boat, he’d almost believed in happiness that endured, in a future where he wasn’t alone. Almost.

But what he’d had to do on the plane made him face the bitter truth, reminded him of how ugly he had to be for good to triumph over evil, and his fragile illusion of hope burst like a soap bubble.

“Why can’t there be an us?” Her voice was raw with emotion. “I need to hear you say it.”