Page 29 of How Much For A Broken Heart?

She was scary as shit, and there was no way I was arguing with her.

Something niggled at me—if I was heading over to Swim Central, then August would be alone, and I don’t know why, but I didn’t like that one little bit.

“I’ll stay with your man,” she said, as if she could read my mind. “Go.”

“He’s not my man… he’s… whatever.” I grumbled as I picked up the second crutch, took one last look at August’s pale face, and headed out. I made it down the stairs as best I could, through the kitchen, and out of the back door, heading southeast from the main property to Swim Central.

The new home of Ethan and his Shadow Team.

Stepping into the office in the separate building was like walking into another world. Despite the fact that I’d seen it from outside a few times since we’d arrived at Kingscliff—the structure covered in scaffolding—the uniqueness of the new office space, along with the use of the name Shadow Team and all it implied., still struck me with the same intensity. Ethan had been asked to set up a team to work in the shadows by another somewhat shadowy organization; it was as simple as that, and now, I was part of that team. We were the good guys, and that was all I needed to know.

My work for Sanctuary had been done for them. I was back with an injured August in tow, and Luca had gotten Annie out safe, and I wondered what was next for me.

I hoped with every molecule of myself that it was tracking Amos down and taking him out, or that they’d found him, and Amos was no more.

With Amos still alive, even with his cartel decimated, he’d be scrambling not to leave a power vacuum, and he wanted Annie.

That much I was certain of.

Ethan had started the lengthy process of transforming what was once a grand indoor swimming complex into a functional, high-tech command center, and the office itself was in the deep end of the former pool, which gave it an unusual layout. Two walls were tiled, a reminder of its aquatic past.

I couldn’t help the shudder running through me at the thought of the water pouring in to cover us. Yeah, that was a freaky fear, but it followed me whenever I was near an empty space that had been filled with water. Some people hated spiders, or cockroaches, turns out, I didn’t much like empty pools.

I noticed Luca first. Having not seen him since we’d gotten back to Kingscliff, he hurried to my side where we bro-hugged before he stepped away to examine me from head to toe, his worried gaze settling on my lumpy, bandaged knee.

“Shit, Ry,” he muttered.

“It’s a scratch.”

“They said torn ligaments, dude,” he said with a frown.

I huffed. “It was a big scratch.”

“You’re good?” he asked. I wish I hadn’t had to leave you behind.

“All good,” I replied. That’s the job, Luca, those were your orders.

We had this whole unspoken conversation, and that was all we needed, just a recognition of everything that had gone down—our own personal debrief.

“What have you been up to?” I asked.

“Following leads, we’re?—”

“Gentlemen,” Ethan called from further down Swim Central, his presence as commanding as ever, as he gestured me over with a broad grin. I limped next to Luca to the big table. It wasn’t round, this wasn’t King Arthur’s court, but it was like a squashed oval, which meant that, even though Ethan was in the big chair, we were all more equal than I’d imagined we’d be. Was I reading more than was necessary into an oval table? Probably, but sue me, this whole Shadow Team thing was a trip.

“Take a seat, Ryder, and welcome to Swim Central.” He waved at the space around him, and I smiled, because yeah, it was a cool-ass name. “Everyone, this is Ryder, Army Ranger, part of the extraction team along with Luca, of Annie Lerner and August Fox. Comm, computers, you name it, he knows it.”

“Hi,” I said with a generic wave.

Ethan pressed on. “Ryder, this is Zach, former SEAL,” I reached over and shook hands with Zach, his grip as firm as mine. “Next to him, Kai, 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron. Specialist in electrics.”

“Helicopters, cool,” I said, for something to say. Kai was smaller than Zach, but his grip was as hard, and his flinty eyes narrowed on me. 427 wasn’t only helicopters, and I’d dumbed that down way too much, but sue me, I liked helicopters. “And other shit, also,” I added with a smile.

Kai rolled his eyes. “Lots of shit, saving shit, fucking shit up, looking sexy while I do shit. The usual awesome stuff,” he deadpanned.

“Bullshit,” Zach coughed into his hand, and Kai offered him a finger.

I noticed Ethan wasn’t calling anyone in here former anything even though I guessed they were all free agents working for Shadow Team. All of us had spec-ops blood in our veins.

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