Page 49 of How Much For A Broken Heart?

The thought of going back out there, heading into danger, him lying somewhere bleeding out again made my chest tighten and my head hurt.

Somehow, August had gotten under my skin, and it wasn’t just sex—he was determined to take Amos down. He stopped by the wall containing photos and brief bios of the dead men at the compound. The patchwork of photos—some taken when alive, some when they were dead—was a collection of all those people August had killed, plus the ones I’d taken down.

August was quiet at first, his gaze moving along the photos. Then, he pointed to the first one. “I saw him beat a kid,” he said, his voice tight. He mimed a gun with his fingers. “Dead,” he murmured, then gestured at the next photo. “This one,” he continued. “I saw him grab a man and slit his throat for trying to protect his family.” He made a bang sound as he pointed at the man’s head where a perfect circle was front and center.

As he focused on another, his voice cracked. “This fucker raped a young woman. I don’t know how old she was. I couldn’t stop it… I was there too late. She bled out.” Another bang, another finger gun, and each one was loud in the otherwise silent room. Ethan caught my attention, and I gave a subtle shake of my head. The compound had been cleared out, every person dead apart from Amos, and most of it lay on August’s shoulders.

He gestured to others, his bang sounding more and more strained. With each photo, with each snap, the weight of what August had seen and done became more apparent. I exchanged another glance with Ethan, who nodded to Luca before both men left, giving us space. I got the sense that August was either going to come out of this high with justifying each kill, or he’d be broken.

Either way, I’d be there for him.

August’s hand trembled as he pointed at a photo of Eli, and he rested the flat of his left hand on the wall to support himself. “He deliberately cut MDMA with fentanyl, and he fucking laughed. Twenty kids at the Carterville University ended up in the hospital, five of them didn’t make it, and he was pissed he only got twenty-five percent.” His voice was a whisper. “Bang.”

Then, he pointed at a photo of Diaz. “And him… he liked to torture…” August’s voice trailed off, his eyes closing as if to shut out the memories. In that moment, he seemed smaller, the weight of his experiences pressing down on him.

I reached out and put a hand on his arm, a gesture meant to offer some comfort. He jumped at the contact, his eyes snapping open, meeting mine. There was a vulnerability in his gaze that I’d never seen before, pain at the cost of the private war he’d waged and the things he’d seen.

In that moment, words weren’t enough. All I could do was offer my silent support. August was a warrior, a protector, but he was also human, and the horrors he’d witnessed were a heavy thing to carry.

“Fuck,” August snapped, the word was raw. In that charged moment, he turned to me, gripping the back of my neck with an urgent, almost desperate grip, pulling me towards him.

I barely had time to react before his lips crashed into mine. The kiss was fierce with the emotions August had kept bottled up. There was anger, pain, helplessness, all conveyed in the urgency of his touch. For a moment, I was stunned, but then, I surrendered to the kiss. My own hands found their way to his waist, steadying him, grounding him. I could feel the tension in his body, the rigid lines of his muscles giving way to something more pliable, more human, and he leaned against me.

The kiss was a release of frustration and grief, of the horrors he’d seen, and everything bled out of him in the connection.

As we separated, both of us were breathing hard, faces inches apart. August’s eyes were closed, his face taut, all that conflict between soldier and man was written in his expression, and he looked vulnerable. The room around us, the photos on the wall, the mission at hand—all fell away. There was just August and me, and the unspoken thing was that I understood.

After a moment of heavy silence, August opened his eyes and stumbled back, releasing his grip on my neck. His voice was softer, tinged with a hint of remorse. “I’m sorry,” he said, his gaze flickering away for a moment. “I shouldn’t have… It’s just all this,” he gestured, encompassing the room and everything unspoken between us. “It’s what I did, what I had to do, for James and Annie.” August met my gaze again, and I could see him wrestling with his instinct to be all stoic and not crack in front of me.

“I get it,” I said, stepping a little closer, but respecting the space he seemed to need.

We stood there for a few moments in silence as the emotions settled, and then, he was finally coming back to the room. He glanced around, blinking, as if he’d just realized where he was, and he saw there was no one else there who’d witnessed his break.

“Let’s do this, yeah?” I asked.

When he nodded, I gave him a small smile of encouragement. I headed out to find Ethan who was outside with Luca and indicated they could come back in. Ethan and I exchanged loaded glances—we’d seen this before, we’d see it again, hell, we’d been through it ourselves.

Ethan briefed us on the current situation with Amos. August stood straight, his hands clasped behind his back, shoulders back as he listened, even though we were both already familiar with most of the information.

“Amos has been hard to pin down. He’s gone to ground,” Ethan summarized. “But we’ve been tracking various aliases he’s been using and following the flow of money through several offshore banks. It’s led us to a location in the middle of Montana, a place that’s pretty much off-the-grid.”

Ethan flicked the biggest of screens, displaying satellite images of the area. It was rugged terrain, sparsely populated, with dense forests and rolling hills—a perfect hideout for someone wanting to stay undetected. There were a few buildings scattered across the landscape, old farmhouses and barns that looked as if they hadn’t been used in years, but other than that, it was river, trees, open grassland, and mountains in a ring around the space.

“We have satellite images of the area, but no concrete proof that Amos is there,” Ethan continued, pointing to one of the structures on the screen. “The only images that make sense given how remote they are is this, a likely spot for him to lay low.”

“Do we know that he’s definitely the one running this?”?” August asked after a pause. There was still doubt in his voice, still regret that he hadn’t seen through the man.

As if he knew what August needed, Ethan shifted the focus away from location and money trails to Amos. “Amos Harrington, you know him as Amos Stratton, thirty-two. To all intents and purposes, he was clean-cut, nothing on paper at least, adopted by the Stratton family. His parents, Evie and Dom Harrington, died about ten years ago, drive-by shooting; the dad was already a big player in a cartel based out of New Mexico, put his son out to another family for various reasons—hiding him I guess. We used the logo on the cap you mentioned to get us the link to the New Mexico Lobos football team and worked our way out.” Ethan glanced at us. “Amos Stratton inherited everything, that’s where the killing started, him killing I mean. He moved the entire operation to the Carolinas, and more specifically, the Cooper River area. Over the last decade, he’s grown it into something substantial.”

I glanced at August, gauging his reaction. His face was an unreadable mask, but I could sense the wheels turning in his head.

“Which is where the DA’s office came into play,” he murmured.

Ethan gave a sharp nod. “Sanctuary is following up on the DA’s office, and it was clear James’s death was to warn him away from pursuing leads he had.”

“I know it was. It’s what the cartel did. It’s what Amos and his lieutenants did.”

“We found something else. You might want to look at this alone.” Ethan’s tone was calm, but I caught a flicker of worry in his expression.

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