Page 10 of Rupture

Finn clenched his jaw as Luca’s stare lingered on thewhite lace peeking from beneath Rose’s sweat-dampened shirt, hinting at the tempting swell of her breasts. Humidity had made the fabric cling, accentuating her trim waist. Even her practical green cargo pants, studded with multiple pockets from which she’d whipped out her knife, failed to conceal the perfect curve of her ass.

An irrational surge of jealousy lashed through him at Luca’s obvious appraisal. Luca’s scarred face did little to impede his success with bedding women at an eye-watering rate, and the thought of him touching Rose Wyndham made Finn’s blood run unexpectedly hot.

“Luca. This is Dr. Rose Wyndham, the robotics engineer we’ll be escorting to the Io habitat. Dr. Wyndham. Brent Luca, our tactical specialist and defensive operations.”

“Well...” Luca drawled, thumbs hooked suggestively into his gun belt as he closed the distance between them. “It’s a pleasure, Dr. Wyndham. If there’s anything you need...” His voice lowered to an intimate timbre, as he leaned in. “Anything at all, you just let me know.”

Rose inhaled sharply.

Finn’s blood pressure spiked. “Luca?—”

“I’m not sure your services will be required, Mr…sorry what was your name again?” Rose arched an eyebrow, her expression cool.

Luca held her gaze for a long second before he spun on his heel, muttering under his breath as he stalked to the opposite side of the tent.

“Shit.” Duke approached and engulfed Rose’s hand within his enormous grip. “Don’t think I’ve seen a woman shut Luca down that fast in a long time. You have to forgive, Luca. He’ll protect you with his dying breath but most of the time his mouth is not connected to his brain. It’s a design fault we’ve not corrected yet.” His deep baritone reverberatedthrough the stifling tent. “It’s a pleasure Dr. Wyndham. Extremely delighted to meet you. I’m Duke Wilson. Combat medic.”

Duke threw a smile in Rose’s direction, his massive frame filling the space with a skilled confidence. He was undeniably handsome—dark skin, rugged features, with a kindness in his eyes that matched the depth of his smile. Those same eyes had seen more battlefield trauma than most could handle, yet somehow had kept their warmth.

Rose visibly brightened, her shoulders relaxing minutely as she slipped from Luca’s radar. “Hi,” she breathed, offering Duke a genuine smile that inexplicably tightened the vise around Finn’s ribcage. “Please. Call me Rose.”

Get a grip, man. Finn sucked in a harsh breath through his nostrils. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and regain his equilibrium. It had been almost twenty-four hours of non-stop travel to get here. Clearly, the relentless pace was taking its toll.

“We’re just about to start the mission briefing.” Duke angled his head toward the central computer workstation, a half-dozen sleek keyboards surrounding the main holographic projection space. Jeff Harris was already there, mopping his bald head with an oversized handkerchief. Computer programming scrolled endlessly, suspended mid-air in icy blue light.

Ethan flashed a friendly smile, ushering Rose over with a beckoning wave of his hand. “Come meet the rest of our team, Dr. Wyndham.” He gestured to the man at his side, studying the holographic display. “Liev Stiles, our diving lead. There isn’t a cave he can’t navigate.”

Liev’s head snapped up, his dark eyes locking on to Rose with a laser-like focus. Liev mapped cave systems that hadswallowed other divers whole with the precision of a surgeon underwater. A shadowed intensity emanated from him, but these days there were cracks in Liev’s armor. Since Eva Petrova had come into his life, his good nature would slip through his carefully maintained facade—like now, as he acknowledged Rose with a curt nod, his usually severe expression softening imperceptibly. “Dr. Wyndham.”

Still not one for wasting his words.

Ethan moved on. “And this is our tech lead, Cade Jackson.” He clapped a hand on Cade’s shoulder. “Cade, Dr. Wyndham will be our scientific authority on this op.”

Cade straightened, pushing away from the terminal with a scrape of his boots on the dirt floor. His long fingers paused their dance across three separate keyboards. “The pleasure’s all mine, Doc.” The overhead fluorescents glinted off his shaved head as he leaned across the flickering hologram, unmindful of the ghostly shadows dancing across his features. “I read your paper on nano-robotic applications for extreme environment diving. Brilliant stuff. Your theories on pressure resistance could revolutionize deep-sea tech.” Despite his imposing frame, there was boyish enthusiasm in his voice.

A surprised smile played across Rose’s lips. “Wow. I didn’t think anyone outside my field readSubaquatic Nanotechnology.”

“Our boy Bambi here likes to bury his nose in academic journals.” Luca’s mocking tone sliced through the charged air as he rested his elbows on the nearest workstation with a lazy smirk. “Gets him all hot and bothered, doesn’t it, kid?”

A rhythmic tapping of keys accompanied Cade’s soft chuckle as his attention returned to the keyboards. The surrounding displays flickered with lines of code. “Keep running that mouth, Luca, and I’ll reroute your bunk’senvironmental controls on the Gray Lady to give you a closer look at my hot and bothered settings.” The threat was delivered with the calm certainty of someone who could do exactly that in their sleep.

“You little?—”

“Luca, can it.” Ethan’s tone was steel. “We have a high-risk dive ahead of us, and we need to be prepared.”

The words settled like a lead weight in Finn’s gut. He’d been on countless missions, faced down death more times than he cared to remember, but something about this one felt different. His gaze drifted to Rose, standing at the edge of the group, her face illuminated by the glow of the hologram. She looked so out of place among his crew, vulnerable amidst the sea of black-clad warriors.

“Cade?” Ethan’s quiet command made every breath in the room pause. For long seconds, the only sound was the low whir of computer cooling fans, the faint thrum of electricity humming through conduits and circuits.

Cade nodded, his playfulness gone. “Initiating briefing program.” A low thrum of power flooded the space as the main hologram shimmered, then reconfigured. What had been formless light and flickering pixels coalesced into a three-dimensional rendering.

The cave system materialized before them, its contours and blast shadows casting shapes across their faces. The jagged, weblike structure slowly rotated on an invisible axis. Vertical cliffs spiraled upward from an abyss, narrowing to a deadly bottleneck where it broke the surface. Just looking at it brought a sense of the crushing weight of stone and pressure of subzero water.

The Dragon’s Breath Cave.

A deathtrap. A labyrinth of twists and turns that could consume a person whole and never spit them out again.

“Wow,” Rose whispered, her eyes wide.

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