Page 137 of Lethal Game

She seemed pleased by that.

“So, why did you do it?” Con asked her.

“Max needed me to do my job. I decided what I could do in the here and now was worth the risk.”

“You lied to me,” Con said.

She opened her mouth, but he wasn’t finished yet.

“You also lied to Max. Me, I’m just a soldier, but Max? He’s not happy with you and I think you’re going to find out there’s a steep price to pay for what you did.”

“Just a soldier?” She stared at him, her mouth hanging open. “You’re mypartner.” She narrowed her eyes and said, “Let’s talk about the price I’m going to pay.” Fuck, he was going about this all wrong.

“My lifespan isn’t going to be counted in decades, Con. Where else could I make the most of the time I have than in this team?”

“This isn’t some suicide squad,” he barked at her. “The Army needs you long-term.”

He had never seen a more resolute face than hers. “I don’t have a long term to give them.”

“Don’t say that. Goddamn it, don’t even think it.” He wanted nothing more than to hunt Akbar down and finish killing him.

“I had to do this,” she said after a moment. “I had to keep the truth to myself. If I had told Max, he would have immediately put me on a plane and sent me back to the United States.”

“Damn straight.”

“Then we wouldn’t have found out just how insane Akbar is. We almost did catch him, and now we know his goal isn’t just to kill, it’s to cause as many people as possible pain while they die.”

She wasn’t listening. He needed to try a different tactic. “You wanted to do something worthwhile with your life. Something worth dying for. Isn’t that what you said to me the day we met?”

“I can’t believe you remember that.”

“Hell, yes, I remember that. It’s almost word for word what I said when I wanted to get back on active duty.” He leaned down and said in her ear, “And it was the truth, as far as that goes, because I also wanted, in the worst way, to die in the performance of my duty.”

“I figured that out the night those goons tried to kidnap me. You threw yourself into taking those men down with no thought to yourself. None at all.” She held her breath for a moment. “There I was, fighting so hard to live just a few weeks longer, and you were trying so hard to die.”

“I’m not trying to die anymore. I hung around this crazy, gorgeous doctor for too long. I have something to live for now. I’m hoping she feels the same way.”

She stared at him with tears in her eyes and it nearly killed him to act casual and say, “Now stop arguing with the lab tech and let her take some blood so you can figure out what’s wrong with you and fix it.”

“It’s never that easy,” she whispered.

“You’re the smartest and most stubborn person I know.” He kissed her on the nose. “I’ve got some paperwork Max is squawking at me to fill out. I’ll see you later.”

“You’re not just a soldier, by the way,” she said before he could go three steps. “You’remysoldier. Remember that.”

For the first time since the explosion, he smiled with no hint of sorrow at all. “Sounds good to me.”

An hour later, one of the doctors came around to talk to Sophia. Twenty minutes after that, a nurse set up a unit of platelets for transfusion for her. Then a unit of blood.

Connor asked when he could visit her and was told he couldn’t. She’d requested no visitors.

What the fuck?

Smoke distracted the nurse so Con could sneak into her room.

“How did you get in here?” she asked, glaring at him.

Wow, where did Miss Crabby come from? “Smoke is making your nurse’s life difficult.”

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