Page 59 of Silence and Surrender

“You love her.” It wasn’t a question. His voice was soft. Understanding.

“Yes.” The admission felt like a confession. Like truth finally breaking through all the lies I’d been telling myself. “I think I have since she walked into my office and started questioning everything.”

“Then let’s get her back.” He squeezed my shoulder. “And make them pay for touching what’s yours.”

Steele outlined his plan, marking entry points on a dock layout. Security rotations. Patrol patterns. But my mind kept going back to Isabella. To how scared she must be. To all the words unsaid between us. To how completely she’d trusted me, and how thoroughly I’d failed that trust.

I remembered her in that vault, shivering against me. In countless meetings where she’d challenged me, frustrated me, fascinated me. In that tunnel, giving herself to me completely. How had I not seen it then? How had I not recognized this feeling for what it was?

Love. Terrifying, overwhelming, impossible love.

“The container yard has two main entrances,” Steele was saying. “But there’s a maintenance access point here that the guards don’t watch closely. Cooper’s contact will get us through, someone from his smuggling days.”

I nodded, checking my weapon.

“The ship berths here.” Steele pointed to the map. “They’ll load the ‘art shipments’ last. Temperature-controlled containers go in specific holds.”

“How many guards?”

“At least twelve on the ground. More on the ship.” Stryker’s voice was grim. “Plus whatever crew is involved.”

“Doesn’t matter.” I checked my spare magazines. “They all die if they touch her.”

“Easy, Colton.” Steele’s hand on my shoulder. “Think first, act second, remember?

It would be a struggle when rage was on my side.

“Ready?” Stryker asked.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go get your girl.” He moved towards the door. “And Colton?”

“Yeah?”

“Next time? Tell her you love her before the villain takes her.”

“I will.” I followed them out into London’s darkness. “Right after I kill everyone who touches her.”

Because that’s what love meant in our world, this world that now I fully inhabited. Protection. Vengeance. The willingness to burn everything down for one person.

And I loved Isabella Delacroix enough to set the whole world on fire. I was ruined, ravaged. Unmade and reforged in the crucible of my own treacherous desire. And no matter how hard I fought, how savagely I tried to deny it…

I would crawl over broken glass for just one more taste of her. One more glimpse of the salvation and damnation entwined inextricably in her knowing smile.

She owned me, body and soul. And god help me…I reveled in my captivity.

“Stay focused,” Stryker warned as we loaded into his SUV. “Love makes men stupid. Makes them take risks.”

“I’m always stupid around her,” I admitted. “So desperate.”

“Then channel it.” His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Use it. But don’t let it blind you.”

I nodded, fitting a new earpiece into place. Three hours until the ship sailed. Three hours to find her, save her, tell her everything I should have said before.

Three hours to prove that love wasn’t always laced with devastation.

It was about fighting. Surviving. Setting the world on fire to light the way home.

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