Page 61 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

I press back into him, fitting into the contour of his body the way a ballerina fits into a lift—trusting the partner, trusting the structure, trusting the arms.

"If I fail tomorrow ... If I don't pull her out, and they come for you ..." The confession is a broken whisper against my hair. The vulnerability is bare, unguarded. The operator is terrified.

"You won't fail." I turn in his arms, pressing my lips against the rough stubble on his jaw, holding him fiercely. The roles reverse. The protected becomes the protector. "You never miss. You're going to tear that fortress down, and you're coming back to me." I press my forehead against his, breathing him in. "And when you do, you owe me a lesson."

A rough exhale shakes his chest. Something between a laugh and a prayer.

"Yeah." His arms tighten, crushing me against him. "I owe you a lot of lessons."

The war waits outside the rusted door. In here, wrapped in a killer's arms, I've never been safer.

15

The Trap

DAX

The rain stops at 0330.

The sudden absence of noise wakes me faster than any alarm. My fingers close around the grip of the SIG under the thin pillow before my eyes open. The reflex is automatic—five years of sleeping with a loaded weapon and a perimeter that never stays quiet long enough.

The halogen security light outside the rusted window grate has burned out, leaving only the faint green glow of my watch face and the dying pulse of the portable generator bleeding through the gap beneath the door. The air smells of gun oil, damp concrete, and sex.

Lily’s pressed against my chest.

Her breathing is slow, rhythmic, the measured cadence of deep sleep. Her hair is draped across my scarred chest, and her palm rests flat over my sternum—directly above the heart she spent the night systematically dismantling. The bruises on her forearms are dark against her pale skin. She weighs nothing.

She means everything.

You owe me a lot of lessons.

The memory of her voice—steady, stripped of the tremor that defined our first encounter—carves through the fog of sleep. The woman curled against my chest asked me to teach her everything. The man holding her promised he'd come back to deliver.

Promises are a currency I stopped trading in after Kandahar, but I have one now.

I extract myself from the bed with the care of a man disarming ordnance. Slow. Controlled. One degree of separation at a time. Her fingers curl against the warm patch on the canvas where my chest was, an unconscious protest.

But she doesn't wake.

I stand in the dark room and stare at her.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

That's all I allow. Five seconds of the man who held her. Then the operator reassembles.

I pull the black combat shirt over my head. The cotton drags across the fresh scratches on my back—her marks, scored into my skin during the final round. The sting is a physical reminder of what's at stake. I step into my tactical pants, cinch the belt, and reach for the plate carrier hanging on the back of the chair.

The Kevlar settles across my shoulders with a familiar weight. I shrug it into position, adjusting the straps by touch. The ballistic plates sit heavy against my chest and back, seventeen pounds of ceramic composite between my organs and whatever's waiting in the dark.

I count the magazines by feel. Thumb across the brass tops, confirming full loads.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

Eight magazines. Plus two mags for the SIG—thirty rounds of 9mm. Plus the Ka-Bar in its ankle sheath and the folding blade clipped inside the plate carrier.

It's twice my standard loadout.

It isn't enough.