Page 72 of Locked and Loaded

Five stitches. Six. Seven. The lidocaine cream was starting to wear off.

Her hands were shaking again by the time she finished. Not during the stitching. After. When there was nothing left to focus on.

"There," she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Done."

"Good work."

She pressed a fresh bandage over the stitches and sat back on her heels. For a second, she just knelt there, looking at the floor, her hands resting in her lap.

"Lennox."

"Don't." She held up a hand without looking at him. "I just need a moment.”

He reached down and took her hand. Her fingers were cold despite the warmth of the tent. He pulled her up gently, until she was on his lap. Although she didn’t resist, she kept her face turned away from him.

"I got them killed," she said. "Katya and Nikolai. If I hadn't gone to that hotel, if I hadn't talked to her, they'd still be alive."

"They were already dead. The maid was already there. Katya told me herself they'd been under surveillance. You didn't do anything except give her someone to talk to before the end."

"You don't know that."

"I know you're not responsible for what other people do. Besides, you are trying to save your sister. Everything that happened or happens, for that matter, is collateral damage from that. In war, this is always collateral damage. There’s nothing you can do to stop that. I tried to warn Katya, and she knew the risks. I offered to help her as well, but she chose to stay. Those were her choices. None of it is your fault.”

Her jaw tightened. He could see her fighting it, the guilt and the grief and the exhaustion, all of it pressing down on her at once. He knew that feeling. He'd spent years drowning in it.

"I haven't found her. I've been chasing Chloe for weeks, and I'm no closer than I was in Ibiza." She ran her hands over her face. “I can’t lose anyone else.”

Dragan's chest tightened. He knew what he should tell her. That Chloe was probably gone. That they were chasing a ghost. But he looked at Lennox, at the way she was barely holding herself together, and he couldn't do it. Not yet. Not without proof.

"You're not going to lose anyone else," he said.

"You don't know that either."

"I'm not going to let it happen."

She looked up at him then. There were a dozen things he could see in her face. Exhaustion. Grief. Guilt so heavy it was crushing her. And underneath all of it, the stubborn, reckless determination that had kept her alive this long.

She was the strongest person he'd ever met. And she was minutes from coming apart in front of him.

He reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. His fingers lingered at her temple, and she closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"For what?"

"All of it. The shooting. The running. Katya. You getting hurt because of me."

"Stop." His hand moved to cup her jaw, and her eyes opened. "None of that is on you. None of it."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it's true. I was hired to find you. You are a job." He offered a smile. “It’s my employer’s fault. And you can be sure I’ll charge him double.”

She let out a bark of laughter and then sobered. The war going on in her thoughts was written on her face, the part of her that wanted to argue with him and the part of her that was too tired to fight anymore.

The tired part won.

She kissed him.