wasn’t that she couldn’t fathom the darkness of the world, or the cruelty of the people in it. She knew every day that she was living on borrowed time. She’d simply decided to embrace that time. To make the most of every hour. Of every second.
To live.
Ava sighed. “I know that look. You belong to her now. Don’t feel bad, Captain. It’s happened to better people. As long as you never forget that you don’t remotely deserve her.”
Knox bared his teeth at her in a mockery of a smile. “Neither of us do.”
Ava’s eyes froze over. “You had better live up to what she thinks you are,” she whispered, the threat somehow more chilling in that soft, husky voice. “I’ll be paying attention. And if I find out that you’ve hurt her, I’ll come back here and cut you into pieces so small, even the TechCorps hasn’t invented the technology to see them yet.”
“Fair enough,” Knox replied easily. “But you had better plan to come back here and be a part of her life. Because you’re about to hurt her again by disappearing, and I won’t put up with that too many more times.”
Ava stiffened. But, after a moment, her lips twitched. “Fair enough,” she echoed. She dipped into her purse and withdrew a data card the size of her thumb. “I don’t like you, Knox. I imagine you feel the same way about me. But we have one thing in common.”
She flicked the data card at him, and he caught it out of the air and turned it over in his hand. “Another gift?”
“Conall will know what to do with it. If Nina is ever in trouble, if she needs anything…” Ava’s composure cracked for a moment, revealing the wildness in her eyes, and a well of emotions that went so deep—
Crazy, some people would call it.
And maybe she was. The love Ava felt for Nina was a feral, unpredictable thing. She might fight with her sister, might hurt her, but Knox had no trouble believing that Ava would burn the TechCorps and everything in Atlanta to the ground, and not care how many thousands of bodies were strewn amongst the rubble.
Just to keep Nina safe.
He closed his fingers around the data card and nodded. “Take care of yourself, Ava. I’ll take care of her until you come back.”
“You’d better, Captain.”
“I’m not a captain anymore.”
“Time will tell, won’t it?”
She turned and disappeared down the darkened hallway. Knox listened for a while, but he didn’t hear anything. Not the scuff of her boots, not doors or windows opening. Just the distant hum of the solar generator and the softer drone of the kitchen appliances.
Ava might as well have been a ghost.
He checked the locks on the doors before going back up to Nina’s room. He left the data card on her bedside table and shed his pants. Sliding back into her bed shouldn’t have felt like coming home. It was the first night he’d ever slept there, but the scent of that sweet shampoo permeated the pillow, and she murmured something and curled into him, her legs tangling with his, her silky hair spilling across his chest.
He could have so easily become Ava. Feral and broken, so filled with pain and rage and hatred that he couldn’t accept an open hand, couldn’t settle beneath a welcoming roof and breathe in the comfort of being safe. Of belonging.
His men had held him back from the brink, and then Nina had pulled him into the light. She’d forgiven him, let him back into her life and her bed. She was the reason he was here, warm and content. No, not just content. Happy. Nina had given him a future.
He owed her too much to waste it.
With Nina’s soft breath tickling his throat and her heart thumping beneath his fingers, Garrett Knox, no longer captain of anything, began laying out his next mission. His most important mission. One that would likely take the rest of his life.
He was going to make every last one of Nina’s noble, idealistic dreams come true.
EPILOGUE
Nina dropped into the darkness.
With their available intel, Conall had estimated a ten-meter distance to the bottom. She counted off half that, then gave the command. “Halt.”
She stopped almost immediately as the brakes inside the mechanism attached to her harness engaged. She flicked on her flashlight, illuminating the cavernous space, and activated her comms. “It’s more like twelve meters to the floor.”
“Got it,” Knox replied.
“Slow.” The single-syllable command resumed her descent, and she