Chapter 39

Defending Me.

Conner

I used to think I’d seen everything. War zones. Cartel compounds. Bratva torture dens. But none of that prepared me for watching her in action. Sage moved like smoke and shadows, silent, surgical, without a single wasted breath. She didn’t flinch as we breached the outer wall of the compound. One round from her suppressed rifle dropped the first guard before his brain could register the threat. The second went down without so much as a grunt. I was good. Trained. Efficient. She was… inevitable. We slipped through a broken utility tunnel, darkness curling around us. I had my weapon raised, my heartbeat steady, but my eyes kept tracking her instead of the threat. She tapped her comms twice, signal clear. Then gave me a hand motion. Three guards. Two left, one right. By the time I adjusted my stance, she’d already moved. She went low, slicing around the corner and taking the right side. I heard the crunch of a nose breaking, followed by the gurgle of someone trying to breathe through a collapsed windpipe. Two silenced rounds spat out in rapid succession. I cleared my half just as fast, but I knew I was racing a shadow I’d never catch. We dragged the bodies into a storage closet and moved on. As we reached the top floor, Sage crouched at the door to Mirov’s suite, quickly hacking into the locking mechanism like it was a child’s puzzle.

“You’re terrifying, you know that?” I muttered under my breath.

She glanced up, her smirk quick and unrepentant. “You falling for me?”

I didn’t deny it. Click.The door opened. She moved first, her gun drawn, angles already mapped in that haunted mind of hers. I followed, sweeping the room. The suite was quiet, too quiet. Mirov wasn’t here yet.

“Clear,” she whispered. She didn’t relax. Not for a second. She scanned the walls, noting hidden panels, pressure sensors, exits. A trap, maybe. She liked traps. Said they made things interesting and gods help me, I was so fucking in awe of her. Not because she was beautiful. Not because she was dangerous. But because she never hesitated. This was her battlefield and I got to be by her side. I took one step too far. Just one. The tile beneath my foot gave way with the softest of clicks. I barely heard it over the quiet hum of electricity in the walls, but Sage did. Her head snapped toward me, eyes wide, not with fear.