Kabul, Afghanistan August 2021
I had just pulled my Kevlar over my head and fastened the Velcro when three pounding knocks sounded on my bedroom door. There was a more- than-furious woman waiting for me on the other side when I opened it.
“What the hell do you mean, I’m not going with you?” Izzy yelled up at me, her hands fisted on her hips. She was dressed for another day in the office, in black linen slacks and a blouse that cut across her collarbone, but the heels made me smile. And that perfume? Swore to God, Izzy was the only woman I knew who could pull off Chanel in a fucking war zone.
“How do you even know I’m going anywhere?” I asked, bracing one hand on the doorframe and the other on the handle of the door.
She glared up at me, her eyes lingering on my combat gear, and then she hoisted a brow. “Because Orange or Blue, whatever the hell his name is supposed to be, told me that he’d be standing guard outside the conference room today while we work, and I’m more than aware that you wouldn’t switch out babysitters unless you were leaving,” she snapped, fire in her eyes.
“One, it was Sergeant Black. Two, we’re not going to argue in the hallway like a pair of dramatic college kids.”
“Fine by me.” She ducked under my arm and marched into my room, folding her arms across her chest as she took in the space. It wasn’t a suite like hers, just a single with a private bathroom, which was the next-best thing I had to being stateside. As accommodations came, this was the Ritz- Carlton of Afghanistan.
A sigh ripped through my lips as I recognized that there was no throwing Izzy out of my room without making a bigger scene, and I shut the door to give us privacy. “I thought you wanted to get Serena back. I pulled a shit ton of strings to make a flight happen, and I’m going to see if she’s still up there, hence why I asked Sergeant Black to keep an eye on you since none of your entourage has meetings today.”
We were supposed to be back on the road—or in the sky—tomorrow, but given the state of the country, I was hoping I could talk her onto a plane home instead if I brought Serena back.
“I’m going with you.” She lifted her chin.
“You have zero reason to go with me.” I shook my head. “It’s not happening.”
“You don’t get to tell me where I go!”
I stalked forward until the toes of my boots touched the tips of her high heels. “That’s exactly what I get to do as the head of your security. Remember, you agreed to listen to every order out there,” I said, pointing to the door. “You only get to throw your fits in here.”
Her jaw dropped. “I am not throwing a fit, Nathaniel Phelan.”
“You are.” A corner of my mouth quirked up. “Whether you like it or not, Isabeau, you’re a senior congressional aide, which means unless you have a reason to put yourself in harm’s way, then I’m not going to dangle you in front of the enemy like a tasty little target.”
“And if I do have a reason?”
“You don’t. I changed your itinerary this morning the second I read the reports that it looks like Kunduz is going to fall today.” A couple of hours ago, I’d had her curled up in my lap, which was something I desperately tried to forget. It had been a slip on my part, but the second I’d seen her kneeling on that floor, shaking like a leaf, I’d acted on instinct, just like always when it came to her. “There’s zero chance you’re keeping that meeting.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Which I appreciate, as much as I hate it.” Closing her eyes, she rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“In fact, I’d feel entirely better if you all got your polished asses on a plane and abandoned this whole trip. Cut your losses, Izzy,” I blatantly begged.
“We have a job to do,” she retorted. “Senator Lauren is still coming next week—”
“Which is a mistake.” I stepped back so I could get a break from the perfect sweetness of her perfume invading my lungs. “This country is going to fall a hell of a lot faster than forecasted.”
“Reports said we have six to twelve months,” she argued, but the pursing of her lips told me she knew I wasn’t blowing smoke.
“Yeah, well, I trust what I’m seeing in a place I know pretty damned well more than someone’s best-case-scenario analysis of it from half a world away, and what’s going on out there”—I pointed to my window—“is not the best-case scenario.”
“I’m not stupid, Nate. I know that.” Panic flared in her eyes. “But Serena is up there.”
“And I know what Serena looks like. I’ve already got feelers out in the area, so by the time I get there, hopefully someone will have tracked her down. I’ll be back before dinner.”
“She might not recognize you,” she fired back.
“Oh, come on, that’s the best argument you’ve got?” I cocked a brow at her, and she dropped her gaze, but it wasn’t in that You’ve won way I’d seen before, or even the Fine, I’ll give in way. No . . . that emotion beneath those furrowed brows was guilt. “What did you do, Isabeau?”
She swallowed. “Mazar-i-Sharif is still safe.”
My eyes flared. “You’re shitting me if you think that. Sheberghan fell to the Taliban yesterday. Intel indicates not only is Kunduz Province being overrun, but also Sar-e Pol, and Takhar. What do those all have in common, Izzy?”
“I’m not going to sit here and wait for you to see if you can find her. You might not be able to convince her to leave the country, but I will. Finding her means nothing if we can’t get her on the helicopter,” she argued, but that tone . . . she wasn’t telling me everything.
“Those provinces are all in the north,” I said, ignoring her reasoning. Maybe it made me an ass, but I wasn’t against hog-tying Serena and throwing her over my shoulder if it meant Izzy got the hell out of this country. “If Samangan falls, that leaves Balkh Province—Mazar-i-Sharif— cut off. Do you understand that?”
“I understand that every day she stays there, she’s in danger of never getting out, so I did what I had to do.”
She changed the itinerary. I saw it in her frustratingly beautiful eyes. My stomach hit the floor at the same moment Webb’s voice came across the
radio in my ear.
“Sergeant Green.”
I tapped the button to speak. “Green here.”
“Your departure has been pushed back to give the aides enough time to assemble, since the itinerary just changed, and they’re now meeting with leadership and a group of stranded Americans in Mez at noon.”
I didn’t take my eyes from Izzy’s. “And we think that’s safe, sir?”
“Orders are coming straight from Senator Lauren’s office. Apparently, she has constituents in that group, and we’re going to evac them.”
“Acknowledged.” Fuck. My. Life. I got off the radio and leaned into Izzy’s space. “You went behind my back.”
“Yes,” she whispered, dragging her tongue over her lower lip nervously. “But we’re saving—”
“No,” I snapped. “No excuses. You go behind my back again, and I’m done.” She was putting herself directly in danger, and it ate through my veins like acid. Serena would have done the same for her, but I wasn’t irrevocably in love with Serena. Just Izzy. Always Izzy. “You trust me, or this doesn’t work.”
I wanted the words back as soon as they left my mouth, because that’s exactly why it didn’t work between us to begin with. Not that there ever had been an us. What Izzy and I had been was undefinable.
“I just—” she started.
“You trust me, or this doesn’t work,” I repeated. She nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ll want to ditch the heels.” I opened my door and pointed to the hallway.
Two hours later, we buckled into one of four Blackhawks headed for Mez, accompanied by a Chinook.
“Won’t the Chinook hold us back?” Holt yelled over the noise of whirring rotors.
“They’re faster than we are,” Kellman yelled back, checking his charge’s belt. Naturally, three of the other aides had decided to come for the “fact-finding,” once the trip had been announced. Politicians never seemed to mind sending their underlings into situations they wouldn’t chance themselves.
Izzy belted herself in across from me, her movements smooth, with no hint of her fear of flying. The put-together woman in front of me looked
nothing like the devastated woman I’d picked up off the floor this morning. This woman was a consummate professional, dressed in the opposite of her sleep shorts and tank top. Then she white-knuckled the seat cushions, and I saw the crack in her facade.
Leaning out of my seat, I slipped my AirPods into her ears again.
Her gaze locked with mine, and damn if my pulse didn’t quicken, because that look, the same one she’d had as we’d held hands during that crash ten years ago—scared and somehow trusting—made her feel like mine again. But that ring flashing in the sun was an eviscerating reminder that she wasn’t mine. If the way she’d reacted to that phone call yesterday was any indication, she belonged to someone named Jeremy. Apparently Jeremy was good enough for her. Stable enough for her. Rich enough to appease her parents, too, judging by the size of that rock.
I added Jeremy to my list of douchebag frat boy names, right up there with Chad and Blake. But douche or not, he was the one she’d chosen. I was just the one willing to fly into a combat zone for her. It didn’t matter how much time had passed; I couldn’t seem to let go. It wasn’t her fault that I still loved her. It was mine.
I handed over my cell phone so she could pick what she wanted to listen to.
You choose, she mouthed, handing it back, reminding me too much of those sun-drenched days in Savannah. Pressure settled in my chest, and I scrolled through my playlist, picking the song that fit.
The helicopter launched as I hit play on the acoustic version of “This Is Gospel,” and her eyes widened. She looked away right when the chorus would have hit, and I heard the lyrics about asking to be let go of in my own head as surely as if I’d had one of the AirPods in—that was how well I knew the song. It was another one of her favorites.
But I was the one who needed to let go.
 |
“We can only wait another ten minutes,” I told Izzy as she looked over the emptying room we’d commandeered at Mazar-i-Sharif’s airport. The aching look of expectation on her face made my chest go tight.
“Ten minutes might be too long,” Torres muttered as he walked by.
I wasn’t going to risk taking her into the city, or farther than a two- minute run from the birds. The Americans and those who qualified for the SIVs had met here over the last three hours, discussing their evacuation needs while representatives of the leadership gave their reports to the congressional aides.
The few dozen who had their visas and wanted immediate evacuation were already loaded into the Chinook, and there were only a few stragglers left, picking up paperwork that Izzy and the others had brought to help speed up the visa process.
“And you won’t let me go out looking?” Izzy asked again, hope dimming in her eyes.
“Going out there and shouting Serena’s name from the rooftops isn’t going to get you the reaction you want.” I both hated and was grateful for her naivete. It meant I’d done my job keeping the horrors of war away from her . . . until she’d come seeking them. “According to the contacts we have here, she knows there’s someone who wants to see her.”
“But you didn’t say it was me?” Izzy’s gaze whipped from the retreating back of the civilian she’d just finished helping across the table to mine.
“You mean, did I advertise that an aide to a United States congresswoman was out here searching for a needle in a haystack? No, I did not. Because I like you alive.”
She stood and glared at me, her chair squeaking against the linoleum floor, and I noted the reactions of every person in the room who wasn’t part of my team or hers. There were only a few now, and they were headed for the door, since Graham had started shutting the place down.
“I’m not going to leave her here,” Izzy hissed, keeping her voice low.
I shot the interpreter at her side a glance, and he backed away, giving us space, but Torres hovered. He always hovered when he sensed I was about to blow.
“You will if she’s not here in ten minutes.” I leaned in. “You promised you’d do as I asked out here, and I’m holding you to it. We’re leaving in ten minutes, whether or not Serena is on board.”
Izzy’s body tensed and her eyes narrowed at me. “And spend the next
. . . however long wondering if she’s alive or dead? Wondering if I could have done or said something that could have brought her home? No, Na—”
She grimaced but recovered quickly. “Sergeant Green, I’m not going to do that, not again.”
“I don’t think she’s talking about her sister anymore,” Torres whispered before backing away.
“Point made,” I replied, and she lifted her stubborn little chin. “Ms. Astor,” I started again, dropping my voice, more than aware of the people around us, “you can’t control the decisions other people make, nor do you bear the blame for the consequences of their choices.” The fact that we’d made it this far without having this discussion was a miracle, but I sure as hell wasn’t getting into this using some code language, and this was far from the appropriate place.
“You sure about that?” She wrapped her arms around her waist, careful not to catch the printed silk scarf that covered her hair. “Because I’ve had a few years to think about it, and I’m pretty sure if I’d just looked at someone and said, ‘Please come home,’ maybe they would have.” Her eyes searched mine, and I struggled to pick my heart up off the goddamned floor.
She’d never asked. Not outright. Then again, I’d never given her a reason to think I would have stayed.
“Hey, Isa, you ready to head out?” Holt asked as he walked over, stopping to glance between us, his perfectly groomed eyebrows rising. “Did I interrupt?”
“No,” I answered.
“Yes,” Izzy fired back.
“Okay, well, I’m going to head out with Baker and Turner,” he said, retreating slowly.
Kellman whistled as he walked by, herding Holt out the door behind us, leaving only Graham and a couple other operators in the room. If I hadn’t promised her these ten minutes, Izzy would’ve been buckled in on the Blackhawk by now.
“Did you ever think about me?” she questioned, her voice dropping to a whisper.
I clenched my jaw, fighting off the urge to tell her the truth. Every fucking day.
“That’s a loaded question,” I answered finally.
She blinked. “Not like that. I mean, did you ever think about what it felt like to sit there for years and wonder if you were out there somewhere
fighting, or if you’d . . . died?” The last word came out strangled. “Do you have any idea how many times I cried myself to sleep, terrified of the possibility that you were buried somewhere? That I wouldn’t even know where to visit your grave?”
Shit. My stomach dropped, and I blew out a slow breath, more than aware of my team trying to give us space. “This isn’t the time.”
“It’s never the time,” she retorted. “That was always the problem, so I guess it’s nice to know some things don’t change. You ask me to ignore”— she gestured between us—“everything, and then you go and pull that bullshit by playing that song in the helicopter? Sorry, Sergeant Green, but not all of us are capable of walking away without so much as looking back like you are. But you moved right on to the next assignment, didn’t you?”
Graham raised his eyebrows where he stood at the middle of the room, then turned his back on us when I sent a glare his way.
“It looks like you moved on just fine,” I whispered, glancing meaningfully to her ring.
She swallowed, then tucked her left hand into her elbow, hiding the ring, and she had the decency to look . . . shit, what was that? Remorseful? “Every day,” she said quietly. “I searched your name on Google every goddamned day, Sergeant Green, terrified that an obituary would pop up. Don’t forget that you were the first term I ever used for a Google Alert. It will destroy me if I have to do the same for Serena.”
I looked away, my ribs squeezing my lungs painfully at the imagery she’d used. That alert had saved my sanity in the past. She had saved my sanity. I owed her more than I’d ever be able to repay in that department, but that didn’t mean I was willing to eviscerate myself by throwing our relationship on the autopsy table. There were things I’d never be able to say to her, never revisit or rehash just so she could have some of that precious closure everyone prattled on about. But this? This I could give her.
“I never changed my next of kin form,” I told her softly, lowering my voice so only she could hear, since we’d somehow gotten back to damn- near yelling.
“What?” She blinked.
“I never changed the paperwork.” I shook my head. “If anything had ever happened to me, someone would have told you. Probably not the details of where, or how, or why. But they would have told you I was dead.
Though it might have taken a couple days to track you down, since the last address I had for you was in New York.”
Her entire expression softened, and the sorrow radiating from her eyes sliced into me with lethal precision.
“So now you’ll know when you head back to your real life,” I continued, my hands curling at the thought of the giant rock on her left hand. “No news is good news. Unless you want me to change it, given that your last name probably won’t be Astor for long, and it might make the fiancé wonder why you’re getting notified—”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “Don’t change it. I mean, unless someone comes along who needs to know more than I do, of course.” She shifted her weight and glanced away before slowly dragging her gaze back to mine. “Is there someone else who should know?”
“Right through here,” Elston said as he pushed through the front door, saving me the awkwardness of replying to Izzy.
“Thank you, Sergeant Rose,” a female voice replied from behind him.
A voice I recognized. My head swung in the direction of the door as my pulse leapt with hope that this had actually worked.
Izzy took off running, and I didn’t bother to stop her as she dodged the tables and blew by Graham. Elston barely got out of her way before she flung herself at the woman. “Serena!”
