Kabul, Afghanistan August 2021
“Change your mind,” I ordered Izzy when she opened her door the next morning. Fine, maybe it was more plea than order. Sleeping hadn’t been an issue for me in years, but I’d tossed and turned all night after she told me why she was really here.
Searching for her sister was going to get her killed. Every step Izzy took outside this embassy was a calculated risk, and we’d prepared security for her precise itinerary, not for hunting a needle in a haystack. American photojournalists made excellent propaganda targets for the enemy around here, and with the country destabilizing, the odds of finding Serena in the window of Izzy’s visit were grim.
“Good morning to you too.” Izzy cocked an eyebrow at me and held open her door so I could enter. “Give me about three minutes, and I’ll be ready.”
“Ready to change your mind?” Fuck me, she smelled good. The scent was straight out of every dream I’d had over the last decade.
“No.” She buttoned what looked to be a linen blazer up to her throat and packed a scarf in her tote bag with a pair of overear headphones. “Ready to get on the helicopter. Is Mayhew ready?”
“Already downstairs.” The junior aide was so much easier to deal with than Izzy, but then again, I’d never been in love with him, so that probably influenced my opinion.
“I see you’re dressed for a funeral again.” She eyed my all-black combat gear.
“As long as it isn’t yours. Tell me something. What exactly was your plan coming here?” I leaned back against her door.
She glanced down at my M4. “You really have to carry that everywhere?”
“Yes.” I didn’t bother to tell her about every other weapon I had strapped to me. “Now what was your plan, Isabeau? Just show up here and start calling out Serena’s name?”
A blush rose up her cheeks as she shouldered the tote and faced me, lifting that stubborn chin of hers. “Something . . . like that.”
I let my head fall back against the door for a heartbeat. “I’ve always known you would do anything for her—you’d do anything for each other— but this is ludicrous. How long has she been in country?”
“Five months. She was offered the opportunity to end her assignment early when the rather”—she winced—“abrupt handover of Bagram indicated a larger . . .” Izzy searched for the right words.
“Shit show was about to go down?” I supplied. “Because that’s what’s happening.”
“Withdrawal was never going to be pretty.” Her chin lifted a good three inches. “I just didn’t think Serena would be stubborn enough to stay, especially after the embassy staff was reduced back in April. But she’s . . .” Izzy shrugged.
“Serena.”
Izzy nodded. “If I can just find her, I can talk some sense into her and get her out of here.”
“Do the other members of your delegation know what you’re up to?”
“No.” She gripped the straps of her bag so tight I half expected them to start screaming. “And I know you aren’t going to tell them either.”
I pushed off the door and flat out invaded her space. “And what makes you think that?”
She looked away, and her throat worked before she dragged her gaze back to meet mine. “Because you owe me.”
“I. Owe. You?” My eyebrows rose. Apparently, she remembered New York a little differently than I did.
“After leaving me in—” She closed her eyes and blew out a slow breath through puckered lips that claimed every ounce of my attention.
My stomach drew tight, remembering exactly how soft those lips felt under mine, against my skin.
“You owe me,” she said, straightening her shoulders, our gazes colliding. “Besides, I’ve already put feelers out at her paper and narrowed it to those two provinces, without, you know . . . advertising that I’d be here with a congressional delegation. She’s a photojournalist for the Times. She can’t just disappear, Nate.” She winced. “I mean, Sergeant Green.”
“People disappear here all the time.”
“Well, not Serena.” She shrugged, like her statement could somehow give her older sister a layer of impossible protection that simply didn’t exist here.
“And you’re willing to bet your life on it?” I wasn’t. As much as I cared for Serena and everything she meant to Izzy, my priorities were clear as fucking day.
“It’s not going to come to that.” Izzy shook her head. “We both know that as secret as we’d like this fact-finding mission to be, it isn’t. Serena will know I’m here. She’ll find us, and we’ll put her on the helicopter, and I’ll bring her home with me.”
Disbelief mixed with a heavy dose of anger raced through my veins, and I took a step backward. “You’re using yourself as bait?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Please don’t pretend that you’re concerned about my welfare.”
“Your welfare has been my concern for the last ten fucking years!” I snapped, immediately regretting the slip. Damn it, this woman pushed me to the edge faster than anyone on the planet.
Silence stretched between us as I fought to level my head.
“Let’s go.” I turned around and walked out of the room, holding the door so she could walk through first.
Tension radiated between us as we walked down the steps and into the lobby.
“Isa!” Kacey Pierce, one of Senator Lauren’s junior aides, raced over from one of the glassed-in conference rooms, notebook in hand. “Is there anything else you need me on while you’re gone?”
Izzy adjusted her tote bag, looking over the list that Kacey shoved at her. “I think this just about covers it.”
I moved closer and leaned in, putting my lips dangerously close to her ear. “Ask her to pull the latest correspondence from any American journalists with accompanying pictures, and have them printed for when we get back.”
Izzy turned her head so quickly, her gaze whipping to mine, that I barely had a millisecond to draw back before the entire lobby would have been spectators to a crossed line. “You’re helping?”
“It’s just a suggestion.” Blatantly retreating, I waited by the door as Izzy gave her orders to the junior aide. Had to admit, leadership looked really damn good on her.
We made our way to the convoy, where my team already waited. She protested when I took her bag from her and tossed it on the floor of the armored vehicle, then drew out a Kevlar vest.
“Arms out.”
“This is ridiculous.” She put her arms out, and I slipped the vest over her head and the practical french braid she’d woven her blonde strands into this morning.
“So is you being here, but at least this will stop bullets.” I brought the straps from the back of the vest under her arms and secured them to the front with as much professionalism as I could muster.
“It’s heavy.”
“Being shot is worse.” I reached into the vehicle and brought out a Kevlar helmet.
She glared at me. “Seriously?”
“They’re not too bad!” Mayhew, the other junior aide, called out from inside.
“No preferential treatment.” I shrugged at Izzy. “Put it on, or you stay here.” She wasn’t getting shot in the head on my watch.
She shoved it onto her head, then climbed in next to Mayhew, and I took the front passenger seat just like yesterday, while the rest of the team filed in.
Within moments, we rolled through the embassy gates, heading toward the field just down the road where the helicopters were staged.
We passed through a barbed wire gate and onto the field, where six Blackhawks were all in various stages of run-up. Taking her into blatant danger went against every instinct I had, but I knew she’d just go without me if I refused her, which meant I got out of the car and opened her door. She’d managed the seat belt just fine by herself this time.
“Is this a . . . soccer field?” Izzy asked as she stepped out of the car.
“Yep,” I answered as Graham came around the car, Torres not far behind.
“Which one is ours?” Izzy asked. “We’re taking the front two.”
“Two?” She shot a confused look my way.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “We travel in two in case something happens, like one getting shot down.”
Her eyes flared.
“Black, Rose, and four grunts are in the second aircraft,” Graham said, moving out of the way when Holt stumbled out of the car after Mayhew.
“It’s so damned hot,” Holt muttered, rolling his neck as Kellman rolled his eyes behind him.
“That works for me. We’ll take the first one,” I told Graham before turning to Kellman. “Good luck with that one today.” I cracked a smile as Holt wiped the sweat from the back of his neck.
“I should say the same thing to you.” He shot a poignant look at Izzy, who stood looking at the Blackhawks with wide eyes before cramming her sunglasses on her face. “Looks like you’ve got a knuckler.”
Fuckity, fuck, fuck. What was she thinking?
I walked over to her, dust coating my boots, and took her elbow, leaning down so she could hear me over the high-pitched whine of the engines. “I’m guessing you never got over your fear of flying?”
“I’m fine.” She yanked her elbow out of my grip. “I’ll be . . . fine.”
“They’re not big, cushy planes where you can put your headphones on and pretend you’re somewhere else,” I warned her as we headed for the first helicopter.
“I’ll manage,” she shouted, glaring over her shoulder at me as she stepped up into the bird I’d led us to, walking past the door gunner.
“This should be fun,” Torres said with a grin. I rolled my eyes and climbed in.
The Blackhawk was set up to carry troops, and I took the seat directly against one of the pilot’s backs, facing Izzy. The pilot twisted in her seat, handing me a headset. I nodded my thanks, fitted it around my helmet, and turned it on, but I kept the mic muted.
Izzy strapped herself in with surprising efficiency and took out her overear headphones from a shoulder bag that looked like it cost more than I made in a month, looking at them with dismay.
Yeah, those weren’t going to work with her helmet, and putting her through a flight without music was . . . unfathomable to me, a torture I
wasn’t willing to impose on her.
She dropped the headphones into her bag and stared out the window like nothing was wrong, but her back was ramrod straight, her lips pressed between her teeth, and she white-knuckled the seat as we launched.
Her gaze met mine as we left the ground, and just like that, we weren’t in the Blackhawk. We were staring into each other’s eyes, our hands clinging as flight 826 plummeted into the Missouri.
She slammed her eyes shut, and I unhooked my belt, adjusted my rifle, and pulled my AirPods out of a cargo pocket on my Kevlar. Then I moved, kneeling in front of her.
A touch of her knee had her eyes flying open and locking with mine. My chest tightened at the fear in those brown depths. She blinked quickly, trying to mask it, but she’d never been able to hide anything from me.
Reaching up, I slipped my AirPods into her ears, then sat back in my seat, aware of her gaze tracking my every move as she adjusted the fit.
The aircraft was nearly full, and yet it might as well have been only the two of us as I pulled out my phone—disconnected from service, but not the music I kept downloaded—and scrolled through my library.
I tapped on “Northern Downpour,” and our eyes locked as the helicopter rose above Kabul, heading toward JBAD.
Her lips parted, and the way she looked at me . . . shit, it may as well have been 2011, or 2014, or any of the other years fate had thrown us together. It was one of her favorite songs, which was one of the only things we had in common. The shaky breath she drew, her chest stuttering, nearly unraveled me.
To sit here, to see her and not touch her, not demand to know whose ring was on her finger, was a hell I wasn’t sure I could live through, and yet, I’d endure it without faltering if it meant I’d get to see her one last time.
After all, she was . . . Isabeau.
She mouthed along with the lyrics, then ripped her gaze away, staring at her knees.
I leaned forward and handed her my phone so she could pick whatever she wanted to listen to, then sat back and pulled out the paperback of The Color Purple I’d kept in the cargo pocket of my pants for the last few weeks and began to read.
 |
The embassy was bustling with tension and a touch of chaos when we returned later that evening.
Izzy’s meeting with leadership in Jalalabad had been only an hour, maybe less, but what she’d heard hadn’t eased her tension or mine. There was an atmosphere of desperation, yet resolve, and I hoped the latter won out against the former.
The news we’d received once we’d gotten back to the bird a few hours ago had only confirmed what everyone knew—the country was destabilizing. Zaranj, in the southern Nimruz Province, had fallen to the Taliban today.
Expected, yet . . . disappointing.
“And these are the last articles from American journalists in country,” Kacey said after filling Izzy in on the day, shoving a manila folder at her as we trudged up the stairs to her room.
“Perfect. Thank you. I’m going to shower off the dust, and then I’ll be down for dinner,” Izzy said, leaving Kacey at her bedroom door before shutting it.
I nodded at Kacey and then turned my back on Izzy’s door like I was standing guard.
After thirty seconds, I tried the handle, and it opened. “Damn it, Izzy, can’t you lock it?” I snapped, shutting it behind me and throwing the dead bolt.
“I knew you’d follow me in,” she said from her bedroom, kicking off her shoes in the doorway. “Folder is on the table.”
I picked it up and thumbed through the latest articles. “They shouldn’t even be here,” I muttered, checking the bylines for Serena’s name. “Americans have been warned to get the hell out for months.”
“You know Serena,” Izzy said, shrugging off her blazer and then throwing it onto her bed. Couldn’t blame her for wanting it off. It had been hot as hell out there. She walked over in just her dress pants and lace- trimmed camisole.
Nope, not looking at the way her breasts rose against the fabric. That way lay madness.
“I do know Serena.” I shook my head when I reached the last of the articles. “She didn’t file today, or yesterday, and last week’s didn’t give a precise location. We’ll have to check every day until we see her name.”
Izzy’s eyes widened, and the corners of her mouth tilted up into a smile that made my pulse quicken. “You really are going to help me, aren’t you, Nate?”
God, that smile, those eyes . . .
“Yeah. I want you out of here as fast as fucking possible,” I said, gesturing to her ring. “And I bet he does too.”
Her sharp inhale told me I’d crossed a line, but I didn’t care. That was all we were together: one giant, crossed line that neither of us belonged on the other side of.
I put the folder on the table and got the hell out of there.
