The cozy, focused atmosphere in my office shattered. One moment, Clyde was a solid, reassuring presence beside me, his hand warm on mine. The next, he was a statue, his head cocked, every muscle coiled.
"Get down," he hissed, the words a sharp, silent command that brooked no argument.
He moved faster than my brain could process. In one fluid motion, he yanked me out of my chair and onto the floor behind the solid bulk of my desk. A split second later, the large window of my home office exploded inwards.
The sound was deafening—a horrific crash of shattering glass and the splintering of wood. A canister, small and metallic, clattered across the hardwood floor where my head had just been, immediately spewing thick, acrid smoke that burned my eyes and throat.
Tear gas.
I choked, my eyes streaming. Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through me. This was it. They weren't sending hired thugs to a restaurant anymore. They were breaching my home.
Clyde didn't flinch. He was a whirlwind of controlled, lethal motion. He ripped the bottom of his henley, tore off two strips of fabric, soaked them with water from my drinking bottle, and shoved one over my nose and mouth. The relief was instant, though the world was still a blurry, burning hellscape.
"Stay down," he growled, his voice a low, terrifying rumble from behind his own makeshift mask. He drew the gun Leo had so foolishly brought—the one Clyde had efficiently cleared and loaded earlier—from the small of his back. The gesture was so casual, so practiced, it was more frightening than the breaking window.
Shapes moved in the smoke-filled room. Two, maybe three figures, clad in black, their forms distorted by the haze. They were inside.
Clyde didn't wait for them to get their bearings. He rose from behind the desk just enough to fire two shots. Crack. Crack. The reports were shockingly loud in the enclosed space. One of the figures cried out and dropped, clutching his leg. The others scattered, taking cover behind my filing cabinet and a bookshelf.
"Nash! Come out quietly!" a voice yelled from the haze. "You don't have to get hurt!"
Clyde's answer was to lean out and put a bullet through the center of my filing cabinet. The thwack of the round punching through metal was followed by a sharp curse from behind it.
"He's armed!" someone shouted, their voice laced with surprise and new caution.
"No shit," Clyde muttered, dropping back into a crouch beside me. His eyes were pale, icy slits in the smoke. "Plan B. On my mark, you run for the hall bathroom. Don't stop. Don't look back. Lock the door. Get in the tub."
"What about you?" I gasped, my heart trying to hammer its way out of my chest.
A feral grin flashed behind his mask. "I'm gonna introduce myself."
Before I could argue, he moved. He didn't go over the desk. He went around it, low and fast like a wolf, using the smoke for cover. I heard a grunt of surprise, the sickening sound of a impact—fist meeting jaw, maybe—and a body hit the floor with a heavy thud.
"Go!" he roared.
I didn't think. I ran. I scrambled on my hands and knees, then launched myself into a stumbling sprint, keeping low beneath the smoke. A bullet whizzed past my ear, embedding itself in the doorframe with a puff of plaster. I didn't stop. I dove into the hallway, skidded on the rug, and slammed the bathroom door shut, fumbling with the lock.
Click. The sound was pitifully small.
I scrambled into the large soaking tub, curling into a ball, making myself as small a target as possible. My entire body was trembling. The sounds from the office were nightmarish. More gunshots. A crash. A yell of pain that was abruptly cut off. The thud of bodies. It was brutal. It was efficient. It was over in less than a minute.
Then, silence.
The only sound was my own ragged, terrified breathing and the faint hiss of the spent tear gas canister.
A gentle knock sounded on the bathroom door. "Troy? It's clear."
Clyde's voice. Calm. Steady. A little breathless.
I unlocked the door with shaking hands and pulled it open.
He stood there, silhouetted against the smoke-hazed light of the hallway. He had a cut on his cheekbone that was bleeding sluggishly, and his knuckles were raw. His eyes scanned me quickly, checking for injuries. Behind him, in my office, I could see two figures lying motionless on the floor. A third was slumped against the bookshelf, hands zip-tied behind his back, groaning.
"You okay?" he asked, his voice softening as he reached out to brush a piece of plaster dust from my hair.
I just stared at him, my brain trying to catch up. "You… you…"
"I told you I'd handle it," he said simply. He stepped into the bathroom, his gaze sweeping the small space out of habit before returning to me. He cupped my face, his thumb stroking my cheek. "You did good. You followed instructions."
A hysterical laugh bubbled out of me. "I hid in the tub."
"The best place for you," he said, his expression utterly serious. "Reinforced porcelain. Good cover." He leaned in and pressed his forehead against mine, a gesture that was becoming our anchor in any storm. "I've got you."
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer. His team, or the police he'd undoubtedly called.
I looked past him at the wreckage of my office, at the broken window letting in the cold night air, at the unconscious men on my floor. My quiet, ordered life of numbers was well and truly over.
I looked back at Clyde. At the cut on his face, the determined set of his jaw, the absolute certainty in his eyes.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. "I know," I said, and for the first time, I believed it with every fiber of my being, chaos and all. "I know you do."
The aftermath of a home invasion, I was discovering, was a bizarre mix of high-stakes drama and mind-numbing bureaucracy. The sirens outside crescendoed into a deafening wall of sound before cutting off abruptly, replaced by the shouts of arriving police and the deeper, calmer voices of Clyde's team. Red and blue lights strobed through the shattered remains of my window, painting the swirling tear gas smoke in psychedelic colors.
I was sitting on the bottom step of my staircase, wrapped in a shock blanket someone—Jin, I thought—had draped over my shoulders. I was fine. A little shaky, my ears were ringing, and my throat felt like I'd swallowed a bonfire, but I was fine. Clyde, however, was currently engaged in a quiet, tense standoff with the first responding police sergeant.
"I understand procedure, Sergeant," Clyde was saying, his voice a study in forced patience. He'd wiped the blood from his cheek, but the cut was already purpling into a nasty bruise. "But as I've explained, this is an active federal investigation. These men," he gestured with his chin toward the three intruders—one zip-tied and conscious, two unconscious and being loaded onto gurneys by paramedics—"are material witnesses in a matter of national security. My team will be taking them into custody."
The sergeant, a man with a impressive mustache and a face red with frustration, puffed out his chest. "I've got a report of shots fired and a home invasion! I can't just hand over suspects and a crime scene to… to…"
"To me," Clyde finished, his tone dropping into that low, dangerous register that made the hair on my arms stand up. He didn't flash his badge again. He didn't need to. His presence alone was a credential. "The paperwork will be on your captain's desk by 0800. My people are already liaising with your people. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see to my colleague."
He turned his back on the sputtering sergeant, a clear dismissal, and walked toward me. The sergeant looked like he wanted to argue further, but Jin stepped smoothly into his path, his expression polite but unyielding.
Clyde crouched in front of me, his eyes searching mine. "How you holding up, Nash?"
I managed a weak smile. "Oh, you know. Just another quiet night at home. The usual. Some light reading, a bit of accounting, a violent breach-and-clear operation." My voice was still raspy. "I think I preferred the yoga."
A real smile, brief but breathtaking, touched his lips. "Noted. Next time, more downward dog, less CQC." He stood and offered me his hand. "C'mon. We're not staying here tonight."
"Where are we going?" I asked, letting him pull me to my feet. The blanket slipped from my shoulders.
"Someplace with fewer broken windows and more security," he said, his hand finding the small of my back, guiding me through the chaos of my own home. Cops, federal agents, and men in tactical gear moved through the rooms. It was surreal.
As we passed what was left of my office, I caught a glimpse of my computers. The screens were dark, their cables neatly disconnected. Cooper was carefully placing them into padded cases. "Hey! My work—"
"—is being secured," Clyde finished. "It's all going with us. Don't worry."
We stepped out into the cool night air. The street was a circus of official vehicles. Neighbors were gathered on their lawns, gawking. And there, parked right behind a police cruiser, was our dark grey SUV, engine running. Espinoza was behind the wheel, giving us a cheerful thumbs-up.
Clyde bundled me into the passenger seat and climbed in beside me. "Go," he said to Espinoza, and we pulled away from the curb, leaving the flashing lights and the gaping hole in my house behind.
We drove in silence for a while. I just stared out the window, watching the normal world go by. People walking their dogs. Couples coming out of restaurants. A completely ordinary night for everyone else.
"So," I said finally, my voice still rough. "That was a thing."
Clyde glanced over at me. "Yeah. That was a thing."
"You were… really good at that thing."
He shrugged one shoulder. "Lots of practice."
"The guy you shot in the leg…," I started, a slight tremor in my voice.
"He'll live," Clyde said, his tone matter-of-fact. "It was a clean through-and-through. A deterrent shot. The other two have headaches and bruised pride. And one of them has a newly deviated septum." He said it with a hint of professional satisfaction.
I blinked. "You broke his nose with your… hand?"
"It was the closest weapon available," he said, as if explaining he'd used a screwdriver instead of a hammer.
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. A slightly hysterical giggle escaped me. "Leo's gun. You used Leo's stupid, misguided, 'I-can't-sleep-at-night' gun."
Clyde's lips quirked. "It's a reliable model. A little flashy for my taste, but it did the job." He reached over and took my hand, lacing our fingers together. His grip was warm and steady. "The important thing is that you're okay."
We ended up at a sleek, anonymous high-rise in a part of the city I rarely visited. A secure parking garage, a private elevator that required a keycard and a retinal scan from Clyde, and then we were stepping into an apartment that made his place look homey.
It was all cool minimalism, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, and expensive, uncomfortable-looking furniture. A safe house.
"Home sweet home," Clyde said dryly, tossing his keys on a glass table. "The fridge is usually stocked. Bathroom's through there. Get cleaned up. I'll find you something to wear."
An hour later, I was showered and dressed in a pair of his sweatpants and a US Navy t-shirt that swam on me. The adrenaline had finally bled away, leaving me exhausted and wrung out. I walked into the living room to find Clyde on the phone again, his back to me.
"…the Dragon Slayer lead is hot. Nash cracked it wide open. That's why they escalated. They're panicking… Yes, sir. We're secure… Understood."
He ended the call and turned around. He'd showered too, his hair damp, and he wore a similar outfit of sweatpants and a t-shirt that stretched across his chest in a way that should be illegal. He looked tired, but his eyes were alert.
"That was my CO again," he said. "The assault on a civilian asset has changed the game. We have the green light. Full resources. We're taking these bastards down. Starting tomorrow."
Tomorrow. The word felt both terrifying and exhilarating.
He walked over to me and pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly. I buried my face in his chest, breathing in the clean scent of soap and him.
"No more hiding in bathtubs," I mumbled into his shirt.
He kissed the top of my head. "No," he agreed, his voice a low rumble. "Tomorrow, we're on offense." He pulled back slightly and looked down at me, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face. "You ready to go slay a dragon, partner?"
Looking up at him, at the certainty and the ferocity and the unexpected humor in his eyes, I felt a answering smile spread across my own face. The fear was still there, but it was overshadowed by something else: a fierce, bright spark of anticipation.
"I thought you'd never ask."
The sterile, minimalist safe house felt less like a home and more like a very expensive, very secure waiting room. The adrenaline from the break-in had long since faded, leaving behind a deep, bone-weary exhaustion and the lingering, acrid smell of tear gas in my sinuses. I was curled on a surprisingly comfortable white leather sofa that probably cost more than my car, wrapped in a blanket that smelled faintly of bleach, watching Clyde.
He was a study in controlled energy. After ensuring I was settled, he'd spent twenty minutes on a secure video call with his team, his voice a low, steady stream of commands and confirmations. Words like "perimeter," "forensics," and "interrogation protocols" floated over to me. Now, he was methodically checking the locks on the towering windows and the single, reinforced door, his movements efficient and utterly silent.
"You know," I said, my voice still a little raspy, "if they can breach my house, a fancy apartment door probably isn't going to stop them."
He didn't look up from the doorjamb he was inspecting. "This door could stop a rhino. And they're not coming here. They're scrambling to cover their tracks after that botched op. We have the initiative now." He finished his inspection and finally turned to look at me. "You hungry?"
The question was so normal, so utterly domestic, that it took me a second to process. "I… I could eat?"
He nodded and disappeared into the gleaming, all-white kitchen. I heard the hum of a high-end fridge opening and the clatter of pots and pans. He wasn't just looking for snacks; he was cooking. In the midst of a national security crisis, after a firefight in my living room, Clyde Adams was making dinner.
I shuffled to the kitchen doorway and leaned against the frame, watching him. He'd found ingredients for pasta—linguine, a container of fresh clams, garlic, white wine. He moved with the same focused precision he used for everything else, but there was a calmness to it now. A ritual. He minced garlic with a terrifyingly sharp knife, his movements swift and exact.
"You cook when you're stressed," I observed.
He glanced up, a faint smile touching his lips. "I cook when people I care about need to eat." He poured the wine into a pan; it sizzled violently. "And yes, when I'm stressed."
The scent of garlic and wine began to fill the apartment, pushing out the last of the sterile, safe-house smell. It was comforting. It was real. My stomach rumbled in approval.
"Can I help?" I asked.
"You can sit," he said, pointing the knife toward the breakfast bar. "And talk to me. Distract me from the fact that I almost had to redecorate your office with someone's internal organs."
I hoisted myself onto a stool, watching him shake the pan, the clams beginning to open. "That's a charming image. Thank you for that."
"Anytime."
We fell into a comfortable silence, broken only by the sounds of cooking. It was so bizarrely normal that it looped back around to being surreal. Here we were, in a multi-million dollar bunker, eating linguine and clams after a gunfight.
He plated the food with an artist's flair—a fact that never failed to amuse me—and brought it over to the bar. We ate side-by-side, not talking, just enjoying the simple, incredible food.
After we'd cleaned up—Clyde insisting on doing the dishes with the same efficiency he did everything—we migrated back to the sofa. The city glittered below us, a vast, unknowing audience to our private drama.
I was starting to crash, the exhaustion pulling at me. I leaned my head against Clyde's shoulder, and his arm came around me, pulling me close.
"Today was… a lot," I mumbled into the soft cotton of his shirt.
His hand stroked up and down my arm. "It was."
"I saw you," I said quietly. "When they came in. You didn't even hesitate. You were just… action."
He was silent for a moment. "Training takes over. There's no time for hesitation. There's only assessment and response."
"It was scary," I admitted. "But also… the most incredible thing I've ever seen."
He pressed a kiss to my hair. "You were pretty incredible yourself. You didn't panic. You listened. You got to cover. That's half the battle right there."
A warm glow spread through me at his praise. We sat like that for a long time, watching the lights of the city, wrapped in a silence that was both comfortable and charged with everything that had happened and everything that was to come.
My eyes were getting heavy when Clyde's phone, sitting on the glass coffee table, buzzed. Not the urgent trill from earlier, but a regular text alert.
He reached for it, his movement careful not to jostle me. He looked at the screen and let out a soft snort of laughter.
"What is it?" I asked, tilting my head back to look at him.
A wide, genuine grin spread across his face. He showed me the phone.
It was a text from Jin.
Jin: Interrogation update on our three guests. The one with the nose situation is singing like a canary. Turns out he's got a real philosophical disagreement with his employers' dental plan. Also, he's very upset you scuffed his favorite tactical boots. He says they were limited edition.
I stared at the message, then up at Clyde's amused face, and then I started to laugh. It was a real, deep, helpless laugh that shook my whole body. Tears streamed down my face. After the fear, the violence, the high-stakes tension, the sheer absurdity of a captured mercenary complaining about his scuffed boots was the perfect release valve.
Clyde was laughing too, a low, rich sound that vibrated through me. "Limited edition," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Unbelievable."
We laughed until our sides ached, the sound echoing in the sleek, empty apartment. It was cathartic and ridiculous and perfect.
When we finally calmed down, I wiped my eyes, still giggling weakly. "So, what now? Do we send him a coupon for a shoe shine?"
Clyde's smile softened. He cupped my face in his hand, his thumb stroking my cheek. "Now," he said, his voice dropping to a warm, intimate rumble. "Now, we get some sleep. Tomorrow, we use his whining about his footwear to help bring down a multi-billion dollar criminal empire." He leaned in and kissed me, a slow, sweet, lingering kiss that tasted of garlic, wine, and the promise of a future. "Standard operating procedure."
The laughter had subsided, leaving behind a warm, comfortable quiet in the sterile safe house. The city's lights continued their silent vigil beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, but inside, the world had shrunk to the soft glow of a single lamp and the space between us on the sofa. My sides still ached from laughing, a pleasant counterpoint to the deeper aches left by the day's violence.
Clyde's arm was still around me, his fingers tracing idle, soothing patterns on my shoulder. The text from Jin about the disgruntled mercenary and his limited-edition boots had been the release we'd both needed, puncturing the lingering tension with a needle of pure absurdity.
I tilted my head back to look at him. The amusement was still in his eyes, but it had softened into something warmer, more intense. His gaze dropped to my lips, and the air in the room seemed to shift, growing thicker, charged with a new kind of electricity.
"Troy," he murmured, my name a low, rough caress on his tongue.
That was all it took. The last remnants of the day's fear and chaos melted away, burned up by the heat in his eyes. He leaned in, and this time, his kiss wasn't about comfort or celebration. It was a claiming. Slow, deep, and devastatingly thorough, it poured every ounce of the day's pent-up emotion into me—the protectiveness, the pride, the fierce, unwavering certainty.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing heavily. He didn't say a word. He simply stood, took my hand, and led me away from the sofa, away from the windows, toward the bedroom.
The bedroom was as minimalist as the rest of the apartment—a large platform bed with crisp white linens, nothing on the walls. But it didn't feel cold. Not with him in it. He stopped beside the bed and turned to face me, his hands coming up to frame my face. His thumbs stroked my cheekbones, his touch reverent.
"I need you to know," he said, his voice husky with emotion, "that what happened today… seeing them come for you… it changes nothing. Except to make me more certain than ever that this is exactly where I'm meant to be."
My heart felt too big for my chest. I reached up, covering his hands with mine. "I know," I whispered. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."
That was all the permission he needed. He kissed me again, and this time, there was no hesitation. It was a slow, deliberate unraveling. He undressed me with a patience that bordered on worship, his hands and lips charting a course across my skin as if memorizing every inch of me. Each button undone, each article of clothing discarded, was a silent promise. There was no rush, no frantic urgency. Only a profound, aching tenderness.
When we were both bare, he laid me down on the cool sheets and followed me down, covering my body with his. The weight of him was familiar and thrilling all at once. He kissed me—my lips, my jaw, the pulse point at my throat—whispering my name like a prayer against my skin.
This joining was different from any before. It was a reaffirmation. A silent vow spoken in the language of touch and breath and shared heartbeats. It was slow and deep and so emotionally devastating that I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. He moved above me, inside me, with a reverence that stole my breath, his eyes locked on mine, holding me captive in a gaze that promised forever.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the quiet dark, limbs intertwined, his heartbeat a steady drum under my ear. He held me as if I were something precious, his hand stroking my hair, his lips occasionally brushing my forehead.
Sometime later, he stirred. "Bath," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep.
He scooped me up—a gesture I was becoming wonderfully accustomed to—and carried me into the enormous, glass-walled bathroom. He set me down on the cool marble counter and started the water in the deep soaking tub, adding a capful of sandalwood bubbles. The steam began to fog the glass, creating our own private, hazy world.
He helped me into the hot, fragrant water and then got in behind me, pulling me back against his chest. He didn't speak. He just held me, his arms around me, his chin resting on my shoulder as we watched the steam curl toward the ceiling. The water soaked away the last physical reminders of the day's stress, but it was his silent, steadfast presence that truly healed the invisible ones.
When the water began to cool, he helped me out, wrapping me in a large, fluffy towel and drying me with a gentle thoroughness that made my throat tight. He did the same for himself, and then, hand in hand, we padded back into the bedroom and slipped under the cool sheets.
I fell asleep wrapped in his arms, surrounded by his scent, and for the first time that day, my dreams were peaceful.
I woke to the smell of coffee and bacon. Sunlight was streaming through the windows. Clyde was already up. I found him in the kitchen, once again master of his domain. He was wearing just a pair of low-slung sweatpants, his bare back to me as he tended to sizzling bacon in a pan. A pot of coffee was gurgling happily.
I leaned against the doorway, just watching him. The sight of this formidable warrior, this man who could neutralize a threat with terrifying efficiency, fussing over breakfast in a sunlit kitchen, was enough to make my heart ache with a happiness so profound it was almost painful.
He must have sensed me. He turned around, a smile instantly transforming his face. "Morning. Hungry?"
"Starving," I said, walking into the kitchen.
He turned back to the stove to flip the bacon. I came up behind him, sliding my arms around his waist and pressing a kiss to the center of his back, right between his shoulder blades. I felt him still, then relax into my touch.
"Thank you," I whispered against his skin.
He turned in my arms, his own coming around me. "For what? The bacon?"
"For everything," I said, looking up at him. "For the bacon. For the bath. For not letting anyone turn my office into a crime scene. For being you."
He leaned down and kissed me, a slow, deep, coffee-flavored kiss that promised a lifetime of mornings exactly like this one.
"Anytime, partner," he murmured against my lips. "Now, let's eat. We've got a dragon to slay today."