Page 70 of Operation: Defiance

Asher stands, takes two steps back, and waits.

I sag against the pillow, breathing shallowly until the nausea eases a fraction.

Tears blur my vision, and I don’t fight them this time. I know why I’m crying.

Those four sips weren’t just calories.

They’re proof my body still recognizes what food is.

“It’s been too long since…” I swallow, unable to put the rest of the sentence into words.

“I know,” Asher says softly. “You can have more whenever you’re ready. No pressure.”

He sets the mug aside and returns to the chair. His hands rest briefly in his lap, then move back to the arms.

“Why were you there?” I ask after a moment. “Not for me. I know that.” My thoughts are starting to fracture again, but I can hold them together a little longer. I need to hear his answer.

“I was hired to extract someone else,” he says. “A man who pissed off the wrong people. But by the time I arrived, he’d been dead for almost twenty-four hours.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

He pauses, eyes churning with something…dangerous. “When I pulled his file, I didn’t like what I saw. The timing was wrong. Too many escalations too close together.” He shakes his head slightly. “I wondered if it was a pattern. Started digging around. That’s when I found your records. Your vitals hadn’t flatlined yet. But they were close.”

“You decided to play hero.”

One corner of his mouth lifts, barely. “I’m not a hero. Never have been. You didn’t need rescuing. You needed those damn restraints off. That’s all I did. You handled the rest.”

Something in me loosens. Just a little.

“If you’re not a hero,” I ask, my words starting to slur, “what are you?”

“I clean up problems. A fixer, if you want the technical term. Extractions. Digital incursions. On rare occasions, I remove someone from the board before they destroy someone else.”

I nod—carefully.

“I don’t work cheap,” he adds. “But I don’t take jobs I can’t live with. No amount of money can clear a conscience.”

I file that away for later, when my thoughts aren’t so slow and slippery.

“What happens now?” I ask.

“For the next little while?” He leans forward. “You eat when you can. You rest. We deal with what needs dealing with. Nothing happens without your consent.”

“And after that?”

His voice firms, just slightly. “You decide what you want. And whether you want my help with it.”

Want. Not need.

“That’s not how this usually goes,” I say.

“Nothing about this is usual.”

The truth of his words would pull a laugh free if I were still capable of laughing.

“No. It isn’t.”

I lie back against the pillows and immediately regret it. The moment I stop bracing, everything slips.