Page 64 of Screwed

“Ethan,” she breathed, her hands coming up to wrap around my wrist, her fingers gripping me tightly as if she were afraid I was going to disappear. “I love you too. God, I love you so much.”

I dropped the flashlight, leaned down, and kissed her. It was a desperate, hungry kiss that swept away the cold draft of the mine. It felt like we were the only real thing left in the world, and as she pulled me closer, her fingers knotting into the fabric of my vest, we buried ourselves in each other’s heat, making it feel like our survival was contingent on this kiss.

When I finally pulled back an inch, her eyes were dark. She didn’t let go of my wrists.

“Ethan,” she said, her voice trembling but resolute. “I need to tell you something. I need to be fair to you.” She swallowed hard, holding my gaze. “I feel the same way about Nate that I feel about you. And Deacon. I love all of you. I didn’t plan for it, and it’s not something I think I can fully explain. But you all have a part of my heart.”

She looked scared that I’d pull away and take back everything I had just said.

I froze for a second, the words hanging between us. I waited for the expected sting of jealousy to hit me, for the ugly territorial burn that any man was supposed to feel when hearing the woman he loved confess her feelings for his best friends, too.

But it never came.

Instead, a strange sort of clarity settled over me. Nate and Deacon weren’t my rivals in anything. I’d bled with these men, worked my body to the bone with them. They’d held the line with me, and I would take a bullet for either of them without hesitation. Because we were already a unit, a single machine that wouldn’t work without the individual parts.

And if I was willing to share the frontline with them to keep the woman I adored safe, what was stopping me from loving her alongside them?

A surprised smile touched my lips, and I pressed a lingering kiss to the center of her forehead.

“I know,” I murmured against her skin. Her body relaxed against mine, a small sigh escaping her. “And I don’t care. We keep you safe first, and everything else we'll figure out together.”

She kissed me one last time. “You’re one of the most amazing men I’ve ever known, Ethan Moore.”

I chuckled, reaching down to pick up the flashlight and shaking off the loose shale. “One of three, I bet.”

She snorted, shaking her head. “A tie for first. Very stiff competition.”

I grinned, then we were back to business.

The beam cut through the stagnant air, catching the glint of condensation weeping down the rotting beams overhead. I swept the light lower, following the rusted remnants of an old ore-cart track until the beam hit the back wall of the collapsed portal. There, tucked beneath a leaning structural header, sat an industrial-grade steel job box. The padlock securing it was a massive chunk of iron, completely seized by decades of moisture.

I passed the flashlight to Ava. “Stand back, okay? Let me see if I can get this thing open.”

She nodded and kept the light focused on the box. I grabbed a length of discarded iron-drill steel from the floor, wedged the flattened end into the hasp of the lock, and threw my entire body weight against it. The metal screamed in protest, an echoing crack ringing through the cavern as the brittle loop finally sheared off.

I tossed the broken lock aside and lifted the heavy steel lid, the ungreased hinges groaning loudly in the dark. Ava held the flashlight steady, casting its beam directly into the deep belly of the chest. Inside, stacked in neat, skeletal rows beneath a layer of decayed wax paper, were dozens of wooden crates stamped with faded, stenciled lettering from a defunct logging supply company.

I leaned down, carefully peeling back the crumbling paper, my heart dropping straight into my stomach as I read the bold red warning emblazoned on the wood.

High Explosives. Dangerous.

Ava moved the light closer, illuminating the oily surface of the paper-wrapped cylinders packed tightly into the crates. “Is that—?”

“Dynamite,” I said, a cold rush of adrenaline driving through me. I stared at the cache, my mind racing through the tactical math of what we were looking at. “Industrial grade. It’s old, but the moisture in here kept it from drying out completely. We just hit pay-dirt.”

36

Ava

The door thudded closed behind us, cutting off the crisp mountain air and sealing us back inside the dark, claustrophobic gloom of our makeshift fortress. We had just dropped the old mining flashlight onto the table when the first heavy drops of rain began to pelt against the raw plywood sheets bolted over the glass walls.

Ethan led the way, a look of pure excitement on his face that I was sure mirrored mine. Nate came out to greet us, his brows knit together as he looked up at the ceiling and listened to the rain. “Find anything useful?”

“Hell yeah,” Ethan said, his voice sharp with adrenaline as he unzipped the canvas bag to reveal the wooden crates inside. “We found a cache of old logging dynamite—the moisture in the shaft kept it stable, but we couldn’t bring the blasting caps or the fuse cord back without risking a volatile spike in the damp.”

Nate’s head snapped back to look at us the second he heard the word “dynamite”. He came over in a hurry, squatting to get a closer look at the crates.

I stepped forward, giving Ethan a questioning look. He nodded in approval, and I decided I’d be the one to explain the rationale we’d worked on as we walked back from the mines. “Ethan said that Deacon’s guy in town handled heavy inventory. That’s all he was willing to share, but he’s willing to bet that he knows the bastard well enough for this to work.”