She was the only one who called him by his first name, and it sounded odd when Steele fit the man’s personality to a T.

Hancock stood to protest, but Maren held up her hand. “She’s resting peacefully. She won’t be aware of Jackson’s presence. I . . . I need him for a moment.”

Steele pressed in close, enfolding his wife in his arms, pushing them both into the room and closing the door behind them.

Maren burst into tears, burying her face in her husband’s broad chest.

“Don’t cry, baby,” Steele said in a desperate voice. It was a well-known fact that his wife’s crying brought him to his knees and made him as helpless as a newborn baby.

“She’s hurting so badly, Jackson,” she choked out. “They both are. Hancock was right. She’s shattered. She’s not there. There’s no fight left in her. She wants to die.”

Steele held her, stroking his hand up and down her back, offering her comfort he knew she wouldn’t find. She was good to her toes. Tenderhearted and sweet. Light and sunshine. All the things he wasn’t but experienced through her. With her. God, what had his life been like before her?

He glanced over his wife’s head to where Honor lay curled into a protective ball on the bed, and he winced. She looked like hell.

“What did that bastard do to her?” Steele asked, his voice dangerously low, rage rolling from him in waves.

“He tortured her. He used a cattle prod on her frequently. She has marks all over her body. She’s bruised. She’s been beaten. But Jackson, that’s not the worst of it. She’ll recover from her injuries. But she’s broken. She’s simply given up. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t hate. She doesn’t love. She isn’t angry. She’s incapable of feeling anything. She’s an empty shell, already dead except that only her heart still beats. But in every way that counts, she’s already gone.

“She isn’t afraid of being turned over to ANE. She accepts it. She welcomes it. God! She simply doesn’t feel anything. I don’t know if she’ll survive this. She tried to kill herself when Bristow tried to rape her. Both wrists are stitched and the cuts are deep. When she realizes she’s not being turned over to ANE, I fear she’ll simply finish the job and end her physical life, because her soul is already dead.”

“Son of a bitch,” Steele said, rubbing his chest at the sudden ache that gripped him. “That woman has been to hell and back. She survived in the face of impossible odds. She fought. She never gave up. But she obviously loves Hancock, and his perceived betrayal was able to do what nothing else could. Defeat her.”

Maren raised her tearful gaze to Steele’s. “And how can I walk out there and tell Hancock everything I just told you? Did you see him? As dead as she is, as devastated as she is, he is every bit as dead on the inside. He won’t survive this any more than she will.”

Steele cupped her chin gently in his hand and pressed a kiss to her lips. “You don’t.”

“He won’t accept that,” she said. “He’ll lose it. He’s already torturing himself with what Maksimov did to her. Not knowing is killing him.”

“You give him the basics. You tell him of her injuries. But everything you just told me, you don’t tell him. It accomplishes nothing, and in fact, it could compromise our mission in a huge way. Because he will completely lose it if you tell him everything you told me. He will be unstoppable. A liability. His only goal will be to take out the man who hurt her and the men who will hurt her. He won’t care if he dies. As you said, he’s already dead. But he could get a hell of a lot of us killed. We need him as calm and as focused as possible, so tell him only what you need to tell him and nothing more. I will not lose a single member of KGI because Hancock has lost his tenuous grip on his sanity and put our entire mission in jeopardy.”

She sighed, leaning into him. He wrapped his arms around her and simply held her, knowing that was what she needed most right now.

“You’re right, of course,” she said. “But God, Jackson. It hurt me to see that young woman so defeated and accepting of her fate. I want so badly to cry for her.”

He smiled. “Honey, you are crying. You’ve cried all over me.”

She sniffed. “You weren’t supposed to notice that.”

He took her hand and squeezed. “Let’s go give Hancock a report before he tears the plane apart.”

“I love you,” she said in an aching voice. “I think part of the reason I’m so devastated for Honor is this could have been me.”

Steele hugged her to him, tremors running through his body. The memory of just how close he’d come to losing her never left him. There wasn’t a day he didn’t think of it, that he didn’t remember the moments when he thought he had lost her. Because, God, there had been more than one.

“I love you too,” he said gruffly. “You and Olivia are my life.”

“And it hurts me to see Hancock this way,” she said in a pained voice. “He’s a good man. He’s not the man everyone thinks him to be. He’s not the man he believes himself to be, the man he’s convinced himself he is. He took care of me the entire time I was in captivity. He protected me and he was gentle and caring. He offered me reassurance and comfort when he knew I needed it the most. Never once did he threaten me, and he gave up his mission to save me. And then he saved me again. He was willing to die for me. He doesn’t deserve this, Jackson. Neither of them do.”

He stroked a hand through her hair, knowing full well he owed Hancock a debt he could never possibly hope to repay. Because of Hancock, he had Maren and their precious baby girl. No, Hancock didn’t deserve the pain of losing the woman he loved and he hoped like hell that somehow, someway, things would work themselves out and that two people dying slow deaths could somehow find their way back to one another so they could be whole again.

CHAPTER 40

WHEN the plane landed at the airstrip where the teams would split up, one taking Honor to the safe house and standing guard over her and the others to rendezvous to plan the mission to take Maksimov and ANE down, Hancock insisted on carrying Honor to the jet she and Resnick’s team would fly out on.

He requested a few moments alone before the others boarded, and they granted the request. The mood was grave, and sorrow pervaded the entire group.

Reverently, Hancock laid Honor on the couch, ensuring that she was as comfortable as he could make her. His hands drifted over the torn flesh at her wrists. On top of the sutures from when she’d cut her own wrists, the skin was ripped and raw from the manacles that had dug so deeply into her delicate flesh.

He palmed her forehead, stroking his fingers through her tangled hair, and he simply drank her in before leaning down to press a kiss to her still lips. He inhaled, savoring her smell, her taste, imprinting it into his heart for all time.

Grief bore down on him, so heavy he couldn’t move. Wherever he went in his meaningless life, he would forever carry a piece of her with him. That piece being the best—the only good—part of him.

“I’m so sorry, Honor,” he whispered. “I love you. I’ll always love you. Only you. There’ll never be another I love as I love you. I’m so damn sorry I couldn’t be the man you needed. That I couldn’t be a good man for you. I hope you find happiness. That I haven’t forever destroyed something so very precious. The world needs more people like you, Honor. It needs your kindness, your spirit, fire and courage. And your compassion. All the things I lack, but just for a little while got to experience what those things felt like through you. Be happy, my love. And live. Live.”