MY CELL PINGED WITH A text.

Pulling it out of my pocket, I glanced at the display and silently cursed.

Ronan: She’s home safe. Emotional state questionable.

Fucking bastard.

I didn’t reply. I hated him for both the text and the fact that he’d spent ten hours in a vehicle alone with her, but I didn’t have time to fixate on it because seconds later oversized tires crunched on the packed snow at the base of the driveway.

My breath showing in the cold, I tossed down my wrench and stood as my hand automatically went to my back. Palming my piece but not drawing, I eyed the late model extended cab truck as it pulled up to the cabin.

Glaring at the driver, I dropped my hand.

Harm killed the engine and shoved his door open. His gaze cutting a wide path from left to right in a maneuver I knew well, his boots hit the ground. “Figured you’d need help.” His hands went to his hips and the fingers on his right tapped for a piece that wasn’t there. “Power company show yet?”

“No.” He was the last fucker I wanted help from. Scratch that, Candle was. Harm was second. “I’ve got it under control.” I didn’t have it under control. The generator kept turning off, I hadn’t slept, and my cabin was a fucking mess of haphazardly nailed plywood, bloodstains and bitter regret.

Still not making eye contact, Harm’s gaze swept another path. “No lights on inside and I don’t hear the generator. You need help,” he said confidently.

The kind of help I needed, he couldn’t give. “You that hard up for something to do? Hauling off four bodies last night without comment wasn’t enough excitement for you?” Fucker was crazy.

“Nice piece of land you got,” he commented, ignoring my bullshit.

“I’m selling it.” It was useless to me now.

His eyes finally met mine. Distant and guarded, his gaze didn’t have the lethal edge the badass I knew downrange did, but he also wasn’t as checked out as I’d heard he was.

“Because it’s burned?” he asked knowingly.

“Yep.”

“Too bad.”

“It is what it is.” In a worse fucking mood than before he’d shown up, I picked up my wrench and squatted back down next to the generator. “What did you do with the bodies?”

“Wrong tools for that,” he said casually.

Throwing my best fuck you glare over my shoulder, I went back to what I was doing. Or not doing, which was getting this fucking piece of shit up and running so I could have a goddamn hot shower. “Fine, don’t tell me.” Christ, not only did I feel it, but now I even sounded like a pussy little bitch.

Metal clanked against metal behind me, then boots crunched across the snow. A second later his toolbox landed at my feet and he joined me in a squat. “Hadn’t seen Russian military outside deployment before the other night.” He fucked around in his toolbox.

“The beauty of what money can buy.” And what it couldn’t. The best snipers weren’t for sale.

“That little girl tied up in all of that?” Harm asked.

So Ronan hadn’t told him shit. Not surprising. “Not girl, woman,” I corrected, pissed off even more. “And no, that wasn’t her shit. It was mine.” And I was an asshole for how I’d sent her away.

“Never knew you to be a fuck up.” Harm took out a smaller wrench.

I snorted out a laugh. “You also didn’t know me to let my guard down on a mission.” Case in point, the fucking inconvenience on my neck.

He glanced at me. “What happened?”

Same shit that’d probably happened to him. “You play with fire long enough, you get burned.”

“Not spoken like a true Marine.”

I took offense. “You’re standing next to me in the same goddamn boat, asshole. If you weren’t, you’d still be wearing the uniform, so don’t throw down that bullshit like you didn’t fuck up, same as me.”

“I didn’t, and we’re not standing.”

“Fucking fantastic.” Asshole. “Why are you here?”

“Luna said you needed help.”

“Motherfucker.” I threw my wrench down and stood. “I don’t need any goddamn help.” Luna had called no less than five times and I’d told him no less than five fucking times shit was handled. Vincenzo had backed off. I didn’t give a fuck where Cara was or if Antonio and Massimo shot each other for sport.

Ignoring me, Harm fucked with my generator and ten seconds later the expensive piece of shit came to life.

“What the fuck did you do?” It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation. I’d been out here for two goddamn hours, not to mention last night until my fucking fingers almost froze off.

“Used the right tool.” Harm stood. “The girl, she’s yours?”

“What?” I snapped.

“You handed her off to Conlon. If she were your client, you would’ve seen the job through. I remember what type of Marine you were.” His eyes briefly met mine. “What type of man you were.” Looking away, he scanned the property again. “You’re solid.”

Making a mental note to try not to be such a fucking dick, I exhaled. Then I evaded. “She’s Luna’s client. I only work for him. I had shit to do to secure the cabin. It didn’t matter who took her out of here.”

Harm’s sharp gaze cut to me. “You’re spun up.”

My resolution to try not to be a dick shit the bed, and I was two seconds away from shooting him. “You’re trespassing.”

Harm shrugged. “Luna cherry picked quite a crew.”

Jesus fucking Christ. “Your point?” He was a goddamn walking advertisement for staying the fuck off an isolated mountain by yourself.

“He offered me a job.”

Luna was out of his goddamn mind. “Who the fuck from our unit hasn’t he offered a job too?”

“Kansas, Delario and Smathers.”

I snorted. “They’re all still boots on the ground.”

“Exactly.”

I was out of patience. “If you want the job, take it. You don’t need my approval.”

Harm gave the view a cursory glance then scanned the road he’d come in on. “You usually have firefights working for Luna?”

I told him the truth. “This wasn’t Luna and Associates business, but yeah, sometimes.” Some men came out of the Corp never wanting to shoot a firearm again and some missed it. I didn’t know which side of the coin he fell on, but his actions last night proved he could still hold his own.

His gaze cut to mine. “You’ve got mafia after you as well as those Russians?”

Fucking hell. Sighing, I debriefed him. “No. Last assignment I was on for Luna, I made enemies with the wrong prick. Apparently, none of his mafia connections were too eager to come up a mountain in a blizzard to take me down so he outsourced, but it’s all handled now.”

Harm pointed out the obvious. “You didn’t kill the Italian in the suit.”

“No.” But I should have. The old me wouldn’t have hesitated pulling the trigger, truce or not. But a five-and-a-half-foot tall brunette had been standing in my line of vision and I didn’t want her to see me kill a man in cold blood. Go fucking figure.

“Because of the client,” Harm said knowingly.

Pulling my Glock out, I checked the magazine. Then I lied to a brother. “No, because it was the right thing to do.”

The fucker’s shrewd gaze locked on mine, and he stared a beat too long. “Don’t feed the beast and it won’t grow.”

I shoved my gun back in my waistband. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” I knew exactly what he meant, but I wasn’t having this conversation.

“Bloodlust.”

“I think you’ve been on the mountain too damn long, brother.”

“I think you need to be on the mountain,” he calmly countered.

I glared.

He stared.

I was the fucking pussy who broke first. “I don’t have a problem.” I had a big fucking problem. Since the day I held a weapon in the name of my country, I could kill without remorse. That wasn’t a man. That was a machine. I didn’t fit in the fucking civilian world, and I sure as fuck had no business lusting after a nineteen year old with a whole goddamn future in front of her, but here I was, firmly entrenched on both fronts.

Studying me like I was on the wrong end of his scope, Harm dumped a brand of wisdom only a Marine in the exact same position would be able to do. “I couldn’t relate to anything or anyone after I got out. I thought everyone else was the problem. I came up the mountain to get away from it all before I did something stupid, to myself or someone else. Turned out, I couldn’t get away from the one person I was avoiding by coming up here.” He glanced out at the view. “This corner of the world wasn’t a bad place to be to come to terms with who I was. I hunted. I built a cabin. I practiced my long-range accuracy on deer and rabbit. I learned how to sleep through the night.” He paused. “I survived.” His gaze cut back to mine. “Not everything about who I’d become was bad. I’m not a man without honor.” His voice turning solemn, he looked back at the mountains. “Neither are you.”

I swallowed down the same regret and bitterness I did every time I’d lost a brother downrange. Then I said the first real thing since I’d told a nineteen-year-old brunette she was mine. “I’m glad you’re still standing.”

“Same.” He picked his toolbox up and put it back in the truck before opening his door.

Fuck, I was an asshole. “You want a beer?”

“I don’t drink.”

I nodded. I got it. “Coffee?”

“Maybe another time. I promised Luna I’d follow up on something.”

“The bodies?”

“Something like that.” He got behind the wheel and cranked the engine. The old truck started right up and he looked pointedly at me. “Maybe that girl is your mountain.” He shut his door and put the truck in reverse.

He’d turned the old GMC around and was halfway down my driveway before I realized what he’d done.

He’s purposely left me alone on my own goddamn mountain.