Chapter 818
Caroline did it herself. She lifted the cover, slid the first packet free, and found a single page clipped to a sheaf of documents. A set of official transfer orders.
“This is the contingency plan,” he said. “Your out.”
She looked up at him sharply. “This is what you told me about yesterday. The exit.” Her voice was flat. “You said you could get me out at any time. I didn’t realize you meant pre-signed transfer orders from the Pentagon.”
He nodded slowly. “At any point, right now, next week, a month from now, all you have to do is say the word. Just one word. ‘Out.’ These orders will be activated within five minutes. You’ll be transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. A senior research position, Level Four security clearance. You’ll be safe. You’ll be away from all of this.”
It was a golden parachute. A perfectly constructed, officially sanctioned escape hatch from hell, built just for her. What had been an abstract promise yesterday was now a concrete document in her hands.
She stared at the papers, at the authentic signatures, the official stamps. The sheer power it had taken to arrange this, to have a pre-approved, high-level transfer waiting in the wings for a mere trainee, was staggering.
He hadn’t pushed her off a cliff. He had pushed her off a cliff after building her a bridge back to safety, a bridge only she could choose to cross.
The thought, the sheer, calculated depth of his protection, was enough to make the foundations of her anger crumble. A hot, stinging sensation pricked at the back of her eyes, and she fought it down ruthlessly.
But as the gratitude washed over her, a new, colder wave of resentment followed in its wake.
She looked up from the folder, her eyes locking onto his, and he could see the complex, warring emotions swirling in their depths.
“So you still see me as something that needs to be protected,” she said, her voice trembling with a fresh hurt. “Someone weak.”
She snapped the folder shut. “You arranged all this because you didn’t trust me. You didn’t believe I could make it on my own.”
He looked at her, at the raw pain and accusation in her eyes, and for the first time since she had met him, Jarrod Romero looked utterly helpless.
“I just…” he started, his voice cracking. “I can’t risk losing you again, Caroline. I can’t survive it.”
The admission was so raw, so stripped of all his usual armor, that it stole the breath from her lungs. All the sharp, angry retorts she had prepared died on her tongue.
She was looking at a man terrified. A man showing her his deepest, most profound weakness.
She held the folder against her chest, a physical shield. This time, he did not reach for it, did not take it from her, did not try to close the distance with anything but his eyes.
“I need to think,” she whispered.