Page 46 of Some Like It Hot

“Whatever.”

He caught the tiniest of grins as she found the tube and uncapped it.

“Where’d you get the gun?”

“The dead guy. When we pulled him back to the porch.” He’d voted for leaving him in the woods, but there was no stopping Orion. Riley had found the gun a few feet away from the body and tucked it into his belt.

And good thing— “Hey, easy there.”

“It’s glue. I need the skin to almost overlap.” She was pulling the skin together across his wound. A sweat broke out down his back, and he let out a long breath.

Thorne was watching him.

“What?”

“You’re like him. Younger, but he had your expression.”

“Distrust? Anger?”

“Determined. Fearless.”

Riley looked away. “Yeah, maybe. But that’s where the resemblance ends, trust me.”

Thorne made a sound, a hmm. “I don’t think so. He was exactly the kind of guy who’d show up bleeding and still try and be the hero. Just like you.”

Riley’s gaze flickered back over to Thorne. “How did you say you knew my dad?”

“PreBud/S, in Great Lakes, and then a couple years later I worked under him while I was deployed. Quiet. Focused.”

Yeah, that was Master Chief Simon McCord.

“Not easily riled, but…”

Riley raised an eyebrow. Thorne met his eyes.

“Passionate about his men. That’s what got him killed.”

Larke glanced up at Riley, then back to his wound. She was rolling out a piece of sticky gauze to protect it.

Orion was cleaning Thorne’s wound, and one of Thorne’s eyes closed, his jaw tightening.

“All we got was ‘killed in action.’ No details,” Riley said.

“There wouldn’t be because all the SEAL operations are—were—classified. This one probably still is, but…” Thorne sighed. “It was an ambush. It was late in the season, before the snow was due to fall, and the CIA had heard about a group of Taliban digging in at a village in the Kunar Province. Good intel, or so they thought. We were supposed to—”

Orion put his hand on Thorne’s chest. Gave a little shake of his head.

Thorne glanced up at him. Gave a nod and turned back to Riley. “So, it was an ambush. They were waiting for us, and our team was driven back into some nearby caves. There were casualties, and the PJs were called in.” He glanced at Orion. “Then it all went south.”

“We were picked off while fast-roping down to the team,” Orion said quietly. “We x-filled through the caves—found a tunnel, but—”

“There was a cave-in, and the team was separated. Two of us were caught on the other side.” Thorne swallowed. “I was one of them. The other was a SEAL we called Roy.”

I lived, when I was supposed to die.

“You were taken by the Taliban.” Larke stood up, pulled off her gloves. It wasn’t a question, but Thorne nodded. “Except, the SEALs have a rule—no man left behind.”

He looked at Riley. “Your dad and a couple other SEALs came after us. Found where the Taliban had taken us and staged a rescue.”