Genevieve wasn’t killing her—she couldn’t kill the hostage she wanted—but she was trying to knock Cassidy out. If Cassidy wasn’t conscious…
Then you can kill me?
He grabbed for his gun and managed to heave his body to the right.
Cassidy swung out, landing a solid blow to Genevieve’s jaw. That wonderful left hook of hers. The redhead screamed, and her hand flew up into the air.
All I have to do is wave.
Did she even realize she’d just given that signal?
“Down!” Logan’s roar.
A shot rang out. It sank into Cale’s side.
He fired his weapon.
Another weapon fired. The shot seemed to echo, and Cale heard a distant cry.
“Cale?” Cassidy was crouched before him, leaning toward him, her beautiful face surrounded by the darkness that was stretching more with every moment that passed.
He tried to smile at her.
Tears slid down her cheeks.
She knew, he realized. Cassidy already knew just how serious his injuries were.
But there was one thing she didn’t know.
“I…love you…” He wished his voice didn’t sound so broken, and he wished that he’d told her sooner.
The darkness spread more. Cassidy was the last thing that he saw.
The last, perfect thing.
* * *
“CALE!”
His eyes had closed. No, no, he could not do this to her. “Help me!” Cassidy shouted.
Then Logan was there, rushing forward with his gun drawn. “Keep pressure on him!”
On the wound at his side or that terrible wound in his back?
His blood was on her hands, soaking her fingers, and fear was like bile in her throat.
“Help’s on the way,” Logan said. He didn’t sound afraid. That meant everything was all right, didn’t it? She risked a fast glance at him, but then she saw the fear that flashed in his eyes.
Not all right.
“Cale, please stay with me,” she begged him.
But Cale didn’t respond because he couldn’t.
“I have to make sure that Genevieve is—” Logan broke off, but she understood.
Dead.
Cale’s bullet had sunk into Genevieve’s chest, even as Genevieve had been lifting her own weapon. Only Genevieve hadn’t been aiming at Cale in that last instant. Something had seemed to break in her, and she’d been aiming—
At me.
Cale had stopped her. He’d saved Cassidy. Now he was dying in front of her.
She knew the sniper could fire on them again. She tried to drag Cale’s body a few precious inches toward cover.
“It’s okay.” Logan was back, putting his hands on top of hers. “While hell was breaking loose, Gunner managed to get out of the car. He took out the sniper.”
That final shot—it had been Gunner?
“He’s checked the area,” Logan said. “We’re clear.”
“Please, don’t let him die,” Cassidy whispered.
“He won’t.” Again, his voice was so certain, but she was afraid to look into his eyes.
Cale’s eyes were closed. They’d been open and on hers—burning with so much pain—when he’d told her that he loved her.
Then his eyes had closed. Her heart had stopped.
Footsteps thudded toward them. A few moments later, Gunner crouched beside them.
“Did the bullets go through him?” Gunner asked.
Cassidy shivered. “The one at his side…it did. But his back…”
The bullet was lodged in him. She’d seen no sign of an exit wound.
They all stayed crouched over Cale, applying pressure, doing everything they could to save him until an ambulance rushed toward them, lights flashing, siren shrieking.
She’d been taken away in an ambulance before. Cale had stayed with her, every moment.
I love you.
It hadn’t been about duty for him. Not about a mission.
It had been more. She’d been more to him.
Did he realize that he was everything to her?
“Cassidy!”
That was Mercer’s voice, calling out to her. There was emotion, fear, in the cry of her name.
She didn’t look toward him. She couldn’t look away from Cale.
When he was loaded into the ambulance, she was right there. From now on, wherever Cale was headed, she planned to be right there with him.
She didn’t even look at her father. She couldn’t—her gaze was on the man that she loved.
Mercer was still calling her name when the ambulance sped away.
* * *
MERCER WATCHED THE ambulance vanish. Another ambulance. More blood. More death.
Always more.
Cassidy had been crying. Her clothes, her hands, had been stained with blood, and tears had poured silently down her cheeks.
The EMTs were crouched around Genevieve Chevalier’s figure now, but there wasn’t anything that could be done to save her.
“She’s the one,” Logan Quinn told him as the agent approached. Other EOD personnel were fanning out, searching the scene. Logan had been clear about where their enemies had been hiding.
Mercer gazed down at Genevieve’s form. In all of his years as an agent, he’d learned that evil could hide beneath the most deceptive of surfaces.
It was a lesson his daughter had now learned, too.
“She was going to shoot Cassidy. At the end, she was pointing her weapon at your asset.” Logan’s voice hardened as he delivered that barb.
He knows. Mercer glanced up. Saw that Gunner stood just behind Logan. Gunner was bleeding from about a dozen cuts, but he acted as if he wasn’t even aware of the injuries.
“You took her out?” Mercer asked as his gaze stayed on Gunner. Gunner was one of the deadliest snipers that he’d—
“Cale did it.” From Logan. Hard. Cold. “Even with a bullet in his back and another bullet driving through his side, he protected Cassidy. He saved her.”
And Cassidy had been desperate for him. Those tears…
Mercer swallowed.
“You didn’t count on it, did you?” Logan pressed.
Mercer’s breath eased slowly past his lips. “I knew Cale was a good agent. The minute I assigned him to Cassidy’s detail, I realized he’d put his life on the line for her.”
Logan shook his head. “No, that’s not what I meant.” A pause. “You didn’t realize that they’d fall for each other, did you?”
No.
But they had because on Cassidy’s face…there had been grief. Fear. Love.
“What happens now?” Logan wanted to know. “Are you going to try to force her onto another plane? Because, let me tell you, I sure as hell don’t think that will happen. She won’t leave him. Not unless—” Logan broke off.
But Mercer knew what he’d been about to say. Not unless Cale dies.
“Secure the scene,” Mercer told him, turning away. He needed to get to that hospital. He needed to get to Cassidy’s side. He’d seen Cale’s injuries. He knew just how bad they were. If the agent died, then Cassidy would shatter. Mercer knew it because…he’d shattered when Marguerite had died. Shattered and never been able to piece himself back together again.
He couldn’t let the same fate fall on Cassidy. She deserved better.
She deserved love. Life.
And he’d give it to her.
He took two steps. Paused. Glanced over his shoulder and made sure that he projected his intent at the two agents. “Whatever you think you know about Cassidy Sherridan, you forget it. Got me? After today, you forget everything about her.”
With narrowed eyes, Logan
glared back at him. “Is that what you do when she’s not around? Forget?”
Never.
“Maybe one day you’ll understand,” Mercer murmured. But, no, he didn’t want Logan to understand. Logan had the woman he loved. So did Gunner. He didn’t want either man to ever know the pain he felt.
The pain that his daughter was feeling right then.
Because when you lost the other half of yourself, living was near impossible.
“Maybe one day,” Mercer repeated. “But pray you don’t. Just follow my orders, Agent. Follow them.”
And he rushed away, determined to finally be there for his daughter when she needed him.
If Cale dies…
He would make sure that he was there to piece Cassidy’s life back together. Somehow.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The operating room doors swung closed, the faint whoosh of sound seeming far too loud for Cassidy’s ears.
She stared at those doors, lost. Cale hadn’t opened his eyes. Not once during the ambulance ride. He hadn’t talked to her again, hadn’t squeezed her fingers. He hadn’t done anything.
Her hands lifted. His blood had dried on her. She should go wash it off. Her fingers started to shake.
“Cassidy.”
She jumped at Mercer’s voice, but she didn’t turn to face him. “They…they wouldn’t let me go back.”
Of course not. She knew she couldn’t go in surgery. Not with a wound as severe as his. Logically, she understood that, but logic wasn’t exactly her strong suit then.
A tear leaked down her cheek. They just wouldn’t stop. She swiped her bloody hands over her face. “The doctor said he’d go to ICU after—after he comes out.” Because Cale would come out. He’d pull through the surgery just fine. Cale could survive anything. “But only family can see him then.”
She wasn’t family.
To the doctor, she was no one.
Mercer’s fingers closed around her shoulder. Cassidy trembled. She hated for him to see her weak like this. She always tried to put on her strong face when Mercer was around. When your father was a supersoldier, there wasn’t supposed to be room for weakness in his daughter.
“I’ll get you in that damn ICU room.”
Her eyes widened. Mercer’s cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were bright with emotion.
“I could get you in that operating room, too, but Cassidy, you don’t want to see that. You don’t want to see them cutting into Cale.”
A scream was breaking inside her, but she clamped her lips together and held it back. When she was sure it wouldn’t burst free, Cassidy whispered, “The doctor said…he wanted me to call in Cale’s sister because…” It hurt to say it. “Cale might not wake up. His injuries are so bad.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “I could see him dying, right in front of me. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t do anything.”
Mercer’s arms wrapped around her, and he pulled her against his chest. He…hugged her?
She pressed her face against his shoulder. He’d hugged her at her mother’s funeral, hugged her just like this. So tightly. As if he never wanted to let her go.
Only he’d pushed her away after that day, pushed her away for so long.
“Your ranger’s going to be fine,” he promised, his voice gruff. “That man isn’t about to give up without a fight. EOD agents are tougher than anyone else out there. He’ll pull through.”
I…love you.
“He doesn’t know,” Cassidy told him, her voice a mere breath of sound.
Mercer eased back—just a little—to stare down at her. “Know what?”
“That I love him.” It hurt. He’d told her, he’d made sure that she knew, but she hadn’t been able to say those three words to him.
“You’ll tell him.” Mercer gave a firm nod. “When he comes out of surgery, when he opens his eyes and calls for you, you’ll tell him then.”
She wanted to believe him. Once, she would have believed anything that Mercer said.
But she wasn’t a child anymore. And Mercer’s word wasn’t law, even if he wanted it to be. “Genevieve planned it all. I thought…I thought I could help her. That she needed me.”
“But she was just trying to use you in order to get to me.” A muscle flexed along his jaw. “It had to be the agents I sent to guard you. She figured out what—who—you were because of them. She traced them back to me. I put you at risk, the same way I always have. First Marguerite, then you.” His hands tightened on her. “I never wanted to hurt either of you.”
His voice had broken at the end.
She’d never seen him broken.
“After your mother was killed, I tried so hard, I swear I did. I tried so hard to protect you. But I just made a prison for you—one that you couldn’t escape.”
Because guards had always been there.
Men and women who’d jumped at Mercer’s command.
Until Cale.
“I don’t know how to open the prison. I don’t know what to do.”
Mercer didn’t know?
“I do.” She straightened her shoulders. “You just let me go.”
His head bowed. “I want you to be safe.” A ragged breath escaped him. “And I want you happy.”
She was as far from happy as she could possibly get. Grief was a knife in her gut, twisting and cutting away at her. The waiting room was empty—just her and Mercer. She had no idea how he’d arranged that. Mercer and his strings.
They sat together. The silence was thick and hard.
She couldn’t keep her eyes off those operating room doors. “Tell me again that he’ll be okay.”
“He will be.”
She wanted to believe him. Mercer could move mountains. Once she’d thought her father could make anything happen.
But he hadn’t been able to keep her mother alive.
Cassidy licked her dry lips. “I didn’t mean to love him.”
“I know.” His shoulder brushed hers. “We can’t control who we love. You will be able to tell him…soon.”
Cassidy nodded, and she prayed that he was right.
* * *
CALE HURT. The pain pulsed through him in waves that wouldn’t end.
“He’s coming around, Doctor. Should we—”
Cale’s hand flew out. He grabbed hold of the person talking, and the man’s voice broke off.
His throat burned as Cale rasped, “Cass…”
“Sir, we just removed the tube from your throat. You need to calm down.”
Forget calm. His hold tightened. His eyelids were heavy, and he struggled to lift them. Had the jerks taped them down? “Cass…”
“Sir, just calm—”
No tape. He finally managed to crack open his eyes. “Want…Cas…sidy…” His voice was stronger, more a snarl than anything else.
The guy he was holding tried to pull free.
“Get…her…”
“Mr. Lane!” Another voice. Snapping.
Was he supposed to be impressed by some doctor’s snap?
Need Cassidy. Was she all right? The last thing he remembered was the gunfire.
He’d tried to stop Genevieve before she could hurt Cassidy.
“We just spent hours stitching you back up. You’re damn lucky your spine wasn’t damaged. Now stop struggling before you undo all my work!”
If they’d get Cassidy, he’d stop. “Cass…”
“Yes, yes, I get it. You need Ms. Sherridan. We’ll get her, okay? But first, calm down or we’ll strap you down.”
They’d better not.
He eased his hold on the man. Footsteps raced away.
The doctor’s face came into focus as he leaned over Cale. “Mercer told me you’d be like this.”
Cale couldn
’t do more than bare his teeth in a grimace.
“He also told me that you’d pull through, no matter what.”
Sinking into that black oblivion of darkness hadn’t been an option. Not when he had Cassidy waiting for him in the light.
If she was waiting.
“Don’t worry,” the doctor told him. “Your Cassidy is fine.”
Then the doors flew open and banged against the wall.
“Cale!”
No voice had ever been sweeter, even if it was clogged with tears. He turned his head. Saw Cassidy standing in that doorway, with Mercer just a few feet behind her.
Cassidy rushed toward him. Her face was too pale, her eyes too wide. He hated for her to be afraid.
Especially when that fear was for him.
“I’m…okay…”
“He’s lucky to be okay,” the doctor muttered, plenty loud enough for him to overhear. “If that bullet had been another inch over, he would have—”
Cassidy’s lips shook.
“Out!” Mercer’s order. “You can tell me outside, Dr. Longtree.”
Then Mercer dragged the guy away, barking an order for the male nurse to stay in the room and keep an eye on Cale.
Cale stared up at Cassidy. She was inches away but not touching him. That wasn’t good enough. “Closer.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to hurt you.” But then she crept a little bit closer, as if she couldn’t help herself. Her fingers, soft and light, feathered over his arm.
His heartbeat started to calm down. Cassidy soothed him. Cassidy made him feel at peace.
He studied her a moment. Machines were beeping around him, the nurse was trying to blend in with the wall and Cassidy had dried tear tracks on her cheeks. “Is Genevieve…dead?” A blunt question, but one that had to be asked.
“Yes.” Cassidy licked her lips. “She’s gone.”
And he’d been the one to kill her. “She was going to…shoot you. I remember that…. I had to take the shot….”
“What else do you remember?” Her fingers had stilled over his arm.
“The sound of gunshots. A scream.” Cassidy’s?
“Nothing else?”
Was there something? The hesitation in her voice told him that there was.