by Elle Kennedy
“Holden?” Trevor murmured.
Kane had also made a soundless entrance. From the corner of his eye, Trevor saw the other man assessing the scene with a frown.
Morgan’s room was a purely masculine space, with dark blue walls and a black and silver color scheme. Expensive furniture, but no framed photographs or knickknacks cluttering the dressers. No art or decoration on the walls except for a massive flat-screen TV.
The thick black carpet felt like sheer heaven beneath Trevor’s torn-up feet. Shit, he definitely needed to find some socks and boots before they hauled ass.
“Holden, where the fuck are you?” Kane muttered, frustration resonating in his voice.
A soft rustling came from the other side of the king-size bed.
Trevor raised his gun and moved closer.
This time when his breath hitched, it didn’t ease or get released. It lodged in his throat until his lungs burned and his chest ached.
Holden was on the floor with his back against the wall and his bare legs stretched out before him. His broad shoulders were hunched over, shaking uncontrollably as he clung to the woman in his arms. He rocked her as if she were a baby, murmuring silent words as he stroked her black hair and gazed into her vacant eyes.
Kane came to a halt beside Trevor, a ragged burst of air leaving his mouth. “Oh fuck.”
Chapter 4
Trevor’s heart stopped. He had no words. No idea how to console the man in front of them.
Beth McCall was dead. Her dark eyes were devoid of life, her loose white tank top covered with bloodstains. She’d been shot. Twice from the looks of it, and right in the heart.
“Holden,” Kane said gently.
The man looked up at them with blank gray eyes. “Oh. Hi.”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Trevor knew that expression. He knew that empty tone of voice. Holden was still breathing, but the man had died the second Beth had been taken away from him. Same way Trevor had died when he got that phone call informing him his fiancée had been killed during a home robbery.
“We’ve been married for nineteen years. Did you guys know that?” Holden asked them.
Trevor swallowed. “No, I didn’t.”
With a fervent nod, Holden looked at his wife’s pale face again. “I met her when I was eighteen years old. It was at a graduation party at the lake, the day before I enlisted. She didn’t want to hang out with me that night. She thought it would be pointless to get involved when I was leaving the next day.”
Trevor cast a surreptitious look in Kane’s direction. Indecision, sorrow, and frustration dominated the man’s green eyes. They had to get off the compound. Trevor knew it. Kane knew it. Holden did too, on some level.
But their teammate was rooted to the floor, his arms wrapped so tightly around his wife it would take the Jaws of Life to pry them apart.
Several more tiles broke off the damaged roof and slammed into the bed, shaking the mattress.
“I convinced her to have a drink with me.” Holden remained oblivious to the falling rubble and the urgency stifling the air. “We spent the entire night talking and laughing and fooling around, and by the time morning arrived, I’d managed to convince her to wait for me.” Now he sounded amazed. “She knew me for less than twenty-four hours, and she agreed to wait for me. Can you believe that?”
“Sounds like a woman who knew what she wanted,” Trevor said quietly.
“We were married a year later when I was home on leave.”
A muffled thump came from the balcony.
Trevor turned to see D stride into the room. The big man took a quick look around before approaching the source of the action. When his black eyes absorbed the scene in front of him, D’s expression didn’t even change, but his voice was unusually bite-free as he murmured, “Fail-safes are in place.”
Something cracked. A moment later, another piece of the ceiling crashed to the floor, revealing the support beams beneath the plaster. One of the wooden slats was about to give, if its ominous creaking was any warning.
Son of a bitch. Trevor was getting damn tired of roofs caving in on him.
“Holden, we have to go,” he said. “Why don’t you tell us the rest of the story later?”
The man ignored the request. “She always worried about me when I was deployed. She wanted me to leave the Rangers. I re-upped three times before I finally agreed to retire. I had the job with Morgan lined up, and . . .” His expression grew tormented. “I promised her working for Jim wouldn’t be as dangerous as the army. I promised her I’d be safe.”
Trevor’s heart squeezed. “Holden. We really need to go.”
“No!”
The sharp exclamation made everyone flinch. Even D, who was fazed by nothing.
“I’m not leaving my Beth,” Holden said firmly. “So fuck right off.”
After several seconds of silence, Kane sighed. “We’ll bring her with us. We’ll carry her body—”
“Don’t you fucking call it that! It’s not her body. It’s Beth.”
Shit, their teammate was unraveling like a tattered sweater before their eyes. Trevor took a step forward and knelt in front of the heartbroken man. At that precise moment, a piece of plaster plunged down from the ceiling and nearly clipped his ear off, but he shifted out of the way before any damage could be done.
“Holden, I know this is hard. I know you don’t want to leave her, but that’s not Beth. Beth is gone.”
He kept his tone soft, but firm. Come to think of it, it was the same tone Kane had used when convincing Trevor to rejoin the team last year. He hadn’t wanted to return to the land of the living either, not when the woman he loved was dead.
But although Trevor knew exactly what the other man was going through, he refused to let Holden drown in grief the same way he had.
“You can bring her with us, but you know that’s not a good idea,” he went on, meeting Holden’s devastated gray eyes. “You need to say good-bye now, and then you need to come with us.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Trevor’s gaze landed on the beautiful, lifeless woman in Holden’s arms. “She’s gone, man. All you can do now is—”
He was interrupted by another crash, and then a thud. He swiveled his head in time to see D hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.
A quick glance north revealed that one of the overhead beams had tumbled down.
Right on D.
Kane immediately dropped to his knees to check on his fallen comrade. “He’s out cold,” Kane said, sounding both worried and amused. “Jesus. He survives a full-out military assault, only to get KO’d by a two-by-four.”
In front of Trevor, Holden was holding Beth even tighter. “I won’t leave her,” he said stubbornly.
Behind them, Kane sounded increasingly concerned as he attempted to rouse D without any results. “Shit. Trev, he’s not coming to.”
“Does he have a pulse?”
“Yeah. A strong one. But . . . oh fuck . . . his head’s bleeding like crazy.”
A ripping sound cut the air. Trevor turned, saw that Kane had torn off his sleeve and was now pressing it to the back of D’s head.
Son of a bitch. Son of a motherfucking bitch.
Frustration constricted in Trevor’s chest, making it impossible to take a breath. This was a clusterfuck and a half. The compound blown to hell. D unconscious with a gushing head wound. Holden refusing to let go of his dead wife.
Trevor’s gaze drifted back to Beth. Christ, that sweet, beautiful woman. Dead.
Like Gina.
“He needs to go to the clinic,” Kane said briskly.
Trevor let out a breath. “Holden, listen—”
“I. Won’t. Leave. Her.”
Goddamn it.
“Go,” Trevor told Kane. “Take D and get him help. I’ll stay with Holden.”
Reluctance creased the other man’s features.
“I’m serious, Kane. The compound’s been compromised. A second ass
ault team could be making its way here as we speak.”
“Trev—”
“Did D secure the perimeter and set the charges?”
Kane nodded, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a detonator. He tossed it to Trevor, who caught it easily. “You sure about this, man?”
“I’m sure. Just get D some medical attention.”
“I can’t exactly throw this mofo off the balcony,” Kane pointed out, frazzled. “I’ll have to carry him out the door.”
Which meant they needed to move whatever was blocking said door.
God. Fucking. Damn. It.
Wow. He couldn’t remember ever having so many expletives buzzing through his brain.
On the floor, Holden had started to rock Beth again, his head bent low as he pressed his chin to his wife’s ashen face.
Suppressing another weary obscenity, Trevor stood up and went to help Kane clear a path in the hall.
• • •
Isabel was going out of her mind with worry. She, Abby, and Ethan had been waiting at the rendezvous point for what felt like days. In reality, they’d only been in these darkness-drenched foothills for ten, fifteen minutes tops, but the longer the others took in getting here, the more concerned she became.
“Do me a favor?”
She lifted her head at the sound of Ethan’s pained voice. She’d been sitting on the hood of the Humvee they’d driven out of the tunnel, but she slid off as the young man approached. Not that young, she had to amend, as she noticed the way his sweat-soaked T-shirt clung to an impressive set of washboard abs. She knew he was in his midtwenties, yet for some reason he’d always seemed younger to her. Boyish.
But he hadn’t acted like a boy tonight. He’d acted like a man. Pure alpha male, moving with lethal precision, killing without batting an eye.
Apparently he also dealt with injuries the way an alpha male did—by ignoring them.
Isabel stared at the blood dripping from his shoulder and down his bare arm. “Did you get shot?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
“Sure you are,” she said, unable to control her sarcasm. “What’s the favor, then?”
Ethan held out a pair of tweezers and a small first-aid kit. “Dig the bullet out of my arm?”
Isabel gaped at him. Un-freaking-believable. She knew the men on Morgan’s team were expertly trained and macho as hell, but the kid had been walking around all night with a bullet lodged in his arm and hadn’t shown a single visible sign of pain? She couldn’t help but be impressed.
Sighing, she patted the hood and gestured for him to hop up. As he got comfortable, Isabel took a breath, then glanced in Abby’s direction. The redhead hadn’t left her post since they’d arrived, not even to check on the dogs sleeping in the backseat of the car. She was keeping watch, her concern for Kane evident despite her attempt to hide it.
Dawn was the only time of day when the temperature was actually refreshingly cool, and a nice breeze lifted Isabel’s hair and tickled the back of her neck as she gingerly rolled up Ethan’s sleeve. He had the letters USMC tattooed on his biceps, done in black calligraphy. United States Marine Corps.
“I always forget you’re a former marine,” she mused.
“No such thing.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Huh?”
Ethan’s straight white teeth gleamed in the darkness as he smiled. “There’s no such thing as a former marine. Once a marine, always a marine.”
“Ah, I see.” She removed some antiseptic wipes from the first-aid kit and then returned her attention to his arm. “When did this happen?”
Ethan pursed his surprisingly sensual lips. “Outside the kitchen, when that asshole dove out with guns blazing.”
When they’d found Lloyd’s body . . .
Isabel pushed the memory aside and concentrated on wiping away the blood caked on Ethan’s thick upper arm. Once she cleaned the area, she examined the puckered hole in his flesh, then touched the back of his arm to feel for an exit wound. Damn. He was right. The bullet was still in there.
“You want something to bite down on?” she asked him.
“Naah. I’m good.”
“Uh-huh. Of course you are.”
Damn macho man.
Gripping the tweezers with steady fingers, Isabel leaned close, brought the tips of the tweezers to the wound, and proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes playing doctor. It was just the distraction she’d needed. She was so focused on digging the 39 mm slug out of Ethan’s arm that she succeeded in blocking out this entire catastrophe of a night.
After she fished the bullet out, she cleaned and dressed the wound, impressed with how still and unflinching Ethan had been throughout the “procedure.”
“Thanks,” he said gratefully. “I could’ve done it myself, but it’s easier when someone else gets the bullet out.”
She shook her head in amazement. “You’re welcome.”
When the hum of an engine rumbled in the distance, her back stiffened and she went on the alert. Even though Kane had checked in to say he was on his way, Isabel’s rigid muscles didn’t relax until she glimpsed the familiar blond head behind the wheel of the camouflage Humvee barreling their way.
The relief didn’t last long. Kane’s report hadn’t specifically mentioned Trevor, but she’d assumed the men would be together.
But only Kane got out of the vehicle.
“Where are the others?” she demanded as he approached them with somber green eyes.
He planted a quick kiss on Abby’s lips before answering. “D’s unconscious in the back of the Humvee. His thick skull absorbed most of the impact of a ceiling collapsing on it and he needs to get checked out ASAP. Trevor stayed behind to deal with the Holden situation.”
“The Holden situation?” Abby echoed.
Kane let out a breath. “Beth’s dead.”
A shocked silence hung in the air.
Finally, Abby frowned at her husband. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know. Fuck, I guess I didn’t want to believe it myself. But she’s gone, shot to death. And Holden is a fucking mess.”
Isabel could imagine. God. What the man must be going through right now. She’d met Beth McCall mere hours ago, but it was easy to see that Holden adored his wife. He’d mentioned over dinner that their nineteen-year anniversary had just passed. The couple had been together for two decades, for Pete’s sake.
Her heart clenched, a wave of grief swelling inside her and gathering strength when she realized what Kane had said.
Trevor had stayed behind to help Holden.
She supposed it was only fitting—if anyone could empathize with Holden, it was Trevor. He knew what it was like to lose the love of your life.
Isabel went on the alert again as Kane’s hand moved to his earpiece. “Yeah, I copy,” he barked. “What’s your ETA?”
He listened intently, as did Abby and Ethan, while Isabel cursed every single one of them for not giving her a damn earpiece so she could stay in the loop.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Was that Trevor?”
Kane nodded. “He and Holden are on their way.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a series of rapid explosions shook the landscape. Before, Isabel hadn’t been able to see the compound—it was too dark, and the compound was too far away.
Now she had a clear view of it.
Her eyes widened as red and orange flames lit up the night. The wind carried with it the sulfuric scent of smoke, and as the compound burned before her eyes, Isabel experienced a strange sense of grief. She’d visited Morgan’s property only a couple of times, yet for some reason the blazing conflagration evoked genuine, visceral loss.
The others didn’t seem as upset. “It’s protocol,” Kane explained when he noticed the distress on Isabel’s face. Then he turned to Ethan, who was staring at the inferno. “Did you call the airfield?”
Ethan nodded. “We’re all set.”
“Good. Take the Humvee and make your way there. The sooner D gets on that plane, the better. I’ll wait here for Trevor and Holden.”
“I’m staying with you,” Isabel said immediately.
Abby set her jaw. “Me too.”
“You’re with Ethan, sweetheart,” Kane said with a shake of his head. “He’ll need help with D.”
Although Abby looked unhappy, she didn’t object. Isabel knew that when Kane gave Abby an order, it wasn’t as a husband ordering his wife around, but as a superior officer talking to a member of the team. Kane was Morgan’s second-in-command, which meant he called the shots when the boss was away.
Still, the couple did exchange a tight hug and a not so professional kiss before Abby and Ethan left in the Humvee. The vehicle raised a cloud of dust and disappeared into the darkness.
Isabel and Kane didn’t say much as they waited for the rest of their party. They didn’t have to wait long; less than twenty minutes later, a third Humvee appeared at the top of the crest and sped toward them.
When Trevor slid out of the driver’s seat, the relief that slammed into Isabel’s chest was so powerful she nearly keeled over.
He was alive and in one piece, his tall, muscular frame now clad in cargo pants, a long-sleeved shirt and black shit kickers. His jaw was covered with dark stubble, lending him a feral air.
Without questioning her actions, Isabel eliminated the distance between them and threw her arms around his neck.
“Whoa, easy,” Trevor said when their chests collided with a thump. His voice came out husky now. “Good to see you too, sweetheart.”
Emotion tightened her throat to the point that she couldn’t even swallow. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of smoke and death and something that was uniquely Trevor. Woodsy, lemony, male.
“Are you okay?” she asked urgently.
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what Ethan said too, right before he asked me to dig a bullet out of his arm.”
Trevor chuckled. “I’m bruised, cut up, and I think a couple of bullets grazed me, but I promise you, Iz, I’m fine.” The amusement in his whiskey-colored eyes faded when a car door slammed.