Ruben stepped into the doorway, already returning fire at Cam. I rammed him from the side, as Cam fired again.

Pain ripped through my stomach and I fell against the wall, fighting to breathe. Cavazos crashed into the door frame, still shooting.

A grunt of pain echoed from the hall, and Jake Tower fell to the tile, half blocking the doorway. “No!” I shouted, as Kori dropped to his side to feel for a pulse, still bleeding from her own wound.

Cam rushed into the billiard room and pulled the duffel from my shoulder, already digging inside. He pulled out a cloth diaper—the best for absorption—and pressed it to the explosion of agony my stomach had become, to keep my blood from dripping on the floor.

“He’s alive,” Kori called. “But he can’t give orders while he’s unconscious. Let’s get you out of here.” She holstered her gun and stepped into the billiard room, one hand covering her bullet wound, as she squinted into the dark, feeling for the hole Meika had hammered into the infrared grid.

Cam put one arm around me and led me toward Kori and the scattering of broken glass. “Wait! Anne’s blood!” I cried, wobbling as a newer, more personal darkness washed over me. I was going to pass out.

No, I was going to die. Elle had been right all along.

“I’ll get it later. I swear,” Kori promised. “Let’s get you out of here before I have to sterilize yours, too.”

“I’m not leaving here while her blood’s viable,” I gasped, scared to realize that my voice was unsteady and sounded kind of hollow. But I wasn’t going to be there to protect Anne anymore. The least I could do was make sure Tower didn’t have her blood.

Kori groaned, still clutching her shoulder. Cam handed her my duffel and she dug inside, one-handed, until she found my squirt bottle of bleach and dumped the whole thing on the small pool of blood Anne had left behind. Then she pressed another diaper to her own shoulder.

“Now, let’s go!” We could already hear footsteps pounding our way from the hall. Kori took me from Cam and the world tilted around me as we crunched on broken glass.

“Take her to my place,” Cavazos insisted. “The house is locked down, but the gazebo in back has infrared shadows. Meika will have already called in my staff doctor for Anne.”

I think Cam nodded, but that could have been a trick of the light as the shadows closed in on me. And then I couldn’t feel my legs. The dark room spun around me, and suddenly I was looking up at Cam. He was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear him over the rush of my own pulse.

Then that stopped, too, and the last thing I felt was the warmth of his lips on mine.

Then there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

Thirty

Bright lights. Flashes of pain. Glimpses of faces I should have known, but couldn’t place.

Then more silence. Numbness. And the blessed, blessed darkness.

The cold came first. Then the smooth touch of expensive sheets against my skin. By the time I opened my eyes, I’d decided I was either dreaming or in Heaven, and I didn’t really care which.

Blinking, I turned my head to the left and saw Cam slumped over in a recliner, sound asleep. I tried to sit up, and fire shot through my center. My gasp of pain woke Cam and he sat up, startled.

Then he saw me, and he smiled, and an instant later he was perched on the edge of the bed next to me.

“Am I dead?” I asked, surprised when my voice creake like a frog’s.

“Not anymore.”

I blinked. “You actually killed me, you son of a bitch.”

Cam flinched. “Yeah. I’ll spend the rest of both of our lives trying to make up for that.”

I laughed, then flinched when the pain resurfaced. “I’ll let you.” I cleared my throat. “Where are we?”

“Casa Cavazos.”

“No…” I winced when protesting tugged at the muscles in my stomach. “Cam, I can’t be here. This isn’t free.” I waved one arm carefully to indicate the dubious nature of Ruben’s hospitality. “Nothing from him is ever free.” Nothing except the bruises… “Just be cause he hasn’t killed us yet doesn’t mean he won’t.” Or worse.

“I worked it out.” Cam’s smile was too bright. Like a mask, hiding something ugly. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Worked it out?” My pulse spiked painfully. “What have you worked out? What did you do?”

He shrugged. “We’ll talk about it later. Anne’s in the next room.”

Anne… “How is she?”

“Better than you.” Cam smiled. “Her heart never stopped. She’s fucking pissed at me, though.”

“Women get like that when you shoot them.”

He frowned. “So I noticed.”

“Hadley? Is she here?” I listened, but if there were any voices coming from Anne’s room, I couldn’t hear them.

“Down the hall, playing with Isabel. She seems to like having a little sister. Don’t worry, though,” he said, before I could ask. “Cavazos is sending her home with Anne, as soon as she’s well enough to go. Michaela agreed to finally let his affair with Elle go, if he’d agree not to press for full custody of Hadley.”

“I hope he got that in writing….” I mumbled, wondering just how much drama I’d slept through.

“You know he did. He’s having Anne’s house retro fitted with an infrared grid and assigning full-time security to them both.”