“Please, God, not again,” Preston breathed, my heart twisted, it hurt like a mother then we heard footfal s.

We both jerked our heads toward them, my neck went way back and my eyes fil ed with wet that instantly spil ed over when I saw Mace casual y striding toward us.

His jacket was torn at the shoulder.

That was it.

Just his jacket was torn at his shoulder.

Lordy be.

I surged to my feet and rushed him. He took my ful body impact without even going back on a foot as Juno woofed excitedly over and over again and I felt her body brushing ours as she circled us. Mace’s arm wound around my waist, going tight and his other hand slid the phone out of mine.

I shoved my face in his chest, pressing close, deep, hard, holding him tight and bawling like a baby as I heard him say into the phone, “Current threat neutralized.” For some bizarre, insane reason which likely had a lot to do with the fact that I was temporarily unhinged due to the extreme relief washing through my system, his words made me laugh through my tears, stil burrowing, his arm getting tighter as I did so.

That was when I heard the sirens.

Okay, now I believed we were good.

But only because my man made us that way.

On that thought, I stopped laughing, gulped back a sob and more tears flowed.

* * * * *

I stood outside at the edge of the activity stil wearing my heels. My feet were kil ing me as was the gunshot graze at my hip which I’d landed on when I went down on it in that room. It hadn’t real y hurt for days, just itched. Now it hurt. I had a blanket wrapped around me, a blanket Mace had wrapped around me and this was because, even though it was summer and stil warm, it was late at night and I was trembling and not because it was late at night.

Juno was sitting at my side, her big body leaning into my legs, her eyes riveted to Mace who was standing fifteen feet away where he had walked not thirty seconds ago to talk to Eddie and Hank.

My eyes were riveted anywhere but at the body that was on the ground, under a sheet, next to Preston’s limousine.

His driver had been taken out. One minute, innocently chauffeuring a rich guy (or whatever), the next minute, dead.

I couldn’t deal with that so I was ignoring it.

The place was crawling with cops, squad cars, forensic personnel, paramedics, ambulances, big lights had been set up and trained around the space so they could see what they were doing and, lastly, there were Nightingale men. In fact, the only Nightingale man not there was the Nightingale, Lee, who I was told briefly by Mace was not let in on this fiasco seeing as it was his wedding night. After Mace imparted this information on me, Luke had noted that Lee would likely be displeased about being kept in the dark. I had noted (but silently) that Lee and Indy would likely be more displeased at having their big, happy day and its culminating, arguably happier festivities interrupted by mayhem.

If the guys took shit from Lee, they did. Luckily, they were badasses so, even though Lee was also a badass, I doubted they’d have difficulty dealing.

There were bystanders and media at the edge of the property, cops and police tape holding them back.

I was counting as the stretchers came out of the building.

Two men ful y covered.

Dead.

Four men stil alive but even from a distance seriously not in good shape.

Mace didn’t f**k around.

This would probably fascinate anyone else, how he did it, how he pul ed that off, holed in a room one second, one against six armed men the next and besting the lot.

Not me. I didn’t want to know and I was never, ever going to ask.

Mace was breathing. I was breathing. My dog was breathing.

That was good enough for me.

The good news was, this was the last hurrah. I knew this because Luke told Mace this while Mace was holding me close, his hands running soothingly up and down my back as Luke gave his briefing. The six men Mace neutralized were the final six men in Sidney Carter’s army. Sidney was stil unaccounted for but his operation was ful y dismantled.

He had no more soldiers. They were stil looking but they suspected, once he heard that this last mission was not successful, he would cut and run. They were covering trains, airports, bus depots and the Highway Patrol was on alert.

They’d even contacted Border Control.

I was not real y processing this information. I was concentrating on my teeth not chattering.

This was what I was concentrating on when I caught movement out of the side of my eye. My head turned and my mind was not switched on enough to react to seeing Preston Mason suddenly, for some reason, sprinting my way.

The only thing I thought was, he wasn’t exactly young but the guy could stil move.

Then I heard him shout, “Sniper! ” At his shout, the air went thick and electric. My body twitched first then instantly jerked to the side in preparation to run (again) and the second it did I heard the whiz and thud as a bul et slammed into the dirt just beyond me.

Then I was tackled from behind as I heard a second hiss split the air. I hit the soft, thick grass in Swen and Ulrika’s side yard with a painful thud that was made more painful by the weight that landed on me and Juno barked.

I lay there, facedown and whoever was on me didn’t move.

There was rushing al around me, I twisted my neck and saw men running and one of those men was Mace.

But he was running somewhere else.

I had no chance to react to this as I felt Juno’s nose snuffling around my neck and hair and felt my body being crushed by the one on me. I tried but failed to heave the weight off and saw the hems of uniform pants and shiny policemen shoes and the weight on me was rol ed off. I rol ed with it, to the other side, and instantly saw Preston lying on his back beside me, a cop on his knees by him, careful y rol ing him back to his bel y and shouting, “Medic! ” Medic.

Oh God.

Medic.

He’d been hit!

Someone tried to pul me up but I yanked my arm away and got back on my bel y, flat, pressed to the ground, even my cheek was in the grass, my face super close to Preston’s, my eyes locked to his pained ones.

“You with me?” I whispered.

Hands were at my back but I ignored them. Preston stared at me as I heard more running feet and bodies landing on their knees around Preston.

My hand darted out and caught his, my fingers curling around.

“Preston, stick with me,” I urged, my fingers squeezing.

“Gurney! ” I heard shouted.

Preston blinked.

I scooted closer and held his hand tighter.

“Hang on,” I whispered.

I watched his eyelids lower a mil imeter and his mouth went slack.