“Cale!” Cassidy screamed.
Then she was there, running her hands over him. Only he couldn’t feel her touch.
He couldn’t feel anything but that white-hot pain.
“Told you...” Genevieve’s voice drifted to him. But it wasn’t a voice wild with fear or desperation. It was calm. Cold.
Cruel?
“I told him that a sniper was waiting. He just needed the right signal to fire,” Genevieve said in that same cold voice. Cale wanted to see Genevieve’s face. But he couldn’t see anything then. Not even Cassidy. “I gave him the signal,” Genevieve finished, “right when I hugged you.”
“You,” Cassidy breathed, sounding lost.
“You took something from me, Cassidy, someone that I loved. I thought it was only fitting that you watched while I took away the man that you loved.”
Cassidy didn’t love him.
Did she?
I love her. But he hadn’t told her that. He should have told her. Just like he should have told his parents when they’d dropped him off that day.
They’d dropped him off for practice, driven away. He’d figured he’d see them later.
He’d buried them later.
“Cale, it’s okay.” Cassidy’s fingers swept over his cheek. Gunfire rang out again. The sniper? Keeping Logan in check?
He had to help Cassidy. If he didn’t—
“Nothing’s okay,” Genevieve shouted. “It hasn’t been okay since you took away Ian. You thought you were so damn clever. You should have been the one to suffer that day, not him!”
He should have seen it sooner. Genevieve hadn’t been the victim in Rio. She’d been the accomplice—maybe the accomplice in all of the abductions. The inside man—woman—who’d gotten close to the prey.
Who’d learned their weaknesses, their secrets.
Just like she’d learned Cassidy’s.
“He’s going to bleed out there. He’ll be dead before any help can arrive,” Genevieve taunted.
“No!” Cassidy yelled. “He’s not!”
More gunfire. Rat-a-tat. Only it seemed like—how many people were firing? Two? Three? So much gunfire.
“Step away from him, Cassidy! Come with me now, or I’ll put a bullet in his head.”
The gun that had been tossed aside...she must have it.
“I was going to kill you at the EOD. I was so enraged that day, hurting because you took Ian!”
Genevieve had been the shooter? Wasn’t she just a woman with some deadly talents.
“But then I realized your death would be too easy. You have to hurt, like I hurt...”
Cale realized exactly what punishment Genevieve had in mind for Cassidy. One lover’s life for another.
Cassidy’s breath heaved out. She must have realized Genevieve’s plan, too, because suddenly she pressed her body flush to his. “Don’t leave me,” Cassidy whispered to Cale. Then she curled her body around his, protected him.
No. The cry was his, but he couldn’t speak.
“Get away from him!” Genevieve’s voice was higher. Wilder. But she wasn’t shooting.
Because she wants Cassidy alive. Genevieve knew that she could use Cassidy to get to Mercer. She knows all about the EOD. She’s been playing us all.
A deadly game that was coming to an end.
“I won’t leave him!” Cassidy was holding him tightly. Trying to put pressure on his wound, trying to shield him.
“I’ll shoot through you!” Genevieve’s footsteps scuttled toward them.
A dead daughter couldn’t be used against Mercer.
But a live hostage could.
His own weapon was just inches away. He tried to move his hand, but every damn part of him hurt now. The pain was consuming him, sweeping over him in an engulfing wave even as darkness flickered around him.
Too much blood loss. An injury too deep.
A groan broke from him.
“Get away from him!” Genevieve was screaming even louder now, her voice almost breaking. “He dies, just like Ian died. He killed Ian, so I’ll kill him! Death for death! Death for—”
“Shoot me.” Cassidy’s voice was coldly quiet. The gunfire had stopped. Had Logan and possibly Gunner managed to take out the sniper up on that third floor? “Shoot me,” Cassidy said again. “Because that’s what you’ll have to do. I won’t let you hurt him again!”
“You think I won’t?” Genevieve didn’t even seem to be aware of the cessation in gunfire. She was too focused on Cassidy.
Was that Cassidy’s plan? To distract her?
If so... Keep it going, sweetheart.
His fingers moved, just a little. He felt the hard edge of his gun.
“We...we were friends,” Cassidy said. Her hair brushed over Cale. She was covering him with her whole body, willing to sacrifice herself for him.
He hadn’t thought it would be possible to love her more.
He’d been wrong.
“We’ve been friends for a long time, Genevieve. You don’t want—”
“We were never friends! You lied to me, always lied.” Brittle laughter. “Just as I lied to you. Remember your precious Helen? She begged for you at the end.”
Cassidy’s body trembled against him. He could feel her now, a bittersweet press of her flesh against his.
“She was such easy prey. So trusting and foolish. They were all easy. I got close to them. I was the one to tell Ian when to take them. I was there—always me.”
“Why?” Cassidy demanded. She wasn’t letting him go.
He wouldn’t let her die for him.
“Because I had nothing. I left that boarding school because my family had nothing. I was in the street. You were at your parties. Dancing. Drinking. I wasn’t going to be thrown away! I was going to have everything!”
Even if she’d had to kill in order to get that life?
“Ian... I met him when I was desperate and alone. He changed me. Helped me.”
No, he’d used her, used her connections.
“He taught me how to hunt. Introduced me to his men.”
The men she’d still been using as her team. A network that was far bigger than they’d realized. They’d thought that most of the Executioner’s men had been killed at that raid in Rio.
Wrong.
“Those men are hiding in the buildings near us right now,” Genevieve continued. She was almost on them. He could hear the ragged pull of her breath.
His fingers stretched.
“I will kill you both. All it takes is one wave of my hand. One wave. And the bullets will come down on you.” More laughter, the cold, uncaring laughter that told Cale she’d let bullets rain down on others before and she hadn’t cared.