“You thought you’d fooled me, didn’t you, Cassidy?” Genevieve asked. “But it was I all along... I was the better actress. I was the one who played you.”
The silence chilled him. Logan and Gunner would have attacked by now, if they could have.
It was up to him.
Trust me, Cassidy. He’d told her that before. He hoped she remembered now.
“Leave...” Getting that one word out was so hard.
He knew then how serious his injury was. He wouldn’t have much time. He had to make sure Cassidy was safe.
“Run...” When he made his move, she had to run to the car. Had to get inside before any of Genevieve’s men fired.
“No.” Cassidy’s voice was as pain-filled as his own. “If I move, she’ll kill you.”
But Cassidy had to step back if she hoped to keep living.
“Last chance, Cassidy!” Genevieve’s voice rang out. “Get away from your lover! Or you die with him!”
Because she wanted her vengeance. He’d killed Ian, now she thought to kill him.
Think again.
“Get...away...” Cale growled.
“Not happening,” Cassidy growled right back at him.
I love her.
“You’d be willing to die for him?” Genevieve screeched. “A man you just met days ago? He doesn’t even care about you!”
“I care,” was Cassidy’s soft response.
Then he heard a thud. Fast, brutal.
It was a sound he’d heard before. A sound he’d made before. The butt of a weapon striking someone.
Cassidy grunted, and he felt her body twist as she turned to fight back against Genevieve.
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.