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I swallow as pain claws through me. “I love you.” A part of me thinks if I whisper it, it will reach her wherever she’s drifting off to. The look on her face says it’s a soft kind of place. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say.”

“Marco.” She chokes, and it’s a painful sound. I try to quiet her, but she shakes her head, refusing to be silenced. “He’s got a DVD with evidence. Find it. Please, Jim, we have to... make things right.”

It’s a chore for her to breathe, and she gives in to unconsciousness just as abruptly as she tried to fight her way from it. A frown tugs at her lips. “Your arm... hurt.”

I glance at my arm. There’s a vicious looking cut halfway down my forearm that’s leeching a steady stream of blood. It’s nothing, though. Shit, I’d cut the damn thing off if I thought it would guarantee that she’d be okay.

“Hold on,” I whisper urgently, when Taya drifts off. “Dammit, Taya, hold on!”

I don’t know how long I’m holding her like that, urging her to fight, before the wail of a siren fills my ears. Somehow, Bear gets there just before the ambulance. He squats down in front of me, his hand reaching across to lay on my shoulder. “Jim, the paramedics are here.”

I rock, clutching her close, but Bear pries her limp body from me, gently placing her on the floor. Two men dash in and begin working on her as my best friend wraps his arm around my waist, dragging me backward.

I resist, thrusting my weight against his arm, but he wrestles me to the floor, pinning me against the cold, ceramic tile. “It’s my fault. God is taking my Taya to punish me for Aland.”

Bear adjusts his body on top of mine when I start clawing at the floor to drag myself over to Taya. Bear shakes me, and my head bobbles, pain shooting through my eyebrow as my face slaps the floor. “Stop! The bomb in that basket would’ve killed everyone in a mile radius. You are a hero. I get to hug my little girl because of you.”

Sobs wrack through my body. “I never should have left her alone.”

Bear’s grip loosens. “You can’t blame yourself for all the evil in the world, Jim.”

I can’t help her. I can’t save her. Tears spill from my helpless eyes as I shake uncontrollably under Bear. “I can’t lose her.”

“I know.” His words are just right and yet, not nearly enough.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Taya

It feels likea long time before I open my eyes again. The room I’m in smells like medicine and sickness. It’s a familiar smell, and my nose wrinkles in distaste. There’s an IV in my arm and a stiffness to my limbs that makes me think of bandages.

Makes sense.

My lips purse at the memory of Marco’s duplicity, and someone laughs.

“Not even awake a full minute, and she’s already irritated.”

The voice is only vaguely familiar, and I finally glance around the room in search of the culprit. Tony slouches in a chair by the window. Lucas, standing next to him, waves in greeting. On the other side of my bed is Bear with Marge asleep in his lap, and Leslie curled up napping in hers. A tiered cake of a family.

I find Jim last, though I suspect that I was aware of him the entire time and only waiting for the moment I was ready to face him. He’s sitting next to me, studying my face as if he can’t bear to look away. He’s drawn and tired. Defeat is in the slump of his shoulders and the cant of his mouth.

“Where’s Marco?” As much as I want to touch him, I can’t rest without knowing the fate of the man who tried to kill me and murdered my father. “The disc!”

Jim smooths a big hand over my hair, soothing me. “Marco’s dead. We still have the disc.”

There are holes in his usual baritone and his eyes are red. My husband has been crying.

“Are you okay?” I say, searching him for a sign of an injury. All I find is a bandage, wrapped around his forearm.

“Now that you’re awake, yes.”

A feeling I can only describe as awe drifts over me. Or maybe it’s the pain meds. Or a combination of both. All I know is, despite my discomfort, that I’m touched, deep in my heart, over the knowledge that this strong man cried over me. That, and he doesn’t look remotely embarrassed to show it.

“Lyons?” I rasp out.

“He’s fine,” Jim reassures me. “He’s here at the hospital too, on a different floor. Stable condition with a few broken bones. Local police officers are assigned to him to make sure he’s safe. Plus, some of our off-duty friends.”

I try to speak again and end up clearing my throat, which feels as dry as ash. “Water?”

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