Another bullet hit her. Driving through her upper shoulder and sinking into Gunner.
She choked, barely managing to breathe as the pain swamped her.
“He’s dead,” Gunner gritted out. She was in his arms then. He was holding her tight, bruising her. “You…won’t be.”
Sydney fought him, using all the strength that she had, but she didn’t have enough. Gunner was wounded, too, but nothing stopped him. Not ever.
So he ran right through the gunfire, holding her in arms like steel. He ran and ran, and then they were in the heavier, denser part of the jungle, evading the men who chased them. No jeeps could follow them here.
Gunner wouldn’t let her go, no matter how much she begged him.
He didn’t speak to her again. Didn’t say a word.
And behind them, in that nightmare, Slade remained in the dirt.
Dead.
His eyes had never opened. From the time she’d fallen by his side, he hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t even been able to open his eyes.
They never would open again.
GUNNER GOT HER out of that jungle. Patched her up. Stopped the blood flow. She wasn’t helping him. Sydney was barely moving at all.
“Shock,” Gunner told her, voice terse.
Yeah, that was it. She had to be in shock. Because she’d just seen her fiancé die in that trap. She and Slade had fought before, and for him to die with that anger between them…I’m so sorry.
“You lost too much blood.” Gunner’s fingers curled around her chin. She didn’t know where they were now. Some kind of hut? A run-down shack? Just some shelter he’d found them. Gunner was good at finding shelters. “You won’t die.”
Hadn’t he said that before? It was hard to remember. Her tongue seemed so thick in her mouth, but after three tries she managed to say, “Slade…”
Gunner’s fingers tightened on her. “He’s gone.”
A tear leaked down her cheek.
Gunner’s jaw clenched. That hard jaw. That dangerous face. “I’ve got you, Syd. I’ll take care of you.”
She was breaking apart on the inside. The mission was over. They’d failed.
He pulled her into his arms. Held her against his chest. Gentleness? He’d never seemed the kind for that. “I’ve got you,” he said again, voice deepening.
And it was there, in his arms, that she finally let herself go.
She cried until there were no tears left to shed.
Chapter One
Two years later…
The kidnapper had a gun pressed to Sydney’s head.
Gunner Ortez stopped breathing when he saw Sydney’s beautiful face fill his scope. So perfect. Delicate, high cheekbones. The soft curve of her nose. The full, red lips…
And the green eyes that stared straight back at him. Seeming to know where he was. Her green gaze that showed no fear even as that soon-to-be-dead man jammed the gun harder into her temple.
“Do you have the shot?” a low voice asked in his ear. The earpiece wouldn’t even be noticed by most people. Uncle Sam was great at inventing gear that his soldiers could use anytime, anyplace.
With a minimum of fuss and a maximum of damage.
Gunner’s finger was curled over the trigger, but he wasn’t taking the shot. “Negative, Alpha One,” he told his team leader. “Sydney isn’t clear.”
And he was sweating, feeling a tendril of fear—when he never felt fear. There was no room for emotion on any of their missions.
He worked with a group far off the grid. The Elite Ops Division wasn’t on any books anywhere in the U.S. government. They took the jobs that the rest of the world wasn’t meant to know about. In particular, his EOD team—code-named the Shadow Agents—had a reputation for deadly accuracy when it came to taking out their targets.
And this guy…that jerk with the trembling finger, he was going down. The man had kidnapped an ambassador’s daughter. Held her for ransom, and when the ransom had been paid, he’d still killed her.
He’d thought he could hide from justice.
He’d thought wrong.
Sydney’s intel had led them to Jonathan Hall. Led them to his hideout just over the border in Mexico.
Sydney had volunteered to go in, to make sure that Hall was holding no civilians.
Now she was the one being held.
“He can’t leave the scene,” Logan Quinn said, the faint drawl of the South sliding beneath the team leader’s words as they carried easily over the transmitter. “You know our orders.”
Containment or death. Yeah, Gunner knew the drill, because the ambassador’s daughter hadn’t been the first victim. Hall liked to kill.
Gunner stared down at the man, at Sydney. You won’t kill her.
Sydney’s face was emotionless. Like a pale canvas, waiting for life. That wasn’t her. She was always brimming with emotion, letting it spill over onto everything and everyone.
It was only on the missions that she changed.
How many more missions would she take? She seemed to be putting herself at risk more these days. He hated that.
He shifted his position, testing the wind. Hall wouldn’t see him. He was too far away. Gunner’s specialty was attacking from a distance.
There was no target that he couldn’t reach.
He could take out that man right now. A perfect shot… if he hadn’t been worried that Hall’s finger would jerk on that trigger at impact.
“I want the gun away from her head,” Gunner snapped into his mouthpiece.
But even as he said the words, he saw Sydney’s lips moving.
Take. The. Shot.
Hall was outside the small house, his gaze frantically searching the area even as he kept Sydney killing-close. The man wasn’t stupid. He’d eluded capture for over a year because he understood how the game was played.
Hall knew Sydney hadn’t come in alone. The guy just didn’t see her backup. When he hunted like this, Gunner’s prey never saw him, not unless he wanted to be seen.
This time, he wanted to be seen because that gun was coming away from Sydney’s head.
Take. The. Shot. Her lips moved again.
He shook his head, even though he realized she’d never see the movement. Then he took two steps to the right. He knew that, in this particular position, the sunlight would glint off his weapon. When he saw that flash of light, Hall would fire—
And he did. The man yanked the gun away from Sydney’s head and shot at Gunner.
Too late.
Gunner had already taken his own shot.
The second the gun moved away from her temple, Sydney shoved back against Hall with her elbow, and then she’d jerked away from her captor and threw herself down.
Before she even hit the ground, Gunner’s bullet slammed into Hall. The man stumbled back and fell.
“Converge,” Logan’s hard order came in Gunner’s ear.
The other EOD team members rushed from the shadows. Not