Moments later, she withdrew a stack of papers and, with shaking hands, flipped them to the last page, all but shoving them in Sotillo’s face.

Víctor frowned, then dropped them back into Kata’s hands, glaring at Barnes. “He does not lie. For this, I will kill you.”

“I swear, he loves her. I can tell. He’s putting on an act so you think he doesn’t.”

“Complete with legal documents?” Kata’s tone told him to get real as she shoved the papers back in her purse. “It just wasn’t going to work out.”

Before Hunter could lament the fact, she sent him a weighty stare.

Shit, Kata was going to do something. What? Fear kicked Hunter in the balls. He tried to give an imperceptible shake of his head. She had no business playing the hero. But she ignored him, raised her hand from her purse just a fraction. The gleam of her handgun she kept there for self-protection shimmered for just a second, then she cast a meaningful glance over her shoulder toward Sotillo. Shit, he’d forgotten about it. She’d used it and almost gotten a jump on Silva. He couldn’t let her try on Sotillo, not with Víctor holding a gun to her temple. Hunter frowned, silently begging her to use caution.

“What’s going on?” Andy demanded. “You, get your hand out of your purse!”

Hunter stepped between them, turning his back on Sotillo. It was a calculated risk. The Venezuelan prick didn’t want him dead, at least not yet. And he wanted Hunter to watch Kata die. He wouldn’t kill her behind his back. Andy had already proven he was unpredictable. Hunter had to take Barnes out first, before he had the opportunity to pull that trigger and harm Kata.

“What the hell are you doing?” Barnes jumped, snapping his gun inches from Hunter’s face.

He stared down the barrel. If his sacrifice saved Kata, he’d count it as a win. If not . . . he’d make sure that somehow, some way, he took Sotillo down with him as he took Barnes.

Waiting for Kata to be ready with the gun in her hand, Hunter wrapped his finger around the trigger of his own gun.

Andy didn’t miss it. “Drop your gun. Now!”

Behind him there was a scuffle. Sotillo growled. Gunfire resounded, deafening in the small space. Kata screamed. Sirens began to wail, closing in. Andy’s attention veered for just an instant . . .

Hunter took the opportunity, knowing it would probably be the only one.

“No.” Adrenaline spiking his bloodstream, he whipped his gun up, firing almost point-blank in Andy’s chest. Barnes was dead before he started falling to the ground. “Sir.”

Hunter didn’t wait for him to collapse. He turned to see Kata elbow Víctor in the gut. Sotillo released her with a grunt. She whirled and fired. In an instant, he was bleeding from an open wound in his side, staining his pseudo-military uniform dark. His face was mottled, rage blaring from his eyes as he grabbed Kata again and pressed his gun into her temple so hard that she began to bleed. His finger hugged the trigger. “Die, puta.”

Desperate to do anything, Hunter raced through possibilities, but Kata’s body blocked a clear shot at Sotillo. He couldn’t risk shooting her himself.

Frenzied and furious, Kata stomped down on Víctor’s instep. His body jerked, arm flailing up as he jerked his injured foot from the floor. His weapon fired, deafening in the small space. Chunks of the ceiling rained down as Kata whipped her gun over her shoulder and pulled the trigger, hitting Sotillo in the jugular. Blood spurted everywhere. Víctor screamed, trying to stem the flow of blood with one hand. Kata kicked the gun from his hand, and he stumbled back, grabbing her hair as if it was a lifeline.

Hunter dove into the fray, trying to pry Sotillo’s fingers from Kata’s thick tresses. But the dying bastard gripped tighter, staggering back again—right for the open picture window, broken and ominous right behind him.

“She dies with me,” Sotillo gurgled.

Hunter lunged for them, but the bastard glared with hate and pulled Kata closer as he fell out the window to his death. With an evil smile, he took her with him.

Chapter Twenty-one

Christmas Eve

HUNTER stalked out of the terminal at DFW airport and reached for his coat. Shit, coming from Venezuela, where December was damn near eighty degrees, to Dallas, where he’d be lucky if the temperature reached fifty, was always a bit of a weather shock.

Slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder, he walked through the automatic doors, out to the chill. Right on schedule, Logan waited for him at the curb in the Colonel’s Jeep.

His brother hopped out of the car, opened the hatch in back, then stuck out his hand. “How’s it going?”

Shitty. Fucking miserable. Hunter shook his hand. “Okay. You?”

Logan shrugged. “It’s Christmas, so let’s play happy, huh? Deke, Kimber, and the baby are driving down tonight. They’ll stay a few days.”

“How are they? I’ll bet the baby has really grown.”

“Absolutely! Little Caleb is going to be a bruiser. He’s got the temper to match.”

Hunter dumped his duffel in the back of the vehicle and smiled faintly, glad everything had worked out well for his sister and her husband after such a rocky start. “Of course. Neither Deke nor Kimber has ever had a problem expressing when they’re pissed off.”

Logan laughed and jogged for the driver’s seat. “C’mon, before the overzealous traffic cops around here write me a ticket.”

With a nod, Hunter made his way to the passenger door

“Let’s see ... what else?” his brother mused. “Carlotta is already at Dad’s.”

Hearing that was a punch to Hunter’s solar plexus. Carlotta would just remind him of all he’d lost. Kata had survived the fall out her window because Sotillo had landed under her, breaking it. She’d suffered a concussion and a broken arm, lost some blood, and gone into shock, but they’d whisked her away to the hospital and stabilized her quickly. Hunter had gone insane worrying about her, but the police had insisted on asking inane questions, tying him up. Then military brass had demanded his presence soon thereafter, subjected him to a shitload of red tape. He’d told them to shove it until he knew that Kata was going to be fine. But after the doctor’s assurance that her injuries were minor and an admiral called, threatening court-martial if he didn’t appear and explain why he’d shot his commanding officer, he’d been forced to leave. The Colonel had given him frequent updates on Kata’s health until she’d healed completely.

Back on active duty, he’d tried to write Kata, but he couldn’t wrangle his feelings onto a page. Besides, she’d wanted a divorce and never contacted him to say anything contrary. So he’d stayed silent. Since then, he’d buried himself in one mission after another, turned down another promotion . . . and spent time deciding what to do with the rest of his life.

He still had no fucking clue.

Hunter pushed the pain of Kata’s loss and all his uncertainty aside. He didn’t feel like celebrating the holidays, but he’d put on a good face for his family. “Carlotta doing good?”

“Yeah, her divorce to Gordon is almost final. She’s got her own place now in Tyler and a job at Mother Frances Hospital as a surgical nurse. She’s been rehabbing her foot.” Logan nodded. “She’s making great strides and seems really happy. I think Dad may be sweet on her, but if there’s anything there, they’re taking it slow.”

Maybe someone would come out of this mess happy, and if anyone deserved it after over a decade and a half of misery, it was the Colonel. He’d sacrificed his heart to make his wife happy and hadn’t been the same since. Hunter knew that wretched feeling. But if Kata was happier apart from him, he’d bear it.

“Carlotta isn’t going to spend the holiday in Lafayette with Mari or her other family?”

Logan shrugged. “Guess not.”

“You doing any better, little brother?”

“No better, no worse.” He navigated through the airport’s twisting roads to the main thoroughfare and the toll gates. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

“Not if you still haven’t had sex in the last five years.”

Logan slanted him a livid glare. “How much sex have you had in the last six months?”

None. He hadn’t had many opportunities . . . but he also hadn’t had any interest. Hunter looked out the passenger window, knowing he’d walked right into his brother’s trap. “It hasn’t been that long since we split up. You’ve had a dozen years to get over T—”

"Don’t say her name,” he growled. “Or I swear I’ll stop this car and take you apart.”

Hunter understood his brother’s anger. He could barely think Kata’s name without getting choked up and pissed that he’d somehow let her slip through his fingers. He hated to think he’d still feel the same way years down the road . . . but it was damn likely.

“Sorry. I’m having a hard time. She’s in town for the holidays.” Logan stared bleakly at the busy road.

“I understand.” No doubt, the situation was rough. So close . . . yet so far away. To this day, he didn’t really know what had happened between them, but whatever it was had left Logan broken.

“Hey,” his brother broke into his thoughts. “With so much company and all the beds in the house taken, we drew short straws to see who’d have to find other bunks. You lost.”

“I wasn’t there to draw for myself.” Hunter frowned. “You cheated.”

Logan winked. “Sucks to be you.”

They hit the highway, and the long drive to Tyler passed with loud alternative rock and a smattering of conversation. Once they left the bustle of Dallas behind, the barren spindles of tree branches flared across gray skies as one mile rolled into the next. Pastures that had been green in June were now brown, dead. Like he felt inside.

He whipped out his phone and stared—yet again—at his contraband picture of Kata. As always, it never failed to both soothe and destroy him.

God, he’d give anything to go back and change . . . what? If he’d been any different with Kata, he would have been lying to them both. She feared the sort of relationship he needed and had only felt free to really submit when she’d known it was good-bye. Everything about that night had been bittersweet. He’d had hope when she’d wanted to make love to only him, but ...

“How’s Tyler doing?” he asked. Anything to avoid treading the same mental ground he’d stomped on a thousand times.

“Still rehabbing his back, but he’s nearly a hundred percent. I still think it’s incredible that the fall didn’t paralyze him.”

“No shit.” The blood loss from the shot to his arm had actually been worse than his fall out the window. Hunter had been very relieved when a couple of minor surgeries had fixed the majority of Tyler’s damage. He didn’t need anything else to feel guilty about.

The outskirts of town appeared, hovering on either side of Highway 69. The holiday decorations up on the shops and restaurants should have helped Hunter get in the spirit. Nah, he was more depressed than ever.

He drew in a deep breath and broached the one subject he dreaded most. “Did the final divorce papers come to Dad’s house?”

Logan hesitated. “No. Why would they?”

“Just asking, since they didn’t come to my barracks. The only thing I received was a letter telling me that my request for married housing on base had been approved. I guess when I told the navy I’d married, they thought I’d want a real house.”

He wished so fucking badly that he could share it with Kata.

“You’ll figure it out,” Logan drawled.

“After Christmas, yeah.” No way was he dealing with it now. It would only depress him more. “I’m home for two weeks this time. I told my new CO that he’d better not call me once unless the world was coming to an end.”

“I hope he lives up to that.”

Hunter snorted, despite his misery. “He didn’t seem eager to give me a reason to shoot him.”

“Makes sense. You’ve gained a hell of a reputation for being hard on a CO.” Logan drove for a minute, then exited the freeway, stopping at the first red light. “You’ve asked me about everyone except Kata.”

God, even hearing her name hurt. He knew now why Logan couldn’t stand to be reminded of his ex-girlfriend.

Sucking in a sharp breath, Hunter tried to pass off the question with a shrug. “I assume that someone would tell me if something’s not right with her.”

“True.” Logan turned right, away from the Colonel’s.

Hunter frowned. “Where am I staying?”

“I cooked a little something up for you. This place belongs to a friend who’s away for the holidays.”

That grin worried the crap out of Hunter. Since when did Logan let anyone close enough to actually call friend? The only people who remotely qualified were all the hard-core folks at that BDSM club he frequented. “What the hell are you up to?”