THE MOMENTS CREEPING up the driveway in the dark were surreal. Almost an out-of-body experience. Trevor had thought that if he kept Dina close, if he could convince her to do it all his way, that he could keep her safe. Instead, she’d been kidnapped right out from under his nose after she’d finally put her full trust in him. They’d shared something deeper, special last night.

Now he understood her fear and the years of running.

Dominick wouldn’t give up until Dina was dead.

Trevor wasn’t going to let that happen. He loved Dina. He couldn’t allow her to be ripped from him.

Alex slowed his step at the edge of the garage, his hand up. Another ten or so inches and they’d be in full view of the front door.

The hair on the back of Trevor’s neck rose. The world seemed to sharpen and his mind locked into his body, more present now than he’d been since...last night when he’d looked into Dina’s eyes and seen his future.

Adrenaline surge.

They all had it.

One thing that made the guys on SWAT the same was that this? This moment where they could taste sound, they craved it. But not tonight. Tonight was different. If Trevor lost Dina he—

Alex dropped his hand.

The six of them moved forward.

Their numbers were off for a typical op and there was no tactical medic. If someone was hurt, they could die. But if they didn’t move now Dina would die. Her brother wasn’t going to wait.

They were as silent as they could be.

Val and Casey broke ahead of them. Val hauled back with the twenty pound door ram and shattered the bay window. No sooner had Val made the hole than Casey shouldered in and tossed a hissing canister into the house.

A woman yelled something, but that wasn’t Dina’s throaty voice.

One.

Trevor turned his head.

The other girls, perhaps?

Two.

The flash came first, a bright flare of light meant to momentarily blind people. Then the bang, deafening their targets, confusing them.

Trevor and Liam moved in unison. Liam acted first, hauling back and kicking the damaged door. The crumbling doorframe gave way and the decades old door crashed into the entry. Trevor shouldered his way in, gun up, searching the acrid smoke for signs of Dina.

“Ransom SWAT,” he yelled over the screaming of two girls, moving into the living room.

Two teenage girls lay on the floor between the coffee table and the sofa.

They weren’t his concern.

“Dina?” he called out.

Behind him Sean and Liam moved to secure the girls and ensure they weren’t a threat. Just because they were young and stupid didn’t mean they were harmless, especially given who their family was.

The door to the garage stood open, the lights on.

A man leaned into view.

“Gun!” Trevor bellowed and went to a knee, the bar between kitchen and living room offering some cover.

Dominick squeezed off one shot that went into the far wall.

“Trevor?” Dina called out, her voice echoing in the garage.

“Clear,” Alex called out.

Trevor nodded and rose into a crouch and moved around the bar. He stared at the open door through the sights.

The four expected players were here.

Dominick.

Dina.

The two girls.

“Get them out of here,” Alex said behind Trevor. “Casey, clear the back of the house.”

He swallowed and edged through the door. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t be part of an op that involved anyone he knew. It was why he’d been back in the control room with Alex earlier tonight. But Trevor wasn’t about to sit around and know he could have been there for her.

The two-car garage felt almost empty with just her hatchback and a few boxes inside of it, yet the space brimmed with tension.

“Easy. Easy,” Trevor said coming to a stop just inside the garage.

“Get out of here,” Dominick snarled. He stood on the other side of the car, his arm around Dina’s chest and a gun pressed to the underside of her jaw.

“I can’t do that,” Trevor replied.

His heart beat in his throat and everything inside of him said to react, to do something, to save Dina. But one wrong move and she’d be dead. Dominick, too, at that angle. Did he know that? A bullet would rip up through her head and straight into him.

“Let’s talk?” Trevor had to diffuse the situation, no matter that he wanted to put a bullet in the guy.

Alex and Casey crouched just out of sight in the kitchen. Trevor saw the silver gleam of another canister in Casey’s hand and shook his head. Dominick was a dangerous, cornered man. If he jumped, flinched too hard, he could kill them both.

Hell, losing Dina might kill Trevor.

Which was why he had to take the tension down a few notches.

“Here. I’m going to put my weapon down. Let’s talk, okay?” Trevor lowered the rifle and pushed his shoulders back.

He couldn’t look at Dina. That was a line he couldn’t cross. He hadn’t spied any red on her, no visible injuries, and that was what he had to hold on to. If he stared into her eyes, he’d fall to pieces and she needed him to be strong.

“Can you point your gun somewhere else?” Trevor asked.

“Back up,” Dominick snarled.

“I’m not doing that.” Trevor kept his tone easy.

“I don’t care if those two won’t leave, make them,” Alex said in a low voice to Liam.

“Talk to me, Dominick. It’s Dominick, right? Not D or Nick or anything?” Trevor took a step closer.

Dominick straightened his arm, pointing the gun at Trevor.

Some of the tension in Trevor’s gut eased.

Dina was still at risk, but not from a twitchy finger.

“Hey, easy man. We’re just talking.” Trevor managed a smile.

“Fuck you!” Dominick spat.

“Now—”

Gunfire tore through the night. Glass broke in the next room. The girls screamed.

Trevor ducked, going into a crouch.

“One armed suspect outside,” Liam yelled.

What a time to not have comms.

Dina screamed, the pain filled sound echoing off the concrete and metal.

“Dina? Dina!” Trevor felt the puff of air from a passing bullet before it hit the back wall.

“T-Trevor?” Her voice wavered. He could hear the pain in it.

“Shut up,” Dominick snapped.

Trevor swallowed down the threats he wanted to make, the ultimatums he wanted to give. It was up to him to save her now.

He threw himself forward, flattening himself on the ground.

How many shots was that? How many guns did the shooter have?

Was it Little Tony? Had Phillip gotten out of the car? Or was there another player?

Trevor crawled forward. He could only address one threat at a time, and right now that was Dina.

CASEY HEARD THE SHOTS echo through the night.

They were clear, unmuffled and outside.

He couldn’t communicate with those inside and backtracking would waste time when what his team inside the house needed was to stop the threat. They couldn’t count on dispatch getting anyone to them what with their resources spread thin on a manhunt, so it was up to Casey.

He jogged around to the north side of the house. The neighbor’s trees offered additional cover as he neared the front of the house.

The rain of bullets stopped.

Everyone had to reload sometime.

Casey leaned out, but the street was clear.

No one stood in the lawn.

He lifted his rifle and edged out from the shadows.

A hulking beast of a man stood in front of the garage in the thick of the shadows. Reloading two handguns.

“Put your guns down and get on the ground,” Casey ordered.

The man’s head and arm snapped up.

They both fired at the same moment. Two bullets ripping through the night.

DINA GASPED FOR AIR. Dominick’s arm around her chest made it harder to suck down oxygen. Her stomach felt as though it were on fire. Her insides screamed in pain.

She tried to shift her feet, maybe change positions, but she couldn’t feel her toes. Her legs wouldn’t obey her.

Her head lolled to the side, and she stared at the red pool of liquid on the ground.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” Dominick muttered.

Shit indeed.

This was how it would end?

A stray bullet and not some grand execution?

She gripped the handle of the gardening tool tighter. Dominick hadn’t paid her any mind. That was all on Trevor and the garage door.

“Dina?” Trevor called out.

Her eyes prickled and tears clouded her vision.

She couldn’t die. Not like this. The last thing she wanted was to become another weight on his soul, another person taking up space in his heart. He deserved better than this.

“Stay back,” Dominick ordered.

Dina rolled her head, leaning back on her brother’s shoulder. They’d landed on the floor, her between Dominick’s legs.

It was getting cold. Texas wasn’t cold this time of year.

She was dying.

Dina locked eyes with Trevor crouching at the hood of her car. His gun was up, but she was in the way. Dominick would make sure she died before he was captured. He wasn’t about to give up this one thing. She could fight back. She had to. But he had the upper hand.

There was no way she was going to go down without a fight even if it was pointless.

If she was going to die in a dirty garage in her homicidal brother’s arms, she could at least say what she needed to.

“Trevor?” Her voice wavered, and she tasted blood.

“Don’t talk, Dina,” he said.

“Get the fuck back.” Dominick tightened his arm around her chest.

“Trevor, this isn’t—” She coughed and turned her head, spitting blood. That couldn’t be good. Her head weighed too much and her arms were beginning to tingle. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Dominick, she needs help. She needs a doctor—”

“What she needs is for you to back the fuck up.”

Dina needed to see Trevor. She needed to look at him one last time. She lifted her chin and looked into his eyes, so focused on her. He was doing his best to be the cop, but she could see him bleeding around the edges.

“I’m sorry.” She sucked down a breath. It was getting harder. “I love you.”

Dominick choked out a laugh.

“You don’t know how to love anyone,” he said.

“Shut up,” Trevor snapped.

“I love you, Trevor.”

Dina jabbed the pointed gardening tool back over her shoulder. She felt it hit soft skin. Dominick’s body jolted, and he cried out. She shoved as hard as she could. Dominick struck her in the side of the head and she went sprawling to the ground.

Two gunshots echoed so loud in the small space, chasing her into darkness so complete she couldn’t see a light.

TREVOR STARED AT THE gleaming tiles of the waiting room floor. He’d been in this chair for hours with no word about Dina’s progress. The nurse wouldn’t say anything and no amount of coaxing or begging had worked. He was effectively cut off from her.

What if she didn’t make it?

Best he could tell she’d been struck by one of Little Tony’s shots that had gone through the garage door. When Jenna and the ambulance had arrived, she’d told Trevor they had to take Dina to a Fort Worth hospital. They could only do so much for her in Ransom considering the extent of her injuries.

That had been around eleven, maybe midnight. Time had blurred for him after she went missing. He wasn’t sure what time it was now.

He glanced up at the clock on the waiting room wall.

Half-past nine.

A lot could happen in twelve hours.

“Drink this.” Pearl pressed a paper cup into his hand. Judging by the creamy color she’d doctored it up already.

Trevor wasn’t sure when Pearl and Bunny had appeared. They’d bullied him into eating some kind of sandwich, drinking a bottle of water, then sat quietly by. How they’d known where to find him or what happened was a mystery to him. Then again, the L.O.L. Gang was everywhere.

He sipped the sweet coffee, if it could be called that, and turned to study the new people on shift at the Emergency Department desk.

This was getting ridiculous. Someone was going to tell him something.

“Trevor!”

He whipped his head toward the door and stared at his mother rushing toward him.

“Mom, hey.” He stood, and she wrapped her arms around him. “We just heard. I’m so sorry. How is she?”

He opened and closed his mouth.

There wasn’t anything to say.

Dina had been in bad shape when Jenna pried his hands off her wound. There’d been so much blood in that garage.

Bunny stood and laid a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “The nurses haven’t been released to tell us anything.”

“What?” Mom gaped at him.

Trevor nodded. He didn’t know who had ruled on the security surrounding Dina’s care, but that was all they knew. Hell, for all he knew she’d been transferred somewhere else.

He glanced over his mother’s shoulder at his father hanging back.

“Dad.” He nodded more to be polite than grateful his dad had shown up.

“Word is your girlfriend is a felon,” Dad said.

Mom hissed and turned to glare at Dad.

Trevor clenched his teeth.

“Ow!” Dad jerked and twisted away from the line of seats where Pearl sat.

“You hold your tongue, young man.” Pearl jabbed her finger at Dad. Most of the time Pearl was the most pleasant, sweetest woman, but Trevor recalled getting on her bad side. It hadn’t happened more than twice.

“You know the Psalms say that he who walks with integrity, works in righteousness also speaks truth?” Bunny drew herself up another inch or so, staring down her nose at Trevor’s father.

“I’m just repeating what I heard.” Dad slid his hands in his pockets, undeterred by the disproving stares of the two L.O.L.’s.

“Well you heard wrong, Dad.”

“I heard gunshots, didn’t I?” Dad stared at Trevor, as though he were to blame for every bad thing that happened in Ransom.

Trevor held out his hands and shrugged.

He couldn’t make his dad understand and there was nothing he could do to be good enough for him.

“I don’t want to do this right now, so if you could sit down and shut up, that would be great.” Trevor pivoted toward his mom, her face lined with worry.

“Don’t you open that mouth of yours, Bobby Walters.” Bunny kept her stare on Trevor’s dad. “I have held my tongue for years out of respect for what your daddy did, but I cannot abide by this hateful speech. You have lost the meaning of what it means to be a community. You take no responsibility for your own actions and you fail to acknowledge that the world is changing. Ransom is changing. It’s not Trevor’s fault. It’s not anyone’s. It's how the world works. Wake up and appreciate what you have before it’s gone.”

Trevor ducked his head.

He didn’t recall the last time anyone had used Dad’s first name.

Dad scowled and glanced at Mom.

“I’ll wait in the car,” he said.

“I can give your wife a ride home.” Bunny turned and gave Mrs. Walters a kind smile. “I think it would be nice to catch up. You aren’t needed here, Bobby.”

Trevor bit the inside of his cheek and watched his dad stalk out of the waiting room. It was a little satisfying to see him turned around like that.

“I’m going to go ask the new shift about Dina real quick, okay?”

He had to keep asking. Until someone told him something.

DINA WAS FAIRLY CERTAIN she’d never felt this bad. Not even when Dad held her down and Mom planted the iron on her arms as punishment. Her mouth was dry. Her toenails hurt. Her stomach was one big cramp. She was so weak holding her eyes open was too much of an effort. There were people around, she heard voices and beeps, but  nothing made a lot of sense.

She’d long since realized that she hadn’t died. That would have been so much easier than living. Living was tough and it hurt.

A person stepped up close to the bed.

Dina turned her face toward them.

How long had she been out?

What happened?

Was her brother alive?

Trevor...?

“Oh, hey. Decided to come around, huh?” The nurse leaned on the bedrail. Her dazzling smile was so bright it hurt. “How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?”

Dina nodded, but her mouth wouldn’t work.

“Here, have an ice chip first. Your mouth is probably dry as a desert.”

The nurse assisted Dina with getting the ice in her mouth. Her limbs still weren’t working and just this much conversation was exhausting. Dina lay in bed, letting the ice melt in her mouth, while the nurse scurried away to do whatever else it was she needed to do. By the time the nurse returned Dina was ready for more ice, but there was one other need far more pressing.

“Trevor?” Her voice was raspy and the one word painful.

“What?” The nurse leaned closer and frowned.

“Trevor?” Dina repeated.

“Trevor?”

Dina nodded.

“Is that your friend? Family member?” the nurse asked.

Again, Dina nodded.

“Oh, I wasn’t told you had anyone here with you. Let me see if we can find you a Trevor.” The woman smiled then was gone again.

Dina stared at the ceiling, her mind still foggy.

Another cop had died last night. Heidi. A woman Dina had barely met. What if it was all too much and Trevor couldn’t forgive her? She couldn’t blame him. She came with a heaping ton of bad shit.

The minutes dragged on.

Her nurse bustled around.

Still no Trevor.

Dina’s heart ached and her eyes prickled.

She’d known getting close to him was a bad idea from the start, she just hadn’t realized it was because she’d learn to love him. Her first, true love.

“Dina?”

She blinked but her vision was blurry.

“Hey. Dina? Don’t cry,” that familiar, warm voice said.

He was here.

Trevor hadn’t left her.

TREVOR WAS GLAD WHEN the last person finally cleared out of Dina’s hospital room. Once they’d cleared up the issues about her security, the floodgates had been opened. There’d been a steady stream of his fellow officers, other L.O.L.’s, some people who’d met Dina as Kate over the years and then others who just wanted to show their support. Dina had spent most of the time asleep or dozing from the anesthesia, which was probably for the best.

He pulled the big recliner as close to Dina’s bed as he could get and reached through the bars to touch her hand. Her fingers uncurled, hooking in his.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“You should be asleep.” He hated seeing her in this bed. Dina needed to be free. That was who she was.

“You’re still here.”

“Yup. They brought me a pillow and everything.”

“You should go home.”

“And leave you by yourself? Not a chance.”

Her eyes finally opened, and she stared at him. “Are you mad at me?”

“No. Why would I be?”

Dina opened and closed her mouth, then lifted a shoulder.

“Heidi is okay. I told you that. If it was up to Mom, you’d keep the ring. Nothing that’s happened has been your fault. None of it, understand?” He squeezed her hand. She’d gotten the raw end of the deal so much of the time. She deserved better.

“I just—”

“If anyone should be angry, it’s you.” He stared at their joined hands.

“Dominick would have killed you,” she said.

“I didn’t have to shoot him twice.” Trevor had never killed anyone before. Ransom wasn’t that dangerous of a city. He’d always thought that if it came to that, he’d freeze or feel guilt. He hadn’t. Not yet.

“If he was breathing, he’d have tried to shoot you,” Dina said.

“Phillip is supposedly stable.”

Little Tony had shot Phillip before attacking the house. Casey had killed Little Tony in the driveway. A first for both of them.

“What happened with Rosie’s sisters?” Dina asked.

“They are in FBI custody, I think.” Not his problem.

“The FBI?”

“They didn’t seem terribly interested in talking to you. Maybe some general questions. If they really wanted to know something they’d have been here today.”

Dina nodded and relaxed a bit.

“You think you’ll go home after this?” Now that her brother wasn’t trying to kill her, would she want to go back to where she’d grown up? She’d said she loved him. He didn’t know if she remembered that or not, but he did.

“I thought you said you broke the door down?”

“That wasn’t the home I was talking about.”

“That’s the only home I have.” She frowned.

“I mean, do you think you’ll stay in Ransom?”

“Do...you want me to?”

“I do.” He wrestled with the heavy emotional stuff. Her body needed to heal before they sorted out everything else, but—

“I meant what I said,” she whispered.

It was Trevor’s turn to stare at him.

“I love you. At least, I think I do. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. The idea of losing you—I...” Her eyes began to water and her mouth moved silently.

“Sh. Babe. Don’t.” He sat up and reached for her over the rail, cupping her cheek. He kissed her lips, keeping it gentle. “I love you, too.”

“Really?” She threaded her fingers through his hair.

“Really.” He smiled and his mind was made up. Dina was the woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life. She’d never been a damsel in distress. She’d been a warrior woman with a thorn she couldn’t reach, and he’d helped her. Just like she helped him. It was the best kind of love he could ask for.