Gunter sighed heavily. “I took a vow once that I would never betray or harm your father. He saved my life and, in turn, I swore I would never turn on him.”

“I’m not asking you to kill Eduardo,” Cari pleaded. “I’m begging you to help me save Joe. Please. I’ll never ask anything of you ever again. Just this one thing.”

Gunter stared at her for a long time. Then he said heavily, “I’ll do what I can.”

They left the bathroom and headed for the hallway door. And stopped short when the knob wouldn’t turn under Cari’s hand. Gunter tried the door. Shook his head. It was locked.

She called through the panel, “Grace? Let me out.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Ferrare,” a male voice said outside. “I can’t do that. I’m under orders to keep you in your room until further notice.”

Gunter called out, “Guillermo, it’s Gunter. Let me the fuck out.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Eduardo was explicit. No one comes into or goes out of Miss Cari’s room until he says otherwise.”

Cari blinked. And stared at Gunter in dismay. Had Eduardo figured out what Gunter was up to? Had the German just thrown his own life away in the name of rescuing Cari from her grief?

The German shrugged, his face set in grim lines.

“I’m so sorry, Gunter,” she choked out.

“I knew something like this might happen. It was my decision. I accept my fate.”

Her eyes narrowed. One thing she’d learned from Joe was never to say never. She wasn’t going to roll over and play dead. Not yet. There had to be a way to get out of here and help Joe.

“The ladder,” she whispered to Gunter, acutely aware of the bugs in her room.

A grin broke across his face. He nodded and the two of them sprinted across the room toward her balcony. Gunter grabbed her arm and stopped her from bursting outside. He stood to one side of the French doors and peered out from behind the curtains.

She whispered in his ear, “Joe says that the cameras all line up facing away from the balcony every few minutes. We can slip out then.”

Gunter’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that how you two got out for that skinny-dip?”

She smiled briefly and nodded.

“How long is the coverage gap?” he muttered.

“About fifteen seconds,” she replied.

“We’ll have to be fast, then.” He glanced down at the high-heeled sandals on her feet. “Go put on tennis shoes while I watch for the cameras to line up.”

She raced to her closet and threw on the black slacks and turtleneck from the night before, along with the tennis shoes. She was just tying the last shoe when Gunter gestured for her to come to the door.

“Next pass of that camera to the right,” he murmured.

She nodded her understanding.

There. It was swinging away from them. They slipped outside silently and threw the ladder over the side railing. Gunter looked twenty years younger as he disappeared over the edge of the balcony. But she didn’t have time to stop and wonder why as she swung her legs over the edge and raced after him.

I’m coming for you, Joe. Hang on just a little longer.

They tag-teamed pounding on him. When one thug got tired, the next one would step in. Thankfully, the pain made Joe pass out quickly enough that he didn’t suffer through much of it.

He came to when a bucket of cold water was thrown on him. Eduardo was standing in the corner, grinning like a damned shark. He didn’t bother telling the bastard what he thought of him. Ferrare wasn’t worth wasting his breath on.

“Now that we’ve got him tenderized a bit, what say we move on to something a little more interesting?” Eduardo gloated.

Several of the men left the room, no doubt to fetch some lovely toys like car batteries and filleting knives.

The door opened and another guard stuck his head into the room. “Excuse me for interrupting, sir, but there’s something going on down in security that you need to take a look at. We’re picking up a transmission out of the house.”

Eduardo turned in irritation. “What sort of transmission?”

“We’re not exactly sure. It’s sort of like a phone signal.”

Eduardo cursed and headed for the door, followed by two more of his flunkies. That left Joe alone with just two guys. He felt like hamburger, but it was probably the best and only chance he would get to try and help himself.

He spoke up derisively. “Can’t you sissies do any better than this? It feels like I’ve had a nice massage, but that’s about it.”

On cue, both thugs advanced on him. His arms might be tied to the chair, but his legs weren’t. He held his feet still until both men were well within his reach, then lashed out viciously, kicking the nearest man in the groin. As the guy went down, shouting in pain, Joe flung the chair onto its side, rolled and came up, bent over but on his feet. He charged forward, ramming the top right corner of the chair into the second guy’s solar plexus. The thug went down, gasping like a dying fish.

Joe slammed himself into the table, praying the chair would give way before the table. It did. Damn, that hurt! The chair back partially tore free of the seat. Struggling to stay conscious as waves of pain poured over him, he worked the ropes binding his wrists free enough for him to turn around partway in the chair.

The first guy was back on his feet. Joe raised the chair remnant overhead and smashed it down on the thug. The guy dropped like a rock, but even better, the chair busted the rest of the way. He shook his hands free of the wreckage, looped both ends of the rope around his hands and choked the first guy until he turned an ugly purple color and was well and truly unconscious.

He spun around and kicked as hard as he could, nailing the second guy, who was still down on the ground, in the groin. The guy screamed. He wouldn’t be standing—or fathering children—anytime soon. The guy appeared to pass out.

Thankfully, the padded walls had absorbed the sound of the fight, not that anybody would think twice about screams coming out of this room right now. Joe cracked open the door. Two thugs were moving quickly away from him toward the stairs. He could hear Eduardo talking excitedly in the security office, barking orders, but Joe couldn’t make out the words. Nor did he have the time to try.

He slipped outside into the hall and tried to run for the freezer. But the best he could manage was an old lady limp. They’d busted him up good, all right. He hobbled down the hall, ducked inside the meat locker, closed the door and turned on the light. Got to keep moving. He grabbed a mop from the corner and wedged it into the big stainless-steel handle so the door couldn’t be opened from the outside.

He headed for his stash of tools. He grabbed the crowbar and tore the lid off one of the crates marked C-4. He stuffed a dozen blocks of the heavy gray putty into plastic grocery bags he grabbed off the shelves. Into another bag he threw the pliers, wire cutters and wire he’d stashed earlier.

And now for a weapon. He hoped. He applied the crowbar to the large, coffin-like crate. One of the padlocks popped off and he pried open the lid, peering inside.

He recoiled and let the lid slam down. Those weren’t guns in the box. They were an expensive pair of leather men’s shoes. An occupied pair of shoes. Eduardo actually had a dead man stored down here beside his food! How twisted was that? Joe examined the other boxes quickly and found none marked as weapons. Quickly, he tore the lids off all the C-4 boxes and dumped their contents on the floor. When it blew, it should set off any other ammunition in here, and hopefully it would take a good chunk of the house overhead with it.

He grabbed a coil of detonator cord out of one of the crates and tossed it over his shoulder. He jammed one end of it into a block of C-4 and fed the cord off his shoulder as he headed back toward the door.

He pressed his ear against the thick steel and faintly heard a ruckus outside. His escape must have been discovered. He heard shouting and what sounded like pounding feet. After a few seconds, the noise died down. Very slowly, he cracked open the door of the freezer. The hallway was empty. Laying the detonator cord on the floor along the wall, he fed it down the hall as fast as his broken body would go. He stepped into the interrogation room, which was now empty. He wrapped the cord around a block of C-4, set it on the floor by the door and, after a quick check of the hall, slipped outside once more.

Next, he ducked into the big storage room. Lots of good flammables in here. He wired another block of C-4 and took the detonator cord over to the big generator in the back. He pulled out the wire cutters and pliers and connected the cord to the timer he’d wired up the night before. Then he started a second strand of detonator cord, leading away from the timer.

He set the alarm clock on top of the generator for twenty minutes from now. That ought to be enough time to head upstairs, find Cari and get the hell out of Dodge. If it wasn’t enough time, they were both screwed anyway and it wouldn’t matter if they were still in the house when it blew. He wound the old-fashioned clock and it started to tick. He checked his watch. Nineteen minutes and fifty-five seconds to go.

And now to create a more ideal working environment for himself. He shouldered the detonator cord, picked up his bags of C-4 and grabbed a pair of wood-handled garden loppers. He put his pocket flashlight between his teeth and stepped out into the hall.

It hurt like hell to reach up over his head with the loppers. Must have a couple of busted ribs. He gritted his teeth and reached for the first electrical bundle. He snipped through it. He snipped through two more bundles of wire before it suddenly went pitch-black around him. Bingo. He’d just hit the house lighting system. He heard shouts erupt upstairs and a couple of guys inside the security office next door started yelling back and forth in the dark.

Joe flipped on the flashlight and put it back between his teeth. Two more bundles to go. He snipped through the last one and turned off his light, just as the first man came charging out of the security office, flashlight in hand. Joe melted back against the wall.

That flashlight was a mistake. It was a beacon saying, Here I am, come get me. Joe jumped the guy from behind. He grabbed the guard’s head and gave it a vicious twist. He didn’t like using the move because it killed the recipient as often as not. But he was unarmed and didn’t have time to screw around with gentler tactics.

He patted the guy’s ribs down. Thank God. The guy was packing. Joe lifted the guard’s gun and identified it by feel. A Glock pistol. He chambered a round, then stuck the pistol in the back of his belt. The second guy came out of the security office and was as easy to drop and disarm as the first one. Not used to operating in the dark, apparently. Too bad, so sad. This was the Blackjacks’s native environment.

He grabbed the bags of C-4 and headed for the stairs, feeding out detonator cord as fast as he could. His joints seemed to be loosening up slightly, but he still felt like a dead man walking. He stepped out into the kitchen. Cari was up here somewhere. He ducked behind the center island as someone rushed past in the dark, shouting. While he was there, he laid down a block of C-4 wrapped with detonator cord, wedging it underneath the edge of the island holding the gas stove. That should make for a nice kaboom.

He headed for the dining room, next. He planted another block of C-4 and moved on, this time into the TV room. He had to duck a couple of guys racing through.

The chaos was unbelievable. The guards had no plan whatsoever for dealing with a home invasion, which was dumb. No fortress was impenetrable. Joe planted several more blocks of C-4 as he made his way toward the stairs. He ran out of detonator cord before he got to the second floor. That was okay. He just dropped blocks of C-4 as he went.

They would make for an excellent secondary explosion once the first batch went up.

He checked his watch. Twelve minutes to go. No sweat. In all this mayhem, he and Cari could stroll out the front door and nobody would notice them. He turned the corner into the hall leading to her room and was stunned to see an armed guard standing outside. Crap.

Joe ducked back around the corner, thinking fast. He stood up and backed around the corner, arms out and bent over as if he was dragging a prone body, moving quickly and shouting in Spanish for the guard to get downstairs and help catch the American.

“Mr. Ferrare said not to move unless he personally told me to,” the guard responded, obviously disoriented.

Whatever. Joe was close enough now to turn and grab the guy’s gun, which he did. A quick twist, a jab with his fist to his gut to double him over and Joe smashed the gun down on the back of the guy’s head.

He raced into Cari’s room, slipping in low and spinning to the side. No movement. He didn’t feel her presence, either. He cleared the room fast, spinning into her closet and bathroom, too. But there was no sign of her. Dammit! Where was she? He didn’t have time to go roaming all over the mansion looking for her. The clock was ticking! Nine minutes to go.

He sprinted back into the hall and down the stairs. Adrenaline had suddenly done wonders for his mobility and his pain factor.

The balcony! Of course. Cari was already outside. Praise the Lord.

Joe ducked into the TV room as a couple of men charged by. He would head for Eduardo’s office and slip outside through the French doors there. He would have to find Cari on the grounds of the estate and hook up with her out there.

It took him several precious minutes to make his way unseen to Eduardo’s office. The men were starting to retrace their tracks, starting to slow down and apply their brains instead of running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

He stepped into Eduardo’s office. And lurched violently as a shadow rose from one of the armchairs. He reached for his pistol, but the figure turned enough for him to make out the. 45 revolver in the guy’s hand. It was pointed straight at him. Joe heard a click. And froze.

Out of the thick shadows, a male voice said, “I thought you might pass through this way.”

Damn. Eduardo.

Cari ducked under the oleanders beside Gunter. “What’s going on in there?” she whispered. The house and grounds had just gone pitch-black, and men were shouting like crazy inside.

Gunter murmured back, “I’d say your boy has pulled a miracle out of his hat. Obviously, he’s done something to the power supply.”

“Why hasn’t the emergency generator kicked on?” she replied.

She felt Gunter’s shrug. “He either disabled it or cut the power wires down line. He’ll be heading outside fairly soon. I imagine he’ll go upstairs looking for you, first. When he discovers you’re gone, he’ll come out here. We’ll wait here for him to emerge.”

She nodded, grateful not to have to sneak around anymore. She was out of breath, and shadows were flitting back and forth inside the house. Gunter studied the house carefully beside her.

“Your husband could use a little help, I think. Why don’t you call that phone number of yours and see if a little diversion could be staged at the edge of the grounds? Something loud that would pull a bunch of men outside.”

“Uh, good idea.” She fumbled with the cell phone and hit the Redial button.

“Go,” a voice snapped in her ear.

She whispered frantically, “This is Carina. Joe could use a diversion. Uh, something loud to draw men out of the house. Like, over by one of the fence lines.”

“What’s going on? The lights just went out,” Foley demanded, all business.

“We think Joe knocked out the power. He’s still inside. I’m outside already.”

“Hide, Miss Ferrare, on the beach side of the house and don’t move. You’ll get your diversion.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

The line went dead.

In a matter of seconds, gunfire erupted on the west side of the house. The effect was startling. There was utter silence inside the house for a couple of seconds and then all hell broke loose. Men streamed outside like angry fire ants, rushing toward the gunshots.

A movement inside the now-still house caught Cari’s attention. “Gunter. Look!” She pointed at Eduardo’s office.

The French doors burst open like something heavy had just slammed into them and a pair of men grappled in the doorway. Joe and Eduardo.

Gunter swore beside her and stood up. She jumped to her feet next to him. As the German took off running, she did, too. “We’ve got to help him!” she cried.

Gunter yelled back, “I swore I’d protect your father’s life. I can’t let Joe kill him!”

Stunned, she chased after the German, who accelerated away from her. No! She couldn’t let Joe get this close to making it out alive, only to have Gunter kill him now!

They sprinted past the swimming pool. Gunter pulled ahead of her slightly and had almost reached the two men. She had to do something, fast!

She gathered herself and took a flying leap. She lay out full length in midair, sailing toward Gunter. Please, God, let me not be too late! Gunter’s hand reached inside his coat for his gun.

A split second later, she came crashing down on the back of his knees. She wrapped her arms around Gunter’s ankles and held on with all her strength. The German went sprawling and his gun flew up into the air in a wide arc, landing somewhere in the bushes by the dining room.

Joe and Eduardo’s arms were locked over their heads, their chests butting up against one another. She could see the rage in both of their eyes. Only one of them was walking away from this fight alive. Joe kneed Eduardo hard, and the bigger man grunted. He fell back from Joe but came up in a half crouch. A knife glittered in his hand.

“Knife!” she screamed.

Joe didn’t acknowledge her by so much as a flicker of his eyelashes. But aloud, he grunted, “Get out of here, Cari. Run. Down toward the beach. Get away from the house!”

Eduardo attacked and she screamed again. She clambered to her feet and gathered herself to jump into the fight when something big and heavy slammed into her, flattening her against the ground. The air whooshed out of her, leaving her gasping. Gunter stared down at her. “Eduardo will kill you, too. Stay out of this.”

“If you’re not going to stay out of it,” she snarled, a tigress defending her mate. “I’m bloody well not going to, either.”

Cari and Gunter struggled to their feet, each doing their best to hold the other back. Eduardo took a swing at Joe, who sucked in his gut and dodged the blow.

“Get her out of here, Gunter!” Joe grunted. “I wired the house. It’ll blow any second.”

Gunter’s hands froze, Cari’s wrists trapped in his unbreakable grip. She looked up at him and saw terrible indecision dancing on his face.

“Go, Gunter!” Joe roared as Eduardo swung at him again.

Joe stepped in and grabbed Eduardo’s arm, twisting up and away. But Eduardo broke the grip.

Her father was a renowned street fighter. He’d fought his way to the top of the food chain in back-alley fights just like this. He took another vicious swipe at Joe, who yet again managed to elude the swing. Joe might be younger, faster, and better trained, but he’d also undoubtedly been worked over pretty hard by her father’s men.

Gunter looked up at the house towering overhead. And then down at her. He glanced over at the two men locked in mortal combat and then seemed to reach a decision. He kept his hold on her wrist but began dragging her away from the two men.

“No!” she shouted at him. “Let me help him!”

“You’ll help him most by getting out of here so he doesn’t have to worry about you!” Gunter growled back. “He knows what he’s doing.”

She gave in reluctantly and ran beside Gunter all the way to the tall fence down by the beach. They paused while Gunter tried to open the lock. Nada. The power had been cut, and the electronic mechanism failed to a locked position.

She looked over her shoulder to see how Joe was faring when, without warning, a tremendous flash of light erupted from the west wing of the house. For a brief fraction of a second, Joe and her father were silhouetted in the doorway, locked together in combat, two unyielding foes matched to the death.

Gunter leaped at her, throwing her to the ground just as an earsplitting explosion let loose. The blast wave slammed into her like a freight train, driving sand against her face like shards of glass.

A second tremendous boom rocked the night, and debris flew all around them. It looked like a giant tornado had struck, flinging bits of the house in every direction.

She shoved up to her elbows. Where the house had stood was nothing but a blazing inferno. The heat scalded her skin so intensely it felt as if her hair might spontaneously combust.

Joe! He was in there, somewhere! She had to find him. Get him out of there!

Gunter pulled at her, trying to drag her away from the fire as she struggled toward it. “Cari, you can’t do anything for him now,” Gunter yelled over the roar of the blaze. “Nobody could have survived that. He’s gone.”

She stumbled backward over the mangled remains of the iron fence. Fell to her knees in the sand. And knelt there, too horrified to stand, watching her entire life go up in smoke.

A man ran down the beach toward them. Gunter spun around and dropped to one knee in the sand, reaching for his ankle. Cari looked listlessly over her shoulder and roused herself enough to call out, “That’s Colonel Foley from the Blackjacks. He’s here to take me to Julia.”

At the last second, before the two men shot each other, Gunter yanked his weapon up out of the way and pointed it at the sky. Foley did the same. Gunter laid his weapon in the sand and knelt, clasping his hands behind his head.

“Are you all right?” the colonel asked her briefly as he slapped a zip tie on the German.

She nodded miserably.

“I’m sorry,” Foley muttered at her, his voice sounding nearly as choked up as she felt. “There’s no way they made it out of that.”

She closed her eyes as grief tore through her for the second time in one evening. She’d thought losing Julia was going to kill her, but that had been a pale shadow compared to this. Her heart had been ripped out this time. Her lungs, liver and stomach had been torn out of her as well. Her very soul had been destroyed.

Another man jogged down the beach and stopped in front of Colonel Foley. “The survivors have surrendered, sir. The Gavronese Army has them under armed guard.”

Foley gave a short nod. And then the second man turned beside his boss to stare morosely into the inferno.

A few minutes later, a third man came running down the beach from the other direction. He, too, stopped in front of the colonel. They spoke briefly, but Cari didn’t pay any attention to their short conversation.

Joe was gone. Everything she was and ever would be was gone with him.

A small explosion sent another round of flaming debris sailing up into the starry sky. How could a sky so beautiful look down on a scene of such utter devastation? Surely, the moon and stars should be hiding their faces and weeping in grief, as well.

And then something caught her attention over by the swimming pool. Something big and black had just floated up to the edge. It rolled out onto the concrete. Stood up. Dragged something large and heavy out of the pool.

She took a step forward.

Could it be?

She took several more steps toward the blazing heat. And then took off running. A man had just climbed out of the swimming pool. And he was tall. Lean. Built not like her father, but like…

…Joe!

He stumbled toward her and she flung herself against him, nearly knocking him over in her frantic exultation.

“Easy, baby,” he mumbled. “I’m not exactly operating at full speed, here.”

“I thought I’d lost you. Oh, God, Joe. I love you. I thought you were gone. When the house blew up—ohmigod. My heart stopped. I don’t ever want to lose you. Please, just tell me you’ll give our marriage a real shot,” she babbled.

He laughed painfully. “Hello to you, too, princess.”

The other men were running toward them and Joe tensed in her arms. “It’s the Blackjacks,” she told him. “Everything’s under control. The rest of my father’s men have surrendered.”

Joe’s body felt slack, barely staying upright. But his arms stayed wrapped around her as if he was determined at all costs to hang on to her.

“I love you, too,” he breathed. “I never want to lose you, either. Your sister’s alive—” he started.

She cut him off. “I know. I’ve already spoken with her on the phone.”

Joe’s arms tightened around her. “About your father—”

She frowned up at him, belatedly remembering that he’d been in the doorway with Joe when the house blew.

“He was between me and the house. He took the brunt of the blast. Shielded me from the worst of the heat—”

“What are you saying?” She already knew, but she needed to hear the words aloud.

“Your father didn’t make it, sweetheart. He was thrown into the pool with me by the blast, and I pulled his body out of the water. He’s dead.”

A huge hollow opened up in her gut. Whether it was relief or grief or both she couldn’t tell. But then she looked up at Joe and let her love for him flow into her, filling the empty space.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly.

Joe nodded, smiling far too weakly. “You should let one of your friends take a look at you.”

“But I’m the Blackjack medic.” After a moment he murmured, “About our marriage…”

She held her breath.

“I’m willing to make it real if you are.”

She laughed and squeezed him until he groaned. She loosened her grip hastily. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“Yes, but I liked it.”

More gently, she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m willing. More than willing. You’re never getting rid of me.”

He smiled down at her. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, princess.”

She smiled up at him, her heart somewhere in the vicinity of her throat and choking her until she couldn’t speak.

He murmured, “I figure we’ve both earned happily ever after out of this.”

And as the sparks and ashes of her past drifted up into the night sky, they kissed. A single thought consumed her. Happily ever after, indeed.