Her eyes drifted closed, and Mendez started to shake her.

“Don’t,” a voice said. He looked up. Blinked. Ian Black stood there in black tactical gear. Black goggles perched on his head. “She’s losing a lot of blood. We need to stabilize her, and then we have to get her out of here.”

Another commando rushed in with an emergency aid kit. Finally. Mendez rocked back on his heels while a couple of Black’s Bandits tended to her. He shook with the adrenaline coursing through his body. But he didn’t let go of her hand until Ian squeezed his shoulder.

“Colonel. Sir. We could use your help.”

Mendez looked up, focusing on Black. The man had never called him sir in his life. Mendez shook himself. Tears clogged his throat and scalded his skin. He swallowed them down and got to his feet as Black’s men worked on Kat. Her blood was on his hands. Drying, sticky. He dropped his gaze to her, lying there so still and small in her own blood.

Look, he told himself. Look at what you’ve done.

“There’s still work to do,” Ian told him.

“Why didn’t you fucking shoot that bastard sooner?” he bit out as rage rose like a tide inside him. He was piecing it together now. He’d launched himself at Dmitri, but Kat had been quicker. Jesus Christ.

She’d gotten in the path of Dmitri’s gun and she’d taken a hit. Dmitri had been firing at him, but Kat got in the way. His fault.

“He had the detonator, Colonel. We couldn’t do anything until we’d secured your men.”

His throat ached. “You got them out?”

“HOT found the location and they’re on the way.” He held up the detonator. “They’ll have to defuse the bomb, but they should have your guys out soon. Thankfully, Leonov didn’t get a chance to set this thing off.”

Mendez sucked in air. He was working on compartmentalizing the situation. Being calm and cool and trying not to fucking panic. He dropped his gaze to where the men were working on Kat. They’d stopped the blood flow with an application of tiny sponges designed to fill the wound and hold it together.

“Who killed Dmitri?”

“I did.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s my job, sir.”

Mendez shoved a hand through his hair. His life was falling apart around him and he couldn’t give a shit less about protocol or niceties. “What’s with all the sirs? You planning on joining the fucking Army now?”

“No.” Black gave him a considering look. “You’ve earned your rank and the right to be called sir. You’ve got more heroic valor in your pinkie than some men have in their entire bodies. Just wanted you to know that before the shit hits the fan.”

Mendez was tired. Heartsick. The things he’d thought important suddenly weren’t. He didn’t have his command back. He hadn’t cleared his name. Turov was still a threat. Together with DeWitt, they still wanted his head.

And he didn’t care anymore. Everything he cared about right now lay on the floor, her life leaching away drop by drop. He’d had her back in his life, and he’d been too angry to accept that he still cared. He couldn’t drag his gaze from Kat’s body on the floor. He was helpless, and he hated it.

“What are you doing here, Black?”

“Working for Turov.”

That jogged him out of his self-pity and made him look up at the man beside him. “I thought DeWitt sent you for me.”

“He did. Sergei paid me more to deliver you to him.”

Mendez blinked. “You’re fucking working for Sergei Turov?”

“I was. It’s not the first time.”

Mendez grabbed Ian’s tactical vest in two fists and shoved him against a wall. “You could have fucking stopped this. You let her get shot—”

He couldn’t breathe as the enormity of it hit him. Kat was dying, and Ian had let it happen. For his ideals. For whatever God and country, motherhood, and apple pie picture he had in his head.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” he growled. “If she dies, I’m coming for you. I don’t care what happens to me, I don’t care how deep under the jail they bury me—she dies, you die.”

“I didn’t know what he had planned,” Ian growled back. “I had to find out. And I acted when I could. If I’d moved sooner, Dmitri would have blown your men to kingdom come. I did what I could.”

Mendez shoved Ian away, resisting the urge to punch him in the face. But only barely. He’d known that Ian operated in the gray areas, but he hadn’t expected it out of him on this mission. Not with all that bullshit about needing his and Kat’s experience on this op.

“Did you give Sergei the location of the safe house in New Orleans?”

“No. It was one of my men—Dmitri was paying him for information. He made the connection between Valentina Rostov and Kat. Dmitri was in New Orleans for her—your showing up was a bonus.”

“Whoever he is, I want his head.”

“Me too, but he’s dead. He got greedy. Dmitri shot him.”

He was numb. Just so fucking numb. “Did you know we were coming?”

“I knew you’d be here. I didn’t know when. Your teammates were highly uncooperative on that score. But they let me know they had the coordinates to Delta Squad’s location. They didn’t tell me what they were though.”

“Because they still don’t fucking trust you.”

“Johnny…” Kat’s voice was weak, raspy.

Mendez dropped to his knees beside her, everything else forgotten. But she wasn’t awake, not really. Her eyes fluttered closed again and his vision blurred. He bowed his head almost to his knees, pulling in air. Praying hard.

If he lost her again, he’d go out of his mind.