It wasn’t just that Gunner was being noble with Raketa, he believed the words he’d said to her. Sure, there had been women he wasn’t in a relationship with that he’d had sex with. There’d been no question in his mind that they knew the score and didn’t expect anything more from him.

With Raketa, though, it was different. Just like it would’ve been different with Lena, not that they’d ever been intimate. They’d come close, back before her accident.

“Paps?”

He looked up from the newspaper he was reading while he waited for Lena to finish her breakfast.

“Why do you hate me?”

He shook his head. “You know I don’t hate you.”

“You act like it.”

“Think about the way you act and then maybe you’ll know why you irritate me.”

She lowered her fork and folded her arms. “For example?”

Gunner looked around the restaurant’s dining room and saw that most of the tables close to them were empty. He leaned forward anyway.

“What’s this shit about you not having a place to live and demanding that your ex-husband let you live with him? Let’s start there.”

“It’s my house as much as it’s Kade’s.”

“No. It isn’t. It hasn’t been since you divorced, and that was years ago.”

She didn’t respond, so he continued.

“It’s over between the two of you; it has been since before it got started.”

“That’s not fair. I was raped.”

“Are you suggesting that was the reason your marriage failed?”

She nodded.

“Bullshit. You don’t believe that any more than anyone else does.”

“He couldn’t love me.”

That may have been true, but Gunner didn’t believe it had anything to do with the fact that she’d been raped. Lena and Doc had married far too young, and at the time, Doc was an active-duty Marine, deployed for long periods of time.

He never understood why they’d gotten married in the first place, but that really wasn’t any of his business. After the rape, Lena had been forced to live her life under protection, knowing that if the man who’d raped her found out she’d had a child, both she and that child would be in danger.

Now that the man, a Russian double agent, was dead, the threat to Lena and her daughter had gone away.

“The odds were against you,” he finally said when he realized she was waiting for him to respond.

“Now that Calder’s dead, we could try again.”

“You know he’s in love with Merrigan.”

Lena looked away, and he saw her eyes had filled with tears.

Gunner reached over and rested his hand on the table with his palm open. Lena uncrossed her arms and put her hand in his.

“Let him go.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I can’t,” she mouthed.

“Maybe if you did, you’d find someone else who loves you as much as he loves her.”

“That was cruel.”

“Why?” God, she irritated him sometimes.

“Because no one will ever love me.”

“You sure the person who might isn’t sitting right in front of you?”

“You hate me.”

“Come with me.” He stood and pulled her to her feet, dropped some money on the table, and led her out of the restaurant.

“I don’t hate you,” he said once they were outside. “Quit telling me how I feel and focus on how you do instead.”

“Are you saying you love me?”

Gunner sighed. “I’m saying that if you could pull your head out of your ass long enough to admit that you and Doc are finished for good, there might be a chance for us.”

Lena wrenched her hand from his. “You’re so fucking romantic.”

Gunner leaned in close to her. “You know me. I don’t like bullshit. In fact, I hate it. So either let the idea of the two of you getting back together go, or don’t expect me to be at your beck and call.”

“It’s your job.”

“Not anymore, it isn’t.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find a place of your own, and leave Doc and Merrigan the hell alone.”

She crossed her arms again, but the look on her face was one of uncertainty.

“Ask me to help you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ask me to help you find a house.”

“You’d do that?”

He led her over to the car and unlocked it. He opened the back door, reached in, and pulled out a folder. “Go through these and tell me which ones you want to look at.”

She took the folder from his hand, put it back on the seat of the car, and put her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she said before reaching up and kissing him—and not on the cheek.

Gunner pushed her up against the car and kissed her back. The heat between them was explosive in that it had been building for years. She was right to think he hated her, for a long time he had, but feelings that strong are easy to turn into something completely opposite.

“Let’s go find you a house so the next time I kiss you we have the privacy to see where it might lead.”

In hindsight, they’d never had a chance. She hadn’t just been in denial about her relationship with her ex-husband, she was obsessed with him. That obsession ended up getting her killed, and he’d been the one to kill her.

Gunner shook his head. He often struggled with whether he regretted doing it, but always came to the same conclusion. If he hadn’t pulled the trigger, she would’ve, and his friend, partner, and mentor, would be dead, and so would she, because after she’d killed him, Gunner would’ve shot her. Same outcome, only delayed, and resulting in another death.

Was he being equally blind when it came to Raketa? He wanted her, and it wasn’t just because he hadn’t had sex with anyone since her. He hated that he couldn’t remember more from that night, and it made him feel like the asshole he tried hard not to be.

He turned around when he heard Raketa come out of the woods.

“I need to tell you something.”

She walked closer. “Go ahead.”

“That night, you know, when we were together. We shouldn’t have had sex. I was drunk. That is a piss-poor excuse, but it’s the truth. I wish I could go back and undo it, but I can’t. I’m sorry for that.”

Raketa opened her mouth and closed it again before turning away from him and stalking toward the house.

“Wait,” he said, running after her and grabbing her arm. “I’m trying to be a gentleman here. I know you don’t trust me, and if what we did that night is part of it, I want you to know that I’m sorry.”

She scrunched her eyes, her lips drew tightly together, and she wrenched her arm from his grasp.

“Fuck you,” she spat before walking away from him a second time.

If he followed her, he would live to regret it. Maybe. As mad as she was, she just might kill him. They shouldn’t have had sex? How awesome that she lost her virginity at the ripe old age of thirty to a man who wishes they hadn’t done it. If she’d known then what she knew now, she could’ve had sex with anyone. It would’ve mattered just as much as it had with Gunner—which wasn’t at all.

“Hey, wait a minute,” she heard him say. He was right behind her, but she kept walking. “Zaryana.”

Raketa spun around on him. “Don’t you call me that. Not ever again. Do you understand?” She used the same condescending voice he had with her. Or had he? It didn’t matter. She turned back around to continue her march to his house.

“Wait,” he said, grabbing her arm again, more firmly than before, knowing she’d try to pull away from him. He held her tightly enough that he could turn her around and encircle her in his arms.

“Let me go. I don’t want this,” she said, refusing to look at his stupid, smug, beautiful face or his stupid green eyes that made her melt.

“First, I will not ever call you that again, although I wish I understood why you don’t want me to; it’s a beautiful name. Second, as I said, I was trying to be a gentleman. I was apologizing.”

“Etmez.”

The look on Gunner’s face made her realize her mistake. She’d spoken in Azeri, not Russian.

“Release me.”

Gunner shook his head. “Were you his lover?”

Raketa pushed at him with all her might, and he let go. “Fuck you,” she spat again, this time running toward the woods.

Jesus. Is that what he thought, that she’d had sex with that disgusting piece of shit not worthy to be called a human being? The idea of it made her want to puke.

When she got to the water’s edge, she bent over and put her hands on her knees. Her stomach was empty of food, but she expelled the bile that rose in her throat. Too soon she felt Gunner’s hand on her back.

“Can’t you leave me alone? Please, just leave me alone,” she cried.

“No. I can’t, and not for the reason you think.”

“There needs to be no reason for you not to leave a woman alone who asks it of you.” Raketa hated the sound of her voice. She was upset and when she was, her accent grew stronger and it was harder for her to communicate the nuances of the English language. She hated her accent sometimes as much as she hated her name.

Instead of walking away, Gunner swept her into his arms.

“What are you doing? Put me down,” she shouted, punching at his chest.

“We’re going to talk, and you can stop with the bad language; it has no effect on me. I don’t talk to you that way.”

“You are not my superior. You don’t tell me how to speak. You are not my fath—”

Gunner almost dropped her with his sudden realization of who Makar Petrov was to her when she abruptly didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, he set her on her feet but kept his arm tightly around her.

“He’s your father.”

He’d seen the look on her face before. Not on hers specifically, but the look of utter despair, of pain too heavy to bear, of its concession, he’d seen many times. He had no words to take away what she was feeling right now, pain that he had handed to her.

“Tell me about him.”

Raketa closed her eyes, and a look of calm rolled from her forehead down her face. He recognized that too. She’d been trained to not show a reaction of any kind, and while she was still emotional—she had to be—she’d reined herself in.

“You’re wrong. He was not my lover nor is he my father.”

She was lying, but he had no intention of challenging her about it now. Instead, he addressed what he meant when he’d said they shouldn’t have been together.

“What I should’ve said earlier but didn’t, was that I wish, so much, that the first time I felt your skin against mine, I had been completely sober. I wish that when I close my eyes, I could remember every inch of your body, exactly how you felt. I remember, but not enough. And I hate that.”

“You don’t remember anything.” The chill in her voice hadn’t warmed even a little. She was beyond angry, and she had every right to be.

“I’m sorry, Rocket Girl. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

“Let me go.”

He dropped his hands to his sides.

“From here. Let me leave.”

Gunner shook his head. “You’re here for your own protection. Until we can—”

“The same words Petrov used. How does it make you feel to know you think the same way as that monster?”

Gunner stood perfectly still, wishing he had a way to get through to her, but not at all insulted by her words. She knew as well as he did that the situations were entirely different. Regardless of who Petrov really was to her, he’d abducted her and held her prisoner. Gunner was keeping her safe from him as much as United Russia.

“You’re thinking that you’re keeping me safe from UR, aren’t you? Well, so was he. You’re thinking he didn’t give me a choice when he took me to Azerbaijan. Neither did you when you brought me here. You are no different. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you are.”

Gunner let her walk away from him and turned back toward the water, pulling his shirt over his head and his shorts off as he walked. It was deeper on this side of the island, so when he walked in, the frigid water assaulted more of his skin.

It wasn’t the same. Petrov held her captive. Gunner wanted to help her.

He pounded the water as he swam, processing what he’d just learned. Makar Petrov was Raketa’s father, he’d bet his life on it. Who was the other woman being held on the compound?

Her words did nothing to thwart him. Gunner would not let her leave, and without a way to communicate with anyone other than him, she was trapped on this island. She knew she couldn’t swim her way to freedom. Even if she could, once she arrived, she had no one to help her anyway.

United Russia wanted her dead. Petrov wanted her to deliver his daughters, and whether she did or not, she’d end up dead anyway. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that if she somehow managed the impossible and abducted the two of them, as soon as she handed them over, Petrov would kill her.

She couldn’t go to the CIA for help, because they worked with Gunner.

Raketa had always been alone in the world, but not like she was now. The only way she could stay alive would be to remain on this island with a man she was quickly coming to despise.

As he swam back to shore, Gunner thought more about his father than Raketa, remembering that the first time he set foot on this island was on this same beach when he was seven years old.

“Where are we?” he asked his dad when he dropped anchor and climbed out of the dingy.

“Indian Springs Island,” his father answered. “Come on now, I’ll show it to you.”

He waited while Gunner climbed out of the boat, and then held his hand as they walked to shore.

“What’s here?”

“Not much yet, but it’s all ours.”

He missed his father so much. He couldn’t imagine not having his dad in his life when he was growing up, or hating him like Razor felt about his father. The worst he could say about the man is he could sometimes be as cranky and ornery as Gunner was. Underneath it though, his father had a heart as big as his love for his country and family.

One of his dad’s proudest days had been when Gunner followed in his footsteps and joined the Marines. At the time, his dad was a four-star, stationed on the West Coast. Given his own permanent address was in Maryland, Gunner should’ve attended boot camp in South Carolina, but his father had pulled some strings so he could go to California instead. If he hadn’t, Gunner never would’ve met Razor or Leech Hess, Lena’s father and the man responsible for getting him the gig at the NCS where he also met Doc Butler.

Who knows how his life might’ve turned out if he’d taken a different tack. He probably wouldn’t have ever met Raketa either, and he was glad he had, no matter how much she currently hated him.