When the door to Olive’s hospital room creaks open, I glance up. I’m sitting in the chair beside her bed, but she’s been sleeping for the past four hours or so. I keep thinking that I should sleep, too, but I can’t take my eyes off her. So I’ve just been sitting in the chair beside her bed.

Watching over her.

Sayward steps in, and I rise from the chair, stretching my arms over my head.

“What’s up?” Keeping my voice low, I glance over my shoulder at the still-sleeping Olive as I meet Sayward next to the door.

“How is she?” Sayward looks at Olive.

“They’re going to release her in the morning as long as her vitals are still good.” The relief in my voice is evident, and Sayward’s eyes snap back to mine.

“You love her?”

I should be used to Sayward’s blunt personality by now, but she still catches me by surprise sometimes.

“What? Uh…did you have something to ask me, Diaz?” Clearing my throat, I scratch my head.

Do I love her? It’s a complicated question. I’ve known Olive for a while, but I’ve only gotten to know her over the past few days. And while I know that a traumatic experience can bring two people closer together, I can’t swear that’s what’s happening here. I was having all kinds of feelings for Olive before we went off that bridge. All I know now, after coming so close to losing her, is that I never want it to happen again.

I don’t know if that’s love. It’s been so long since I felt that particular emotion, that I’m really fucking hesitant to throw that word out there.

“I just wanted to let you know that I e-mailed you those phone records you asked for.” She pushes her glasses up on her nose.

“Yeah? You didn’t need to come all the way down here for that, Diaz.”

The woman is seriously a mystery.

She shrugs. “Yeah, well. I also wanted to check in on Olive.”

A grin tugs at my lips. “Yeah? You like her, too, huh?”

Sayward rolls her eyes. “Whatever. She’s cool, I guess. We have nothing in common, but she’s nice.”

Grinning outright, I nudge her with my shoulder. “Yeah, she is. Hey, thanks for the phone records. And for checking in.”

Sayward turns for the door. “No problem. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Will do.”

Settling back in the chair once she’s gone, I log in to my e-mail on my phone. Sure enough, the message from Sayward is there, and I open the attachment containing Lindy Hodges’s phone records. She’s also sent me Lindy’s sister, Grace’s, phone records.

As I scan them, a slow smile crosses my lips. Sayward’s a fucking godsend. She’s already highlighted numbers that match, and then ruled them out based on the owner of the numbers. So there are a couple of numbers that both women called frequently, and those belonged to friends. But there’s one number that is unaccounted for. Using the copy-and-paste feature, I shoot Sayward a quick return e-mail, asking her to find out anything she can about the number.

After sending it, I put my phone down on my lap and let my eyes rest on Olive’s pretty, sleeping form. They gave her painkillers for her shoulder, so she’s out cold, and I’m glad she’s resting. Flashing back on the memory of her limp, lifeless body cradled in my arms as I brought her out of the water makes me clench my jaw with latent fear. What if she had been alone when it happened? What if she had swallowed even more water than she did? What if, what if?

Just like that, I could have lost her. And I know now that I’m never going to be okay with that. This woman is mine to protect, even if I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself before.

I’m fucking ready now.

She’s still sleeping peacefully, lying on her back with a small mountain of pillows, her dark red hair spread out all over the pillow around her like a goddamn halo. The revenge-crazy beast inside my chest, the one that’s lived there since the day I found out about Elle, is pushed back a little further into the background. He’ll rear his ugly head sooner or later, that I know for sure, but when I look at Olive, revenge doesn’t seem like the most important thing anymore.

Will I get justice for Elle? Yes. Without a doubt.

But does it have to be the only thing I care about? Hell…maybe not. And maybe if I can find her killer sooner, I can start finally putting Elle’s death behind me.

Picking up my phone again, I log on to Facebook. If there’s going to be information on the dead woman anywhere, it’ll be here. Finding the late Grace Hodges’s profile, I scan through her about facts. She was twenty-six, and although she was educated with a four-year degree, she wasn’t currently working anywhere. Or, if she was, it wasn’t listed on her Facebook profile. Noting that she attended school, both college and high school, locally, I move on to her photos. The folder is splattered with pictures of her and her sister. They were obviously close, but toward the end of her life there were a lot fewer photos starring the twins, and more photos with Grace and a group of people that weren’t in her pictures previously.

Hmmm. Hanging out with a new crowd, Grace? What did you get yourself into?

Most of the pictures are in the setting of someplace seedy-looking. There are a few in bars or clubs, but not the kind that I’d ever take Olive to. And there are a few that look like they’re in people’s houses, and from the looks of Grace’s face in them she’s not living a happy life. I feel sorry for the woman, even though I’ve never met her. I don’t know what could have taken her away from her sister, who obviously loved her, and into the arms of these people in the newer pictures.

And then I think about Elle. I later heard that during my last deployment she’d made some new friends. And not the good kind of friends, either. From asking around afterward I learned enough to know that she’d gotten herself into something that she hadn’t known how to dig her way out of, and that she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me. Just thinking about it puts a lump the size of a boulder in my throat.

I should have been the kind of man she’d come to about that. Maybe if I hadn’t been halfway across the world at the time…maybe if I’d been more present. Maybe…

I glance up when the door to the hospital room opens. Shaking my head groggily, I look around and realize I must have fallen asleep, my head resting on Olive’s stomach. The steady rise and fall of her breathing was better than a damn nature sounds machine.

My eyes jerk to the door when I hear a gasp. Turning, my heart drops. Checking my phone, I see that it’s just after 6:00 a.m.

Jeremy and Rayne must have taken a red-eye.

Rayne, rushing over to the bed, leans down beside me, inspecting Olive like she just needs to see for herself if her sister is okay.

“How is she?” she asks, her voice urgent and full of worry.

Pushing back and standing, I gesture toward the chair. “She’s going to be okay, Rayne. Her clavicle is bruised from the impact of…the truck hitting the guardrail…but she was lucky.”

She turns to me, eyes welling. “It wasn’t just luck, Ronin. She had you.” Rayne turns back to her sister, and I turn to face my best friend.

He stares me down, then inclines his head toward the hallway. After the door is closed behind us, Jeremy leans against the wall, facing me. He lifts one eyebrow, before scanning me.

“You okay?”

I nod, shaking my head absently. “I’m fine. It’s Olive I’m worried about.”

Jeremy’s eyes narrow, and he folds his arms across his chest. “Start talking.”

With Jeremy Teague, I have no secrets. It’s just the way we roll. We’ve been best friends since we met in Ranger school, and when we were assigned to the same team, we became brothers. Even if I now wanted to keep what was going on with Elle’s homicide investigation from him, I couldn’t. It’s just not how we’re made.

By the time I’m done with my story, ending with how Olive and I ended up in the ICU, he was pacing, his hands raking through his long hair.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters. “I’ve been gone for a week, and all this has gone down?”

I spread my arms wide. “I don’t know what to say, man. I did what you asked. I’ve been watching over her. It just turns out that what she had going on is deeper than you thought it was.”

He snorts. “No shit. If I’d known…we never would have left. Rayne was a fucking basket case all the way here. I just tried to keep it together, keep her calm, for Deck’s sake.”

I look up, glancing around us, because I suddenly realize that his son isn’t here. “Where is Decker?”

Jeremy’s eyes light up the way they always do when his son is mentioned. He didn’t get to spend the first eight years of the kid’s life with him, but he’s definitely all in as a dad now. And really proud of it.

“Called Berkeley and Dare from the airport. We dropped Decker off at their house on our way here.”

Nodding, that out of the way, I return the subject back to the matter at hand. “She could have died, Brains.”

Even I can hear the stark note of desperation in my voice. I’m crawling out of my skin; the only thing I want to do is hunt Mick Oakes down and make him bleed for what he had done to Olive. Even if he wasn’t driving one of those SUVs, I know without a doubt that he was behind it. No matter what Olive believes.

Jeremy stops moving, facing me slowly. He searches my face, and then his jaw tightens. “No fucking way.”

Raising my hands to my head, I pace away from him. When I turn back around, I look him in the eye. “It’s not what you think.”

Jeremy stalks toward me. All the good nature, all the brotherly worry on his face erased, he stops inches from me. The anger in his eyes is blatant.

“You slept with her?” He’s almost vibrating from head to toe, his eyes blazing with fury. “I asked you to keep an eye on her, and you took that to mean ‘have at my sister-in-law’?”

Raising my hands, I hold my ground. My voice is low and hard when I answer. “It’s not like that. I have feelings for her.”

Jeremy’s eyes go wide, and he takes a step back. He says nothing as the seconds tick by, evaluating me. I know he’s reading me for the truth, and that eventually, he’ll figure out that I wouldn’t lie to him.

Especially not about this.

Finally, he sighs. “I love you, brother…you know that. But I’m being really goddamn serious right now. You can’t jerk her around. She’s my fucking family. You’ve been spending time with her for less than a week.”

I close my eyes briefly, and when I speak again, it’s from my heart. “You think I don’t know that? I know how important she is to Rayne, and to you. But now, she’s damn important to me, too.”

He just watches me, and then he sighs. “Fucking hell. Tell me what you need from me, Swagger.”

And I know that, at least for now, that’s his stamp of approval. As long as I don’t fuck shit up before it’s all over.

“I will. For now, I just want to be there for her, take her home when she’s released.”

Jeremy’s tone is hopeful. “To my place? That’s where Rayne will want her.”

Now it’s my turn for a scathing glare. “Sure, if you want us both. I’m not letting her out of my sight. Otherwise, I’m bringing her back to my place.”

One corner of Jeremy’s mouth kicks up in a grin. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

I lift one shoulder in a shrug. “Never been like this before. At least, not in a very long time.”

Walking up to me, Jeremy rests a hand on my shoulder. “Looks good on you.”

And I’m not going to admit it to him, but I can honestly say that it feels good, too.