Summer was dirty, her skin covered in chemicals and God knows what else from the explosion. The last nine hours were a blur of medical personnel and police. Her father arrived, and the only thing more difficult than accepting the night’s losses herself was watching him try to do the same.

He’d lost so much in his life. They both had.

So she’d held him and told him it would be all right, wondering when she’d become the caregiver and he the recipient, only knowing that now it was clearly the case. It was as if a card had been flipped, and she knew nothing would ever be the same for them again, the weight of it along with the horrors of the day threatening to sink her like Ophelia’s gown pulling her deeper into the lake.

There was insurance. They could rebuild. But that would take time, and in her heart she feared the company had been dealt a death blow. She insisted her father go home, then a nurse helped her undress and shower before she fell into a dreamless sleep that lasted fifteen hours.

“Do you have somewhere safe to go?” asked the weary-eyed middle-aged detective who was there when she awoke.

She shook her head. There was no place safe, no bed where she could curl up and pretend she was protected. She swallowed against her sore throat. “No.”

“We can put you up at a hotel for the night. Maybe see about something longer term, some kind of protection until this guy is found, but I can’t make any promises with the budget cuts the city’s been dealing with.”

Snow flew furiously outside the hospital window like a solid wall of white, visibility zero. She wanted nothing more than to go home and collapse in her own bed, but with Galbraith on the loose, being alone held the possibility of deadly consequences.

She frowned, turning back to the detective. “I’ll be safe?”

“For the night, yes.”

That wasn’t good enough. What the hell was she supposed to do tomorrow? If the police couldn’t protect her, then who could? Weariness weighed her down. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat, trying not to cry.

It was over. Jacques was dead, they’d been double-crossed, and she didn’t know if they could scrape together the resources to try again.

Her father walked into the room, leaning heavily on his cane. “The brancium’s gone!”

“What?”

Her mouth dropped open. If there was any way to make this situation worse, that was it. Brancium was needed to create the intense photon beams required for testing Alloy 531, but it was one of the rarest elements on earth, with only a hundred and forty-five grams in existence.

Buying it had been the most expensive part of the entire testing procedure, and finding it in the first place, the longest. It had taken them almost a year and a half to locate a seller with a large enough block. If it had been destroyed, there was no doubt they would go bankrupt before they completed the trials.

“I don’t understand. The blast shouldn’t have been strong enough to destroy it. It can withstand forces far greater than—”

“It wasn’t destroyed, it was taken. The coupler is still on the machine, but it’s empty. This is sabotage.”

Sabotage.

She’d worked with Galbraith. He had a hard time with authority, which was why he’d been fired, but he was also a top-notch aerospace engineer. Alias or not, he worked in the industry. And if that was true, he was working for a competitor. Galbraith hadn’t just destroyed their chance at finishing their tests on 531. He’d taken their brancium to test his own alloy and steal those government contracts right out from under their nose. “They’re making their own.”

His eyes lit. “My thoughts exactly. We have to get it back.”

“How the hell are we going to do that?”

“We call HERO Force.”

She shook her head and held up her hands. “Oh, no. No, we’re not.”

“Why not? I heard you talking to that detective. He can’t help us. You need a protector. Someone to watch over you and help us get the brancium back. We need their skills. They train for stuff like this.” He held his cane in the air. “Missions and covert ops.”

“Jesus, Dad.” He’d always thought the SEALs walked on water, his belief in the group of military men like some kind of religion that even outlived his son. “We don’t need them. We’ll find another way.”

“This isn’t about your brother.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

A white-haired nurse walked into the room. “One last check of your vitals, missy, and we’ll get you signed out of here.”

Summer held out her arm, the blood pressure cuff squeezing too tightly as her father stared her down. She knew from the article HERO Force provided personal security detail, and he was right, they could probably find the brancium if they had their help. She sighed heavily and addressed the nurse. “Any chance you have yesterday’s newspaper lying around?”

The nurse yanked the Velcro off Summer’s arm. “They’re always floating around the waiting room. I’ll run out and check for you just as soon as I’m finished here.”