Another SEAL climbed in next to Casey and gently took her arm. “Hi, Casey, I’m Thomas. I’m a hospital corpsman. Rio wants me to doublecheck that you’re okay.”
Everyone was talking all at once—Ella checking with Jon to make he wasn’t hurt, Skelly and Taylor discussing the fastest route to Coronado, Rio now describing the men who’d shot at him.
“You’re Tasha’s husband,” Casey realized as Thomas checked her eyes and even took her pulse.
“I am,” Thomas confirmed.
“Rio was shot,” Casey told him. “His arm...”
Behind her in the SUV’s way back Jon was talking to Ella. “I came extremely close to shitting my pants,” she heard her brother say, “because I really thought they were gonna kill me. Miller and his men.”
“Yeah, I already took a peek,” Thomas told her. “It’s just a nick, it’s not that bad.”
She must’ve been looking at him with massive disbelief on her face, because he laughed and said, “He’ll show you when he gets in.”
“But you’re okay,” Ella was asking Jon. “You’re not hurt?”
“No,” Jon said. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I’m going to have fucking nightmares for years, though.”
“Big, beefy, white, tats, beards, ballcaps—one red, one camo print, jungle,” Rio was saying. “The van driver was skinny, also white. All three were carrying.”
“Why on earth didn’t you answer your phone?” Ella was asking Jon.
“I was using it to record Miller,” he answered. “I had to keep it hidden, or he’d see it. But he didn’t and… I got him, El. Miller. He was talking about this other guy that he killed—guy I knew, used to hang at the Lounge.”
Casey turned to look at her brother because she honestly couldn’t believe it.
“I did it, Case,” he told her. “I kinda can’t believe I’m still alive—I was sure I was gonna die today, but I did it. I had no freaking clue how I was going to get out of there, but then you and Luc showed up.”
Luc.
Jon still thought that Rio was Luc. But he wasn’t. He was Rio.
“No one’s dying today, Jon,” Rio said as he finally got into the car—Thomas stepping out so he could slide into the middle, next to Casey.
She held out her hand, and Rio immediately took it. His hand was warm and solid and just holding onto him made her feel so much better.
Chief Taylor pulled out of the bar parking lot and pointed the SUV toward Coronado, surrounded by a small fleet of trucks and cars all driven by the other Navy SEALs who’d come to their rescue, who were even now making sure they were safe.
Rio leaned in and asked softly, “You okay?”
Casey nodded. “I am now.”
“What you did was risky.”
“Says the man who was shot!”
“At,” Rio said. “Shot at.”
“I’m sorry,” Casey said. “Your arm bled clear through your 1865 bandage.” She spoke in a thick southern accent. “My dearest Clarissa, I fear I have been wounded as I have been shot at and alas the scoundrels did not miss. If they had missed, if indeed I had been shot at instead of full-ass shot, I would not have needed to use my faithful tightie-whities to staunch the flow of my precious life fluids.”
Rio released Casey’s hand so he could remove the tightie-whities in question from his arm as Thomas laughed and said, “Tasha’s gonna love you.”
“Mock me all you want, but the elastic kept it on,” Rio said as she looked, first through her eyelashes at...
He was right. His injury looked way less terrible than she’d expected, like a bad scrape with a bit of a burn, too. It wasn’t even bleeding that much anymore. But still, it had to hurt.
“Yeah, all right,” Rio was saying, “I went to grab a T-shirt but failed. I was in a hurry.”
