“This is my office. Take your time, and when you’re done, find me. I’ll have an update for you.
“Thank you,” Blair said, moved to the desk and grabbed the phone, her fingers trembling only slightly as she dialed the RCMP Major Crime Unit, whose job was to handle major investigations, especially those involving federal crimes, officer-related deaths, and cross-border incidents. When the call connected, she wasted no breath. “This is RCMP WILD Staff Sergeant Brown. Put me through to Inspector Olivia Gauthier.”
“Hey, Blair?—”
“Livy. I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have a terrible international incident with the Americans.”
“I’m listening.”
Blair went through it all from the beginning. “Dear God. Murdering Mounties, ambushing SEALs. My God. I’ll get people on this as soon as the scene is secure. We’ll be careful and methodical. There will so many eyes on this.”
“Thank you. Kelly Gatlin…he’s not just a SEAL to me, Livy.”
“I hear you. Take a breath and keep this professional. I know this must be hard. Okay?”
“All right. I’ll try. Keep me posted.”
She closed her eyes, her heart racing, the memory surfacing. While Breakneck was being wheeled away under fluorescent lights that swallowed him whole, she had caught one last glimpse of his hand as the doors slammed shut, still, pale, smeared with blood that wasn’t all his.
She stood, wanting desperately to find out how he was doing, and her knees threatened to give out. She didn’t let them.
The weight settled fully now. The discovery of the stash house that could cripple the remaining cartel. A possible firefight that could compromise forensic evidence. Two corrupt, dead DEA agents. Two murdered Mounties. Multiple crimes. A deliberate, cold-blooded ambush. A master chief bleeding out on a hospital table, and the wounded man she loved smack-dab in the middle of it all.
That man disappearing behind hospital doors she couldn’t follow him through.
She closed her eyes for half a second, drawing a breath so deep it burned.
Then she opened them and moved. Her day wasn’t going to be over for some time.
Grief would come later.
Fear would come later.
Right now, she was the one standing between chaos and collapse, and she would not fail Iceman or the men who had partnered with them with all the risk involved, and she would never fail Breakneck, not now, not ever.
Breakneck surfaced slowly, the world heavy and muffled, like he was swimming up through thick water. Light pressed against his eyelids, too bright, too sharp. His mouth tasted like cotton and antiseptic, his body a distant, aching thing that didn’t quite belong to him yet.
Then memory hit.
Ice.
He sucked in a breath and tried to sit up.
Pain tore through his side, white and vicious, and he groaned, the sound dragged out of him before he could stop it. His hand fumbled for his abdomen, finding thick bandaging, the tight pull of sutures underneath.
“Easy, hero.”
The voice cut through the fog, steady and familiar.
Breakneck cracked his eyes open. Kodiak sat in the chair beside the bed, forearms braced on his knees, coffee in one hand.
“Iceman,” Breakneck rasped. “Ice?—”
“He’s alive,” Kodiak said immediately. “Surgery went well. Minimal organ damage. He lost blood, but you, buying him time with the Celox and the IV, saved his life.”
Breakneck closed his eyes, the relief so sharp it almost hurt worse than the wound.
A breath shuddered out of him, something he’d been holding since the cannery, finally letting go.
