Olivia climbs into the truck bed, arranging blankets, checking pulses, whispering to the mothers. She’s all focus now, all fire directed at survival.
Then headlights sweep across the far end of the alley.
Everyone goes still.
A black SUV turns in.
Too close.
Too fast.
“Contact!” Miles barks.
Gunfire erupts.
Lucas drops to one knee and returns fire.
Clay throws himself behind the truck door and empties half a mag with terrifying accuracy.
I shove the last child into Olivia’s arms and move to cover the tailgate, firing twice, then twice more as the windshield of the SUV explodes in a spray of glass.
The driver slumps.
But the passenger door flies open.
A soldier spills out, rifle up, screaming something in Farsi.
And Olivia—
God help me—
Olivia starts climbing down from the truck.
I grab the back of her jacket and haul her against me just as bullets rip through the space where she’d been standing.
She slams into my chest with a gasp.
For one single insane second, everything narrows.
The smell of smoke in her hair.
The heat of her body against mine.
Her hand braced against my ribs.
Her furious breath on my throat.
Then I shove her back toward the truck. “Stay down!”
“I was helping!”
“You were about to get killed!”
She points toward one of the mothers, who is struggling with a terrified child. “She needs—”
“I know what she needs!”
I fire over the tailgate, hitting the soldier square in the chest.
