Before Layla could say anything else, gunshots filled Scarlett’s living room. Instinctively, she dove behind the couch and hit the floor, trying to protect herself from gunfire, her weapon at the ready.

The gunshots paused. She peered around the edge of the couch and saw that Scarlett had been shot in the head. Her body lay on the ground, and blood pooled around her skull. Her eyes were open but vacant.

Two men raced into the room. Layla raised her weapon to return fire, but behind them she saw Hunter with her security detail on his heels. One of the attackers fell to the ground. Hunter had shot him in the leg. Another round of gunshots and the other man was hit in the shoulder, and he collapsed.

Hunter rushed over to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She looked at the men groaning in pain. “We need to secure them and then call reinforcements.”

“I already made the call.” Hunter jumped up and the security detail secured the attackers.

Layla walked over to Scarlett and crouched down beside her. She checked for a pulse even though she knew it was an act of futility. The tears fell freely as she stared at her friend’s dead body. She couldn’t begin to deal with how she felt, so she sat on the floor and prayed, because she didn’t know what else she could do.

It wasn’t long before the room was swarming with an alphabet soup of agents.

She stood in the corner with Hunter close by. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t.”

“If I’d been only a second later . . .” Hunter said, his face still filled with fear for her.

“Don’t even go there. You made it in time.”

“They appeared on foot out of nowhere right when I pulled up. And I just knew I had to get inside and stop them.”

She put her hands on his shoulders. “And that’s exactly what you did.”

“What happened with Scarlett?”

She quickly recounted their difficult conversation. She still couldn’t believe that Scarlett was gone forever. “She was trying to convince me to let her go. She said that the cartel would kill her, and she was right.”

Hunter nodded. “Scarlett made bad decisions.”

Layla looked up at him, fighting back tears. “I did consider letting her go. Just for a minute. I wanted so desperately to believe that she was telling the truth. That she had tried to protect me as long as she could.”

“And it’s possible she was telling the truth. But when it came down to it, she put herself first.”

“That’s not true friendship.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not. It’s selfish, and she’s the one who put you in harm’s way. But you cared about her, and she cared about you.”

Layla sighed. “I’m going to need some time to work through this.”