Shane inhaled and tried to calm the race of his pulse. Cowboy came and stood on his other side.

“Yael, huh?”

“She’s on the task force,” Shane gritted out.

“Then you won’t mind the fact she gave me her number when I passed her in the corridor?”

Shane stared at his friend and whatever was on his face made the other guy grin.

“Kidding, buddy. Just kidding.” Cowboy crossed his arms over his chest and settled in against the wall. “I gave her mine…”

Shane wanted to tackle the guy even though he knew Ryan was lying. Probably.

Yael didn’t strike Shane as the type to fall for superficial sweet talk or charming smiles. But judging from the number of women Ryan dated maybe Shane didn’t really know what women liked.

They worked together.

She was a means to an end.

And Shane had kissed her and she’d kissed him back. Even if it had been for show.

Shane growled out of the side of his mouth. “Go anywhere near her and I will kill you and toss you into the sea for the fish to feed on.”

“Hah. I knew it.” Cowboy chortled and elbowed him and Shane shook his head. The guy was one of the best operators on the team but he rarely took anything seriously. Shane knew it was deeply rooted in the fact Ryan was a widower even though he never spoke of his dead wife.

Everyone quieted down when the HRT Director himself walked into the room and took his place at the front.

Daniel Ackers had served on the teams for eight years before heading to DC for a few years at JEH. He’d returned to HRT as the boss two years ago and was a straight shooter who understood their job in a way no outsider ever could.

His mouth was grim. Eyes cast down. He raised his hand to get everyone’s attention. “I have some bad news and, considering what happened in Houston recently, I wanted to be the one to break it to you all. You probably know Kurt Montana was due back from a TDY today.” He looked up, his usually twinkling brown eyes flat and reddened.

What the fuck…

“Twenty minutes ago, I received word from the State Department that Kurt’s flight leaving Harare was involved in a crash. Everyone on board died. There are no known survivors.”

It took a second for the information to sink in, to penetrate the instinctive, insistent denial. What followed felt like a lightning strike to the heart.

Montana was a hard man, but he always had your back and would literally take a bullet for his men.

Dead?

It was incomprehensible.

In an accident?

Shane stared hard at Jordan Krychek who’d arrived back at work yesterday. The guy was sheet white. What had they been doing in Africa? Who’d they been working with?