He shook her, glad to hear a whimper, because she’d made him doubt what he knew to be true. Of course they’d choose her. Of course they’d let him go. They’d do anything to keep her alive. She’s messing with my mind. “Stop arguing and get to the supply closet. I want antibiotics.”

She bowed her head, her free hand clenching at her side. “No.”

It sounded like a sob.

He shoved her hard, and she went to her knees. He jerked her arm, twisting it higher behind her back. “Get up,” he snarled, dragging her to her feet. Feeding on her cry of pain, letting it center him. “Get up, or you’ll be dead on the floor with your bodyguard.”

And then the bodyguard moved. In a flash, the big man was lurching from the floor, lunging toward them.

Huge hands closed around Cade’s throat, squeezing, lifting him off his feet, making him gasp for air. The doctor twisted from his hold and he dimly heard something clatter to the ground. His gun? No, he still had that.

I still have my gun. Shoot him. Now.

Cade worked the weapon between their bodies, shoving the barrel into the man’s chest, but his vision was going black, his fingers numb. Pull the trigger, dammit, he told himself. Pull it.

Then he froze as the tip of a knife jabbed into the back of his neck.

“Drop the gun,” Dani hissed. “Or I will kill you where you stand. Don’t you dare think I won’t, you sonofabitch.”

The behemoth wrenched the gun from Cade’s hand, then stepped back, his hand visibly shaking as he pointed the weapon at Cade. “On the floor,” he commanded. “Hands out where I can see them.”

No. No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. He’d come so far . . .

Too far to stop fighting.

He spun around, going for the doctor’s wrist, but a sharp pain ripped through his gut just as he was knocked to the floor by the bodyguard. He had only enough time to register Dr Novak’s bloody knife and satisfied expression before a beefy fist connected with his jaw, then another fist. And another.

Through blurry eyes, Cade looked up to see the bodyguard looming over him, snarling like a beast. Then the fist smashed into his eye and he couldn’t see anything.

“Diesel.” The doctor’s voice cut through the fog. “Diesel!”

More hits, to his face, to his stomach, as the doctor continued to yell the bodyguard’s name. “Diesel, baby.” She panted the words. “You need to stop.”

The attack stopped abruptly and the only sound was heavy breathing. Hers. The bodyguard’s. His own.

The pain was excruciating and he had to strain to catch her words.

“He’s down,” she said softly. “He’s not getting up again.”