He’d created this mess, and in so doing, he’d endangered a woman he maybe could have fallen in love with. A woman he certainly had feelings for.

Seeing that man come at her with a knife had triggered something feral inside him. It rose again now.

Focus.

Rain pattered on the branches of the tall cedar at his back. The wind rustled the same branches, dumping water on his head. Normal sounds. It was nearing twenty-one hundred hours. Still early, but the deep dark of the woods with wind and pummeling rain made it feel much later.

Had the SEALs managed to breach the lodge, or were they hiding in these same woods, still unaware this was no longer a training exercise?

A branch snapped behind him to the right. A soft noise, but he’d been waiting for it. Counting on it. Another step, another snapped branch, followed by a muffled curse.

Definitely not a SEAL. Even if the team still believed this was an exercise, they wouldn’t make casual noises. Part of this training was practicing silence in the woods. It was sort of the whole point.

And then there was the fact that the guy cursed in Russian. Xavier would bet anything these tangos were mercenaries, and now he had a clue to where they were from.

Was this guy a sentry guarding a perimeter, or a scout looking for Audrey and him?

Had the guy on the ledge somehow survived?

Three minutes passed. Another sound. The guy was uncomfortable, shifting positions. Impatient.

Finally, he took several steps. Quiet, but Xavier could see his dark shape. He passed in front of Xavier, and he lunged, tackling the man and shoving his face into the moss-covered ground. The guy turned his head to keep from being suffocated in the saturated soil, and Xavier shined his light to get a glimpse of the man’s profile.

He’d never seen the guy before. The tango bucked upward, trying to dislodge Xavier. He freed a hand that held a pistol. Xavier knocked the weapon aside as it fired. No silencer this time. The crack of the bullet was deafening even in the pounding rain.

If there were SEALs or tangos in the vicinity, they would hear it and know what it meant.

Xavier caught the man’s wrist before he could take aim again and slammed it into a rock. The handgun dropped from his fingers. It was a wrestling match from there as they rolled downslope in the muck.

The mercenary was heavier, but not stronger. Until he punched Xavier in the shoulder.

Pain exploded.

Fuck.

The blow had dislocated his left arm, rendering the limb useless.

He punched with his right. Even as his mind wanted to blank out with the pain, he held on. If he died, Audrey would surely be taken. Tortured. Raped. Killed.

He didn’t want to imagine what she would face.