Which was why she then followed her father out to the edge of the dock where he stood, watching the last shimmer of gold along the horizon, a finger of light scraping across the platinum water.

“If he dies because of what you dragged us into, I’ll . . . I’ll—”

“Never forgive me?” He glanced at her, his voice soft. “North saw the Petrov boss arrive today. They could deploy any day. We need to move. With or without the vaccine, we’re rolling out at midnight.”

Her jaw tightened at his words, then— “You did this.”

He looked at her, and yes, she meant her tone.

“You brought this fight to our doorstep, and if you’d just . . . stayed dead, then my husband wouldn’t be prepping to siege a Russian mobster’s compound—and you do know that he’s going blind, right? Or does that not factor into your thinking?”

Oh, she was lit, and she ground her jaw, trying not to . . . well, to go back inside and beg Ranger to stay.

Because she desperately wanted to believe the words she’d said to Tae the other night. “Ranger is a SEAL . . . He lives for missions like this, and . . . They’re going to be fine.”

As if reading her mind, her father said quietly, “Ranger knows what he’s doing.”

He turned back to the sunset and now stood with his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts, wearing a T-shirt, his bandaged leg the only evidence of the terror-slash-operation three days ago.

She’d stood there in the kitchen that night, watching her father get stitched up, all sorts of scenarios playing through her mind.

He could have been shot in the chest.

Ranger could have been shot in the chest.

They both could have been shot in the chest.

She could have been an orphan and a widow in one night.

Yeah, it was that thought that had kept her staring at the ceiling the past few nights, alone in her bed as Ranger and Ham worked scenarios, drawing out the compound from Ranger’s recollection and sorting out the details of their op.

“You remember that sunset in Key West? The one where you met Ranger?”

She looked at her father. He was tan, evidence of his time here in Florida, and the sun in his blond hair turned it burnished to match the whiskers on his face. He was every bit as built as a SEAL twenty years younger, and it still struck her anew that he was alive.

Not dead.

And tougher than she thought, and that went for Ranger too, maybe. Lately he had seemed . . . well, more alive. More himself. Strong. Confident. Undaunted.

The man she’d met in Key West.

She sighed. Turned away. “Yes. I was taking pictures—”

“And he walked up to you, thinking you’d taken pictures of him.”

She glanced at him. “How do you know that?”