“No. Yes.” He sighed, stared at the ceiling. And then, what did it matter? “I wasn’t just discharged from the military. I requested a separation.”

Ranger frowned.

“Why?” Dodge asked.

“Because . . .” Yes, it was getting harder to breathe. “I lost it. I killed someone.”

“We’ve all killed people,” Ranger said quietly. “In action. It’s part of our job.”

“No.” Colt looked at him, but saw an image of Ahmed’s face, bloodied, beaten, crying, before he blinked it away. His throat tightened. “I killed a prisoner. A person who’d set my team up to walk into an ambush.”

Ranger shook his head. “I don’t think—”

“He was a kid, Range. He was a seventeen-year-old kid who I . . . who died after I interrogated him.”

Silence.

He closed his eyes, but couldn’t take the image in the darkness, so he reopened them. “I killed that kid. Not intentionally, but . . . it doesn’t matter. I had murder in my heart.” Colt winced, looked at Dodge.

He was wearing a strange look.

“Clearly, my heart isn’t in great shape. But I’m definitely not the kind of guy who deserves a transplant, so, if my heart goes . . . that’s what I deserve. I’ve probably cheated death long enough. It’s time for my sins to catch up with me.”

Then he closed his eyes again. And listened to his heart struggle to beat on.

THIRTEEN

She’d killed him.

No, Colt wasn’t dead yet, but Tae couldn’t pry the accusation out of her head as Lucas came out to where she waited with the other nonfamily members—Ham, Jake, North, Pete, and Noemi, although technically, she was family.

They gathered in a private section of the waiting room, Ham standing, his arms folded, feet set as if assessing the situation for battle. Noemi sat with her father, who leaned forward, his head in his hands.

Jake and North were milling around, holding coffee. Roy and Zoey hadn’t returned from wherever they’d gone, but Logan had shown up at the hospital to help get Colt admitted.

He, too, had disappeared, however. Because that’s what the government did—stepped into your life, wrecked it, and vanished, leaving you with the shattered pieces.

Only Dodge and Ranger had been allowed into the ICU with Colt, and even the extra brother was pushing it.

Somehow Lucas got him in, but really, it wasn’t like Tae could look Colt in his beautiful brown eyes and face the truth.

This was her fault.

If she hadn’t given him the untested vaccine—

The team now circled around Lucas, who wore a visiting staff badge around his neck.

“He’s stable, and we did some tests.” Lucas gave a rundown of what they’d discovered, explaining the cascading layers of trouble. Tae could hardly hear it, but her medical mind was tracking every step.

Yes. No wonder the vaccine had caused the heart attack.