Dodge crept away from the door, his hand on his earpiece, relaying his words to Pete and Logan.

The man was stepping away from the door, turning—

Ranger looked up. “Colt! No!”

Colt pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit the man in a dead shot, center of his head, the mass of blood and gore hitting the front door.

Noemi screamed.

Ranger rolled toward the body.

That’s when Colt saw a detonator drop out of the man’s hand.

Noemi had seen her husband hurt before, but never like this.

Ranger sat against the wall in the great room, his face bloody, jaw clenched. He wouldn’t look at her.

Sure, he’d been shot in Nigeria, but he’d gritted his teeth, got her to safety, pushed through, protected her, and brought her home.

In every way, he’d been the warrior she knew.

This recent pain was something deeper, pervasive, dark, something that gnawed at his soul and pushed him out of their bed to prowl the halls of his home.

She longed to soothe the darkness away, to tell him that everything would be okay, but how did you help a man recover from the loss of everything he was?

What if she hadn’t gotten up, followed her brooding husband out of bed? Because she’d only made everything worse.

Someone had grabbed her from behind, smashed her lips into her teeth with a bruising hand, and put a gun to her head.

She’d heard the slamming of bodies, the grunting as the stranger dragged her down the stairs. And when she saw Ranger fighting for his life, a terrible memory sparked inside her, the one that saw her husband capable and fierce and—

“Stop.” The man holding her had leveraged her against him, and Ranger . . . Ranger said the words still piercing her soul.

“Please don’t hurt her.”

Because of her, Ranger had been beaten, tied up, and kicked. Because of her, his father now lay on the sofa, whitened with pain.

And when her attacker put a suicide vest on her, her bathrobe over it, tied her up and sat her in a chair, she saw something inside Ranger die.

She’d spent the last few years of her life volunteering at refugee camps, trying to ease the suffering of others. But this . . . this she didn’t have a clue how to fix.

Worse, this had to be her fault.

Because certainly whoever had kidnapped Noemi two weeks ago had circled back for another go-round.

She had no other explanation for the fact that she’d been assaulted for a third time in less than a month.

“Colt! No!”

Ranger’s voice jerked her back to the present, and she looked at him, then up, and then—

A bullet blew out the back of her attacker’s head. Blood spattered against the wall. Noemi screamed.

The man collapsed.

Ranger rolled, then leaped to his feet.