He made a face. “Let’s get this off you.” His fingers traced the two wires protruding from the side of the vest. “These are dummy wires. We’ve been seeing more of this lately. The real detonator is in the neck pouch.” He put his hands to her neck, the feel of them eerily familiar, and pulled back the collar. “See, here, how it runs through the vest, hidden? You cut any of the dummy wires, and it activates this trigger. I need clippers.”

Dodge got up and headed to the drawer in the kitchen.

Noemi stared at her father. Her father? “You drowned. In a training accident. I buried you. Well, at least your casket.”

“I know. And I’m not even supposed to be here now, but I had to know that you were safe.”

Dodge handed him a pair of clippers.

Ranger put a hand on her father’s arm. “You do know what you’re doing, right, Master Chief?”

He looked at Ranger. Smiled. “Son, I always knew you were the right one for my daughter.”

Then he clipped the wire.

No boom, no shrapnel dissecting her head from her body, obliterating everyone in the room.

Ranger closed his eyes. Breathed out.

“Let’s get this off you,” her father said and unsnapped the vest. She shrugged out of it, and Dodge took it and set it away from them.

Her father’s eyes glistened. “I’m so sorry, Noe. I . . . I wanted to tell you. But it was too dangerous.” He drew in a breath. “As it were, you nearly died because of me.”

“What?” Ranger said, but she didn’t care.

“Dad,” she said and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Dad.”

He held her as the whole of it swept her up, all the way from the assault in Nigeria to her fake, not-so-fake wedding to her kidnapping two weeks ago to this moment, when she’d nearly . . . well, yes, it could have ended in a nightmare for everyone. And now this.

A terrible mix of grief and joy and disbelief crested over her and she started to cry.

No, sob really. Ugly, painful sobs that racked her body.

She hadn’t cried like this since her wedding night.

“Shh, honey, it’s okay,” her father said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

Ranger ran his hand over her back, as if trying to calm her. But she didn’t want to be calm.

Just for a moment, someone should take a look at their lives and, well, freak out.

“Why, Dad?” She leaned away, her body still hiccupping. “I grieved you. I stood at your grave with your teammates and . . .” The dread Noemi felt that day swept over her. The pain she went through. All for nothing. Heat ripped through her, something sharp and brutal and— “You’re such a jerk!”