pain; all of it coalescing into a pit that threatened to swallow me whole.

He reached out and brushed away the lingering tears. “You take that road, and you’ll lose Kelsey forever.” He curved his palm against my cheek. “You’ll

lose yourself, and then he’ll have won. The price is too steep.”

There was no judgment in his voice or his expression. Instead, a hint of some

hard-won knowledge resonated through his words like a bell, the echoes of it spreading out and chasing back the whispers of vengeance luring me toward the

edge.

“I’m not sure I care anymore,” I whispered, meeting his gaze without flinching.

“You care, or you wouldn’t still be here.” He continued to watch me, giving

me nowhere to hide.

At any other time, I would dodge the intense eye contact, but now, I feared

the loss of it would send me careening into hell.

As if he knew, he asked, “If Kelsey were alive, and you acted on any of those

ideas running around in your head to get her back, would she understand?”

His question made me pause and think beyond my immediate pain and

chaos. Would she have understood?

Yes.

Would she have approved?

No, because Kelsey’s moral compass had always been steadier than mine.

Her lines weren’t drawn in the dirt but etched into steel. The difference between

us made some of our late-night conversations difficult. Yet, there were times when the nightmares wouldn’t leave me alone, and she was the one who would

sit and listen. When I battled my way through decisions made in my time overseas, she would be the one to ask the tough questions. Those discussions gave me something solid to hold onto until the sun rose.

So now, when the darkness seemed all encompassing, I needed to borrow

Kelsey’s compass, just for a little bit, just until I could justify the faith of the man sitting in front of me. The decision drew me back from the crumbling edge

and firmed the ground under my feet. I turned into his touch and covered his hand with mine. I pressed my lips against his palm. “Thank you.”

In that quiet moment of understanding, the nebulous connection between us

strengthened, and for the first time since all this horror started, I didn’t feel so alone.

He rocked forward and placed a chaste kiss on my forehead, then rose to his

feet, not letting go of my hand.

In an attempt to re-establish some normalcy, I asked, “What did Delacourt say?” I set my feet to the deck and started to rise from my chair.

He let my hand go. “There’s been some chatter about a pending sale.” He

stepped back, turned, and headed to the sliding glass door.

I opened my mouth to reply but a blurry form popped up inches from

Kayden and cut my response short. Whoever it was pulled back the curtains on

sliding glass door, their attention on the second tower of condos across the way.

The image made my skin crawl and the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. Having the past take part in my present shocked the hell out of me.

I must have made some noise because Kayden paused halfway through the

sliding glass door and started to turn toward me.

My body was moving before everything clicked into place. A red dot

appeared at the base of Kayden’s neck as instincts outpaced thought. I sprang toward him, sending my chair tumbling to the side. I executed a clumsy tackle,

hitting him just below his waist. My weight slammed into him, leaving him no

time to react as we hit the ground. His pained “umpff” stopped my heart, but the

echoing crack had me shoving him deeper into the condo.

For the first time I cursed the floor to ceiling glass windows. The expanse of

glass offered zero protection from the sniper. My spine did its best to crawl out

of my flesh as I covered Kayden’s unmoving body. I cursed as I shoved the close

to two hundred pounds of dead weight across tile. Not an easy feat when you were attempting a low profile on the seventh floor of a high-rise. Yet with adrenaline’s help, I got us both into the bathroom, where the only opening left was the small, high window in the wall above.

I counted the seconds waiting for a second crack. It didn’t come. With each

passing second, the chance of a second shot dissipated. When I reached thirty, I

felt confident enough to push off of Kayden. The abused muscles in my thigh throbbed as I sat back on my heels next to his prone body and ran my shaking

hands over him. My fingers tangled in his hair, tracing over his skull searching