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They were only down the hall from Lila’s room. The guard they’d left on her was on his radio, his weapon in hand. The man looked both worried and guilty, knowing he’d failed by allowing the person hunting the woman he was supposed to be protecting to get right to her.
When the officer went to open the hospital room door, Surf shoved him aside. He had no time to deal with the man, no interest in either reassuring him or reaming him out.
All he wanted was to assess the scene.
There was no way he could even begin to accept the possibility that it was already too late. That Lila was dead. There was no other exit, so if Zara Duffy was in there then they had her, they’d take her into custody, get the name of the politician involved, and all this would be over.
But if Lila was dead then it would be a hollow victory.
One that would have come at much too high a price.
His heart was in his throat as he threw open the door and saw Lila and Zara on the floor, tussling over a weapon.
“Lila,” her name fell from his lips with no conscious thought, and he was already moving toward her when Zara took advantage of Lila’s momentary distraction to drag her body up in front of her own.
A human shield.
Pulling Lila up with her, Zara got to her feet. Her back was pressed against the wall, Lila covered her front, and the weapon pointed at her head. Zara’s eyes were wild, telling him as surely as any words could that she was dangerous and unpredictable.
Lila didn’t seem to care about that. She was fighting Zara, trying to get out of the woman’s grip, a thunderous look on her face, anger he hadn’t seen before burning brightly in her baby blues.
“Stop fighting her, sweetheart,” he ordered, panic clawing at his throat.
“I’m not going to be a victim again,” Lila yelled, continuing to struggle against Zara’s hold with no care that a gun was pressed to her temple.
She was going to get herself killed.
Panic was no longer just clawing at him, it was consuming him.
He wasn’t going to stand there and watch her die right in front of him.
Not after everything they’d been through.
Everything they’d survived.
“Lila.” He waited until she lifted her gaze to meet his. Surf tried to convey everything he felt for her in that one look, knowing it was the only way he could save her life. “Trust me.”
Her body stiffened, and he could see that she was bucking against his words. She was tired, angry, and determined not to play the victim again, but this wasn’t a one-person op, and he needed her to realize she wasn’t fighting this battle alone.
It was time for her to trust her team.
Trust that they had her back.
Slowly, that thought seemed to resonate in her mind because he saw her relax and she gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
“Aww, how sweet,” Zara mocked, grinding the barrel of the gun into Lila’s temple, making her wince.
The flash of pain on Lila’s face added fuel to his fury.
Anger that matched his own continued to shine in Lila’s eyes, and he could feel his team’s anger as they filled the small hospital room.
Zara was crazy if she thought there was any way out.
Her only bargaining chip was Lila, but if Zara killed her the woman would be dead before Lila’s body hit the floor. If she thought she was going to talk them into letting her leave with Lila as a hostage, that was never going to happen.
“It’s over, Zara,” he said, his voice flat. If he was going to get his woman out of this alive, he had to shut down his emotions. He couldn’t let himself be distracted by the fact that Lila was the hostage, the one who could be dead with one twitch of Zara’s finger. This had to be just another mission.
Nothing more.
