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Lexi’s unmistakable form was slipping silently down a ladder from the catwalk.

The fellow who’d gone to investigate had his rifle at the ready, but he was looking down, at another man lying on the floor.

All he had to do was tip his head up an inch, maybe two, and she’d be dead.

One shot. All over. All White had to do was shift his gaze, and he’d see her, as well.

In plain sight now, as she moved lower, and he willed her to reach the floor before anyone spotted her.

And then it happened. The goon looked up from the broken body of his dead comrade and he saw Lexi. He lifted his handgun, and a shadow in leather rose up behind him. Kira. One of her hands snapped across his mouth while the other pulled a blade across his throat.

Kira lowered the killer to the floor in silence, took his rifle and slipped deeper into the shadows.

Lexi reached the floor, completely unaware of what had happened, and dashed to the opposite side of the open door, where another man lay, unmoving. She quickly took his rifle and backed into the shadows.

They were sisters, all right.

A soft buzz in started in the distance. Shit, the drones were coming. Seconds were all they had left. And if he so much as moved, White would shoot him. He stood a mere five feet away, gun aimed at his chest. That was point-blank range.

It didn’t matter. He had to do it.

“Get out of the building now !” he shouted. He dropped low, snatched the knife from his boot and whipped it at the same instant White pulled the trigger.

It felt like a truck hit him square in the chest. He flew backward at the impact, landed hard on the pavement, bleeding. But he had the pleasure of seeing his blade hit home. Blood bubbled from White’s neck. Romano’s blade had skewered him.

So fast. It had happened so fast. Where was Lexi?

White stayed upright, but was wobbling, his gun hand shaking wildly as he fought to hold it steady, to aim it at Connor as he lay there helpless ground. He tried to get up and couldn’t.

Off to the left, he saw Toni and Nick running out of the building, via some other entrance. To the right, Mike Waters had his kickass bride by the waist, and was racing out of the building, as well.

Lexi was hefting that rifle and walking up behind the albino. “Put the gun down, Mr. White. Don’t make me kill you.”

His pink eyes met Romano’s, and the bastard smiled. Connor read the hate in his eyes and knew exactly what he would do next. White turned drunkenly, and lifted his gun at Lexi. He would take her with him into the grave. He would win, once and for all.

Romano only had one weapon left, the whiskey flask Kira had copped from Stryker’s glove compartment. He slid it from his pocket, flicked the lighter and hurled it.

It smashed into the center of White’s back and exploded. Flames spread over his back and shoulders. He spun in panic, cut loose a high-pitched, keening wail as he ran, stumbling. His howl was unearthly.

“Connor!” Lexi came running, skidding to him on her knees as a drone came into sight over the tree line.

“Lexi … run!”

She ignored him, tearing his shirt open, trying to see his wound. The drone hovered as White fell burning alive, to the ground. A second drone appeared, and they were about to fire.

And then a pair of nearly simultaneous blasts out of nowhere blew them to bits right there in the sky. Their remains rained harmlessly down to the ground.

Cait, who was supposed to be safely hiding at the crossroads, had a handgun in her hands, still aimed at the spot where the drone had been. Her husband was looking at her like he’d never seen her before. He was also holding a gun.

And then Joey came walking out of the warehouse, holding a rifle, her armed husband at her side.

“Dammit, Connor, be all right,” Lexi said, and it wasn’t a tearful request but a command.

He tore his gaze from the vehicles now speeding into the area around the warehouse. Federal agents and cops were spilling out of them, pulling their weapons. The sisters dropped their weapons, raised their hands obediently, but their eyes were on him.

“Lexi …”

“Just relax. Don’t try to talk.” He was bleeding heavily.

He could feel the warm stickiness coating his chest and his sides and his belly.

Lexi’s hands worked feverishly, but he didn’t know what she was doing.

It didn’t matter what she was doing, really.

Not anymore. White had shot him in the chest at point-blank range. He was dying.

And it wouldn’t be so bad, really. Hell, maybe, if what the faithful of the world believed was true, he’d get to see Justin and little Jack again. God, it would be so good to hold those little angels in his arms, to hear them call him Daddy.

But not yet. Soon, but not yet. He had to tell Lexi …

“Lexi—”

“I said not to talk,” she snapped, but there were tears in her voice.

“I want to talk,” he told her with surprising force. Then he sucked air through his teeth, because the words had caused him pain. When he spoke again, he kept it quieter, softer. “I love you, Lexi.”

Her hands stilled on his chest. She paused to gape at him, then shook her head and began working on him again. “Oh, sure. Now that you’re all shot to hell, now you love me.”

He tried to smile but wasn’t sure of the results. Lexi shrugged her coat off and covered him with it. She dragged a metal box over and propped his feet on it. He heard sirens.

“I loved you all along. All that crap … about it not meaning anything…”

“Just trying to get rid of me, huh?”

“I thought … killing White was more … important,” he managed to say, and his words were beginning to sound the way they did when he’d had too much to drink. “But I was wrong. I realized it as soon as you left. I was coming to tell you …”

She stared down into his eyes. “You were?”

He tried to nod but felt oddly paralyzed. His entire body had gone numb. “Yeah,” he whispered.

He liked it when she ran her hands over his face. And he liked it better when she bent to kiss his lips. Hers were parted and wet and salty with her tears.

Men came running, guns drawn. There were sirens getting louder.

His eyes dropped closed. He was fading fast. He couldn’t even feel the pain now.

He could still hear, though. He could hear Lexi’s smoky voice screaming for paramedics, shouting orders.

And he could hear them scrambling to obey.

And then there was someone else crouching beside him, and she said, “Who are you? What are you doing?”

“Name’s Stryker,” he said.

Stryker muttered something else, but Romano couldn’t hear anymore. He’d receded to some far-away place where sound couldn’t reach. And then suddenly he felt the back of Stryker’s hand connect with the side of his face. His eyes flew open and he realized he could feel pain again.

“Stop!” Lexi yelled.

“I’ll stop when he’s heard what I have to say,” he barked. And then Stryker looked him right in the eyes and said, “Your boys are alive, Romano.”

Lexi gasped.

“You hear me? Justin and Jackson were not killed in the explosion. They weren’t in the house.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Lexi said, “but?—”

“You were a suspect,” Stryker went on, ignoring her.

“So was Darren, but I didn’t have proof.

I knew about Wendy’s call to you that day.

I knew she and the boys had seen something they shouldn’t have.

I knew if it leaked your kids were still alive, whoever tried to kill them would try again, and I was half-convinced it was you. So I put them into protective custody.”

Connor lifted a hand, and the motion cost him more effort than he’d thought he had left in him. He closed it on the front of Stryker’s shirt. “If you’re lying …”

“I’m not.”

“You … kept me from my sons when ….”

“I know. Look, it kept them alive, didn’t it?”

Connor’s hand went limp and fell to the floor. His eyes closed again. He fought to cling to consciousness … to life … and he heard Lexi’s voice, tear roughened. “Get out of the way so I can take care of him. We have to get him to a hospital.”

After that, he didn’t hear anything at all.