"He's dead."

As Isaac spoke the words, he rose to his feet and took a deep breath. Across the way, Grier and her father were wrapped tightly around each and he gave himself a moment to appreciate the sight of them alive, and well, and together.

Thank you, God, he thought--in spite of the fact that he wasn't a religious man.

Thank you, Almighty God .

"Stay here," he told them before going around and shutting and locking the back door.

It took him ten minutes to search and secure the whole house and the final thing he did was go to the front door and double-check that the dead bolts were properly engaged--

Isaac frowned and looked through a window onto the lawn. There was a small dog out there . . . standing on stocky legs, with his head cocked as he stared in at Isaac. Cute little thing . . . could use a haircut, but that happened to the best of men and boys and terriers.

Isaac cracked the door and called out, "You live here?"

While that head tilted to the other side, Isaac searched the front yard and prayed that at any minute Jim Heron would step out of the trees.

Nothing but the dog, however.

"You want to come in?" he said to the animal.

The thing seemed to smile as if it appreciated the kind invitation. But then it turned and trotted off, a slight limp listing him to the right.

Between one blink and the next the thing disappeared.

Theme song of the fucking night, Isaac thought as he shut the door again.

As soon as he walked into the kitchen, Grier broke away from her father and came running at him, hitting his body hard, her arms wrapping around him with vital strength. And with a sigh of gratitude, he held her against him, tucking her head into his chest, feeling her heart beat against his.

"I love you," she said against the bullet proof vest. "I'm sorry. I love you."

Shit, so he'd heard her right when he'd been on the floor.

"I love you, too." Shifting her face up, he kissed her. "Even though I don't deserve you."

"Shut up."

Now she was the one kissing him and he was more than willing to let her--but not for long. All too soon, he was breaking off the contact.

"Listen, I want you and your father to do something for me."

"Anything."

He glanced at the clock. Nine fifty-nine. "Go back to town--somewhere public. One of your private clubs or something. I want you both to be seen tonight, together. Tell people you had dinner or saw a movie. A father-daughter thing."

As her eyes shot to Matthias's body, her father said, "I can help."

"We can help," Grier amended.

Isaac stepped back and shook his head. "I'll take care of the bodies. Better that neither of you know where they end up. I'll deal with this--but you have to go now."

The Childes looked like they were in the mood for arguing, but he was having none of that. "Think about it. It's all over. Matthias is dead. So is his second in command. With them gone, XOps will return to what it should be--and be run by the right people. You're out." He nodded at Childe, "I'm out. The slate is wiped clean--provided you let me handle it from here. Let's do this the right way--one last time."

Her father cursed--which was something the man no doubt didn't do very often. And then he said, "He's right. Let me go change."

As her father disappeared, Grier looked at Isaac, her arms slowly crossing around herself, her eyes growing grave. "Is this good-bye for you and me? Tonight? Here and now?"

Isaac went to her and captured her face in his hands, feeling all too vividly the reality he couldn't escape and she wasn't going to be able to live with.

With a pain in his chest that had nothing to do with the bullet, he said one, devastating word: "Yes."

As she sagged, her eyes closing tight, he had to speak the truth: "It's better that way. I'm not your kind of man--even if I don't have to worry about XOps anymore, I'm not what you need."

Her lids flipped open and she glared at him. "How old am I?" she demanded. "Come on, how old. Say it."

"Ah . . . thirty-two."

"And you know what that means, legally? I can drink, I can smoke, I can vote, I can serve in the army, and I can make my own damn decisions. So how about you let me choose what's good for me--and what isn't."

Right. It was so not the time to get turned on. And he really didn't think she'd thought through all the implications of being with a man who had his background.

He stepped back. "Go with your father. Let me clean up here and back in town."

Her eyes held his. "Don't break my heart, Isaac Rothe. Don't you dare break my heart when you know perfectly well you don't have to."

With that, she kissed him and strode out of the kitchen . . . and as he watched her go, he felt pulled between two outcomes: one where he stayed with her and tried to make it work, the other where he left her to stitch up her life and move along.

Overhead, he heard her and her father walk around as they got themselves ready to go out and pretend like they hadn't seen two men get killed in their homes and weren't praying that a soldier who they shouldn't have ever met disappeared the bodies.

Christ, and he even considered being in her life?

Isaac was alone no more than twenty minutes later, the two of them making a hurried departure for the city in Childe's Mercedes.

Before they left, Isaac shook her father's hand, but didn't offer even his palm to Grier--because he didn't trust himself not to kiss her one last time: Looking at her in her black dress, with her hair put together and her makeup on, she was as he had first met her, a beautiful, well-educated woman of privilege with the smartest eyes he'd ever had the privilege of staring into.

"Be safe," he said to her hoarsely. "I'll call you to let you both know when it's okay to come back here."

No tears, no protest on her end. She just nodded once, turned on her heel, and went to her father's car.

As the pair left, he walked to the front door and tracked the sedan's taillights.

He had to wipe his eyes. Twice.

And upon the disappearance of those glowing red beacons, he felt as if he had been left behind. But that was such bullshit, wasn't it. You couldn't be left, if you were the one doing the departure.

Right?

Needing some kind of contact, some sort of hope, he looked around at the treeline on the far side of the rolling lawn again. No sign of Jim or his boys . . . or that dog.

And yet he could have sworn he was being watched. "Jim? You out there, Jim?"

No one replied. Nobody came out of the foliage. "Jim?"

As he went back inside, he had the strangest feeling he was never going to see Heron again. Which was odd, because Jim had been so fired up to be a savior.

Then again Matthias's body was stiffening on the kitchen floor, which meant Isaac was safe now--so that man's purpose had been served, hadn't it.

Although . . . just to be sure, he was keeping the bulletproof vest on until dawn.

No reason to take being alive for granted.