She snatched her phone and hit Dial, not realizing until she heard Bojan’s voice that it was his number. “Did he say the attack was in Tunisia?”

  “I don’t know,” he said in frustration. “Yes and no.”

  “Whatever that means, this right here, I don’t feel right,” she muttered.

  “Hang on. I’ll be right there.”

  She sighed, putting down her phone. She looked around again but still found nothing worrisome. Yet that same odd whisper of warning floated in her brain.

  Unnerved, she bolted to her feet and raced toward the kitchen door. Just as she got there, she heard another odd sound. It was a ping, an odd ping sound, but then she stared around, not understanding what had happened. Her knees came out from under her, and she slowly slipped to the ground right at the back door. She heard shouts, as Bojan grabbed her, right before her head hit the tiled floor.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth and tried to speak. Then, just like that, came blackness.

  *

  Bojan let out a shout, as he bent down and quickly collected Lacy in his arms, racing toward the surgery suite, his mind cataloguing what had just happened, even as he yelled again for help. Chairs scattered, and people bolted toward him, with Bullard quickly taking charge.

  “Get her to the operating table.” He looked at Bojan and asked, “What the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he roared, as he raced toward the surgery suite. “She called and told me that she felt off like, that something was up. When I got there, she was leaning against the back door, and she’s obviously been shot.”

  At that, the rest of the team scattered, heading outward across the property.

  Bojan didn’t know where they were going, and he didn’t give a damn. He just wanted to ensure that whoever had shot her was caught. He laid her down gently on a clean operating table, grateful that Bullard had the facilities here to take care of most emergencies.

  Leia wobbled in right behind Bullard. “Let me take a look at her.”

  Bullard glared at her. “You could just sit down, you know?”

  “I could,” she agreed, “but I’ve certainly seen my share of bullet holes.”

  “You and me both,” Bullard muttered, as he quickly checked Lacy over. “It went through her side,” he noted, checking out the wound at her belly. “Any closer and it would have done some serious damage, but it looks like the bullet missed the major organs,” he muttered, as he bent closer.

  Bojan stayed close, watching as both Bullard and Leia worked on Lacy. “How bad is it?” Bojan asked. Leia just shot him a look, and he shut up. It always amazed him how some people had that ability, but, given the circumstances, he was hardly one to argue right now.

  Finally Bullard gave a sigh and stepped back, looking over at Bojan. “She was damn lucky.”

  Bojan nodded. “I got that message already,” he snapped, his gaze hard. “You’re still not telling me anything new.”

  “She’ll be fine. She will be damn sore. We will have to go in and make sure nothing else was hurt and nothing major was ripped. The bleeding is still ongoing, so the bullet might have nicked something. You need to get the hell out of here, and we will scrub up and take care of this. Go find that bullet,” he ordered.

  Bojan stepped back and stared down at Lacy, but Bullard wasn’t having it.

  “Go on,” he repeated. “My team’s out there looking for the shooter, so you need to go find the bullet. She’s doesn’t have one in her body, so you better find it.”

  With that, Bojan nodded. “You look after her,” he ordered.

  “Done, now go find that damn bullet.”

  With that, Bojan quickly raced back outside again, stopping at the rear doorway. It didn’t take much effort to find it, as the bullet had slammed into the door itself, splintering wood all over the place. He bent down and, using his pocketknife, quickly dug it out of the wood frame and put it in a small container he had snagged from the kitchen. With that in hand, he headed back to Bullard.

  Just as he walked into the surgery, Leia looked up and glared at him. “Nobody comes in here while we’re operating,” she muttered.

  “Great,” Bojan said, standing at the edge of the doorway, watching as they worked on Lacy. “I found the bullet.”

  “Good, take it to Dave,” Bullard replied, without looking back. “He’ll run ballistics.”

  Bojan’s eyebrows shot up at that, but he turned and obediently headed out to find Dave. There was a good chance he was out looking for the shooter too. But, as Bojan walked into the main control room here in the compound, Dave looked up from monitoring a series of massive screens.

  “Before you ask, we haven’t found the shooter yet,” Dave shared.

  “No, but I’ve got the bullet, if that helps.”

  Dave’s gaze lit up with interest, and he held out his hand. “I’ll run it. Pretty ballsy move to attack somebody in this compound.”

  “Unless it was someone who doesn’t really understand who is here,” Bojan suggested. “Not everybody knows this is Bullard’s main compound, right?”

  “Anybody who’s done any kind of online research on the location would sure as hell have figured it out, although they may not know just what doing something like this on Bullard’s property would mean. Regardless, shooting somebody in anybody’s backyard isn’t good for business. And Bullard has already added a layer of hired guns around the perimeter, especially with us now actively searching for our shooter. Those guys will remain on guard, until we have the shooter in hand.”

  “I don’t think the shooter really gave a shit about business,” Bojan noted. “If you think about it, he shot and ran.”

  “You didn’t hear anything as you stepped out?”

  “No, she was right there on the ground in front of me, so I grabbed her before she went all the way down, and I ran her to the clinic. It was obvious that she was hurt, and she also knew something was wrong before it happened. By the time I got to her, the blood was oozing out all over the place.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got to go clean that up too,” Dave muttered.

  “Let me grab some photos of the scene first.”

  At that, Dave nodded. “Don’t know if it will do much good, but go for it. Let me know when you are through, so I can get it cleaned up before any of the other women get home.”

  “Are they all due in today?”

  “Not if we’ve got a shooter on the loose,” Dave replied. “Bullard had me put this place on lockdown, letting everybody know it’s not safe.”

  “Right, I guess that makes sense.”

  “It’s all about keeping everybody safe,” Dave noted, scanning the multiple screens for any signs. “We have enough enemies that we can’t be lax about our security.”

  “Yet how did this happen?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll be on to that pretty-damn fast,” he snapped, his voice hard.

  With that reminder, Bojan headed to the kitchen and stepped outside and quickly took some photos. However, as Dave had said, not a whole lot to see. As Bojan stepped back into the kitchen, he crossed paths with Pia.

  Pia headed outside with a big bucket and a mop and shooed him away. “I’ll take care of this. You go look after her.”

  “They just kicked me out of the surgery.” Bojan groaned, glaring at him.

  Pia nodded. “In that case, the whiskey is in the office. Go grab a shot.” When Bojan hesitated, Pia glared at him. “This is my domain, now go.”

  With a sigh, Bojan stepped out of the way and turned to look around at the property surrounding him. Surely there was a way to find out who had been here.

  He quickly stepped out onto the lawn and headed to where the shooter must have fired from. Studying the grounds, he looked for any sign of a trespasser. Only as he stood here in the far back section did he note that, whoever had been here, had to have been on top of the fence or in a tree. With that thought, he quickly scooted up the closest tree and took a look. It took him about forty minutes to check out various locations before he was satisfied that he was at the spot the shooter had fired from. He could only judge by the trajectory line, after having seen the wound, but this location appeared to be the closest he could get to his shooter’s vantage point.

  When someone down below called out to him, Bojan looked through the boughs of the tree to find Ryland. Bojan quickly climbed down and pointed. “He was up there.”

  “Any signs?”

  “Nothing,” Bojan muttered in frustration. “But who the hell would even know you can see the pool from here?”

  “That’s part of what we have to sort out. If it’s somebody potentially after Bullard, then they may have researched this compound quite well. Although we’ve buried as much online information as we can on us and our operations, once you put enough together, it’s pretty hard to keep the world from being alerted to this location.”

  “I get that, but these trees are high enough that somehow he must have climbed up and gotten above the security cams and triggers.”

  “I’ll check that out in the control room when I go inside,” Ryland stated, as he studied the dividing wall in front of them. “We don’t generally get anybody on this side of the property. Since we nearly lost Bullard, we haven’t double-checked this area that closely. We’ll need to do another full round on security issues here,” he muttered. “That should never have slipped our attention.”

  “I’m sure it’s somebody’s job, but, with so much to do, attention gets focused on the highest need at the moment, or sometimes people come and go, and something like this doesn’t get assigned to someone else.”

  Ryland looked at Bojan and nodded. “That’s quite true. We did have a grounds person who was looking after all this, somebody Bullard has worked with for many years. Maybe I’ll give him a call.”

  “A call to see where he was, to see if anybody has asked him about this compound, or to ask if he could come and tune it up?”

  “Good point. All of the above,” he replied, keeping his voice quiet. “We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and talk to him when he gets here.”

  “Sounds good,” Bojan said, turning to look around. “From this edge of the property, it’s not that hard to access the compound.”

  At that, the two men climbed the tree, then went over the dividing wall into the neighbors’ yard. And just as easily, the two men scaled the wall, jumped for the tree, and dropped back down into Bullard’s compound.

  “Damn, that was way too easy,” Ryland muttered. “We’ll have a meeting over this when everybody gets in. How is Lacy?” They both walked back to the compound.

  “She’s alive, and they’re still in surgery, patching her up. The bullet went clear through. I found it in the doorframe and gave it to Dave.”

  “Good. Not that it will necessarily do that much for us, but anything we can find is information we’ll eventually use. How did you happen to be going out there to Lacy?” Ryland asked curiously.

  “She phoned me and told me something didn’t feel right, so I booked it. If she was calling for me, something was way wrong. She was obviously racing toward the house when it happened, so she must have seen something or felt she needed to head for safety. She was shot right at the back door.”

  “Damn.” Ryland shook his head. “We normally would have an awful lot of women here.”

  “Another thing I was wondering about,” Bojan added. “Obviously Lacy is not expecting, but, if somebody didn’t know about the pregnancy anyway, could the shooter have been after Leia?”

  Ryland came to a dead stop, then turned and stared at him. “I hate to think of that being a possibility, but I guess it’s something we have to look at.”

  “They both have the same stature, outside of the pregnancy,” Bojan muttered, “and they’re both blonds.”

  At that, Ryland nodded. “No, I hear you. It’s possible it was a case of mistaken identity. It’s possible that there was no mistake about it or that they didn’t care who it was. His victim could have been anybody on Bullard’s compound, as far as the shooter was concerned. All equally offensive options and not something we like to think about.” As the two men walked back, they stopped at the steps, and Bojan pointed out what he saw and where.

  “Okay, so that tree was probably the best detail we will get,” Ryland noted. “So now we need her to wake up and to tell us if she has any insights into what happened.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice,” Bojan replied, his voice hard. “They won’t even let me in there to check on her.”

  “No, they’re very protective about surgery,” Ryland said, looking over at Bojan. “You wouldn’t get into a surgery suite in any other medical facility either, and infection in that wound is the last thing Lacy needs. Try to understand where they’re coming from and give them a pass.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that, as long as they’re keeping her alive. But I also need to talk to her and need to find out what the hell tipped her off and if she saw anything.”

  “If he fired from that tree, as you suspect, chances are she didn’t get a look at anything. It could have just been a sound or maybe nothing, maybe just instincts. If her instincts are on high alert, and she was not distracted …” Ryland sent a sideways glance to Bojan.

  “Generally that’s not something that would apply,” Bojan stated, frowning.

  “Maybe not, but she’s definitely been a little rattled since you’ve been here.”

  “Considering what she brought up over breakfast, I’m not surprised she’s been upset and feeling pretty rough about things.”

  “I’m not exactly sure what the problem is with the pregnancy, but I gather there’s something?”

  “Apparently there’s a second baby that’s not doing as well as it could be—or something along those lines,” he shared, with a shrug. “Lacy felt terrible even bringing it up.”

  Ryland nodded slowly.

  Bojan added, “But, if something could be done, and she didn’t say anything, she would feel terrible too. It’s one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t situations.”

  “Right,” Ryland replied, “but Bullard and Leia are solid and have top-notch medical experience, so, if there is a problem, I’m sure they can fix it.”

  “Maybe, but they’re also the parents, and that adds in an emotional layer that nobody really sees. You don’t know how it affects you, not until you’re in that situation.”

  “That’s true. We never really thought we’d see Bullard like this anyway,” Ryland noted. “However we’re all really rooting for them.”

  “Of course, and I don’t know Leia’s history or anything regarding the pregnancy or the potential for more down the road, but, if there are two viable babies, we want to keep it that way.”

  “Wouldn’t that be something,” Ryland noted, with a sigh.

  “What about you?” Bojan asked, looking at him. “I hear you’ve got a partner too.”

  His expression changed, and instantly he was beaming. “I do, indeed,” he declared, cheering up. “She’s back in Australia right now, settling things up, and getting ready to move her things over. She needed to go back for some recertification, so she decided it was a good time to sort out the move and to spend time with friends and family, before officially moving here. She’ll return in another week or so. … It can’t happen fast enough for me.”

  “It’s serious then?”

  “Oh, yes, very serious,” he confirmed. “Absolutely. I haven’t asked her to marry me, but it’s one of those things that’s a given.”

  “Is there such a thing?” Bojan asked him. “It seems to me that, as far as women are concerned, nothing is really a given.”

  “I can’t argue with you on that one, but I sure as hell hope it’s considered a given in this case,” Ryland stated. “We’ve been together since we found each other, and this is the longest we’ve been apart.”

  Just then Bullard called out to them.

  They stepped in through the kitchen and headed toward the massive dining room, where everybody seemed to congregate. Bullard stood there, his hands on his hips, glaring at Bojan.

  “You’re pissed off at me, why?” Bojan asked.

  “I’m not,” Bullard said, shaking his head. “I’m pissed off at the whole situation. Lacy will be fine, though she’s still out cold. When she wakes up, she will be damn sore, and she won’t be doing anything for the next few days. We’ve had to stitch her up but didn’t have to do too much in the way of opening the wound to clean things out and to look for internal bleeding. She will be just fine though,” he repeated, holding up his hands, as Bojan immediately headed to the surgery suite. “Did you hear me say she’s unconscious?”

  “Yeah, I sure did,” he said, as he continued walking toward Lacy.

  Bullard glared at his back and yelled, “You will be difficult, won’t you?”

  He turned, stared at Bullard, and asked, “And if that were Leia?”

  At that, Bullard’s eyebrows shot up. “No question where I would be. However, my understanding is that you two don’t have that kind of relationship.”

  Bojan shot him a dirty look and turned to walk out, hearing Bullard’s laughter behind him.

  “Nothing like a reality check, is there?” Bullard yelled.

  “No reality check,” Bojan called back. “Besides, she’s damn-near family.” Bojan knew that they didn’t understand, but really, who the hell would? Their situation was too damn complicated to make any kind of sense.

  Moments later, he walked into the surgery suite to find Leia standing there, adjusting the blanket over Lacy.

  She looked up, glared at him, and ordered, “You scrub up if you’re coming in here.”

  He nodded, noting this wasn’t the main surgery room but a little recovery room off to the side. “How is she?” he asked, as he quickly washed up.

  “She will be sore, really sore, and weak of course, but she’ll be fine. Post-operative infection is always a concern, so we’ll have to watch that carefully, as always,” she explained. “Bullard, on the other hand, is not faring so well. The fact that Lacy got shot here on the property has him livid.”