Page 89 of Delta Force Defender

It was Isaac.

Twenty-three

Isaac had this nightmare all the time.

It was one of the reasons he rarely slept.

Caradine in peril and him playing catch-up. Running and running and never quite making it. He’d watched her die a thousand times in those nightmares. Over and over and over again, he was too late.

He was always too late.

The only difference today was that it wasn’t happening only in his head.

It had taken ten minutes to get a spare key from the bartender, which had seemed like an eternity or two to Isaac. He could have gotten the answer he needed a whole lot faster, but he’d made a bargain with himself a long time ago to stay on the right side of certain lines.

A man who did the things he had, and would again, had to make very sure he didn’t let himself become a monster.

In all the years since he’d made himself that vow onhis first tour, Isaac had never come close to breaking it. Until today.

But he hadn’t. Somehow, he hadn’t. He’d had to take the time to convince a bartender in a place like Sharkey’s that he needed to be more afraid of the men in front of him than the men in the neighborhood. A delicate proposition, but they’d gotten there.

Eventually.

“How did we miss the tunnels?” Templeton demanded when the bartender finally gave up his key to one of the reinforced-steel doors leading to the basement.

“We didn’t miss them,” Isaac gritted out. “We were directed away from them by a woman who acted like she’d never in a million years go into one.”

He could see the face she’d made. The way she hadn’t actuallysaidshe wouldn’t go into a tunnel but had let him assume it.

“If she’s really a Sheeran, what do you expect?” the bartender chimed in, displaying more of that talent for failing to read a room that had already cost Isaac too much time. “Scum, all of them. There’s a reason the whole family was wiped out, buddy.”

Isaac took approximately four seconds to think about how little he liked it when men he would never speak to in normal circumstances called himbuddyor any variation of it.

But then he was moving. He signaled to Jonas to come with him, Templeton to handle the bartender and the patrons on the floor, and headed for the shabby little hallway.

Down the stairs at a run. Down the hallway like it was a race—and he’d always been good at a sprint.

The clock in him ticked the way it always did in the dreams he had. The ones where Caradine merged with his parents and the plane was going down, but he was there, and he had to watch them all die.

Again and again and again, and now it washappening. And he didn’t know if he was prepared after all of this or if it had all been one long, tortured premonition.

“Ready?” he asked Jonas when they made it through a basement that was obviously used for wet work, then up another flight of stairs. He estimated they’d crossed the street, then headed south, and said so into the comm unit.

“On it,” Blue replied.

“I’m going to keep babysitting,” Templeton said, sounding irritated that he wasn’t in the middle of the action.

At the door, Jonas nodded toward Isaac, indicating that he was ready.

They were a well-oiled machine after all these years. Isaac threw open the door and went in at a dead run, Jonas right behind him, because that made them a harder target to hit.

Isaac went low, knowing Jonas would stay high. That let Isaac scan the scene, make his determination in a split second, and then throw himself at the knees of the goon with his hands on Caradine.

As he moved, Jonas shot twice.

Isaac hit the goon as the two thugs at the far door went down, howling in pain.

But Isaac’s focus was on the tangle of bodies on the ground. And the only part of the tangle he cared about. He saw bruises and blood, but her blue gaze was the same. Sharp and furiously lucid and focused on him.

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