The fourth one went on for over ten minutes. "It's me, Aly. It's four o'clock and I can't sleep because when I close my eyes, all I see is the sadness on your face. Please give me a chance to make things right." Alyssa frowned at both the meaning of the words and the long silence that followed them. And then what she heard filled her eyes with hot tears. Marco strummed his guitar. For a while he was clearly warming up, and then he began to play. He missed notes and took breaks, but he made his way through an entire song, occasionally humming along. Despite his injury and the weakness of his hand, he was playing again just like he used to do to cheer her up.

Tonight, it made her bawl like a baby.

Every instinct in her body demanded she get in her car and go to him. To find a way to make him love her or to make herself accept whatever he could give. Which was exactly why she had to leave. Because that would still place her smack in between Brady and Marco, and it was the last place on the planet she wanted to be.

She turned off her phone and crawled under the covers. She'd have to work up the courage to listen to the last two. But instead of falling asleep, all she could do was stare into the darkness and wonder if Marco was across town laying awake and thinking about her.

They closed in on the compound, months of intelligence leading them to this moment. Something about the yard bothered him, but Marco couldn't place it and wrote it off as nerves or the damn heat. Over the ridge. Behind scrub. Into a ditch. He exchanged a glance with Brady.

His heart took up its position in his throat.

This was the dangerous part. There was no cover between the ditch and the exterior wall. But they met no resistance. The team took up positions within the courtyard, and Vasquez and Marten went for the door, with Marco and Brady close behind, providing cover.

No. Nonono.

But it wasn't Wentworth tied to the chair, gagged and bloody. Instead, Alyssa stood on the other side, pinned against her car by a man who towered over her and had his hand around her throat. She fought him off, but he was too big and she couldn't find the leverage to get free.

Marco launched into a flat-out run, but it was like wading through a deep river flowing in the opposite direction. He powered his thighs through the current but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. In the meantime, the man shoved Alyssa backward into the rear car seat and crawled in on top of her, the darkness covering his deeds. Only her muffled screams revealed her distress, and they were devastatingly loud in his ears-

Marco flew into a sitting position and almost face-planted on the floor because the sheet was so tightly wound around his legs. He was drenched with sweat and breathing so painfully hard, he briefly considered whether he was having a heart attack. He dragged his hands through his hair and focused on getting himself under control.

Leaning against the headboard, Marco analyzed the dream. Since Alyssa had walked back into his life, she was the only thing that had created any variation in the nightmare he'd been having for the past year. It was always the same. The compound. The foreboding. The by-the-book operation. And waking up just before it all went to shit.

For a year, the ambush had defined his every moment. But the dream made it clear his fear over losing Alyssa was greater than his anxiety over what had happened and how he'd changed. He would always carry the weight of that day and those men with him, but she...she meant more to him than his past. It was time to grab hold of his present, his future.

And that meant calling her wasn't going to cut it. He didn't blame her for avoiding him, but he needed to try harder, do more. Determination flowed through his veins.

It was time he stood up and fought. For her. For himself.

Marco grabbed his guitar from where it was resting against the nightstand. His arm ached from attempting to play so much lately. But playing reminded him of her encouragement, her belief in him, of her.

As he strummed out an old tune, a plan began to take shape, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. And after months of living in the murk of darkness, the clarity was a revelation.

Marco walked into Whiskey's with a sense of mission and purpose that had been missing these long months. He turned in to the lounge as someone called his name. He glanced over his shoulder to find his manager. "Hey, Pete. What's up?"

"Come see me when you have a sec?"

Marco headed toward him. "Now works."

Pete led him around the kitchen to his office. "Close the door and have a seat."

Marco dropped into the chair. "Something wrong?"

"Did you know I was married once?"

"Uh, no," Marco said, wondering where he could possibly be going with this. Sometimes Pete got going with a story and it was like a vortex from which you couldn't escape.

"I was married for eleven years. Best years of my life, too."

A strange sense of unease settled over Marco. "Why only eleven?"

"Because Ellen died. Drunk driver. Just like that, she was gone."

Marco sat forward in his chair. "Damn. I'm very sorry to hear that."

"Thanks. I told you this because I know how important it is to find and hold onto the person you love."

What could this possibly have to do with Alyssa? Marco couldn't imagine, but his gut told him somehow it did.

"It's not my place to share this news, but I'm going to anyway, because when you're young, sometimes you can't get your head out of your ass long enough to see the world around you."

Marco froze as he absorbed Pete's words. "Uh, okay."

"Alyssa Scott has taken a job in DC, and she's moving on Thursday morning." Pete stared at him.

Marco couldn't make sense of the words. "What?"

"You heard me."

Heart in his throat and pulse roaring behind his ears, Marco rose to his feet. "Where is she?"

"That's what I thought. Sit down. She isn't here. She brought her brother by to meet me this morning, and when I learned he'd just gotten home on leave, I gave her the day off. I knew the moment you arrived you didn't know yet, because after Saturday night it was crystal clear you love her. So no way would you be walking around like everything was all right. And any idiot with two eyes could see she loves you." Pete arched an eyebrow and nailed him with a stare. "So, that leaves me wondering why she's leaving town and you're looking like the news gutted you."

Marco pressed his fingers into his temple. He knew he had to fight for her, but he just hadn't realized how little time he had.

She's leaving.

Was she even going to tell him?

Pete got up and came around to pat Marco on the shoulder. "She'll be here tomorrow for her last shift. Just wanted you to know so you could decide if it mattered."

Marco rose. "It does. Thank you." He went to the bar and spent the next hour getting set up for dinner. While his hands moved, his mind raced. He'd had a plan, but it wasn't big enough. He saw that now. He needed a way to not only say what needed said, but convince her he meant every word. If he failed, he'd lose Alyssa forever. DC might not be that far away, but soul-deep he knew if he let her go, there wouldn't be a second chance. And then he'd really know what pain and emptiness felt like.