Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Elena’s throat moves with a swallow. “Did Tyler make it out?”
“All eight of us made it out. Buck, Weston, and I were in one Hummer, Tyler was in the other.”
She shuts her eyes for a second, then opens them again. “Go on.”
“We got clear of the compound, but not clear of his men. They came after us in vehicles of their own.” My hands curl at my side. “That part of the intel wasn’t bad, it was nonexistent. Kozlov’s people were better armed and better positioned than we were ever told.”
Anger flashes in her eyes, cutting through the grief.
“We were taking fire as we moved, and trying to return it. We were trying to get enough distance to regroup when the other Hummer was hit with an RPG.”
I have to stop for a second to get my chest unlocked. “When it hit …” My voice almost fails me. I look down, flexing my hand once before I force the rest out. “It was a direct strike. The whole Hummer went up.”
Elena covers her mouth with one hand, but I keep going, because if I don’t, I may not start again.
CHAPTER 29
CALDER
“There were four men in that vehicle,” I say. “Tyler, Mason, Reed, and Holt. Half the team. The blast killed them before we could do a damn thing about it.”
A tear slips down her cheek, then another. She doesn’t wipe them away.
“The rest of us had to keep moving long enough not to get killed in the same stretch of road,” I say. “But we hit back. We took out the vehicles chasing us and the men who were on foot.”
Words catch in her throat before she asks, “Did you try to get to them, the rest of the team?”
“For a second, because that’s what you do. But the hit was direct, Elena. One look at the Hummer, and we knew.”
“You knew …?”
I force myself to hold her gaze. “There was nothing left to save.”
When she leans toward me, I draw her into my arms, and when her forehead presses against my chest, something fierce moves through me. She’s shaking and trying not to fall apart, and failing just enough to make me hate every institution and secret that’s brought her here.
“I’m sorry,” I say into her hair. My words are nothing compared to the size of the thing. “I’m so sorry.”
“They lied to me,” she whispers.
“Yes.”
“All this time.” She draws in a breath that hitches halfway through. “All this time I thought—I knew there were things they couldn’t say, but I thought the broad truth was still there. I had no idea—” Her hands fist in my shirt.
For a while, the only sound is her crying. It’s quiet at first, then not. It’s grief cracking open through a place she’d probably thought had scarred over.
I hold her through it without trying to fix anything, because I can’t. I don’t tell her Tyler had been brave or honorable because she already knows that. I don’t feed her lines about sacrifice or duty. I just stay there and let her rage and hurt and betrayal soak into the space between us until her breathing finally slows.
When she pulls back, her cheeks are wet, and her eyes are red. She wipes at them, looking furious at herself for needing to. Her voice is low and shaking when she says, “You think someone from that operation found me? Found us.”
“That’s what it looks like. Anton is the brother. We learned he was asking about the team a while back. It seems he found a thread he could follow.”
“Me,” she says with a shudder. “I brought this here. To the town and the school.”
Even now, she’s thinking about everybody else. I know why Tyler fell in love with her, and why I find myself doing the same.
“No,” I say firmly. “You didn’t do this. You didn’t choose our mission, and you didn’t choose what was being kept from you. The blame belongs on the man starting the fires.”
She shakes her head and lets out a huff. “I hate that we brought this here. I hate that Tyler’s dead because of it. I hate that T.J. could be anywhere near it.” She searches my face. “Are we safe at all?”
“Safer now that we know what we’re looking at.”
Not safe, and she doesn’t miss the distinction. She nods once. “Thank you for telling me.”
I almost look away, because I don’t deserve even a scrap of gratitude. Especially not from her. “You should’ve had the truth sooner.”
I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask for more information about the mission, because I don’t want to tell her how the Navy called it a success. The target was neutralized, the strategic objective achieved. Four dead Americans on a road still on fire, but somebody high enough up the chain got to write the word success on a report. And they told a devastated widow it was a training accident.