Mia chewed her thumb. “Do you think he was right?”
“I don’t know.” He was telling her the story, so he may as well tell her all of it. “After we got back to the states and were well enough to stand trial, we were all dishonorably discharged. During the firefight, one of my men was killed with friendly fire. We’d been told not to engage, and I made the call that we didn’t have an option. The rebels were going to force the men and boys to fight with them, and who knows what they were going to do the women and girls. But it was the wrong call according to the court.”
“Does your family know?”
“No, before I went on the mission, I left specific instructions that they were not to be notified until I was confirmed dead. I waited until I was healthy before I went home. Or as healthy as I could be. I stayed just long enough for it to count as a visit before I left. I told them I wasn’t in the Army any longer after six months, but they don’t know any of the details.” He’d straightened up just long enough to come home and see Zach after he’d been stranded.
Silence stretched again, minute after excruciating minute, until it became stifling yet again. The longer she was quiet, the less hope he had that she’d forgive him.
“I’m still angry with you, but I understand why you did it. It doesn’t lessen how hurt I am at all. I’m not certain I can be anything more than friends with you, and even that may take a while. I’m trying to be rational, but apparently, I’m not as levelheaded as I thought.”
Noah nodded. “That’s probably for the best. Mia, you’re more than likely going to have to go into witness protection. That means—”
“I know what it means.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “What are you talking about? I have a copy of the man’s hard drive. That should be more than enough to put him in prison. And I can’t testify because I haven’t seen or heard anything that would be of any use.”
“All of that is true, but he’ll try to kill you anyway. I’d bet money he’s already got a bounty on you. Hard drive or no hard drive…this never had a chance to end any other way.”
Her mouth dropped open. “So all this time, you knew I’d possibly be forced into witness protection?”
“Yes.”
“You kissed me while knowing that? Made me fall for—” She stopped, pressing her fingers to her mouth. “How could you do that?”
Noah’s heart pounded. She’d nearly admitting to falling for him, or at least that’s how it sounded. Didn’t seem to matter much now, though. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
She stood, walked to the door, and opened it. “Thank you for sharing that, and I will never tell anyone. But please don’t talk to me anymore. I think my heart has had all of you it can handle.”
Noah wanted to argue, but what was the point? Argue what? In a week, Mia Milan would no longer exist. If he cared at all about her, he’d keep his mouth shut and his feelings to himself. All he wanted now was to get her to WITSEC and pray that by the time she left, she wouldn’t hate him the rest of her life.
“This may not mean much at the moment, but you have my word that I will never lie to you again.” He stood, and as he reached her, he paused. “That promise will come before all previous promises made.”
The look in her eyes made him ache all the way to the core.
Without saying a word, she shut the door in his face.
Whatever he had with her was officially over, and as expected as it was, it didn’t make the thought of living without her any easier.
Chapter 20
Bleary-eyed, Mia stumbled out of bed as someone pounded on her door.
“Mia! I’m in!”
Ryder? In? Then her brain fired up. The files had been decrypted. She pulled the door open. “You’re in?”
He grinned. “I’m in, baby.”
She peeked into the hallway.
“He’s not here.”
She pinched her lips together. “I’m a little pathetic, huh?”
“You’re hurt. Feelings are…never easy.”
“He said I’ll have to go into witness protection.” She crossed her arms over her chest as Ryder waved for her to follow him.
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Noah wants you safe.”
Mia blew a puff of air out. “I don’t want to go into witness protection. I like my life. It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not, but life is rarely fair.”
They walked to a room right behind the kitchen. She’d thought it was a pantry when she first saw it, but it wasn’t. It was a command center.
Ryder sat down in front of a row of computer screens, picking up a box of Hot Tamales and scattering a few on the desk next to the keyboard. “Okay, so I got in, but I got you before I opened anything.”
Mia smiled. “You did?”
He looked over his shoulder. “Professional courtesy.”
“Thank you.”
“Getting this hard drive was awesome. If it contains what we hope it contains, Harrison will be done. You’ve saved a lot of lives.”
Talk about making a person feel good. “Then I’m glad I did it.”
Ryder patted the chair seat next to him. “Let’s crack these open.”
As she sat, he clicked on the first file. Mia couldn’t believe her eyes. Hundreds of names, dollar amounts, countries of origin and destination. “A spreadsheet of payments made by buyers and sellers. Pictures of women taken before he transported them and then after to show they’d arrived at the destination in the same condition they’d left.”
“Not just women.” Ryder pointed to a name and then the age next to it.
“Nine? She’s a baby.” Her eyes welled with tears. “That’s horrific.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“And that’s why Noah was not to tell you who he was or what he was after. Harrison has been doing this for years. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, have passed through his hands. It was never just about you.” Ryder clicked on another file, and pictures of women came up. “It was about them.”
Mia nodded. Now she had faces to go with the names. It wasn’t just about her. It was about them. Making sure Harrison would go to prison and never hurt another soul. “I can’t believe this. I promise I had no idea.”
“And we know that now. You wouldn’t have brought us these files if you were working for him.” He shot her a glance as he scrolled through the files. “Actually, we think something else is going on. We’re just not sure what it is yet. Noah’s the one who brought it to my attention. That night you talked to Harrison? Noah said you turned him down when he asked you to dinner. Next thing we know, he’s blowing up his phone talking about you. Noah was right. It didn’t jive.”
She kept her expression neutral, but inside she was melting. Noah stood up for her. If he was really using her the whole time, would he have done that?
“I can’t believe I helped him protect his system.” She narrowed her eyes as she brought her gaze to Ryder. “Were you trying to hack in?”
“And you stopped me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know, but you were pretty good.”
His lips parted in a gasp. “Pretty good? I’m the best.”
“Clearly you aren’t, or you would have made it past my system.” She laughed.
He shook his head as he grumbled, “That’s not nice.”
Mia shrugged. “But it’s true.”
“Whatever.” He popped a Hot Tamale in his mouth and held one out to her.
“It’s…” She checked the time on the computer. “It’s three in the morning, and you’re eating candy?”
“It’s my happy place.” Ryder sobered. “There are tons more files just like these.” He clicked on a few more, and they were even more spreadsheets and pictures.
“Wow,” Mia whispered. “Why did he need my system if these files were encrypted so well?”
Ryder snorted. “That’s the rub. We don’t know, but your program did stop us in our tracks. I was going to do what you did and make a copy of hi
s hard drive, but I couldn’t get it before you got your program running.”
“Oh.” And she’d prevented the good guys from doing their job. “I’m sorry. I wish I’d known.”
Ryder sat back, rubbing his mouth with his fingers. “Still, this level of encryption. He really didn’t need your program. I was trying to gain access, and I couldn’t. Your software made it harder, but it wasn’t exactly necessary.”
Mia knitted her eyebrows together. “Then why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”
“Would it be okay if I made myself some hot tea?”
“Sure. I’m going to make copies of everything, put the information on six different drives, give one to each of the guys, and email copies to the DA and the James at the FBI. I’ll CC his team. We can’t take any chances that the information suddenly gets lost. Want me to make one for you?”
Yikes, that was a lot of precaution. “Please. I have a special compartment in my wristlet. It’s lined, and you can’t tell it’s there.” Mia stood.
“Okay.”
She went to the door and paused. “You wouldn’t want to join me, would you?”
Ryder swept his gaze from her to the computer screen where the files were already copying and sending and then back to her again. “Uh, sure. There are a lot of files, so it’ll take a little while to get it all done.”
“Is the FBI going to make me go into witness protection?”
As he stood and followed her into the kitchen, he shook his head. “No one is going to make you do anything, but for your safety, you need to consider it.”
“Noah said I’d be forced.”
Ryder laughed as she filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove to heat. “Of course he’d say that, because he wants you safe. He cares about you.”
“He told you that?”
“No, but he wouldn’t have fought so hard to tell you the truth if he didn’t.”
Mia leaned her hip against the counter next to the stove. “He really hurt me.”
Ryder nodded. “Yes, he did. But you saw why. We couldn’t chance losing this opportunity.”
Yeah, she had a wall of faces she’d never be able to unsee. Young women and children treated like cattle. Putting herself in Noah’s shoes was getting easier and easier. A love interest versus thousands of lives. Was there really a question as to the right answer?
Not even a little. She would have done the same thing.
“Thomas Harrison is a slick, intelligent scumbag. We’ve had evidence in police lockup go missing. We’ve had witnesses wash up on the Florida coast. Sometimes even the Texas coast. He’s managed to avoid arrest so many times. We had him. And just like that, he walked.” Frustration laced Ryder’s words. “The daughter of the district attorney’s best friend was taken by that man. She was gone three months. We found her, but the damage was done. She’ll never be the same. We don’t want that to happen to another woman or child. We’d hurt your feelings again if it meant getting that monster off the streets.”
In that moment, Mia understood. It didn’t make it hurt any less, but she knew Noah had made the best decision with the information he had. With no idea if she was working for Harrison or not, he had no choice.
That’s why he was so passionate about people knowing self-defense. He’d seen women mistreated and abused. The women in those photographs were the reason behind his motivation, and she couldn’t help but respect him for it.
Still, Noah didn’t have to hold her hand or kiss her. She would have been perfectly happy just hanging out with him. Then it hit her. He held her hand and kissed her, and he didn’t have to…but he did. Maybe she was right and he hadn’t been using her.
Ryder pulled the fridge open, grabbed a soda, and slipped onto a stool as he continued. “I’ve known Noah a long time. He’s been on these kinds of details before. Not a lot because he doesn’t care for them. He doesn’t like the lying and feeling like he’s manipulating people. He wanted to ask you outright the night he found you in that bar, but he’d promised our boss he wouldn’t.”
The kettle squealed, and Mia fixed herself a cup of tea, letting it steep as she sat across from Ryder.
“Here’s what you need to ask yourself. What would you have done if you’d been in his shoes? I couldn’t find anything about you online. You have no social media presence at all, and all we had was a little chatter that you were working for Harrison. Would you really want Noah risking maybe our last chance to catch this scumbag?”
Boy, he sure knew how to throw a mental punch. “No, and he wouldn’t be Noah if he did.”
“He made a promise to Pam, and he kept it. Not just to her but to the girl we found. He promised he’d find the men who did that to her and make sure they paid. All of us, we take promises seriously. If we give you our word, it means something.”
So, did she hang Noah for lying to her or praise him for keeping his word to Pam, to that young woman he rescued? He’d said it was hard to lie to her, but he’d kept his promise. What did that mean when it came to keeping his promises to her? “I totally understand what you’re saying, but how do I stop feeling so hurt? He did lie to me and allowed me to get way too involved, knowing the outcome. And while it was for a great cause, it doesn’t make it feel any better.”
“You’ll have to make a choice to forgive him or not. No one can make that call for you. I just know my friend is hurting, and he wouldn’t be if you didn’t mean something to him.”
“He promised he’d never lie to me again. That it would come before every other promise he’s made.”
Ryder smiled. “If he’s told you that, then he’s a lot more serious about you than he’s let on. There’s only one way you’d take priority over everyone else.”
Mia coughed, the lump in her throat sticking to the sides. Serious? But he told her she’d be going into witness protection. Why would he say something like that if he didn’t think she’d be around? Was that why he was able to make that promise? It didn’t strike her as something Noah would do. Maybe there was more he wasn’t telling her.
* * *
It was dark and quiet as Noah and Mason patrolled the perimeter of the safe house while Elijah stood guard at the front. Noah had an eerie feeling. Harrison wasn’t going to go down easy, and a desperate man often resorted to desperate measures.
“She’s cute.”
“What?”
“Mia. She’s cute.”
Noah shook his head. “Not talking about this.”
“Ohhh, you do like her.” Mason knocked him on the shoulder.
“Shut up, Mason.”
They walked in silence all of two seconds before Mason started again. “Ryder said she’s smart too.”
Noah stopped walking. “What do you want from me?”
Mason shrugged and kept walking. “Nothing, but you’ve been brooding since you talked to her earlier.”
“How did you know I talked to her?”
“Your shadow in her room.”
Noah groaned and caught up to him. It didn’t matter what he felt. “It’s not like anything can come of it. She’ll be in the FBI’s hands in a week.”
Mason glanced at him. “We both know that’s not a done deal. I’ve got a bad feeling about Harrison this time.”
“I do too. Something feels off about the whole thing. I almost get the sense we were set up.”
“Set up?”
Noah nodded. “Yeah. I told Ryder I’m not so sure Mia was hired for her software. It got me to thinking that maybe she was used as a lure.”
It made sense too. Harrison knew they weren’t going to stop until he was put away. Mia was cute, sweet, and innocent. Pam would have gotten word that he’d hired her, sent one of them to tail her, and Harrison would get the whole team. Noah wondered if he knew Kolby, Gunner, and Pam weren’t in Florida.
Mason stopped, pulling Noah to a stop as well. “We need to get out of here. This safe house isn’t safe.”
“I had the same—”
They ran for the house as cars began pouring in through the hole in the gate. Another explosion came from behind the house. The sound of glass breaking urged Noah faster. “They’re in the house.”
As he slid to a stop just inside the front door, a bullet whizzed past his ear. From the hall, two gunmen had Elijah pinned in the kitchen. Where was Mia?
And like she’d read his mind, she peeked out from behind the island, looking terrified.
The door to the command center opened, and Ryder ducked low as he came out and dove for cover.
On his way to the kitchen, Noah pulled his weapon and fired, striking one of the men in the shoulder while Mason took a position behind one of the chairs in the living room.
“What happened?” Elijah asked as Noah stopped next to him.
“They blew through the gate,” he yelled over the noise. “I’ll cover you. You and Ryder get her to the SUV and get out of here. We’ll keep them occupied while you do.”
Elijah grabbed Mia’s hand and pulled her to the garage.
Three more men pushed through the front door, and Noah turned his weapon on them. “Mace, here.”
A second later, Mason was next to Noah, and they were both firing and reloading as more men poured in. “He had to have called in some serious favors to have this much firepower,” Mason yelled.
Gunfire erupted in the garage, and Noah heard Mia shriek.
“Go, I’ll cover you,” Mason said.
“Just make sure you’re behind me.”
Mason nodded and then fired, taking out two guys while Noah quickly ran for the garage. A bullet grazed his leg as he entered, and he fired in the direction it came from.
Pinned behind the SUV that faced the exit, Elijah and Ryder were returning fire as Mia hid in the bulletproof vehicle. Cars were stopped about ten feet outside the garage, and assailants were using their own vehicles as shields. The thought hit him that this was too well-organized to have been a last-minute attack.
The Ranger’s Chance: A Clean Army Ranger Romance Book One Page 14
