Of course, the memory never faded, but today, it was like his insides had been hacked by a machete.
He looked over at Asher, a question burning in his mind. Asher had been an elite operative for Charlie Team before taking Marcus’s place nearly three years ago. “Did you know Jason was DEVGRU?”
Asher met his stare, his brows pinching briefly. “Nah, I joined after him.” He pivoted to better face him. “Regardless of what Handlin said back there, we’ll get our people back and fix whatever the hell he needs us to. But we’ll also get revenge for Jason and Brad.”
A knot fisted in his stomach, unease moving swiftly through him like a wildfire. “Brad didn’t have any family after his grandmother died,” he said after a minute. “Well, he had a fiancée.” He let out a weary sigh. “And I promised her justice.” He dropped his head forward, trying to remember his brief conversation with Brad’s fiancée at the funeral. “I also told her I’d look after her, but I didn’t have the balls to do it myself.” Hell, I could hardly look her in the eyes that day.
Asher gripped his shoulder. “Well, we’ll make shit right.” He gave a hard nod.
“It’s time I deliver on my promise.”
Regret circled around his mind as he thought about his past, and then a wave of heat suddenly torched his chest and worked its way up his throat and into his face.
He clutched his stomach as Brad’s fiancée’s face came to mind. “Fuuuck.”
Chapter Six
“Are you sure you and Mr. Ivan Drago are a match made in heaven?” She handed Emily a glass of wine and sat next to her on the couch in Sam’s living room.
“Is that what you’re calling him?” Emily laughed. “And who is that, exactly?”
Her mouth went agape. “The Russian boxer from Rocky IV. How are we even friends if you don’t know that?”
“You have Russia on the brain.” Emily sipped her Riesling.
“Well, I don’t like him.”
“You just don’t like his job.” She lifted a brow.
Sam held her palms up and shrugged. “Blane’s a D.C. fixer. What can I say?” Besides, she had to look out for her best friend, the same way she’d always looked out for Sam.
Emily set her glass on the coffee table. “He promotes positive messages about politicians. He’s not Olivia Pope from that Scandal show.”
Sam flicked her wrist. “I don’t know. He rubs me the wrong way.”
“And you only met him the one time before you had to leave your own dinner party.” She crossed her arms and eyed her best friend with her typical I-call-bullshit stare.
“Sorry again about that.” Work never seemed to let up. Of course, in Mexico, she’d tasted what it’d be like to live a little—but with the wrong guy and at the wrong time.
She hung her head and rubbed the heel of her hand against her cheek.
“Well, ‘Mr. Drago,’” she said while using air quotes, “is really good in bed, so I’ll be staying with him for as long as the sex remains so deliciously hot.”
“There’s more to life than great sex.”
“Says the woman who isn’t getting any.”
She crossed her arms and leaned back into the couch. “Give me a break. You’re always in court, working a case. You’re not one to talk.”
“Lunch-break sex is where it’s at.” She chuckled.
“Well, like I said, I don’t like the guy.”
Emily edged closer with a smile on her lips. “That makes me want to hook up with him even more.”
“Such a rebel,” she teased. “But, in all seriousness, I don’t want to see you get hurt again. After you and Mr. British Guy broke up—”
Emily silenced her with a palm. “Next topic.”
Sam’s phone buzzed, cutting off her thoughts, and she reached for it to view the text. “My dad.”
“What does he want?”
She set the phone back down. “Just letting me know he still hasn’t gotten Senator Abrams to agree to the proposal.” She released a long-winded breath of frustration. “I should be focusing on getting Abrams on board instead of chasing down a photo. The benefit is Wednesday.”
“And maybe this is exactly what they want.”
“And by ‘they’ you mean whoever sent me the photo?”
Emily shrugged. “You and I are both smart enough to know it can’t be a coincidence someone sent you a photo from Ukraine, given what you’re working on right now.”
“I don’t know.” Her thoughts were becoming too heavy, and she needed a second to just breathe. She snatched Emily’s wine glass off the table and took a sip. “To hell with whatever headache it may give me.”
“You never drink wine, and yet, your bar is packed full of it.” Emily smiled.
Sam gathered more of the liquid into her mouth and gulped. “The bar is stashed with wine because my best friend loves the stuff.”
“Such a good friend.”
Sam finished the drink and grabbed the open bottle by the couch and refilled the glass before handing it over to Emily.
“So, I take it you still haven’t told your dad about the photo.”
Her shoulders shrank forward with the weight of guilt. “He’d freak out. You know how much he hated when I looked into Brad’s death before—if he knew about the photo, he’d turn it over to the Feds, and I might lose my only shot at the truth.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “And . . . we’re back to that.”
“It could be legit. Maybe from a whistleblower trying to expose a cover-up?” But what the hell was covered up? Shivers blew over her skin at the thought, and she stood. “And I think I need a stronger drink.” She went over to her bar by the window. “Of course, I don’t seem to make the best decisions when drunk.” She thought back to her close call at sex with Owen the other night.
“Some things don’t change. I’ll never forget the first time you met Brad. Wet T-shirt contest coupled with loads of shots makes for a crazy combination.”
Her words reminded her of a past that still felt like yesterday. “I did win the contest, though.” She set the bottle of vodka back in its place, deciding against the drink.
“And Brad was your consolation prize. The guy couldn’t keep his eyes off you that night.”
“I thought he was faking being a SEAL just to win me over.”
When she turned, she spied her old collection of CDs on the bottom shelf of her entertainment system from across the room, and she moved toward it like she was being mindlessly lulled into the past.
“Wouldn’t be the first time a guy did that,” Emily said as Sam crouched down to find a particular CD.
“What are you looking for, by the way?”
“The CD Brad gave me before his last deployment.”
“The song he dedicated to you after he proposed?”
And sang to me over Skype two days before he was taken from me. But she couldn’t get herself to voice the thought.
“‘Two Souls,’ right?”
“Yeah.” She found the disc and then stood upright and popped it into the stereo she hadn’t used in years. Her fingers smoothed over the rose tattoo on the inside of her wrist just as the musician’s lyrics floated to her ears and burned a gaping hole in her heart—Brad had called Sam his rose, same as the musician to whatever woman he’d sung the song for.
“When was the last time you listened to this?”
“Not in a long time,” she whispered.
Ten years had gone by, and it never truly got easier. Time minimized the pain, but it didn’t extinguish it.
And every man she’d dated had been a pale comparison to Brad.
Strings of endless one-night dates and a few one-night stands.
She hadn’t thought another man would ever be able to capture her heart, but then she’d met Owen, and as crazy as it sounded, meeting him had given her hope that someday she might fall in love again.
“You okay?” Emily stood and came behind her, resting a hand on her shoulder.
Sam close
d her eyes and buried her emotions the best she could. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fix on the painted smile she used for D.C. politicians—not with her best friend.
“Sam,” she said softly. “I saw what happened to you after you lost Brad, and how looking into his death back then nearly destroyed you. And ever since you got that picture at the office, you’ve looked like a woman determined for revenge again.” Emily whispered the word revenge like it was dirty, and it had Sam facing her with open eyes. “Is that what this is really about?” She lifted a brow. “Are you planning to go down that path again?”
“You sound like my father now,” she bit back.
But was Emily right? Would chasing after the photo break her?
Would she crack into too many pieces and be unable to patch herself back up?
Of course, she wasn’t really whole now, was she?
“I should have told Owen the truth on the boat,” she said, finally getting her vocal cords to work.
“And why didn’t you?”
She turned off the stereo, remembering now why she never played the song. It was too painful. “I couldn’t lay the truth on him at the last minute like that.”
“You shouldn’t have left without telling him who you are,” Emily said when Sam turned back around.
“We kissed again on the boat,” she sputtered as quickly as she could. She hadn’t been sure if she was going to tell Emily or not, but she felt like she needed absolution of her sins. Besides, Emily was the only one who could see through her walls, walls that, some days, were constructed with straw instead of brick. “I went there to ask him about the photo, not to get swept off my feet.”
Shit. She clicked her tongue at the roof of her mouth.
“You’re allowed to have feelings, Sam.”
“Not with him.”
Emily held her hands out, palms up. “Love tends to find us when we’re not looking for it.”
“He’s Jason’s brother. Even if I felt something for him, it doesn’t matter. He’s him. I’m me. There are rules about this kind of thing, right?”
She gripped her shoulders. “First of all, stop calling him that. He has a name. Second of all, Owen’s Jason’s brother, not Brad’s. And Brad would want you to be happy.”
“Owen will never forgive me. A man like him. I could see the pain in his eyes. I could see what loss has done to him. I went all the way to Mexico, only to come home with a pile of guilt and no answers.” She turned back to the bar and braced the counter.
“Not true. You did discover something.”
“Yeah? That I suck?” She faked a laugh.
“No, but if Owen was on vacation and kissing you, I highly doubt someone delivered him a creepy photo like the one you got, which means this is only about you.”
“Unless Owen handles situations differently. Or, maybe no one needed to send him anything because he’d been a SEAL and knew the truth about what happened.”
“You’re still treating the photo you got like the gospel truth, which is absurd. And hell, maybe you should consider getting security like your father has. What if you’re not safe?”
“It was a picture. If someone wanted to hurt me, they wouldn’t send a photo.” Sam puffed out her cheeks, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around. “Did your brother ever ID the third guy in the image, by the way?”
Emily snorted. “Uh, I would’ve led with that when I came over.”
“Right.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “I’m not myself. Sor—” She cut herself off at the sound of her doorbell from the security system outside her building.
“A visitor this late?”
Sam hurried to the security intercom system to view the outdoor camera. “Shit.” She jumped back as if he could see her. “It’s Owen.”
Emily came up next to her. “You gave him your address? You didn’t tell me that.”
“I only gave him my number. Hell, I didn’t even give him my last name.” Her brows slanted in surprise. “How’d he find me?”
“Only one way to find out. Let him up.”
Sam peered at the security system, her nerves fraying by the second. “Hello.”
“Hi, it’s, uh, me.” The low and sexy voice flitted straight to her ears. “Owen, I mean.”
Anxiety bunched in her stomach and swept through her body.
“He is hot. Damn.” Emily observed the security screen. “Did he look this good ten years ago?”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Focus. What do I do?”
“Let him in.” She patted her on the shoulder and then started for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving so you guys can have some privacy.”
“Right. Okay.” She closed her eyes and held down the button. “Hi,” she said softly.
“Hey, sorry to drop in on you. I was hoping we could talk.”
“He must know who I am,” she said to Emily. She had hoped to reveal the truth on her own terms, though.
“I was surprised he didn’t recognize you sooner.” Emily lightly shrugged. “Just get this talk over with.”
Different emotions stacked up inside of her like layers on a cake, but she wasn’t ready to cut through them all yet. She needed more time to work up the nerve. But she whispered, “Okay.” She pressed her finger back onto the talk button. “Come on up.” She buzzed him in and shook her arms out at her sides to get rid of the sudden feeling of needles pricking her skin.
“Good luck.” Emily patted her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll get a sneak peek of him on my way out.”
“I’ll call you after he leaves.”
Emily nodded and left.
A rap at the door a minute later had her tongue pinned to the top of her mouth. She secured her hand on the knob and released a lungful of air before opening it.
Owen stood with a palm braced against the exterior of the doorframe, and her lips twitched into a smile when she noticed he’d cut his hair.
His hair was now tapered at the sides, with his beard connecting up and to his hairline. The top of his hair was still a little longer and maybe purposefully spiky—that, or he’d been running his fingers through it as if something was wrong.
He looked dangerously hot, and it had her stomach physically hurting at the sight of him, especially if he now knew the truth.
“Hi.” He looked over her shoulder and into her home, his eyes tracking the visible area from left to right. “You alone?”
She forced herself to step back and find her voice. “Yeah. Come in.”
He remained standing, though, with his eyes now positioned back on hers. It was like every ounce of his energy pinged off him, hitting her like a punch to the gut.
He tucked his hands in his pockets, jingling change or a set of keys. “You’re not wearing perfume.”
Even from that far he could tell? Wow.
She found herself smiling, but it faded quickly at the continued harsh look in his eyes and the tight line of his lips. He knows. He knows! Everything inside of her screamed like a child throwing a tantrum, and it was all her fault. The lie had been like silk, smoothly slipping from her tongue the moment they’d collided in Mexico. Now, she’d have to grate out an explanation that made sense.
“I, uh, just got out of the shower,” she said and blinked away her thoughts. Her wet locks threaded between her fingers when she remembered she was makeup free and only in pajama shorts and a tee.
Emily had shown up right after she’d showered, forcing her to talk about what had happened on her trip.
Jason’s brother. She shuddered at the thought and turned away, expecting him to follow. But when she peered back at him, he remained standing in the hall.
He stared down at the change from the wood floors in the hall to the carpet in her home, as if there was some sort of red line he couldn’t bring himself to cross.
“Do you know who I am?”
She fully faced him, her arms dead at her sides.
“Do you remember me?” He finally
stepped over the line and nudged the door shut behind him.
“I—” The rest of the words jammed up in her throat, and she couldn’t seem to free them.
He closed the gap between them in one stride, which had her pulse doubling. “Do you know I’m Jason York’s brother?”
Chills swept over her skin as he propped a palm on the wall in the mini foyer of her home.
She eyed his bicep, a few veins wrapping around the muscle like a rope. “Yes. Yes, I know.” She dropped her gaze to the floor.
A deep sigh blew from his lips. “When did you realize? On the boat?” The deep sexiness of his normal tone had been replaced by a harsh grit that was cutting.
“I knew before then.” She hugged her body and rubbed her arms, wondering if she should get dressed before baring the truth to him. “Maybe we could go for a walk?”
He took a moment to consider her words then nodded, and so, she hurried to her bedroom to get dressed before he changed his mind.
A minute later, she came back toward him like a nervous bride on her wedding day.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked once they were outside. “Why’d you let me believe we were strangers?”
She turned and faced him. “I, uh, tried so many times. I never meant to sleep with you. Or, whatever we did.”
“You knew that soon?” His brows slanted inward, and his lips remained parted in surprise.
She nodded. “I didn’t expect to feel . . .”
He shifted the weight of his stance as his gaze swerved up and over her shoulder. “Is there a reason why someone would be following you?”
“What?” She twisted around to find a guy standing on the other side of the four-lane road. He was in a dark sweatshirt and jeans, and the moment their eyes connected he lifted his hood and turned to go the other way down the street.
Owen reached for her arm and redirected her focus back to him. “I’d chase after him, but I’m not leaving you on the street alone. Not if he’s a distraction and there’s someone else nearby looking to grab you.”
Stealth Ops Series Box Set Page 30
