“Mr. Graham, we are the U.S. Central Command. We are the very definition of expeditious,” the general said.
“With all due respect, General—”
“Graham.” Addison leaned forward. “The reason I didn’t contact you is because I didn’t trust you. I spent weeks trying to get someone—anyone—to believe me instead of dismissing me as a hysterical, hormonal woman. The Drakes were dismissed when they did reach out after being contacted by their son. So instead of explaining why we didn’t contact you, why don’t you explain why we should have.”
Her voice vibrated with anger and her grip on Devon’s hand was punishing. He’d never been more awed by another person in his entire life.
“You had an obligation—”
She was having none of it. “I had an obligation to find my brother. That is the only obligation I had. Unless you requested this VTC to tell me I’m being court-martialed, I need to check on my brother.”
Colonel Jefferson wiped a hand over his mouth, but neither man said anything.
“Have a good day, gentlemen.” She picked up the remote and ended the call, then folded her arms on the table and dropped her head into them. “Fuck. I may get court-martialed after all.”
“Nah.” Paige stood and walked toward the door. “You’re pretty much untouchable right now. We’ll give them some time to cool down and then we’ll set up another VTC to walk them through everything that happened. They just want answers—they don’t have to get them from you.”
Addison raised an arm and gave a thumbs-up but didn’t lift her head.
Graham squeezed Devon’s shoulder on the way out of the conference room.
“You okay?” Devon asked once the door closed and they were alone.
She raised her head. “Yeah. I just need everything to settle down and not be so chaotic.”
Speaking of settling down… “What would you say to taking some time off once all this craziness dies down?”
She propped her head on her hand. “That’s the general idea. I’m going to need some serious downtime once Braedon gets back to the U.S.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and turned his seat to face her fully. She didn’t understand what he was asking. “What I mean is—”
A knock on the door interrupted him. It opened, and the NCO from earlier leaned the upper half of his body in the room. “Major Foster, Colonel Tarek asked me to inform you they’re moving your brother to a room and to ask if you want me to take you there.”
Addison popped up from her chair. “Yes!” She looked at Devon. “I’ll catch up with you in a little bit?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Sure. Yeah. Of course.”
“Thanks.” She kissed him on the cheek and rushed to the door, disappearing through it.
He’d have plenty of time later to ask her to take time off with him.
Chapter 22
Devon handed his ID card to the guard at the front of the ward. The hospital at Landstuhl had shut down the entire floor and tightened security with their arrival. It wasn’t every day a private security company rescued a service member presumed killed in action and showed up on the doorstep of the largest U.S. military hospital in the region.
The guard checked his name against the authorized roster and waved him through. Everyone was trying to keep the news of Braedon and Michael’s rescue quiet as long as possible. The good thing about being overseas was the lack of press coverage, but Addison, Braedon, and Michael were scheduled for a military flight back to D.C. early the next morning. No doubt the media circus would start soon after they landed.
The ward was one of the smaller ones, and Braedon and Michael were the only patients. With the drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the hospital had more space and was able to accommodate their request for privacy and security. Devon stopped first at the room on the left, knocking on the door.
“Come in.”
He pushed open the door to Michael Drake’s room and found him pacing. “Hey. How’s it going?.”
“Oh, good. I thought you were one of the nurses.” He started doing walking lunges across the room.
“They yell at you for exercising?” Devon asked.
“Yeah. But I can’t lie in that bed. I lay in a bed for weeks, barely able to stand for more than a few minutes. Right now, I’m thinking I might learn how to sleep standing up.”
Devon grinned. “You get a chance to talk to your family yesterday?”
He stopped lunging and nodded. “I did. That was…fuck, that was harder than I expected. My mom just cried the entire time. My dad held it together a little better, but not much.”
“They meeting you in D.C.?”
“They’re flying there tonight. They want to be at the hospital when I arrive. Not big on having to stay at the hospital, but the docs said they want to run more tests—MRI, EKG, EEG, LMNOP—who knows what else. Lot of debriefing, and I’m guessing lots of time with the shrinks.”
“No doubt. Let us know if you need anything while you’re there.”
“I will, thanks.”
Devon turned to leave the room.
“Hey.”
He turned back, and Michael approached with his hand outstretched.
“I already told your boss, but thanks for pulling us out of that hell. Thanks for listening to my parents and not thinking they were crazy.”
Devon took his hand. “Anytime.”
He left the room, pulling the door closed behind him, and crossed the hall to Braedon’s room. As expected, Braedon wasn’t lying abed either but at least he wasn’t doing walking lunges while on his video call.
“I get that you want to share the good news, Mom, but you can’t tell Aunt Linda.” He lifted his chin at Devon when he saw him.
“Who’s that? Is that Addison?”
“No, it’s a friend of mine.”
Devon motioned over his shoulder, asking if he should go. Braedon shook his head and waved him into the room.
“Why does he get to know but I can’t tell family? She’s my sister.”
“One, because he was on the rescue team. And two, because Aunt Linda has never kept a secret in her entire life.”
“That’s not true,” his mom said.
“You remember that trip to Disney you and Dad surprised us with for our twelfth birthday?”
“Yes…”
“Aunt Linda told us a month ahead of time.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes, Mom. She did.”
“Oh. Now that I think about it, your reactions did seem a little fake.”
“Exactly. The Navy will make an official statement once we’re back in the States. It’s two days—you can talk to her about it then.”
“Is that why Addison didn’t tell us what she was doing?”
Braedon sat on the chair next to the bed. “Would you have believed her if she had?”
“I…”
Devon heard her sigh from his position by the door.
“No,” she said. “We all thought she just couldn’t accept your death and was imagining what she was feeling. You have to understand, Braedon. It’s not that we didn’t want to believe her—we couldn’t. The Navy told us you were dead. Couldn’t tell us how or where, only that you’d been killed during a mission. Addison insisted they were wrong, and we couldn’t…I…”
Her voice broke. As much sympathy as Devon felt for their mom, it pissed him off to hear her talking that way about Addison. As if she’d been a nuisance that wouldn’t go away instead of a sister that had been grieving the loss of her brother.
“I understand, Mom, I do. But when we get back to the States, you and Dad need to apologize.”
“I know. We will.”
“Good. The doctor’s here, so I need to go.”
Devon glanced over his shoulder, but there was no one there. He smirked when he turned back around to see Braedon making a wrap it up motion with his hand.
“All right. I love you.” His mom sounded like she was either cryi
ng or close to it.
“I love you too, Mom. I’ll see you in two days. Bye.” He touched the phone to end the call and stood. Walking over to Devon, he pulled him into a spine-crushing hug. “Fuck, man. It’s good to see you.”
Devon hugged him back. “You too, brother.”
“I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it was you.” He pounded him on the back a few times and pulled away. “How’ve you been?”
“Good. I’d ask how you’ve been, but…you know.”
Braedon laughed and returned to the chair, collapsing into it. He tossed the phone onto the bed. “My mom has not stopped calling since this morning.”
Devon took a seat at the end of the bed. “She’s happy you’re alive. Probably wants to reassure herself it’s real.”
“Yeah, I get that part. It’s the part where she asks if she can tell everyone. I almost wish we hadn’t told them until we were back in the U.S., but that would have been an asshole move.”
“When did Addison tell them?” He hadn’t seen her since the VTC two days ago. She’d stayed in the hospital instead of the hotel to be closer to Braedon.
“She didn’t. She asked the general to have the military officially inform them. Kind of a reverse notification of death. I was surprised, honestly. I got the feeling she took a lot of crap from them about not believing I was dead. Me personally, I would have rubbed that shit in their faces.”
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You’ve spent a lot of time with her the last week—how is she really?”
Shit. How much had she shared with Braedon? They were close, but had she told him everything?
“I don’t have a before to compare it to, but she’s been…focused. She wasn’t going to let anything or anyone stand in the way of rescuing you.”
Braedon smiled. “That sounds like Addy. Nothing will stop her once she sets her mind on something.” His smile fell. “She’s different, though. I don’t know how to explain it, but I think my parents not believing her broke something in her. She hasn’t talked to them yet. Granted, she gave me her phone so I could talk to them, but anytime I mention calling them, she has to be somewhere else.”
“I don’t know what to tell you about that. She didn’t talk about your parents other than to say she hadn’t told them what she was doing. Where is she now?”
“She went for a run. I’d have gone with her, but the doc said no.”
Devon laughed. “I stopped by Michael’s room, and he was doing walking lunges.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame him. I can’t be in that bed if I don’t have to.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. “Come in!” Braedon called.
Paige stuck her head through the door, then pushed it fully open. “There you are,” she said to Devon. “Graham has another VTC with the CENTCOM Commander in ten minutes. He wants us sitting in.”
“Sure. Where is it?” Devon asked.
“Fourth floor conference room. Have you seen Addison?”
“She left about twenty minutes ago for a run,” Braedon said.
“Shoot. Can you let her know your flight has been pushed up six hours? You’re leaving at zero three hundred now.”
“Sure,” Braedon said.
“Why the change?” Devon asked. That meant he had even less time to talk to Addison than before.
Now that they weren’t under fire and in a stressful situation, he wanted to hash out what came next. Whether she could take some time in Charleston after Braedon got settled? Or if she’d be okay with him taking some time in D.C. or wherever she ended up in the short-term? He wanted to talk about them being a them and he couldn’t even call her to let her know he wanted to talk to her because Braedon had her phone.
“It puts them in earlier in the day D.C. time—less traffic between Andrews Air Force Base and Walter Reed.”
“I’ll let her know,” Braedon said.
“Thanks.” Paige checked her watch and looked at Devon. “Six minutes.”
Devon stood and pulled Braedon up into a one-armed bro hug. “I’ll stop by again before you guys leave.”
“Thanks again. I owe you big time.”
“Nah, we’re even,” Devon said.
Braedon looked at him like he was crazy. “Even for what?”
“You remember that night we were out in Virginia Beach, a couple of my old high school buddies came down to party, and we got into it with some locals?”
“Kind of….”
“My buddies decided to follow them out of the bar, and you stopped me. Told me I didn’t need that kind of trouble and that if something happened, it’d go worse for me than for them.”
“Okay. I still don’t see how that makes us even,” Braedon said.
“What I never told you is my buddies couldn’t find those guys so they decided to try to find this party some girl had told them about. They wrapped their car around a pole. One died on impact, and the other died later in the hospital.”
Braedon wiped a hand over his face. “Shit, man. I had no idea.”
“I didn’t find out until a week or so later when I talked to my younger brother. If you hadn’t stopped me that night, I would have been in that car.”
“Damn.” Braedon looked down and shook his head. “Not to sound like a selfish asshole—I’m really sorry about your buddies—but I can’t help thinking I did myself a favor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, think about it. If I hadn’t stopped you that night, you might not have been here to drag my ass out of that hellhole. So stopping you, saved me.”
“Huh. Guess everything happens for a reason.”
Braedon pulled him into another back-pounding hug. “Yeah, it does.” He released him, suspiciously watery-eyed. “Go to your VTC before you get fired.”
Devon laughed, which helped hide his own teary eyes. “I’ll see you later this afternoon.”
Chapter 23
Addison pushed into Braedon’s hospital room carrying a bag of sandwiches and a shopping bag from the base exchange. “Braedon? You here?”
He stepped out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel over his head. “Hey. What’s in the bags?”
“Doner kebabs and iced tea in this one.” She lifted the food bag. “Sweats, T-shirts, underwear, and shoes in this one.”
“You’re the best sister ever.”
“I know. Right?” She tossed the clothes and shoes on the bed and set the doners on the table. “I figured you might be more comfortable traveling in real clothes rather than scrubs.”
“Can you prop the door open?” he asked.
“Sure.” She opened it and stepped on the doorstop. “Any particular reason?”
He stared at the door for a moment, like he didn’t know the answer to the question. Or, more likely, he didn’t want to answer the question because answering it would be admitting he felt as trapped in the hospital room with the door closed as he had in that cell.
“Got it,” she said.
The tension eased from around his mouth as he sat in one of the chairs and pulled out a sandwich. He removed the foil from the plate and lifted it to his nose, inhaling deeply, a look of pure bliss on his face. “I love you so much right now.”
She grinned. “I think you love me more for the food than for rescuing you.”
“I love you for that too, but this is a real doner,” he said around a huge mouthful of pita bread and meat. “Did you get food and clothes for Michael? I feel bad that I have you here and he doesn’t get to see his family until we get to the States.”
“Yes, we got him clothes and food, too. Paige took it to him.”
“Thanks. I know he’s as antsy as I am being cooped up here.”
They dug into their sandwiches, Braedon groaning and making nom nom sounds the entire time. It hit her how normal it was—how familiar. Tears welled up, and she had trouble swallowing the bite she’d taken. She grabbed her iced tea and took a big sip, washing down the food.
“Hey.”
&
nbsp; She looked up at her brother, wiping his hands on a napkin.
“You okay?” he asked.
Damn it. Why did that question always unleash the floodgates? She could usually hold it together until he asked that question.
“Hey, hey, hey.” He pulled her chair to his and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m safe and I’m safe because you didn’t give up.” He kissed the top of her head.
“I keep thinking about what might have happened.”
“Stop. It didn’t. There’s no use thinking about it.”
“I know, but it’s going to be a while before I don’t wake up thinking you’re still missing.” She dragged her nose across his scrub top and scooted her chair back over.
He looked down at the slime streak on his sleeve. “That’s disgusting.”
“Whatever. It’s the least you deserve for all the times you tormented me when we were kids.”
He gave her a baleful look, then shrugged. “All right, I know the basics of how everything came together, but how did you connect with Leonidas?”
“I didn’t really. They connected with me. Devon attended your funeral”—she hooked her fingers for air quotes—“and approached me afterward.” She didn’t share that she’d walked out before the end.
“And Aiden Graham just happened to let you go along on the rescue mission?”
“I insisted.”
Braedon smirked. “Of course you did. What else? You were there two days—no one suspected you?”
“No. Or if they did, no one let on that they did. Connie has history with the bitch that was holding you and she provided covers for us.”
“Who’s Connie? I haven’t met her.”
Addison cocked her head. “I’m not really sure who she is, to tell you the truth. All I know is she may or may not work for the government and she has some seriously shady connections.”
“CIA?” he asked.
“She neither confirmed nor denied her affiliation,” she said.
“Where did she go? She wasn’t with you guys. Was she?”
Truth In The Lie (The Leonidas Corporation Book 2) Page 15
