Panic stalked around the edges of his mind, but Rixey refused to let that fucker have a way in. He gestured toward the guys, resignation a weight on his shoulders. “Okay. Come sit down.”
Her eyebrows slashed down over stormy blue eyes as red climbed up her cheeks. “Just tell me what you meant.”
His mind raced a moment too long with a response, apparently, because she pushed past him and marched to the corner where his team stood, their gazes alternating between the pair of them. Nick hustled after her. When the truth came, it had to come from him or she’d never forgive him. Maybe she already wouldn’t.
Christ, they’d made love—and that’s exactly what it had been, not sex, not fucking, not some fling—they’d made love and he hadn’t been honest.
She faced off with the team. “Somebody man up and tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Becca—”
Nick glared at Marz, and the man ate whatever words he’d been about to say. When the call had come in on the reward phone line that had led to this fight with Shane, they’d already agreed to Nick’s appeal to trust Becca with the truth once they recovered her brother. Finding Charlie didn’t necessarily mean the Merritts’ troubles were over. Not if their enemies were still looking for whatever had led them to toss both their apartments. Moreover, Charlie would hopefully be able to corroborate some part of their story anyway. And if he was the one talking about whatever his father had been into, the NDA became moot as a reason for continuing to withhold the information.
Gauging the temperature of his team, it was clear from their gazes and their nods they thought she should know. And that was enough for him. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, especially the more he’d gotten to know her, but that ship had sailed. And fuck the goddamned NDA. If he was going down, it wouldn’t be with this secret standing between them.
Shoulders braced and feet apart, Nick heaved a breath. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Arms crossed, she slowly turned toward him. Her gaze told him to get to it.
Unsure which knife to throw first, the words tangled on his tongue. “Shit, Becca, I’m sorry. Your father . . .” He shook his head. “For five years I served under him. Frank Merritt was my mentor. The kind of soldier I wanted to be. He loved being out in the field, leading men and making a difference. He could’ve gotten cushy on a base somewhere, but he stayed with his team. And I respected the hell out of him for that.”
Damn, it wasn’t easy admitting how much Merritt had once meant to him. He kept his eyes on her, not wanting to see the guys’ inevitable reaction to his next words. “Frank was dirty. He had some black op running on the side—”
She blanched. “What? No. My dad would never—”
“Let me finish.” Rixey raked at his hair. The scowl looked so out of place on her face, and God, he hated that he’d put it there. “For months, I’d noticed little things. How he started to go off on his own for meetings. Afghan farmers—new to all of us—who seemed to know him. Supposed last-minute changes in orders while on counternarcotics missions, including the day our convoy was ambushed.”
The men knew all of this. And, damnedest thing was, after the fact, they’d all opened up. He hadn’t been the only one to pick up on some of Merritt’s oddities in behavior. But they’d all admired him so much that not one of them had believed what had been right before their eyes. Until it was too late, and half their team was gone. All this time that he’d beaten himself up over seeing but not believing what had been going on with Merritt, he’d forgotten that the others had experienced the same thing. His brain had piled all the blame on himself, when it wasn’t any of their faults. Somehow, he hadn’t had these insights until now.
“Go on.” Anger, sadness, and suspicion clouded her expression and made him want to go to her. But everything about her posture screamed Hands off, and it parked a Humvee-sized ball of regret right in the middle of his chest.
He shook his head, his gaze skating over the empty gym equipment, and he heaved a breath. “We were transporting a huge quantity of seized opium. In our area of operation, there were two drop locations, but we almost always used the same one. Right before the convoy got underway, Merritt said we had to drop at the alternate location. About halfway there, out in the middle of BFE, we hit a two-truck roadblock that shouldn’t have been there. I was in the tail gun truck and hung back. It didn’t feel right. And your father was too reassuring on the radio, like he knew it would be okay. When, damnit, that shit is never okay over there.” He scanned his gaze over the group.