He shook his head. “Just gimme a while with them, okay?”
When she nodded, he turned to go. From the stairwell, his boots echoed as he pounded up the steps.
“Damn,” Jess said, plopping onto one of the couches. “I think I should’ve joined the Army. Cause I would ride that convoy all day long.” Her face squinched up. “Not Nick, I mean. Just, you know, the other three.”
Becca laughed and crossed to sit with Jess. The puppy curled into a ball on the floor in between their feet. Jess launched into a running commentary on Nick’s teammates, and, outwardly, Becca laughed and smiled in all the right places. But on the inside all she could think about was the ringing of her internal alarm system that said the arrival of these men somehow made everything a lot more complicated.
Chapter 13
Rixey stepped into his apartment, and three sets of eyes swung toward him. Man, this was gonna suck before it got better.
Almost a year ago, they’d barely limped back to base when it had become clear someone had been spinning the ambush in a way that had buried the knives so deep in their backs they weren’t ever coming out. From that moment, they’d existed in a state of collective outraged pissed off—one in which Rixey still lived. As if their friends’ deaths and their own injuries hadn’t been bad enough, the realization that the commander they’d respected and admired had lied to them and betrayed them for a little green had poured salt on the wounds.
Worse, when the shit had hit the fan, Mother Army hadn’t had their backs. No one had believed their version of the ambush, that it had been the result of some sort of underhanded black op gone bad on Merritt’s part. No fucking sir. Instead, their fitness reports had suddenly included marks for “needs improvement” and low ratings that hadn’t been there before. Records of fighting and disorderly conduct and other disciplinary infractions had materialized out of thin air in the personnel files of the team’s survivors, discrediting them piece by piece until blame for the ambush had stuck to them like white on rice. It had been like falling down a fucking rabbit hole. The only way to stop the free fall had been to choose between a dishonorable discharge, which had included an all-expenses-paid vacation to Leavenworth, or an other than honorable discharge, where they might live to fight another day.
They’d packed up their corroded reputations—because that shit wasn’t just tarnished—and chosen the latter. Not because they’d feared a trial but because some brass inside the Army—or possibly higher—had to have been pulling strings, making prison all but a done deal. The who and why of it was a complete mystery. And the NDA the Army had required as part of the deal had made it so they couldn’t talk to anyone outside the team without risking their freedom. But maybe, just maybe, Charlie had found a string they could pull to unravel that motherfucker once and for all.
It could be the chance he’d been yearning for all these long months to restore his name, his reputation, his honor. He just hoped the team saw it that way, too.
As Rixey approached the group, a part of himself flickered back online. He’d missed the company of these guys the way an amputee missed an appendage. Being with them again both eased the phantom ache and worsened it, because they could never really be whole again. Not with six of them cold in the ground. Seven, if you included their commander. Nick didn’t.
Beckett and Easy—Edward’s nickname after his initials, E.C.—sat on stools at the breakfast bar making small talk. Shane stood at the far end, arms crossed, his expression a stone wall.
“Thanks for coming,” Nick said, mirroring Shane’s position at the opposite end of the bar. The metaphor was a kick in the ass—them facing off instead of standing together as they had for so many years.
“What happened to Merritt’s daughter’s face?” Beckett asked, being his usual hard-ass self. He knew her first name, and Rixey had no doubt he’d phrased it that way to keep their CO front and center in everyone’s minds. Like they could ever forget. And like Beckett wasn’t convinced he wanted to help her.
Then again, hadn’t his own first reaction been the same? “Attempted abduction today. She fought the guy off. Got the goose egg on her forehead and four stitches from a stab wound to the ribs for her troubles. The scratches by her eye were an accident.”
Beckett stared at him a long moment, surprise and appreciation flickering through his gaze. Second to appealing to their bone-deep desire to redeem their honor, Becca was probably his strongest asset in getting through to these guys. They were pissed and wary—and rightly so. But the urge to help, serve, and do the right thing was also stamped into their DNA.