“I’m fine,” I assure them quickly before I’m suffocated with protective, testosterone-driven worry that will only magnify the worry Rick feels right now. I need these men, all of them as Rick’s brothers, to trust in my backbone, to know that I’m not going to meltdown, so Rick might trust me as well.
My stomach knots with this understanding I’m coming to terms with. An understanding that Rick really does fear that I can’t handle this life when what I can’t handle is life without him.
Determined to show everyone in this room that I’m here, I’m fine, I’m ready to fight, I pull away from Rick and walk to the end of the table to stand opposite the Walker team. It’s time for me to speak for me, to ask my own questions.
“How does this end?” I ask. “That’s all I care about right now. Actually, most importantly, where are we on my father’s extraction?” Everyone is still on their feet and I motion to their seats. “Please, everyone, sit down. Thank you for worrying, but I’m fine.” They don’t sit. They all just stand there and blink at me until Rick steps to my side. “Are you all finally standing up to salute my greatness, or what?” They sit. All of them. Rick and I remain on our feet.
“We’re making extraction plans for your father with our man on the ground,” Adam says.
“He’s not extracting alone,” Rick says. “Where’s his help? Or rather, who’s his help? Because before I’ll let an asswipe help Reynolds we’ll delay the extraction.”
“We can’t delay,” I argue, grabbing his arm. “Tag wants him dead. Gabriel might, too.”
“Tag wants Gabriel dead, baby,” he says. “Tag has your father as leverage to make sure I kill Gabriel.”
“Obviously he’s running out of patience,” I argue. “What if he sent Wes to attack us tonight because he decided to handle Gabriel himself?”
“Then he failed.” His hands settle on his hips. “And he didn’t send Wes. He’s fucked without me.”
“You called Adam and warned him that Tag might come after him,” I remind him.
“Because you never underestimate a snake in the grass,” he counters. “And I needed to make sure the body got moved.”
“Which it did by the way,” Adam chimes in. “Our man in the field watched Tag’s men pick up Wes.”
Rick arches a brow my direction. “See, baby? There’s a reason for my madness.”
Smith snorts. Rick, ignores the intended jab, and remains focused on me. “Proof that Tag has an agenda. He doesn’t want me in jail. He doesn’t want me or you dead, not yet. He even called me right before Wes showed up. He warned me about Wes but Tag didn’t believe for a minute that I wouldn’t wipe the ground with Wes.” He pauses a hard second as if he’s going to say something and then seems to shift gears, or I sense he shifts gears, before he adds, “Wes had a vendetta. He’s dead. That problem is over.”
“Tag has an army of mercenaries,” I remind him. “What if he warned you in case Wes failed, just to stay on your good side?”
His jaw sets hard. “That dickhead knows there’s no good side with me.”
“He has an army of mercenaries,” I repeat.
“Not an army,” Rick says. “And not for long.”
“She’s making sense, Savage,” Adam dares. “You’re not listening because you just saw a man hold a blade to her neck.”
He rotates hard on Adam. “And you, dickhead, aren’t helping me right now.”
“She’s making sense,” he repeats.
“I swear, Adam,” Rick seethes, “you Navy SEALs have fins, not brains. I know Tag. I know his ways.” He turns to face me. “I believe that he used Wes tonight to send a message. I believe he did whatever it took to set Wes off and make him come at me, come at you, baby. He was sending a message.”
Realization pokes into my mind, and not gently. I know now why he changed gears and didn’t say what he was thinking even before he says it now, “This was just another way to threaten you. He was telling me one wrong move means you’re dead. I warned Adam because, despite his fin for brains, I thought Tag might decide to kill off someone, anyone, just to be sure I knew how serious he is.”
Adam curses, clearly aware now that Rick stayed silent for a reason: to protect me.
And I don’t mean to do it, I really don’t, but my hand instinctively goes to my throat. Wes did want me dead tonight. I haven’t really let myself linger on that fact.
Rick grabs me and pulls me to him. “You weren’t even close to death tonight.”
My anger comes hard and fast. No matter how he says otherwise, every time he fluffs up the truth and turns it into a lie, he’s telling me I’m not good enough or tough enough to be by his side. I jerk my hand from my neck and shove aside thoughts of the blade that might well have sliced my throat. “Stop hiding things from me, Rick. I almost died. Wes could have moved right when you moved and I’d be gone. It’s over. I can handle the truth.”
I twist away from him and face the table again. “Who’s with Reynolds in Iraq?”
Rick steps to my side again and Adam flicks a look between us before he says, “Neal and Brody.” He focuses on Rick. “You and I both know Brody.”
“And I know Neal,” Adrian interjects, “and no, you don’t know me well, but Adam does. I wouldn’t say Neal was good if he was an asswipe.”
“Neal’s ex-FBI,” Adam adds. “Blake’s wife, Kara, who is also ex-FBI, holds him in high opinion. And Candace, so you know what we know, Brody’s ex-Special Forces, and part of a covert operation of badasses.”
Satisfied we have a good team, especially since my father is a warrior himself, I fix Rick in a stare, compelling him to look at me and act on my father’s extraction. When he does, when those blue eyes burn into mine, I say, “No one is an asswipe. I want my father out of there.”
“I know what you want, baby, and so do I, but I also want him out there alive. That’s all this is. Me making sure he gets back to you in one piece.” He doesn’t wait for my understanding. He turns back to the team. “Where are we on the plan?”
“Timing’s our biggest issue,” Smith says. “If the goal here is to take out Tag and his team at the same time, we extract the general the night of the party, we have a couple of factors to discuss. One being the time difference between here and Iraq.”
“I’ll deal with Tag while you’re extracting her father,” Rick says. “We’ve talked about this. It has to be the exact same time.”
“The party is at eight o’clock Saturday night,” Adam interjects. “Our team will need to hit before dawn. Tag will expect Savage to take out Gabriel at the party.”
“Just to be clear,” Adrian says, “are we killing Tag and Gabriel or just having them arrested? There are some mixed signals going on here.”
Rick flicks him an irritated look. “I’m dealing with Tag. Walker’s staying out of it.”
“We’re in it to win it,” Adam corrects. “All of us, in all things.”