Chapter Thirty-Four Alejandro
Chapter Thirty-Four
Alejandro
The screen blinked to life, splitting between Secretary Chandler at the Pentagon and Trevor with Chase in what looked to be a nearly as secure location.
“Got a new friend, do you?” Audrey leaned in toward the screen, reaching out instinctively as if she could actually touch her son as he petted a golden retriever wagging its tail beside him.
“He just wanted to say hi real quick.” Trevor knelt beside Chase and the dog, wrapping his tattooed arm behind his son’s back.
“I miss you.” Audrey pressed her hand to the screen, ignoring the fact we had the secretary of defense watching. “We’ll be together soon, I promise.”
“I know. Daddy says we’ll all be together again.”
Together again. His small voice and those words hit me hard. The thought that I could possibly be a roadblock to that happening sent guilt splicing through me.
Chase glanced at his uncle, who was hovering at my side along with Reed, as if they were both worried I might go find a cliff to jump from after realizing Beth was in the mix more than we’d thought.
“Keep Mommy safe—okay, Uncle Ryder?”
“You got it,” Ryder said with a firm nod. “And then we’ll hit the ice. Play hockey together like we did at Christmas.”
Chase smiled, but it felt a little forced, like the kid knew how bad shit really was, but he was trying to put on a brave face for his mom’s sake.
Like father, like son. Like uncle, like nephew.
“Love you, baby.” Audrey pulled her hand away from the screen and stepped aside.
“Okay, go back with Michael and the others. Give your mom and me a minute.” Trevor ruffled Chase’s blond hair, then gently guided him and the dog from the room.
He returned in front of the screen a moment later, his expression hardening, letting his own mask of bravery slip even though I knew he’d want to keep it up for Audrey, too.
“I had no clue Beth Rodriguez was your wife.” Trevor laid his comment on me quickly.
“Ex-wife,” I clarified, the word always bitter in my mouth. I hated that she’d never dropped my last name after the divorce, clinging to it more than she had to the sanctity of our marriage vows. Ten years together before we split. Ten years of lies.
“Tell us what you know,” Chandler prompted, the monitors pulsing behind him with data, the Pentagon’s hum of activity alive in the background.
Trevor looked to Audrey. “I take it you now know about the job offer with Charlie Team I turned down?” When she nodded, his shoulders slumped. “What you don’t know is that it was the second time I was asked, and I said yes the first time.”
“I beg your pardon?” Chandler leaned forward, hands braced on the table in front of him.
“I figured you didn’t know. The first offer came under the previous secretary.
That’s why I didn’t mention it when you tried to recruit me for Charlie.
I assumed if you knew, you’d have said something.
” He exhaled and met Audrey’s eyes. “Beth introduced me to Will Hobbs at the military ball in 2017.”
Reed had already delivered that shocking blow to us before the call, but it still managed to hit me with just as much intensity a second time.
“I was at the bar getting a drink, and you were off talking with friends. Beth approached me with Hobbs and introduced us. He said he’d been watching my career and was impressed.
He told me he had a proposition that was of the classified nature, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Asked if we could meet privately in the morning. ”
“I remember waking up at the hotel alone,” Audrey cut in. “And when you came back you said you were jogging, which was weird, because you hate running, and you—”
“I’m sorry.” Raw, emotional pain, that I could detect from the man even through the screen, simmered beneath the surface.
“Will offered me a position as part of a select unit of SEALs that he said would answer directly to POTUS. But first, I had to complete a trial run. A test op. Me and a few others.”
“That’s not—no.” Chandler straightened. “I didn’t know about this. Not because the previous secretary kept it from me, but because it’s not true.” He rubbed his neck as if expecting to find a tie, though he’d tossed it earlier when talking to us.
“What happened next?” Ryder asked, glancing at Audrey, who was clutching the base of her throat like she couldn’t breathe.
“Hobbs said he’d need to send me on an off-the-books assignment before I could officially meet everyone and join.” He gestured toward Audrey. “But she was pregnant, and I wasn’t about to spin up and miss our son’s birth. So he agreed to wait until I was ready and another mission presented itself.”
What the hell went wrong?
Trevor cleared his throat, then coughed into a closed fist. “When it was time, two of us deployed to Afghanistan as planned with our team; then we were pulled out for a secondary classified op. It was total mission failure. We were both captured. Taliban-held village, underground cell. My friend was killed in front of me.” He looked up at the ceiling, stretching his neck. Trying to keep it together.
Holy shit. I wasn’t one to get chills, but I sure as hell was getting them now.
“Six weeks later, we found you,” Chandler said, breaking the silence.
“Bravo and Echo pulled you out, the same teams Hobbs lied to you about joining.” He curled his hands inward, resting his fists on the table, hanging his head.
“The mission details had been corrupted in the system. The former secretary of defense said he couldn’t trace who sent you two on that op or why.
And you wouldn’t talk to them after. They blamed the trauma and closed the case. ”
“Pulled me from operating for a while, too,” Trevor added in a terse tone. “I was under strict orders by Hobbs not to open my mouth if we were ever caught. Not even to my own unit.”
Chandler slowly lifted his head. “I can assure you, Hobbs lied. We don’t put our men through test runs like that, and there weren’t any slots open on the teams. That was before Charlie Team was formed.”
Trevor rubbed his chest, and I had a feeling his heart was about to break free.
To learn what happened to him had been a lie, and that he’d been played by someone he trusted .
. . Well, shit, I could relate, I supposed, because of Beth.
But what he went through was much worse than what I’d survived.
“My decision to say yes to Hobbs cost me everything. My best friend. My marriage. My sanity. Everything,” Trevor said bitterly. “And you’re telling me it was all bullshit?” His hands tensed at his sides as he walked back from the screen.
Something told me the trap of PTSD was about to try to suck him back into its ugly vortex, which sometimes felt impossible to escape.
“I assume that’s the real reason you turned down my offer to lead Charlie,” Chandler remarked after letting Trevor process the news for a minute.
Trevor dragged both hands along the sides of his head. “I couldn’t destroy what I’d worked so hard to rebuild.” His focus cut to Audrey, an apology in his eyes I knew she didn’t want or need.
The woman only cared about others, and her heart had to be breaking for her son’s father right about now.
She reached out for him the way she had Chase a few minutes ago.
And I felt like an intruder to what should’ve been a private moment, but we all had no choice but to stay. His story was now tied to our mission.
“I have no idea why Will lied to you, but he had to have had his own motives. We discovered he was a traitor in 2018. Found out he’d committed war crimes,” Chandler went on, dropping more bad news on him. How much could one guy take?
“That explains why I could never reach him.” Trevor’s arms fell to his sides, jaw remaining locked tight.
“It was intentional, wasn’t it?” Audrey covered her mouth. “This Will Hobbs guy meant for something to go wrong on that mission, didn’t he?” She surveyed the room as if we had the answers. “But why? What’d he gain by sending Trevor into a trap?”
“We don’t know yet,” Reed said, stepping forward. “But Beth might.”
Beth. Fuck that woman and my life right now.
But in comparison to what Trevor and Audrey were going through, I could man up and talk to my ex, dammit. What choice did I have?
“We can’t forget Mitch was at that military ball, too,” Ryder remarked. “You didn’t see him near Beth or Hobbs that night, did you?” he asked Trevor.
“No, I only remember Mitch because he couldn’t take his eyes off my pregnant wife. He had the balls to ask her to dance.”
Audrey spoke up. “I said no, of course.”
“But something told me he had a thing for her, so when he reappeared after our divorce, I wasn’t surprised.” Trevor kept his eyes on Audrey, a world of hurt there. Anger. And probably a dozen other emotions. “I hated him from the start. Now I know I had every reason not to trust him.”
“And I should’ve listened to you,” she said, stepping even closer to the screen. “I’m so sorry. Your gut is never wrong.”
“Who wants to listen to their ex about who to date?” Trevor grumbled. “I get it.”
Fair point.
Audrey turned to the side, eyes on her brother. “What does this mean? What happens now?”
“It means I need to talk to Beth. I have to see if she knows why Will Hobbs targeted Trevor,” I said. The words felt like acid, but they were the truth. “She might be our only hope in figuring out what the hell is going on.”