Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
An hour after Roman had shared his secrets and lies with Harper, he repeated the horrific truths to the guys. Harper had kept her back to the living room and her gaze out the window during his painful monologue, and the sad wilt of her shoulders had shredded him as he spoke.
She was heartbroken and pissed, and she had every right to be upset. When they broke up in September, he’d promised they’d go back to being friends. But that’d been a lie, one he’d never been able to stomach, and maybe he’d been in denial that he’d have to leave the teams.
“I don’t know what to say, brother,” A.J.
drawled after blinking rapidly a few times when Roman had wrapped up his hurried explanation to the guys who’d crowded around him.
Three crammed on the couch while Wyatt stood quietly with his hands in his pockets, his eyes sharp on Roman and full of disappointment.
Before Roman found the strength to speak again, A.J. was on his feet with his phone in hand. “Ah, Chris, you might want to call Rory. Ana just texted me that your fiancée is doing something dangerous.”
Chris stood and grabbed his phone from his pocket.
Roman turned from the room, glad for a reprieve from the harsh look in his brothers’ eyes while they waited for Chris to phone Rory and find out what was going on.
His back and hip still hurt, but the bulk of his pain came from the deep ache in his chest.
Roman set a hand over his heart and curled his fingers inward, his body tight with anguish. Guilt ripping him apart.
“What?” Chris rasped. “No, do not think about getting out of that car, Rory McAdams.”
Roman whirled around at the desperation in Chris’s tone, and for now, everyone’s focus was elsewhere. Not that Roman wanted Rory in danger, but the timing of the call had offered him a few seconds before he got an earful from the guys.
They’d been speechless during his reveal. Jaws-to-the-floor kind of quiet. Disbelief in their eyes. But Wyatt had looked the most betrayed, especially when Roman shared the news he’d planned to ask Emilia and her vigilante group for help when the time came.
“You and Ana were supposed to wait for Bravo,” Chris went on. “Their flight doesn’t arrive there for three hours.” He placed the call on speakerphone so everyone could hear.
Rory was stubborn and a badass in her own right, but she was a civilian, and there was a chance the teams had targets on their heads, and if so, those targets could extend to their loved ones.
“Ana told me about the baby, so of course she didn’t come, but we were afraid we’d lose this lead, and we didn’t think there was time to wait for Bravo.
Or for any guys from Scott and Scott to arrive.
” Rory was speaking in full-steam-ahead mode, and Roman knew from experience there was no stopping her.
“Your safety is more important than a lead.” Chris tore at his short, dirty blond hair, on the brink of losing his control.
“Hold on, I think I have something,” Rory exclaimed a second later, ignoring her fiancé’s objections.
“Rory,” Chris snapped out, but he was immediately cut off.
“A.J., tell Ana I am going to text her pictures of two men,” Rory ordered. “I know you’re on the phone with her, A.J., so don’t deny it.”
“What men? Who are you talking about?” Chris demanded.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Roman had to bite back a smile as he watched Chris, a man who was always in control during an op, now looking like he was facing a classroom full of five-year-olds refusing to take orders.
Roman looked at Harper, who had finally removed her gaze from the window and set her sights on Chris as if she’d just broken free from a spell and realized what was going on.
“Send the pics to me to get an ID instead. Ana doesn’t need to go back to the FBI Headquarters.” Harper folded her arms over her chest.
She wore a cream-colored turtleneck with dark denim jeans and tall brown boots.
Her hair was in a no-nonsense bun. A touch of eyeliner and mascara.
Her lips free of gloss. A sexy but sophisticated look she rarely sported even when she was in work-mode.
But he preferred her playful tees because he knew that was when she felt most like herself.
“Just sent them,” Rory confirmed. “I think these two men are watching the hotel. Or maybe waiting for someone to show up.”
Like one of us.
“One guy just came back from a convenience store run at the gas station across the street from the hotel. He’s got a bag full of what looks like stakeout snacks. And the way he moved . . . well, he had Teamguy written all over him. Cocksure attitude, and—”
“Did you just call us cocky?” Finn spoke up from where he sat on the couch.
“Not the point,” Rory interrupted. “They must be mercenaries.”
Wyatt stood at her words. He’d been quiet since the moment Roman had spilled the news about his uncle. Even quiet when Ana texted A.J. He had to be lost in his thoughts, and his silence had Roman feeling as if he were being pounded by regret after regret.
“You took their photos, so now get out of there,” Chris ordered, and Wyatt nodded in agreement.
“And lose the lead? No, I’ll wait until someone from Bravo arrives, and they can trade places with me,” Rory insisted.
“It’s a trap. They don’t care about the sister,” Harper said, her tone soft as she retrieved her laptop from her computer bag, probably to upload the photos to their facial recognition software. “And that means whoever shot Knox isn’t done yet.”
Hell, there was the possibility of a terrorist attack, too. But Roman still leaned toward no on that.
“We need these two guys now more than ever. See who hired them,” Rory fired back.
She had a point. But no, they wouldn’t be sending Rory to try and bring in two men, especially if they might be SEALs.
Roman didn’t want to believe a Frogman would take orders from a bad guy, but not everyone who served was a saint. Plus, throw enough money into the mix, and corruption was bound to happen.
“I’m not leaving,” Rory said. “But I’ll stay in the car a safe distance away.” A bark sounded in the background as she spoke.
“You have Bear with you?” Chris scoffed. “Yeah, sure, that won’t draw attention. And when he needs to take a leak?”
Roman checked his watch. Two hours and fifty minutes until Air Force Two landed in D.C. if they were on time. That was too long for Rory to put her neck on the line.
“I’ll call Liam. See if we can send one of the guys we have from Scott and Scott watching Emily and the kids to swap places with you before Bravo gets in,” Wyatt said, obviously thinking a lot more clearly than the rest of them.
“You’re staying on the phone with me until someone gets to you,” Chris demanded, worry written all over his face.
It was like walking through the fiery gates of hell when the woman you loved was at risk.
Roman would never forget when he and Chris woke up alone, chained to the wall in a small room on a boat after being kidnapped along with Rory and Harper.
Those few minutes before they’d escaped that room had been terrifying, not knowing if the women were alive.
“While we wait, maybe we could get back to the part of our previous conversation about Roman planning some sort of solo death mission.” Finn was on his feet now, too.
Wyatt wrapped up the call with Liam and lowered his phone from his ear a moment later. “Someone is on the way to swap places with Rory,” he announced, then swung his gaze to Harper before taking a slow journey back to Roman. “And as for you, I don’t know what to say.”
Yeah, that hurt.
But he deserved it.
“Babe, let me call you back.” A.J. hung up with Ana and cut through the room until he was standing two feet away from Roman, then tapped his iPhone against his chin as if searching for words.
“I’m not gonna lie, I’m pissed you kept this a secret.
Really pissed you thought you couldn’t come to us.
” He took one step forward and wrapped a hand over Roman’s shoulder.
“But I have a feeling if it came to protecting my family, or Ana—all of you guys—I think I would have done the same thing.”
“But that doesn’t make it right,” Wyatt added in a low voice.
“You should have known we’d have your back no matter what. We would have helped you,” Finn added, brushing past Harper, whose eyes were still pinned to her laptop as if in a trance again. “We would have done what we do best and drop—”
“Drop a mother effer,” Harper whispered, barely loud enough to be heard, but Roman was somehow always attuned to her voice as well as her movements.
He looked her way to see she’d lifted her eyes from the screen and turned to the room.
“Sorry, it’s what Knox would say. He’s trying to work on his sailor’s mouth since he has a baby on the way.
” Harper returned her fingers to the keyboard and began typing.
A baby. She wanted my baby. Does she still? Did he have a chance to somehow save what felt so badly broken?
“Roman would never ask us to help him kill someone who wasn’t part of a government-sanctioned op.
” Chris pressed his phone to his chest, keeping Rory on the line.
“It’s easy for us to say what you should have done, but we weren’t in your shoes, and if your actions kept Harper safe, kept Jessica, and Rory from becoming targets of some asshole and his game of revenge, then I’m going to go with a thank-you instead of chewing you out.
” He shrugged. “But that’s just me.” Chris studied the team, his gaze moving to Harper last, catching her eyes.
Roman wasn’t sure whether to hug Chris or collapse to his knees once again and apologize. He was dealing with too many emotions, and he wasn’t used to this. Having everything so out in the open.
“We won’t kill anyone,” Wyatt announced with a firm grit to his voice, “not unless we’re following orders.
And I sure as hell won’t stand by and let you walk away from the teams or destroy your life.
You can’t kill your uncle.” He paused, his eyes tightening on Roman.
“We all remember how much killing that hitman tore Asher apart.”
Asher had killed a sniper in cold blood not long before Harper joined the teams in 2019, but the man had tortured the woman he loved.
Yeah, love and the crazy things it makes men do. Roman knew he would have done the same as Asher if someone hurt Harper like that.
The teams had drawn the hitman out by hiring him on the Dark Web to, ironically, shoot Knox while on the campaign trail with his dad.
Of course, they didn’t let that happen, but Knox had volunteered as bait.
And wasn’t life strange? Now Knox really had been shot by someone they sure as hell didn’t hire.
“There’s no world in which I can live with that man remaining free.
My uncle is a threat to everyone in this room if I don’t do what needs to be done,” Roman reminded them of the dark truth and found Harper turning in her chair to face him.
A few stray hairs had escaped her bun, and he wanted to go to her and set his hands on her cheeks.
Smooth the strands from her face. Lean in and kiss her.
Fix this. “I have to walk away from Echo to do that, and there’s no coming back from what I’ll need to do. ”
Wyatt stepped alongside A.J., which cut off Roman’s view of Harper.
“You forgot one very important detail when it comes to your plans for your uncle,” he began, his jaw tight.
“You forgot to include us.” Wyatt tipped his head to the side in challenge.
“We’ll figure out how to take him down the right way, and we’ll do it with you as Echo Four. Understood?”
Roman so desperately wanted to respond with a roger that, but his fears of losing someone on the team because of his uncle were too much to handle. The risks too great.
The guys took calculated risks because of their job every day, but Roman wouldn’t let his problems add a layer of danger and jeopardize their safety.
“Technically, your uncle interfered with our case when his man killed Mauricio,” Harper softly began before Roman objected to Wyatt’s command. “Doesn’t that legally put him into our crosshairs? And if not, what if we found a way to do it?”
Wyatt turned to the side to put eyes on her as if contemplating the idea.
“You said he’s untouchable in Spain.” Finn repeated the words from Roman’s earlier “debrief” with the team. “But what if it’s us reaching out with a nice tap?”
Like a double-tap to the forehead? “We need to focus on the case, not on trying to take down my uncle.” Roman huffed out a deep breath.
“And I don’t think pulling him deeper into our op will help kill two birds with one stone.
” But that’d be nice. He still had to consider that Luciano claimed to have a plan in place to harm Roman’s loved ones if something were to happen to him by Roman’s hand.
Harper rose and moved through the room, striding with confident steps his way, and the guys peeled back for her. “We pull a page from our old playbook. Draw out Knox’s shooter.”
“The way we baited the hitman Asher killed?” Finn closed one eye as if doubting it’d work in this situation.
But Roman knew what Harper was about to say, and he needed to grip his chest again at the horrific idea.
“It’s possible the shooter is already dead. He’d be a loose end,” Finn pointed out before Harper could continue.
“A sniper who can make a two-mile shot won’t let himself be a loose end, especially if he works with one of those maybe-SEALs Rory is watching,” Wyatt said. “But we still don’t have time to hatch a fake cover story to hire whoever pulled the Israel job.”
“Harper’s not talking about us using a phony cover story on the Dark Web to try and draw out the shooter,” Roman said, eyes holding steady on Harper’s. “She’s suggesting a real man.” It might work with a few extra twists. But he’d have to handle this alone if they were to make such a move.
Harper’s brown eyes thinned as she let go of a deep breath and pinned Roman with her gaze. “To catch a demon, you go to the devil for help.”