Chapter 16 Sabine
SABINE
Istep over the threshold into Everette's duplex and the smell of pumpkin spice hits me first, followed immediately by the low hum of a football game on the television somewhere deeper in the house.
The warmth wraps around me after the biting cold outside but does nothing to loosen the knot twisted tight in my stomach.
Ham-dog looks almost exactly the same as he did two years ago.
Only, now the smile wavers at the edges, and his eyes keep flicking between me and Jace standing silently behind me.
Defense must've issued a memo to everyone whose information I accessed warning them, and I don't like the vibe he's giving off.
He closes the door behind us and gestures toward the living room with one hand while the other rubs the back of his neck nervously.
He always did that when he was anxious or felt cornered, and a nervous man is an unpredictable man.
But that's why I have Jace with me. I lower myself to the worn lower sofa where a half-finished beer sweats on the coffee table next to a bowl of orange-frosted cinnamon rolls still in their plastic grocery sleeve.
Looks like Thanksgiving breakfast for a single soldier who drew the short straw on leave.
“Sit if you want,” he says to Jace, but neither of them moves to join me. Then Ham-dog says, “You said this is about Afghanistan. Start there.”
Jace moves to the corner of the room, back against the wall, arms folded, watching everything without a word. Everette's eyes track him but then focus on me again. He's loosening up.
“Whitlock in a car wreck,” I begin, forcing the words out steady. “McAllister fell down stairs. Navarro hit-and-run. Tate electrocuted in his bathtub. Frank overdosed. Dempsey beaten to death in his own kitchen… All made to look like accidents, Ham. But none of them were."
Hamilton’s face goes through stages—disbelief first, then recognition as the names sink in, then something darker. He sinks onto the arm of the couch and stares at the carpet.
“I saw a couple of those headlines,” he mutters.
“I just thought it was a cluster of bad luck.
" I know how he feels. I went through those same emotions when I first learned of it.
The first few felt gut wrenching, like losing an old friend—because some of those guys really were my friends.
Then the rest started happening, and there was no way to unsee that pattern.
“It’s Bryan,” I say. “He’s cleaning house. Every single person who was on that op two years ago is either dead or marked.”
He lifts his head sharply. “You’re telling me the captain is putting contracts out on his own soldiers?”
“I’m saying he already has. The man who was sent to kill me is standing in your living room right now.” I tilt my head toward Jace without taking my eyes off Hamilton.
Hamilton’s gaze snaps to Jace again, lingering this time. I see my former colleague switch into alert mode, assessing Jace as a threat now, not just my companion. When he looks back at me, the nervousness has turned into something closer to fear.
“What's going on, Hart?”
“Ham…" I say hesitantly. I can see he's ready to snap and I speak to him like he's a kindergartener.
"Bryan was in the wrong, and we both know it.
You watched him kill those women, all because he didn't want anyone to see his failure.
He wasn't even supposed to be on that mission.
It was supposed to be Staff Sergeant Rodriguez. "
My neck hurts—that ultra-tight stress pain that promises a massive headache to come.
And watching Everette wrestle with this only makes things worse.
In my mind, he should be immediately wanting to help, but I know how a man's ego and pride play into the choices he makes.
It's why all of them went along with Bryan back then. None of them wanted to be the nark.
“I didn’t want blow-back, you know,” he mumbles. “I sure as hell don’t want it now. I’ve got four years left to retirement and a clean record. I kept my mouth shut when we got home because nobody was listening anyway.”
“Nobody’s asking you to rewrite history,” I tell him. “I’m asking you to stop the next six funerals. Mine included. Yours included.”
He stands abruptly and paces to the window, pushing the curtain aside to stare out at the snow and put more distance between himself and Jace whose body goes rigid instantly. I wave Jace off and watch Hamilton toil internally. His reflection stares back—tight mouth, clenched fists.
“If I come forward, they’ll bury me,” he says to the glass. “Dishonorable discharge, Hart. Prison even… I can't do that. My family would get nothing.”
Now I'm standing, moving toward him because I can't just sit. How can he dare talk about not coming forward? How is his life more precious than the souls Bryan murdered? They deserve justice.
“If you don’t come forward, you get a closed-casket ceremony nobody talks about.
” I step close enough to see the pulse jumping in his neck.
“You can't escape it, Ham. Your name is on his list, and even if my friend here doesn't do it, someone else will.
He wants you silent. That's why you have to talk. "
Hamilton turns slowly to face me but his eyes are glassy with a glaze of alcohol and emotion. His hands are turned to fists, though I don't fear him with Jace standing right there. But I see the beginning of Ham's heart turning. I can't let up now.
“He didn’t stop at threats, Ham,” I tell him coldly. If I allow myself to feel right now, I'll break down, and the last thing I want is to cry in front of him.
“After you and the others left the tent that night, he zip-tied my wrists, dragged me to the supply shed, and raped me on a stack of sandbags while he recorded it on his phone. He told me if I ever spoke up again, the video would go to my chain of command with a story that I’d traded sex for a favorable fitness report.
That’s how he buried my statement and that’s how he kept all of you quiet. ”
Hamilton’s face goes slack, mouth opening on a sound that never comes.
His hands drop to his sides like the bones have been pulled out.
The way he looks at me is pity—which is disgusting.
I can't stand the idea that anyone would pity me. I’m a strong woman.
I don’t need pity. I fucking need justice.
My eyes turn away from him because I won't look him in the eye and say I understand. I was forced to be silent. And the ones who knew remained that way too. I didn't have a choice, but now I do, and I'm not backing down this time.
Jace returns to leaning on the wall while the room stays locked in that truth.
Hamilton stares at the floor, gritting his teeth and flexing his jaw before he locks it down.
He stands frozen in the middle of his own house with the television commercial talking about gravy recipes.
His face drains of every drop of color until the skin looks translucent over the bones, and his eyes lock on mine like he is seeing me for the first time since we stepped inside.
He opens his mouth once, closes it, then tries again. “I didn’t know,” he rasps, the sound scraping out raw. “Hart… I swear on my life I didn’t know he took it that far.”
I can only nod because speaking again right now would splinter something inside me that I've spent two years welding back together. But the nod is enough and Hamilton's shoulders cave inward as he drags both hands over his head like he's overwhelmed.
“I thought the threat was the end of it,” he says, voice cracking on every syllable. “I thought he scared you into signing the recant and that was that. We all walked out of the tent and I…”
His gaze drops to the carpet and stays there, fixed on a spot between his boots. "I'm sorry."
“Now you know the full price of keeping your head down,” I tell Hamilton. “Six graves and counting. And your turn's coming if we don’t stop him, Ham."
Hamilton lifts his head, and the guilt written across his face is so complete, I don't have to ask how he's feeling. His throat works once, twice, before the words come.
“I have a notebook,” he says. “I wrote everything down the night it happened. Dates, times, exact quotes. I wrote it because I knew one day, I’d hate myself for doing nothing.” He swallows hard.
The television cuts to a commercial for Black Friday sales and the sudden jingle sounds obscene in the room. Hamilton doesn’t flinch. He keeps his eyes on me.
“I didn’t know about the shed,” he says again, quieter. “If I’d known he touched you like that, I would’ve killed him myself. I swear it.”
Something passes between us in the way he looks at me.
He doesn't touch me, but I can see affection in his eyes.
When you work and live together with someone, you build a bond, and while I never knew how deep that bond could reach, I feel it now.
Everette is like a brother to me. He always has been.
And I'm seeing that same concern and compassion returned to me.
“Then help me stop him,” I answer. “Legally. We go to Defense and present all of our evidence and stop him from hurting anyone else."
Hamilton’s hands clench at his sides, knuckles blanching.
“My career ends the second I open my mouth,” he says.
“Your family buries you if you don’t,” I say softly. "Ham, we have to do this…"
He flinches at my words. I can see how scared he is, the way his shoulders are drawn up and his face is scrunched. Court-martial is a terrifying thing, but I'm facing it too, and I'm still pursuing this. Bryan has to be stopped.
“I’m not asking you to be a hero, Ham. I’m asking you to stop being a coward. You owe me that much.”
The room grows deathly silent. No one moves a muscle, and even the television seems to understand how somber this moment is.
I don't want to walk out that door leaving Jace in here to clean up this loose end, but I will if I have to.
And it will destroy me the way the last one did, but no price is too high at this point.
Hamilton is on Jace's list. He's being given a way out of that certain death.
“Get whatever you need to record,” he says. “I’ll give you everything.”
Relief floods me so hard, my vision tunnels for a second. I pull Jace's phone from my pocket with fingers that barely cooperate and open the voice memo app. Hamilton watches me set it on the coffee table, and we both settle into the furniture stiffly.
He drags in a long breath, squares his shoulders the way he did before every mission brief, and starts talking.
Every word that pours from his lips pulls strings of emotion from my chest, threatening to overwhelm my better judgment, but my training holds.
I sit with my shoulders squared, listening to him recount every painful detail.
When he gets to the part about the night Bryan raped me, he offers only plain facts devoid of emotion, but I see the way his hands shake and the tension on his forehead. And when he's finished, he covers his face with his hands, planting his elbows on his knees, and his shoulders sag.
"You did good, Ham-dog," I tell him, knowing this is just the beginning. "But we still have work to do."
“I’ll testify,” he says. “Wherever, whenever. Just tell me where to be.”
I stop the recording and slip the phone back into my pocket. It's a relief to know we've got someone else on board, and an even bigger relief to know my good friend doesn't have to end up dead like the others.
In a true break from protocol, I stand and lean down to hug him. Everette stands with me, wrapping me in a hug so tight it hurts to breathe. "Thank you," I whisper.
"I really am sorry," he says back, low enough that Jace can't hear at all. "I really would have killed him, Sabine. I always liked you." I get the sense that Everette is insinuating something more than just friendship, and though it makes me smile, I find myself completely unaffected.
Flattered, maybe, but not moved by it.
My heart belongs to someone else now, and that someone would have to prove himself a colossal waste of time for me to give up on him now.
“You can’t stay here,” Jace says from the corner, speaking for the first time since we entered the house.
His voice is gruff and defensive, like he's feeling jealous that I'm hugging Everette, but I don't mind that tinge of possessiveness. “If Bryan will send someone once, he’ll send someone again. Pack a bag. We’re putting you in a hotel for safekeeping until we can get this evidence in the right hands. "
Hamilton nods without argument.
I exhale the breath I have held for two years.
I'm no longer alone.