Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
“What did he say, exactly?” Kennedy was pushing, and it was annoying as fuck. Like probing an open wound with a sharp stick.
I stalked past him to put Indigo’s bra and panties back on the neatly folded pile of her clothes on top of the dryer, which was in the laundry room just off the kitchen. The pile I’d said I’d take to her. Yesterday. It was the task I’d been avoiding.
Kennedy—the asshole—put the lid back on the slow cooker and followed me. “What did he say?”
I frowned and ran a hand over my beard. “He told me to look out for Indi,” I repeated. For fuck’s sake, I didn’t need to relive the moment with Kennedy, I saw it almost every night in my nightmares.
Kennedy showed his own flash of irritation. “I asked what he said, exactly.”
My gut twisted as I remembered dragging Buck back from the explosion zone. Holding him in my arms as I shouted for help.
I could still feel the heat from the blast. The scents. The screams.
I knelt on the dirty street, carnage all around. Buck was propped on my thighs, destroyed. One leg was gone below the knee. He had a sucking chest wound and blood slid from the corner of his mouth. He was dying, and there was nothing I could do.
His jeep was upside-down behind him, one of the tires on fire, and smoke rose from the engine.
Still, I shouted. “We need help over here!”
It did nothing. Buck was the linguist who knew Arabic. Not me.
I was lost. Helpless. I didn’t have my team with me. No comms to get a medic or an evac.
Buck was looking up at me. Staring with those dark eyes. There was no pain in his gaze. He knew he was dying.
Fuck. FUCK! “Stay with me.”
He shook his head, but the motion was so small. “Indi…safe….watch out.”
“What?” I’d demanded. He wasn’t making sense.
“Watch out for Indi,” he said, his breath shallow and raspy.
I shifted him, tried to press on his chest wound. I’d used my shoelace for a tourniquet above his knee, but it wasn’t strong enough. His blood spread across the ground.
“You’ll take care of her yourself,” I countered. “You got this, Buck.”
Five minutes ago, he was whole and fine. I was mentally hating him for making me follow him from base. To figure out what the fuck was up with him lately. Why he was on edge. Distant. Going off solo. Something had been up with him, and it was my job as his best friend and his team leader to help him.
I’d been behind on his shit. And I’d been behind following him. That was why he was ripped up, and I was fine. How I’d missed the blast without a scratch, and he was—
“Indi.” His hand flapped up, and he tapped his chest. “They can’t know.” He coughed and blood dribbled from his lips.
I winced, then held him closer, as if I could put him back together. “She won’t know about this,” I vowed. “Your parents too. I got you.”
But I didn’t.
I whipped my head around, trying to figure out what to do. We were almost a mile from base in the middle of the civilian area. This was a local street bazaar now blown to bits. Buck wasn’t the only person dying.
I’d been trained to lead, to make split-second decisions. To keep my men alive. I couldn’t do anything now. Totally fucking helpless.
“Stay with me, Buck. Stay. Stay…”
I shook off the memory and cleared my throat, as if trying to rid myself of the smoke that was only now in my memory. “It’s not important.”
Kennedy shrugged but watched me closely. “What if it is? Listen to this—Lincoln called. Someone else is dead from that Ranger team.”
After Kennedy set up security on the property and between jobs for Alpha Mountain, he’d put his expertise to use collecting intel to figure out what the fuck had happened to Buck besides being killed. Two days after his death, word had come down that they’d found evidence he’d murdered an Afghan police officer who was investigating a drug-smuggling operation. One he believed had ties to the U.S. military.
Buck, a murderer. Right.
I’d lost my shit because I knew something was up with my friend since he’d started to take on work with a different division, but shit…drugs? Murder? No chance. I didn’t believe it then, and I was even more certain it was a lie now.
Of course, when I started poking into the matter, I was dismissed on bogus charges.
It had been obvious something was up. Someone in the military higher than me or Buck was covering something up.
The men on my former team were too loyal not to side with me. One by one, when their contracts were up, they started to join me to work in private security as we figured out what exactly had happened.