Page 59 of Resurgent
“My sister?” What the hell does McKenzie have to do with this?
“Tell him, Payne,” goads Gray. “Tell him how you followed her to Las Vegas and seduced her, then made sure she had no other option but you to take her sailing in the Phillipines. Tell him how you lied to her. Tell him how you fucked her…how you’re still fucking her, and all the while, you’re double-crossing her brother.”
Blood roars in my head at the thought of the cartel’s hands on my sister. That fucking son of a bitch! Charlotte’s words echo in my head.She ended up meeting someone in the Philippines and stayed to go diving in Malaysia.Fuck shooting him. I’m going to kill him with my own two hands and rip every goddamn limb off, starting with the dick he’s been sticking in my sister. There’s not a death too painful for this asshole. And I’m going to make sure it’s slow and painful. I chamber a round.
“That’s right,” Gray goads. “Pull the damn trigger. Now!”
“Liam. Don’t. Trust me.” Walker’s voice is low. “Noah’s with us. Gray’s not.”
Trust me.Charlotte’s soft, lilting voice echoes in my head.You like to be in control of things just as much as I do. Except instead of making lists, you’ve just made yourself an untouchable badass who can do anything—handle anything—without any help from anyone.
I’m torn. Every fiber of my being screams at me to follow my instincts, to protect Walker, who’s standing an inch from the rogue SEAL. But Charlotte’s right. I can’t fight the world alone. I’ve got to trust the people who love me. And there’s no one I trust as much as Walker.
I turn to Gray to tell him to give Walker a chance to explain. His gun is still pointed at Noah, his eyes hard and cold, and a ghost of a memory flits across my mind. A small jolt of recognition, there and then gone, like a tendril of smoke from a campfire carried off on the wind. I shake my head, trying to focus.
“If you’re not going to do it, I will.” Gray releases the safety, and with theclick, that infinitesimally small sound of metal sliding into place, a memory flashes through my head.
A run-down hut. An empty room. A scrap of red fabric fluttering over the lone window, the only bright spot in the room. A thin, scholarly looking man with kind but fearful eyes behind gold wire-rimmed glasses. Urgency. My voice, shouting. “We’re Navy SEALs. Go, go! Now!” Movement in my peripheral vision. Martin Gray, my commander. Eyes cold, his gun pointed right at me. Confusion. Comprehension. Shock. The crack of gunfire.
Slowly, I turn my gun on Martin Gray. “You were the one who tried to kill me. In that back room in Pakistan, when it was just you and me and the aid worker. You shot me in the chest. Point blank. You left me there to bleed out, along with the doctor. We’d gone in to rescue him; in fact, you overrode my command to wait to go into Pakistan. Yet you left him bound in that room to die with me.”
“I did,” Gray says agreeably. “And threw an explosive in the room for good measure. You and the doctor were supposed to die.” He shrugs. “It was a war zone. No one would have known it wasn’t an accident.”
“Why? In another week or two, I would have taken out the head of largest Mexican drug cartel, and you would have had everything you wanted.”
“Not really. I never intended for you to actually give the guns to La Frontera; I’d promised them to Francisco Dominguez. The CIA has a long history of providing benefits, permission, and immunity to certain criminal organizations in exchange for receiving valuable information,and the CIA has that agreement with Nuevo Leon. I just needed you to get them out of Iraq. You were perfect for the job—an orphan without any family, in debt, and a decorated soldier above reproach who’s just naïve and patriotic enough to agree to my scheme for the greater good of America.” His mocking tone has my fist clenching. “The plan all along was to make sure you died after you smuggled the guns out. No one would have known. No onedidknow, until you showed back up alive.” He frowns. “Well, there was the doctor, who somehow got out of there, but I was able to convince his wife and kids he had PTSD and wasn’t remembering things correctly before I made sure he had an unfortunate freak car accident.
“After your death in the line of duty, I went to retrieve the guns from the storage facility in Malaysia that we’d prearranged as the drop off. But when I went back, the guns were gone. You moved them without telling me. And I’ve spent the last three goddamn months trying to find them through your bucket list. I even kidnapped your sister, figuring she knew where they were, but he”—he nods toward Walker—“somehow found her.”
He grins malevolently. “But fate has a funny way of favoring the wicked, doesn’t it? You showed up, and you didn’t remember a goddamn thing. But you finally remembered where you put the guns, and you’ve led me back to them, so it’s all good.” He glances at his watch. “Dominguez will be here any minute. I’ll be able to deliver the guns to him as promised, collect the money, and be long gone before El Gato shows up. And you…well, you and your friends will die along with El Gato when the drone crashes into the warehouse. Well, unless he kills you first for cheating him out of his guns. Again. Either way”—he shrugs—“dead men don’t tell tales.”
Walker and I exchange a look of amusement. Turning back to Gray, I say, “And what makes you think two Navy SEALs—”
“Three,” Walker corrects. He tilts his head in Noah’s direction.
I glower. “That remains to be seen.” Turning back to Gray, I continue, “What makes you think we’re just going to let you walk away with the guns?”
“Insurance,” Gray says.
The small whimper from the doorway is achingly familiar, and with a sinking heart, I realize that I unknowingly sent Charlotte straight into the slaughterhouse. Gray never intended to put Charlotte on that plane. He’d no doubt set it up for his own return flight back to the States long before I called. I just handed him the perfect bargaining tool. Both Walker and Noah are pointing their weapons at Gray. I gauge the shot. I can take him out. Keep her safe. My finger squeezes the trigger…
“If you shoot me, the girl dies. Painfully.” Gray gives me a calculating smile.
Charlottes whimpers again, and now I see she’s not alone. A tall, wiry Hispanic man who looks vaguely familiar has one muscular arm banded around her, holding her back to his front, with the sharp edge of a knife pressed to her throat. Noah growls, a look of pure hatred blazing in his eyes as he lunges toward the Hispanic man, and I realize who he is. Francisco Dominguez, the head of the most powerful drug cartel, and the man who killed Noah Payne’s wife and daughter.
I remember the rumors. Payne was part of a SEAL team assigned to curtail the flow of drugs from Mexico to the U.S. by overthrowing the predominant drug cartel. When Dominguez found out he was the Navy SEAL sharpshooter tasked with taking him out, he kidnapped his family and ultimately killed them. It had almost killed Noah, too. Word was his grief had turned into an insatiable quest for revenge, a dangerous one for a SEAL, and he’d quit the military and joined forces with La Frontera, the only cartel strong enough to challenge Nuevo Leon and its leader. While I appreciate Noah’s desire to kill the motherfucker, I can’t take the chance on Charlotte’s life.
Walker stops Noah with a hand on his chest. Small beads of red form a thin necklace on Charlotte’s throat.
“What do you want?” I say tightly.
“I’ve already told you,” Gray says. “I sell the guns to Dominguez and walk with the money. You three stay here. No one knows you’re alive; your family has already mourned you. His”—he nods at Noah—“is dead. And he’s just a foster kid who never had a family to start with.” He waves his gun in Walker’s direction.
I try to rein in my anger, to focus on the motto that’s seen me through every situation, but it’s not working this time. “Fine. But the girl lives.”
“Liam! No!”
I can’t look at her. I’ll save that for when the deal is done and she’s walking out of my life for the last time. Safe. “You aren’t the only one with an insurance policy. I made a recording of our conversation—you know, the one where you hired me to illegally smuggle guns out of Iraq and sell them to the Mexican drug cartel that killed fifteen innocent American tourists last month alone. So here’s the deal. Charlotte gets home safely to Charleston and never hears from you or anyone with the cartel again and that tape stays hidden. One hair on her head gets harmed—ever!— and that tape will be all over the news. You got it? Same goes for my sister.” It’s a crapshoot, trusting the guy who tried to kill me to get Charlotte out of here alive, but it’s all I’ve got to keep her safe. I’m pretty sure he’ll be worried enough that I’m telling the truth to keep his end of the bargain.
