“I tried to call you back first. But I couldn’t get you, and I was so afraid something had happened. I knew Parker was out—”
I knew I’d do anything for you.
“So I ran to the alley.” A sad shrug of her shoulders. “And I stole evidence.”
“Give me your phone.”
She blinked at him.
Trace didn’t wait for her to comply. He rushed to her discarded bag. He searched fast and yanked out the phone.
He scanned through her received calls list. Saw his name. His number. “I didn’t call you then.”
“Reese—”
“Reese was visiting his girlfriend earlier today. They have a standing lunch date each week.”
She blinked. “I didn’t—”
“He hacked into my account.” Smart SOB. “And he called you.” She could have walked straight into a slaughter. Her own. Trace wouldn’t have been able to do damn thing to save her.
“Who?” Skye was beside him now. “Who did this?”
Tell her everything.
There would be no going back now. “After a while, after we’d served our tours, the team knew we were good at what we did. Very damn good. We started our own rescue service. That’s what Weston Securities was, in the beginning.” And it still was, when the situation demanded it. “I tried to get Reese to join me back then, because he’d served with us, but he wanted to come home. He’d said that he’d had his fill of blood and death.”
Smart bastard. Reese hadn’t joined them, but later Trace had told his friend all about the nightmare that had destroyed the team.
Trace continued, because there was no stopping now. “So when the team started, there were five of us. Noah, Drake, Ben, Tucker, and me.”
Her shoulder brushed against his. “Tucker?”
“Tucker Hawk.” Tucker had always seemed to be the most easy-going of the group. The one who’d laughed the easiest. Loved the easiest. “Tucker had a girl. Anna Jean. She’d just finished a tour with the Air Force, and she wanted to join our team. She could fly like a dream, so I knew she’d be useful.” Back then, he’d always thought in terms of usefulness. “But Anna had other plans. On our last run together, she decided she could get more money by playing both sides. She set us up, telling the enemy our extraction plans. Telling them our weaknesses. Telling them everything.”
“But you made it out. You survived.”
“Ben was hit hard. Drake…Drake was captured. Tortured. I carried Ben out and left him at the chopper with Noah. Then Tucker and I fought like hell to get Drake out.” The gunfire had blasted. A continuous thunder that shook his world.
“We killed every man between us and Drake.” He couldn’t look at her as he revealed this. “Blood soaked me, and I just wanted to get out of there. I wanted to get home again.” His eyes closed. “I wanted you.”
She twined her fingers with him.
“We got to Drake. Pulled him out. We were almost home free, then Anna Jean appeared. She’d slipped up behind Drake, and she was about to shoot him.” There’d been a knife in Drake’s hands. His only weapon.
“Drake spun to attack. He stabbed her, and she fell back.” But they just hadn’t counted on one thing… “You can know some people are evil. You can know that they’ve betrayed you, but if you love them, if you really f**king love them beyond reason, then, sometimes, I don’t think you care about what they’ve done. You only see them. Nothing else.”
That was the way it had been for Tucker.
“He screamed,” Trace recalled. “When Drake’s knife went into her chest, Tucker cried out her name. He blasted two bullets into Drake, and Tucker ran for Anna Jean.” That anguished scream had frozen them all.
Tucker had known than Anna Jean betrayed them.
He hadn’t cared.
She’d been what mattered most to him, and when he lost her… “He broke right before my eyes,” Trace said. Tucker had fought, shot, attacked—and gotten to Anna Jean on that snow covered field.
They’d been in Russia. So far from home. Cold. Frozen. The white snow had been stained red.
Skye watched him with her big, solemn stare. He didn’t want to see himself reflected in that stare. Because the part that was coming…
Man up and tell her everything. “Drake needed medical attention. We had to get out of there, but Tucker wasn’t just going to let him walk away, not after what he’d done to Anna Jean.”
“But he was protecting himself—”
“It didn’t matter. Anna Jean died in Tucker’s arms, and the man he’d been before vanished. He attacked Drake. Tucker shattered Drake’s wrist and took Drake’s knife. Then Tucker went in for the kill.”
Trace had shouted then. Yelled for Tucker to stop. “I could’ve taken a shot at them, but they were so close. Tucker and Drake were fighting, rolling around in the snow. So I ran forward. I grabbed Tucker, and I pulled him off Drake.”
Her gaze seemed to see straight into Trace’s soul. You won’t like the darkness there, baby. “Tucker had his knife. I had my gun. I told him to stand down. To get his control back.”
Even as he’d said the words, Trace had known that wouldn’t happen. If I’d lost Skye, I would’ve reacted the same way. “She was everything to him, and Anna Jean was dead at his feet.” The blood had spread beneath her in that snow, looking like bloody angel wings.
She hadn’t been an angel.
Tucker hadn’t cared.
“He said Drake had to die. Tucker lunged at me. He wouldn’t stop.” Fuck, f**k, f**k.
The memories were so sharp.
Tucker, stand the hell down! We’re your friends!
But Tucker had stared him straight in the eyes. You’re dead men. Every single one of you. You did this—you could’ve brought her in alive. You. Did. This!
“The last time he came at me, I fired.” Close-range, one shot right to the chest. “He grabbed my dog tags, and when he fell back, they were still in his hands.”
“Trace…”
“We didn’t even get to bring his body home. Anna Jean’s reinforcements arrived. Blasting from the east. I could’ve carried Tucker—he was still alive then—or I could’ve gotten Drake out of there. I made the choice.”
Her fingers curled around his. “Would Tucker have been able to survive his wounds?”