She straightened her shoulders. “I think it’s safe to say that this location has been compromised.”
But Logan wasn’t saying that. Logan was staring at both Gunner and Slade, and she knew suspicion when she saw it.
Neither man was armed.
And Logan shouldn’t be suspicious of them.
Should he?
Where were they?
Her arm throbbed.
“We’re moving our departure up to now,” Logan snapped. “I’m calling in some favors and getting us the hell out of here.”
Gunner was glaring at her arm. Slade was breathing too hard, and a knot was forming in her stomach.
Because she wasn’t sure...why would a lone enemy follow them? Why just take shots at her and leave?
The attack almost felt...personal.
As her blood dripped onto the floor, Sydney realized that the danger from this mission was far, far from over.
* * *
FOUR WEEKS. FOUR weeks had passed since the team had come back to the United States.
Gunner stared down at the street below him. He was in D.C., at an office most wouldn’t ever know existed. He’d been called in, along with the rest of the Shadow Agents, for a briefing with the big boss himself, Bruce Mercer.
Four. Weeks.
Once they’d gotten back onto U.S. soil, Slade had been taken in by other EOD agents. He’d been sent to a hospital, examined, monitored.
And Sydney had been at his side.
His back teeth ground together.
Slade had insisted that Sydney come with him, even as his brother had yelled for Gunner to be investigated.
Locked up.
He’d tried to talk with Slade, over and over, but his brother wouldn’t answer his calls. His brother wouldn’t talk to him at all.
When he’d been six, he’d discovered that he had a little brother. A boy only two years younger than he’d been.
His father had never believed in commitment of any kind. Gunner’s parents hadn’t been married, and when his mother had contracted a deadly strain of pneumonia when he was a toddler, his father hadn’t been willing to keep his son.
So his father had gone to the doorstep of Gunner’s shinali, his Navajo grandfather, and he’d just...left Slade there. Gunner had been two years old.
For a long time, he’d thought that his father would come back.
Then he had come back.
But only long enough to drop off his second son.
“His mother died in childbirth. You know I can’t handle kids. Let him stay here, with Gunner. They’re family.”
Those words still whispered through Gunner’s mind, as if they’d been said just yesterday, instead of over twenty-seven years ago.
His grandfather had been an honorable man. He’d taken in the second child, and, blood or no blood, he’d loved Slade.
They’d become a family. Gunner’s father had signed away custody of both his boys. Then he’d just...vanished.
Gunner had always been glad to have a brother. I wasn’t alone then.
But as they grew older, his relationship with Slade had changed. Slade had pulled away from their grandfather. He’d seemed to resent the small house, the sparse lifestyle that they led.
He’d seemed to resent Gunner.
And he hates me now.
The door opened behind Gunner. He looked back, too fast, thinking it might be Sydney because he knew she’d been called into the office, too.
It wasn’t Sydney. Bruce Mercer stared back at him. The light glinted off Mercer’s bald head, and his eyes, a dark brown, studied Gunner.
Not much was known about Mercer, if that was even the guy’s real name. But the man was connected to nearly everyone in Washington, and he knew exactly where all the bodies were buried. Figuratively and literally.
“I’ve been told that I have to investigate you,” Mercer said as he crossed the room.
Gunner stiffened. “If that’s what you have to do.”
“The thing is I don’t like being told what to do.” Mercer lowered himself into the leather chair at the head of the conference table. “I especially don’t like being threatened.”
Who would have been dumb enough to threaten that guy?
“Slade Ortez has said that if you aren’t taken into custody, he’ll go to the media and expose the EOD.”
What. The. Hell? Slade knew that secrecy was the only way that the EOD could get their missions done. If any of the agents currently out on missions lost their covers, the results would be disastrous.
“He still knows names and faces from his time as a freelance agent.” Mercer’s eyes narrowed. “He gave all of that intel to his captors, you know.”
Yeah, he knew.
“Now he’s ready to tell anyone in the media who will listen to his story.” Mercer shook his head. “I can’t let that happen. You understand, right? I’ll take any steps—do anything necessary—to protect my division.”
Even if I get locked up?
Mercer’s fingers drummed over the manila file that he’d brought into the room. “Sometimes we think that we know a person, but it turns out we really don’t.”
“Sir, I don’t understand.” Was Mercer saying he thought Gunner was guilty?
Mercer’s head cocked as he studied Gunner. His fingers kept drumming. “What do you value most in this world?”
Sydney. Her name whispered through his mind, but he didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
Mercer nodded. “And just what would you be willing to do in order to protect what you value?”
Anything. Even let her go. Before he could answer, a knock sounded on the door.
Mercer held his gaze for a moment longer. Then he said, voice cool and calm, “Come in.”
Sydney came in first. Gunner tried to school his expression. He’d stayed away from her, tried to give her the space that she needed. She loved Slade, so that meant he was supposed to step aside, right?
Then why did it feel so damn wrong?
Logan followed her inside the office, with Cale right at his heels.
Gunner’s gaze, almost helplessly, drifted over Sydney. She looked too pale, and she seemed thinner.
His lips compressed.
“Glad you could all join me,” Mercer murmured, “because it seems that we have one very big problem on our hands.” His fingers had stilled over the manila file. “Just what are we going to do about Slade Ortez?”
“Do?” Sydney repeated as she crept toward the table. Since when did she creep any place? “What do you mean by that?” She waited a beat, then added, “Sir,” as if she realized she was coming across too hard.