“I’m sorry.” Raw, emotional pain, that I could detect from the man even through the screen, simmered beneath the surface. “Will offered me a position as part of a select unit of SEALs that he said would answer directly to POTUS. But first, I had to complete a trial run. A test op. Me and a few others.”
“That’s not—no.” Chandler straightened. “I didn’t know about this. Not because the previous secretary kept it from me, but because it’s not true.” He rubbed his neck as if expecting to find a tie, though he’d tossed it earlier when talking to us.
“What happened next?” Ryder asked, glancing at Audrey, who was clutching the base of her throat like she couldn’t breathe.
“Hobbs said he’d need to send me on an off-the-books assignment before I could officially meet everyone and join.” He gestured toward Audrey. “But she was pregnant, and I wasn’t about to spin up and miss our son’s birth. So he agreed to wait until I was ready and another mission presented itself.”
What the hell went wrong?
Trevor cleared his throat, then coughed into a closed fist. “When it was time, two of us deployed to Afghanistan as planned with our team; then we were pulled out for a secondary classified op. It was total mission failure. We were both captured. Taliban-held village, undergroundcell. My friend was killed in front of me.” He looked up at the ceiling, stretching his neck. Trying to keep it together.
Holy shit.I wasn’t one to get chills, but I sure as hell was getting them now.
“Six weeks later, we found you,” Chandler said, breaking the silence. “Bravo and Echo pulled you out, the same teams Hobbs lied to you about joining.” He curled his hands inward, resting his fists on the table, hanging his head. “The mission details had been corrupted in the system. The former secretary of defense said he couldn’t trace who sent you two on that op or why. And you wouldn’t talk to them after. They blamed the trauma and closed the case.”
“Pulled me from operating for a while, too,” Trevor added in a terse tone. “I was under strict orders by Hobbs not to open my mouth if we were ever caught. Not even to my own unit.”
Chandler slowly lifted his head. “I can assure you, Hobbs lied. We don’t put our men through test runs like that, and there weren’t any slots open on the teams. That was before Charlie Team was formed.”
Trevor rubbed his chest, and I had a feeling his heart was about to break free. To learn what happened to him had been a lie, and that he’d been played by someone he trusted ... Well, shit, I could relate, I supposed, because of Beth. But what he went through was much worse than what I’d survived.
“My decision to say yes to Hobbs cost me everything. My best friend. My marriage. My sanity. Everything,” Trevor said bitterly. “And you’re telling me it was all bullshit?” His hands tensed at his sides as he walked back from the screen.
Something told me the trap of PTSD was about to try to suck him back into its ugly vortex, which sometimes felt impossible to escape.
“I assume that’s the real reason you turned down my offer to lead Charlie,” Chandler remarked after letting Trevor process the news for a minute.
Trevor dragged both hands along the sides of his head. “I couldn’t destroy what I’d worked so hard to rebuild.” His focus cut to Audrey, an apology in his eyes I knew she didn’t want or need.
The woman only cared about others, and her heart had to be breaking for her son’s father right about now.
She reached out for him the way she had Chase a few minutes ago.
And I felt like an intruder to what should’ve been a private moment, but we all had no choice but to stay. His story was now tied to our mission.
“I have no idea why Will lied to you, but he had to have had his own motives. We discovered he was a traitor in 2018. Found out he’d committed war crimes,” Chandler went on, dropping more bad news on him. How much could one guy take?
“That explains why I could never reach him.” Trevor’s arms fell to his sides, jaw remaining locked tight.
“It was intentional, wasn’t it?” Audrey covered her mouth. “This Will Hobbs guy meant for something to go wrong on that mission, didn’t he?” She surveyed the room as if we had the answers. “But why? What’d he gain by sending Trevor into a trap?”
“We don’t know yet,” Reed said, stepping forward. “But Beth might.”
Beth. Fuck that woman and my life right now.
But in comparison to what Trevor and Audrey were going through, I could man up and talk to my ex, dammit. What choice did I have?
“We can’t forget Mitch was at that military ball, too,” Ryder remarked. “You didn’t see him near Beth or Hobbs that night, did you?” he asked Trevor.
“No, I only remember Mitch because he couldn’t take his eyes off my pregnant wife. He had the balls to ask her to dance.”
Audrey spoke up. “I said no, of course.”
“But something told me he had a thing for her, so when he reappeared after our divorce, I wasn’t surprised.” Trevor kept his eyes on Audrey, a world of hurt there. Anger. And probably a dozen otheremotions. “I hated him from the start. Now I know I had every reason not to trust him.”
“And I should’ve listened to you,” she said, stepping even closer to the screen. “I’m so sorry. Your gut is never wrong.”
“Who wants to listen to their ex about who to date?” Trevor grumbled. “I get it.”
