She quietly nodded. “Mitch’s specialty is not only flying, it’s also blackmailing people. I was relieved when I heard he died. So trust me when I say I wasn’t happy when I learned from Chandler he was back in the land of the living.”
Trust you?Sure, I’d sooner trust eating gas station sushi or a cat with a laser pointer locating my target than I would her.
“I’m more than eager to help return him to the graveyard.”
“Why?” Reed with that question this time, as he stood next to me, hand still resting on his rifle.
She lifted one blonde brow. “Why do you think?”
“He was blackmailing you?” I huffed out a hollow laugh.Why am I surprised?
“The man collected dirt on people and kept it stored for a rainy day whenever he found use for it.”
“What do you know about him? What’s his connection to Will Hobbs?” I asked, folding my arms, waiting for her to confirm if Audrey’s theory was right.
“You know about Stratos, don’t you?” Her tone dropped low, almost soft and hesitant. Out of character for her. “It was shut down in January of 2013. Will Hobbs was part of it. And yes,” she said with a nod, “I know about the new SEAL Teams formed afterward thanks to a late-night pillow talk with Will.”
She was outright letting me know she’d cheated with Will like I’d once suspected back in the day, and I had zero fucks to give about her faithfulness or lack thereof. All I cared about was taking down Mitch and Stratos so Audrey would be safe and could get back to her life. And here I was, doing the thing I promised I never would even if the fate of the world relied on it.
“Did Mitch force you to introduce Will to Trevor Sloane at the military ball in 2017?” I cut to it.
“No, I didn’t know Mitch at the time, but Will did. And Mitch presented evidence of our affair to Will, along with some other dirty laundry of his that Will didn’t want aired.” She angled her head. “It was just sex. I loved you, you know. I’m sure you don’t believe that, given everything.”
“You shot me. So no, I don’t believe you.” I looked up at the ceiling, my muscles tensing, angry at myself for letting her get under my skin. “Just keep talking.”
“Fine.” She waited for my eyes before continuing. “I knew Trevor Sloane, so Will asked me if he could be my guest at the event and make the introduction.”
“Because Mitch wanted Will to send Trevor on a mission that’d get him killed,” Reed said before I could.
“Mitch didn’t say why he needed Will to do that, but given the fact he married Trevor’s then-wife a few years later had me putting two and two together. Guy was obsessed and pulled a David and Bathsheba.”
“A David and what?” I blinked. Did she just refer to the story in the Bible about the king who sent a woman’s husband into battle to die so he could marry her himself?
Beth ignored my question and carried on, “I didn’t have to deal with Mitch for years after that, and I assumed it was because of what happened to Will ... but then he called in a blackmail-favor, and I had to—”
“That’s why you were on that op with him?” I asked.
“Mitch was piloting a flight for a private security company that was running an op on behalf of the government two years ago, and he needed someone to cover up the fact there’d be a secondary mission taking place the military didn’t know about,” she explained, and I couldn’t believe she was playing ball so easily.
Then again, the one thing this woman hated more than anything was being betrayed.
“The son of a bitch blackmailed me into doing it by saying he’d tie me to that botched mission Will secretly sent Trevor Sloane and that other team guy on in 2018. I had no choice but to help.”
“And this security company,” I began, hoping we were finally getting somewhere, “are they a front for Stratos?”
“Stratos is operational again?” She looked genuinely surprised, and while she was a good actress—maybe even better than Nicole Kidman—something told me her shock wasn’t fake.
I swapped a quick look with Reed before focusing back on the screen. “The name of the company?”
“I’m assuming you already knew I was on that mission, which means you know the name.”
“How’d Mitch know Will?” I pressed forward. “You were dragged into Mitch’s games because of Will, so how’d they know each other? The navy?”
“Stratos. Will and Mitch were both part of the unit. They were the only two operators who didn’t have their deaths faked after it was shut down, so they didn’t have to go off-grid after. That was the government’s mistake: letting a man like Mitch walk away with all that knowledge, not expecting it to come back and haunt them one day.” She was quiet before changing directions. “The government gave you my things after they locked me up, yes?”
I nodded.
“You destroy it all?”
