“Same reason you kept the truth about Tac-Ops from me,” he shot back. “I was protecting you.”
“That was different.”
“Bullshit.” Coulter sat up straight. “You let me and Pops think you sold high-risk travel insurance to the rich and stupid, when really you’d been purposely putting your life in danger on the regular.”
“Yeah, to save innocent lives.”
“And what the hell do you think I’ve been doing?” His voice rose to an echoing tone.
Yelling back, his brother countered with, “Clearly, I don’t knowwhatyou’ve been doing other than lying through your damn teeth!”
The room grew silent, save for their slightly heaving breaths. Both men took a minute to calm down and reset.
“Look, I know it’s a lot to take in, but?—”
“Gee, you think?”
“—if you’ll take a beat and look at this from an operator’s viewpoint, you’ll see I’m right.”
Garrett’s lips parted, the infuriated man no doubt ready to shoot back with another sharp retort. But in a surprising turn of events, he clamped his mouth shut and stared back with more hurt than anger.
“You could have trusted me to keep your secret.”
“Pretty sure I said something similar when I found out about yours.”
“Why tell me now?”
“A couple reasons.” He’d get to the news about Alex in a second. But first, “I’m getting out. There’s an op already in the works, but after that, I’m done.”
“Why?”
“It’s not one thing, really.” Coulter gave one of his shoulders a half-shrug. “Mostly because it’s time.”
Garrett’s assessing gaze watched him closely. “How long have you been in?”
“Since college.”
His brother sat back with a sigh. “Damn. That’s a long time.”
“You callin’ me old?” He risked a small smirk.
Relief flooded him when the other man huffed out a breathy chuckle with a shake of his head.
“You gonna tell Pops?”
“Yeah.” Coulter nodded and then, “There’s more.”
His brother’s brows arched high. “More?”
“Owens and Shadow know, too. They have since you were put on the team.”
“Hold up.” Garrett’s anger returned. “They’veknown about you this whole time, but I couldn’t? What the actual f?—”
“Dude, chill.” He raised a palm between them. “Owens only knows because my unit worked a joint op with him when he was still MI-6. It was right before he left them to start up Tac-Ops.”
“And Shadow?”
“She assisted on that same op. All off book, of course.”
