“Fuck,” I swore, sitting down. I felt like I was going to have a fucking heart attack from information overload. I had wondered about that shit for the past three years, but now that he was about to tell me, I just wasn’t sure that I could handle it.
“They were caught fucking,” he said after a minute. “Someone in your unit caught them fucking and he was going to tell. But it turns out that Barrow had something on your unit that could destroy everyone.”
My head snapped up. What the fuck was he talking about? If there was something going on in my unit, I would have known about it. But I had a sinking feeling that there was a lot that I didn’t know about.
He laughed humorlessly. “Think back. Your MIT team was on a mission a few years back, a mission that made Barrow’s career.”
“The terrorist that he took out,” I confirmed.
“He also happened to save a woman from being raped that day. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah, I was working intelligence on that mission. After the team caught the terrorist, I was sent to another forward operating base to talk with my intelligence officer.”
“And meanwhile, Barrow was looking after the woman, talking with her family and trying to calm them all down. The rest of the MIT team was handling the terrorist. They were tasked with preparing him for transfer, but he never made it. He was beaten to death by your unit-”
“Wait, what are you talking about? The terrorist was killed because he got ahold of a weapon and started a firefight.”
“That’s what they wanted everyone to think,” Knight said. “They took turns beating the shit out of him. Can’t say that I really blame them. That piece of shit was going to rape a woman and he was planning to blow up a school. Your team made a decision in the heat of the moment, and then they covered it up.”
“The whole team? You’re telling me the whole fucking MIT team made the decision to cover up murder and Barrow went along with it?”
“Information is power, and he used it against your team when he was caught fucking Kiera.”
My head was reeling. This was all too much. The conspiracy of the whole thing was too fucking unbelievable. I couldn’t believe that my unit would hang me out to dry like that.
“So, you’re telling me that my MIT team beat and killed a terrorist, and then covered it up along with Colonel Barrow.”
“He was Lieutenant Colonel at the time. He got a really nice promotion because of his heroic acts that day. His team killed a terrorist that started a firefight and he saved a woman from being publicly raped. He got his pin and promised all sorts of accolades to everyone on that MIT team.”
“Not me. I knew nothing about it.”
“Which is why it was so easy to use against everyone else so he could throw you under the bus.”
“But Kiera…why would she go along with that?”
“He threatened her. Do you understand what the fuck was happening? She was fucking her superior officer, a man that she thought she could trust, and the moment they got caught, he turned on her to save his own skin. Then he went to the MIT team and fed them that bullshit about how he helped them cover up what they had done, and they needed to stick together. It was fucking blackmail, and they all knew it, but unfortunately for you, saving their own skin was more important than saving your ass. And to top it off, Kiera was one of those people on your MIT team. She participated along with everyone else, and he fucking used that to silence her. You were a scapegoat and you didn’t even have a fucking clue.”
My first instincts were to sit down and process all the shit that I had just been told. I just couldn’t believe it. It was like something out of a bad movie. Shit like this didn’t really happen. But then the anger set in and the rage that was building needed a release. I had been through the shock of it all for the past three years. Now I wanted revenge.
“Where is she?” I said in a voice that was way too fucking calm even to my ears.
“She’s safe, but she’s hidden.”
“I need to see her.”
“No.”
I rushed him, shoving him up against the wall and holding my arm against his throat.
The fucker just smirked at me. “Do you really think you can get me to say shit to you?”
My chest was heaving and my eye was twitching in anger, but my mind was solid and I knew that there was no way I was getting anything from him. I stepped back, releasing him with a jerk.
“You can’t go see her. If you do, you’ll end up killing her. She stays where she is until we’re ready to move forward with getting your name cleared.”
“And when the fuck will that be?” I snapped.
“That’s what I’m working on. I have a feeling that whatever is going on with this senator, it’s big.” He walked around the table and grabbed a file, sliding it across the table to me. “That’s information that I got from Senator Blakely’s safe the night I killed him. You would be right in your assessment of me. The senator was part of the group of people that was profiting from soldier’s deaths. I left him alone once I got my life back. I made a promise to Kate and I fully intended on keeping it, but when Reid showed up on our doorstep and I heard what the senator did to him, I couldn’t let it go. Yes, I fucking killed him and then I set it up to look like someone was after him for information. I pulled that out of his safe, and the information in there is all highly sensitive. The senator didn’t waste his time with trivial shit. Anything
