“That’s the thing with egos—the big ones don’t take much to flatter.” I can’t help laughing at her astute observation. She’s got his number, alright. “So, we got sent to Afghanistan with a special forces unit. There were rumors the Taliban was running guns from an unknown source and we went in to find that source.”
“And then what were you supposed to do?” She’s stopped eating entirely.
“Kill them,” I say matter-of-factly, daring to look her in the eye.
“And did you?” From her tone, I’m not sure she wants the answer.
“Yes, and that’s where things went wrong.”
She frowns, carefully setting down her wine glass. “How?”
“Remember the guy at the hotel?” I ask.
She nods, licking her lips. It’s what she’s been waiting for, and I can only hope she looks at me the same way after she knows.
“He was also in my unit. He was our fourth. As close a friend as Jack and Luca. His name’s Noah Porter.”
“And you aren’t friends anymore,” she guesses.
“That would be an understatement. Noah’s FBI now.”
There’s a long pause. She knew this was coming. Adair is too smart not to see the truth that’s sitting in front of her. That I’m a bad guy. That my money came stained with blood. She might not know the details, but she gets the big picture. That’s not going to stop her from making me paint it for her, though.
“And why is that a problem? Why did you hide from him? Call Luca?”
“Because the FBI, or rather Noah, has been trying to nail our asses to the wall since Afghanistan, and he’s come damn close a few times. It’s his version of payback.” I search her eyes for a sign of how she’s taking all this.
“Why would he want revenge?”
“Because the other three of us got him hauled in front of a disciplinary committee. He probably would have been discharged like the rest of us if we hadn’t sworn he wasn’t involved.”
“Involved in what?” she asks slowly.
“We’d been there a couple of months, trying to avoid getting blown up, but getting no closer to figuring out where the guns were coming from. Every lead went nowhere. Then Jack overheard something, and we did a little digging. We kept it to ourselves and eventually brought Luca in on it.”
“What about Noah?”
“Let’s just say that Noah’s always been better at taking orders than thinking for himself. We knew that until we could prove anything, he wouldn’t believe us.”
“Prove what?”
“Jack discovered that our lieutenant was smuggling the guns, even running drugs.”
She stares at me, mouth wide. “Wait, what?”
“Yep, so we had a dilemma. We could try to turn him in and hope someone higher up believed us. But we also knew he couldn’t be doing it alone, so we had no clue who to tell. You have no idea how seriously the military takes breaking the chain of command, on any pretext. Plus, it’s not exactly easy to get messages past your commanding officer when you’re in the middle of a war theater.”
“So what did you do?”
“We decided to steal the next shipment,” I say with a shrug. Adair gasps, and I can tell what she thinks of this plan already. “It would be proof, and then we would have leverage. Of course Noah was onto us, but he got the wrong idea. He turned us in—and that’s how the lieutenant knew. So he hauls us in for a chat along with Noah and that’s when we realize who’s helping him.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. Turns out the rest of the section is crooked, too, and they plan to kill the new guys to keep it quiet. They have to make it look right, of course. But the lieutenant gets mixed up on why Noah turned us in. He thinks Noah wants in, and, for once, Noah is smart enough to play along. He makes a big deal about his loyalty and they drag us off to a cell. That night, Noah breaks us out and tells us to run.”
“Did you?”
“Where the fuck are we going to run in the desert? We told him that and before he could stop us, we took care of the situation.”
The silence that falls between us is deafening. She’s doing the math, putting two and two together. “Oh,” she finally says.
“I didn’t have a choice, Lucky.” Can she see that? Does it matter?
“You killed them.” She says the words aloud like she’s trying them on.
“We didn’t have a lot of options.” I wait for some sign that she understands that, but she doesn’t speak. She just stares fixedly at her glass. “They were going to kill us. We would have been killed by the Taliban if we tried to run. We couldn’t exactly make a phone call and get anyone to help us out.”
“How many?” she asks softly. “How many people did you kill?”
“Does it matter?” It’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot. How much blood is on my hands from that night? Did I make the right call? There is one thing I know. One thing I have to confess to her before she gets any idea that I made an impossible, but noble choice. “Once you kill a man, it’s easier to kill another one and another. It’s still easy.”
“You’ve…” she trails away.
“Yes,” I admit. “That’s not the last time I’ve killed a man. I didn’t make it a profession or anything, but I’ve had to make some shitty choices. Me or them choices.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, when she finally looks up she studies me for a second. Does she still see the same man? “What happened after that? How did you explain it? Why does Noah hate you?”
“We’re getting to that part,” I say grimly.
I take it as a good sign that she is still listening after what she learned so far.
“So, everyone was dead,” I continue, “and an entire new platoon arrived to investigate and to take us into custody. They start looking into matters and thankfully, our lieutenant
