“I talked to him the night before.” Ezra stared at the conference table. “I called him because our mom was in bad shape and I wanted him to look in on her.”
Beck shook his head. “That wasn’t what it sounded like to me.” He remembered how scared he’d been. His brother had been on another continent, walking into a dangerous mission, and he’d sounded suicidal. “You were upset that night.”
“I was high that night,” Ezra said quietly. “I was upset and high, and I don’t even remember what I said to you, but I remember that you told me I better get my shit together or you would have me pulled from my unit.”
“Because I didn’t think you should be going on dangerous ops when you were that emotional. I wasn’t trying to fuck up your career.” How could he think that? Except apparently he sounded like a judgmental asshole a lot of the time.
“See, this is the family dynamic stuff that probably should be dealt with in therapy,” Alex said.
Ezra shook his head. “I want to get this over with so I can head back to Sanctum. I’m still tired.”
Weary. His brother looked weary. “That night I went to my wife and told her how upset I was and that I was going to talk to whoever was handling the op. Ezra was talking about a classified op to a person who didn’t have clearance on it. Namely me. That meant I could likely get him pulled.”
“And wreck his military career,” Tag added. “Though I’ll be honest, I can’t think of anything worse than going into a dangerous op with an unstable team member. I don’t think it was unfair of Beck to try to pull you.”
“I wish he had. An addict doesn’t care about right or wrong. That particular demon is selfish. He doesn’t care who gets hurt. All that matters is his own comfort.” Ezra’s eyes found Beck’s. “I’m so sorry for putting you in that position. And for everything that came after.”
Yes, he definitely should have done this in private because he was going to look like such an asshole. He felt frozen. He didn’t want to let go of this anger he had. He shouldn’t have to. Years. Ezra cost him years with her. Still, Kim was sitting next to him. “I appreciate that. So as to that day, what were you there to do? I know what you were supposed to be doing. According to the records, you were supposed to do recon for a rescue mission. What was your true mission?”
He'd spent years thinking his brother had died trying to save a group of young women from their jihadist kidnappers. He’d made his brother a saint in his head, and he was having trouble remembering Ezra had been human and flawed.
Ezra sat up straighter, as though the soldier was still in there somewhere. “We were supposed to pass off a package to a rebel leader in the area. I don’t know what was in it. It was odd, though. When we actually got there, the man we met with looked like an American. I didn’t hear him talk because I was standing in the back. I wasn’t feeling great.”
Because he’d been coming down off a high. Because his brother had been using drugs.
How would he have reacted back then?
“Solo, what had you been told about the op?” Alex asked.
“Not much. I’d been told it was highly classified and I wasn’t allowed to discuss it. I did not know who the original handler was. It was odd but not unheard of. It was stranger that Beck knew about the op. I should have gone straight to my boss and made a report, but I didn’t want to get my brother-in-law in trouble. That was my fault. If I had, we likely wouldn’t be in this position.”
“No recriminations are necessary,” Tag announced. “I think we can all agree that putting Solo on that headset was part of Levi’s plan at the time. He had to have known what was going to happen.”
“Like I said before, it was an ambush. He had to have planned it,” Ezra agreed. “I know at one point he argued with our CO. I think Green was worried we were about to turn on him. That’s the trouble with mutually assured destruction. It only works as long as one party isn’t willing to actually kill the other and set himself free of that worry.”
“According to Solo’s report, the communication system malfunctioned. How much did you actually see of that op?” Charlotte asked.
He hadn’t gone into the office with her that day. He’d spent the night at a cheap motel because of the fight they’d gotten into when she’d refused to call off the next day’s op. He hadn’t seen her again until he’d come home that night and she’d given him the news that Ezra was dead. He’d walked out and hadn’t seen her again for months. He’d shipped her divorce papers and refused to take her calls.
He hadn’t even considered her feelings. She’d cared about Ezra, too. She’d loved his whole family and he’d barred her from his mother’s funeral.
He’d been so fucking selfish, and he didn’t know if he could ever make it up to her.
“Did you know that day that Ezra was alive?” Liam asked.
“It doesn’t matter when she knew,” Beck said quickly.
A gentle smile turned the corners of Eve’s mouth up. “It does for our investigation.”
“I didn’t know until he called me two days later,” Kim admitted. “By then there had been a fire, supposedly set by the jihadist group that ambushed the unit. The whole area was considered too dangerous to go into for a
