She met the man’s dark, unreadable stare. “Chief Tupper and two others.” Grief and guilt left her throat momentarily clogged. “Sgt. FC Valerie Lane and PFC Joseph Mills.”
The pain she felt from their loss shouldn’t be so strong after all this time…should it?
“I’m sorry,” the former SEAL offered sincerely. “We’ve all experienced our fair share of loss throughout our years of service, but to lose your entire team…” He shook his head as his deep voice trailed.
“Thank you.” Raegan gave an appreciative nod, the solemn look they shared based on a tragic common ground.
“You ever make it inside the building?” Christian spoke up again.
“I didn’t get the chance.” Her residual anger returned. “I started that way, but Samer was there, and we…” Raegan worked a hard swallow. “We ended up in a standoff. The son of a bitch stood there, smirking and laughing like he was fucking God.”
The edge of Raegan’s fingernails dug into her palms as her fists curled tight at her sides. Telling this story to Rocky had been hard enough. Repeating it for his friends less than an hour later…
You got this, Lieutenant. You’re almost there.
With Chief Tupper’s encouraging voice in her ear, she finished the rest of the tragic story.
“Air support arrived, and I used the distraction to take my shot. Samer went down, and I ended up passing out from blood loss.” A rush of emotion filled a well of unshed tears, but she blinked them away, refusing to let even a single one fall in front of these men. “I learned about my team after I woke up in the hospital the next day.”
The room fell silent as Rocky’s team soaked in what she’d told them. Jagger broke up the awkward stretch a moment later.
“I think I speak for all of us when I say…that really fucking sucks.”
For some reason, the man’s comment nearly made her smile. “Yeah.” She shared a look of understanding with the man. “It really does.”
“Okay, so we can all agree this Samer guy’s a piece of shit,” Liam acknowledged. “But what does he have to do with tonight’s little B and E stint?”
When she brought her gaze up to Rocky’s, he simply looked back at her with an unapologetic shrug and a low, “They were going to find out, anyway.”
She supposed thatwasthe whole point of this little meeting of the minds. So with that in mind, Raegan ripped off the band aid and told them what she knew to be true.
“Samer is here.”
There. She’d said it.
“Here, as in…the United States?” Cade guessed.
“As in Chicago.”
The room grew quiet as the six men shared a collective look. She held her breath, waiting for the comments she was sure would follow…
You must be mistaken.
There’s no way it could be him.
A known terrorist wouldn’t be allowed inside the U.S.
It’s just your PTSD and grief messing with your head.
Raegan had heard all those plausible explanations more times than she could count. And every time someone tried to placate her—or worse, offer words of sympathy or pitying stares—she wanted to scream from the top of her lungs for them to listen.
But as she stood in Rocky’s living room, waiting for those same, familiar reactions to unfold, she realized they weren’t looking at her like she was crazy. And their gazes weren’t filled with pity or untrust.
In fact, unless she was mistaken, these guys…this team…almost looked as if…
They believe me.
At the very least, they weren’t shaking their heads, rolling their eyes, or looking back at her with the samebless her poor little heartexpressions she’d seen time and time again. Instead, they began asking questions.