Page 120 of Forged By Sacrifice

“You all have enough to deal with. You don’t need me bringing wiretaps and intercontinental agencies into your lives on top of it. It’s only going to be worse now that they found the drugs,” I said, and I raised my chin, putting on my own emotionless face. Straightening my back. I needed to do this.

“You’ve probably been bugged and followed off and on for years. You don’t think I already knew that? You don’t think I considered that already?” he protested.

“You promised me a favor, Mac. No questions. Just granted.” I turned toward the door.

“I don’t want to grant this one.”

I didn’t look back as I opened the door and said, “I’m moving. You can make it painless for both of us, or painful. That’s your choice, I guess. But I’m asking you not to, and I hope you’ll agree.”

And then I left, because if I didn’t, I would have let him talk me into staying. I would have let him reason away my fears. But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to take my miserable family and move them away from the Whittakers and everything they deserved to have. I wanted them far, far away from my beautiful Mac and his future.

Mac

HOLD ME WHILE WE WAIT

“This is you, this is me, this is all we need

Is it true? My faith is shaken, but I still believe

This is you, this is me, this is all we need

So won't you stay a while?”

Performed by Lewis Capaldi.

Written by Commons / Hartman / Hartman / Capaldi

I was in the middle of talking through another interview with some news station in the Midwest when I saw my dad walk into the office. Senator Matherton’s office had been abuzz all day. It felt, in some ways, like what I’d experienced in the war room at the Pentagon when an op was going down.

It was where I thrived.

What I didn’t thrive on was the sly remarks made about my sister and Guy after they’d stood on the Capitol steps and given a press conference. I didn’t thrive on the well of politicians who were trying to distance themselves not only from Fenway but also from Matherton because he’d stood up for Dani. It made my stomach turn and made me want to pound something…anything…maybe even a person.

When I hung up, Dad was at my desk, hat in hand, flipping it around in circles—a tell of my father’s that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Not even this past weekend over everything that had gone down with Dani. Then, he’d been all action and anger. Now, he seemed wary. Sad.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“We’ve lost contact with a squad,” he said quietly.

My heart stopped, Darren and Nash flashing before my eyes. Darren’s hands around Tristan’s waist, kissing his baby on the top of her head. Nash flirting with Georgie and my sister, all sly smiles. No. Not them.

I shook my head. “Not Silver Squadron?”

He nodded.

My mouth went dry, and my heart crushed into ash. “What happened?”

“An op in the South African Republic. Looks like they were ambushed. We know we lost their leader, but that’s all we knew before they went completely dark.” Dad’s voice remained hushed, not only because he was riddled with his own distress and sadness, but also because he was telling me things in the middle of an unsecured office on Capitol Hill.

Bile filled my throat. Anguish. We lost their leader. Darren was their leader. We lost Darren. And the anguish was swirled with anger. The op. The goddamn op that I’d been opposing for months. The one Nash had told me they were trying to resurrect. The one I wasn’t there to prevent. Now, Darren, and maybe more, had given their lives for a stranglehold in a place that I’d told them wouldn’t work. That I’d told them was full of literal and figurative bombs.

They’d risked everything. They’d given everything. For nothing.

I closed my eyes as the tears threatened to spill. Tears of loss and pain and anger. They’d sacrificed it all while I hadn’t sacrificed shit. I’d gone straight for everything I’d ever wanted, leaving Darren, Nash, and the entire team exposed to the stupidity of those at the DoD.

I’d walked, and it had cost Darren his life. Maybe Nash, too. Maybe others.

I was just like every fucking politician who had sauntered into this office since I’d joined, asking “What’s in it for me?” without a care in the world as to what it was costing everyone else. And it had cost Darren his entire world.

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