Page 128 of Forged By Sacrifice

“Didn’t think you were a quitter, Mac.”

That hit too close to home, and he knew it. Maybe it was why he’d said it, but he looked like he regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. He looked away and then back. He hit me on the shoulder. “We just saw how quickly things can change. Don’t let her get away that easy if you really love her.”

Then he walked toward Tristan’s darkened house.

My mind was whirling around his words when I got in the car, and my phone dinged: Eli.

CAPTAIN: On your way yet?

ME: Not till oh five hundred.

CAPTAIN: Ava is nervous because you aren’t here yet.

ME: First of all, it’ll only be Thursday tomorrow, and the wedding isn’t until Saturday. Second of all, come hell or high water, I’ll be there. I wouldn’t be late for my best friend’s wedding.

CAPTAIN: So, I get to tell Truck that I win? I’m the best friend?

ME: Don’t be an asswipe. You know Truck wins in both our books. He’s the better man.

CAPTAIN: True story.

My hand drifted over the text button. I wanted to ask if Georgie was there yet. I wanted to know if she looked as gorgeous as she did in my dreams, the ache to see her swelling into a full-blown heart attack. My dad was right. Nash was right. Life was over too fast to waste the moments we had. I’d never known that love could feel like this. So goddamn satisfying and so goddamn painful.

I wanted to know if she’d listened when I, and then my sister, had told her that her family wasn’t anything to get worked up over, but I was also afraid to know the answer. To know if she was stilling running.

When I’d gotten down to SOCOM, my first order of business was to destroy the fuckers who’d approved the op that had killed Darren and his squad members. My anger and guilt had eased only slightly, knowing that their careers would be over. It wasn’t enough for the three lives they’d cost, but if I held out for more, I’d have to drag myself down with them, and so I settled for seeing them discharged. I settled for the Senate committee disintegrating the little group of diplomats who’d been pushing it. I settled, promising myself to never let it happen again. To save lives instead of cost them.

After I’d filtered through the mission details and drunk myself into a stupor with Nash, I’d returned to SOCOM and quietly probed at Petya Leskov’s file, hoping I wouldn’t raise any red flags in doing it. I just needed to know what I was getting into, and even though I knew, with all of my heart, that Georgie wasn’t tied up in the business; I needed to see what others thought. Fucking Descartes weighing on me just like he weighed on her. Proof.

What I could find out wasn’t much, but it seemed everyone believed Petya Leskov was a gun dealer. They just hadn’t been able to confirm it. Drugs were definitely not his thing. There were pictures of his home from above, a mansion that used to belong to Russian royalty, and there were pictures of his private security team that rivaled a Special Forces unit. From what people could tell, he seemed to love his wife, his children, and his stepdaughter. CIA and NSA had run several intelligence ops to gather more details but had come up short every time. Georgie, herself, had been a repeated dead end.

So, I was left with what I knew to be true: Malik was in rehab somewhere, Raisa was ensconced in her scientific studies at Stanford, and Georgie had continued her pursuit of her law degree without being hounded by any other U.S. agency. Dani and I had had many conversations about what had happened, and it was likely that Georgie would always have a target on her back. That any and all of the agencies would circle back around to her, trying to gather intel on Petya from her angle as long as he continued in his business.

This pissed me off. It made me want to protect her. It also made me realize that if I tied myself to her, in any kind of relationship, I would be subject to the same targeting. No matter how “clean” I lived my life, I’d be scrutinized, and people high up the food chain would always wonder. If her real father was released from prison early, she’d probably be watched for a long time because of that as well.

Knowing all of that hadn’t changed the most important thing of all. I loved her.

Now that I had decided that I wouldn’t be running for office, I wasn’t sure being followed or bugged was going to matter all that much. If my superiors called me out on it every so often, so be it. It may have been losing Darren that had pushed me into the realization, but it would have come to me anyway. I could never have run for office. I wanted to live my life with honesty?with valor. And that wasn’t going to happen in today’s political world.

Georgie had moved out of the apartment for the same reason she’d taken the drugs from Raisa. To protect the people she loved. To protect a dream that I no longer wanted. I just wanted the chance to convince her that I hadn’t given it all up for her, because she wouldn’t like that any more than her being the reason for my dreams not coming to fruition.

But now, it was time that someone did the same thing for her. It was time for someone to protect her and her dreams. I wanted that someone to be me. Someone who would hear through the scuttlebutt when they were making a move on her or her family. Someone who would stand by her if it all came apart.

I hadn’t been there for Darren. But I’d be damned if I’d leave her without a fight.

I didn’t know how I could convince her of any of that yet. I didn’t know how to prove that I wasn’t giving up anything but, instead, was gaining a future I hadn’t even known was mine. A future with her at my side.

? ? ?

On the flight to Corpus Christi, I was restless. Up and out of my seat so much the stewardess started to comment on it. She also eyed me up and down like a steak she wanted to sauté and eat, but I wasn’t interested. I understood a little better how Eli could be oblivious to the females hitting on him at the bar on a regular basis. None of them really registered when you loved someone enough.

An old Paul Newman quote about his marriage registered in my brain. He’d said, “I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?” That was how I felt. I wanted my steak. I wanted Georgie. I didn’t want anything else.

We’d face the challenges of my Navy career, her law career, and her family as they came. Hell, I had Thomas the Weasel in my family, and I was sure he was going to get arrested for some kind of marijuana charge at some point, hemp being the new answer to every environmental problem that Thomas could think up.

When I got off the plane, I had a text from Dani.

BRAT: Did you tell her about one-eyed Whittaker?

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