Page 125 of Forged By Sacrifice

“Georgie?”

“Don’t. Really. I need to go. Be safe, Mac-Macauley.” And I’d hung up before he could have said anything else. Before I could have said words that I would have regretted saying.

As time moved further away from the traumatic three days that we’d had, I felt some knots in my back and my stomach start to ease. I felt like maybe life could move forward.

I met up with Dani several times for dinner. Never at the apartment. Always at a different restaurant than the time before.

The storm of her terrible night with Fenway passed after he left office in a cloud of shame, and the next hot political topic had come up with some dirtbag in South Carolina who’d tried to fire a man when he found out he was trans. The LGBTQIA folks were circling new wagons.

“I’m glad things have settled down for you. It continues to appall me what goes on in our world,” I told her.

Dani laughed over her whiskey. “Georgie-Girl, I’ve been around Washington way too long to be surprised much anymore. It’s why I want out.”

“What? You?”

Dani nodded. “Yep. I want to go work for some normal business tycoon. Or maybe a regular old celebrity. Someone with no ties to D.C.”

“But what about Mac? He’ll be out of the Navy eventually and want to run for office.”

“He won’t,” she said with a surety that surprised me. She laughed at the look on my face. “My brother has always felt like it was his personal responsibility to not only keep the entire world safe but also make it better than it was yesterday. He’s just realized he can do that in a different way than he expected.”

“You think he’s given up his dream for good, then?” I asked. Dani nodded. This made me hurt for him in a new way, even though I’d sensed it in him from the moment he’d told me about Darren and put his uniform back on. After a moment, I said, “I know how hard that can be. There was a time when I didn’t think I could ever get back my dreams of the law.”

Dani took me in for a moment and then asked, “Truth?”

“Always,” I told her.

“I’m glad Mac gave it up. Everyone here skitters like toddlers determined to get the most candy out of a piñata. It would have made Mac into something he isn’t. It would have eaten at his soul to compromise on things that he values most, and he wouldn’t have been able to survive in Washington without doing that.”

I sat quietly, trying to digest her words. A small piece of me knew she was right. The Mac I’d fallen in love with wouldn’t have been able to sustain the hits that would come from those kinds of negotiations. Negotiations that would have made him feel dishonorable.

Dani twirled her drink.

“Have you talked to him?” she asked.

I had a feeling she already knew the answer to that. “We’ve texted. And I talked to him when he told me about Nash.”

“God, that was such a…relief. To know Nash was…” Dani choked and looked away. I hadn’t realized how close she was to the squad, but the relief in her voice spoke volumes. “The guilt of it is eating at both of them. And I think Mac needs someone to keep pulling him back from the edge.”

I looked down at my food, the chicken twirling unhappily in my stomach because I was pretty sure that person couldn’t be me. My ledge had completely fallen out from beneath me and taken them along for the ride. Mac needed to climb up on stable ground that wouldn’t continue to shift out from under him.

Dani reached across and put her hand over mine. “You’re both good at tormenting yourselves. Mac wants you to be that person. I hope you can be it for him.”

“Dani… None of you need my shit in your lives right now.”

“You make him happier than I’ve ever seen before. He gets all goopy and smiley. That’s never been him. I’m pretty sure he’s in love with you.”

I couldn’t look at her. If he hadn’t told her his feelings, I wouldn’t be the one to do so.

“Look. So, you’re the daughter of a Ponzi-schemer. So, your stepdad is some Russian businessman on all the agencies’ watch lists. So, your brother was dealing drugs. You act like those things are a reflection of you, when they aren’t. Sure, you have to deal with it, just like I had to deal with being on the losing end of a battle with an aggressive asshole.”

“I don’t think you lost that war.” I smiled weakly at her.

“You don’t have to, either. You don’t have to let their choices make you live a half-life.”

And that hit home more than anything Mac had ever said to me about my family. He’d hinted at it the day he left, but his words had just upset me, because it made me feel like I was having to let go of my family in order to have him. Dani could have let being a victim cause her to scurry away and hide. It would have been okay if she had. There were plenty of victims who needed that to heal. But it would have made Dani something she wasn’t, and that would have allowed him to victimize her one more time.

I wasn’t a victim, but maybe I was letting my family make me act like one. Maybe I was blaming them for things when, really, I was just afraid. Afraid of loving and losing. Afraid of having a life that might someday get ripped out from underneath me like had happened to me before.

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