Page 6 of How Much For a Life of Lies?

The adrenalin from the rescue coursed through my veins, and I was edgy with the intensity of it all. Fighting the LT had been another day at the office, but flying the Griffon in the storm, only sixty feet above the boiling sea was enough to give me a hard-on. God, I loved my job.We’d come out to celebrate, or more like commiserate, when we were back and in a ton of trouble for insubordination.

Or at least I was.

The three of us took a table at the back of the room. Good lines of sight on the SEAL team who’d all ended up at the same place—not that there were many bars in the locale, so I guess it was inevitable.

The SEALs were laughing and chatting at another table, their glasses clinking. I couldn’t help but let my gaze wander over to them, drawn in by the easy camaraderie and sense of brotherhood radiating from their group.

But mostly I was staring at him.

The one who’d caught me when I’d fallen at his feet, the one who’d held my hand when I thought my time was up, the one who’d captured my attention.

The redhead with a rugged, handsome face and a body that could stop traffic, I’d heard one of the others call him Red, which wasn’t that original. I’d already watched him head up to the bar, and I stole glances at his ass in sinfully tight jeans and a snug Henley that hugged his every curve, his muscles straining against the fabric in all the right places. He should be on the cover of a magazine, all brooding intensity and raw sex appeal.

Exactly my type for some hot and heavy fucking in a back room.

I wonder if he’s into men. God, what if he is, and he’s a toppy fucker, and I could go to my knees and?—

“You’re an idiot,” Bowers repeated for the fifth time since we sat down.

“Leave it, Bowers,” Crowley said—she was probably as fed up of hearing Bowers go on about today’s idiocy as I was.

“You know what the LT is like. Jesus, all you had to do was yes sir, and then you could have done your own thing anyway?—”

“He wouldn’t have learned shit if I?—”

“Leave it,” Crowley shouted, and both Bowers and I subsided under her snapping. I would miss these two when I left 427, not because they were friends—I didn’t do friends—but because they were efficient and made a good crew. Still, I didn’t want them around me now, when I wanted a quiet night and not one where they added criticism to my already turbulent thoughts.

Anyway, all of their messing with my head was breaking into my obsession with the SEAL’s ass.

As Bowers called me out on my refusal to toe the line, frustration rose within me and it hadn’t diminished yet, and yeah, it was harshing my buzz. Tonight wasn’t the first time someone criticized my methods, and it wouldn’t be the last, but no one got me or how I worked. There was a reason I operated the way I did—an underlying moral code that went deeper than just a desire to rebel against authority. I wasn’t a man who put up with shit and held his tongue. Raging against authority had been beaten into me by a father who believed corporal punishment was a good thing, a mother who vanished after letting him get on with it, plus the rest of Dad’s comrades marking their rules on my skin.

Fight authority.

From a young age, my family in the compound instilled in me the idea of fighting the authorities and taking down the government. It was part of their whole survivalist ideology, a belief that the government was oppressive and that we needed to resist its control over our lives and find peace. Of course, the understanding of peace didn’t extend to the internal wars my pop and his buddies dealt with while financing said rebellion by moving drugs and guns.

Joining the military contradicted all those beliefs, but I needed it.

I craved structure; I needed it, but the bits of me that were broken weren’t healing fast enough, and I wasn’t able to channel my desire to protect and serve into something constructive all the time I reported to bloated assholes who knew jackshit. I was a walking contradiction, stepping out of that compound and into the military, but enlisting wasn’t only about following orders or blindly serving authority. It was about using my skills and training to make a difference, to protect the freedoms and values I believed in. It was about being part of something bigger than myself, but I wasn’t laying all that on a team who didn’t know the real me.

“So you wanted to die today? Is that what you’re saying?” I shot back. “You can’t negotiate with assholes like Tramell. Show them you’re not afraid to push back and then bring people back alive.”

Bowers sighed, his expression angry, and then falling into resentful. “You don’t always have to resort to confrontation.”

I clenched my jaw, the urge to argue rising within me. “Maybe that works for people who don’t care about their team.” I clenched my beer so tight I was surprised I didn’t snap the bottle in half.

Bowers powered out of his seat, and I wondered if he would lash out. Part of me wanted him to launch himself at me, anything to get rid of the anger curling inside me. “Fuck you!” he shouted in my face, his hands in fists at his side. “This is our careers you’re messing with.” I sensed some SEALs watching this go down. Great.

I didn’t move a muscle. “I get shit done, no matter what it takes.”

There was a moment of tense silence as Bowers stared at me, frustration in his eyes, the disappointment at my unwillingness to play the game. If the only way to get a promotion was to follow orders without pushback, then I didn’t want to move up. Me getting a discharge was one moment of insubordination away, even if I’d been right about today. Particularly when it had taken every effort for me not to lay the LT out on the floor with a well-timed punch.

Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Sanctimonious Ivy League prick.

Bowers leaned in, his voice rough and dangerous, and I tensed, waiting for him to strike. I’d let him get one hit in, but then his ass was mine. “This could be it for you.”

“Yep.” I knew it was. “But I was right today.”

“You’re already on two strikes. You must fight this one, show some respect, stop dragging us down with you.”

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