Page 82 of No Going Back

“Bet you wish it was you guys going.” Kelly looked at them.

“No, Dale made the right call,” Dex said,

Tyler caught Dex’s eye and gave him a small nod. Yeah, he would love to go after the cell behind this, but he was surprised to feel relieved they weren’t leaving. Right now, he wanted to be here for Mira.

“How’s Mira?” Kelly asked.

“She was unconscious again,” Tyler answered, “and Sam cut connection to save his battery. He said he’d call if there was any change. So hopefully no news is good news.”

“Mira’s strong, she’ll hold on,” Mackie said.

“God, this is all because you guys came to get me,” Kelly said quietly, shaking her head.

“What the fuck?” Dex said in alarm, closing the gap between them.

“None of this is your fault,” Tyler added, meaning it.

“You guys coming to get me started this whole chain of events. We all know it. Now innocent people have died, because they’re targeting this team. Mira and Sam are trapped. Mira is seriously hurt. People I care about.”

“No, you’re not putting this on you. Lazir started this when he killed a SEAL team and captured you,” Steve said.

“But you guys rescued me, captured him, and now someone clearly wants payback. When is it going to end?”

Dex gripped her arm. “No, this stops now. You hear me? Don’t you dare blame yourself for what happened here.”

“Reborn are not going to stop, Dex. Not until he punishes us all. You saw the video.”

“Kelly, he was planning attacks long before you were taken. Innocent people were always going to die,” Ryan said.

“Mira could die.” She looked at Tyler. “That’s on me.”

“It’s not on you, Kelly. It’s on Reborn. We should have taken the organization down properly, a long time ago,” Tyler said through gritted teeth, his gaze moving to Dex. The team exchanged glances but stayed silent.

“If you got something to say, Tyler, spit it out,” Dex challenged.

Tyler stepped forward, stopping mere inches from him.

“Reborn. We all know every time we cut the head off the snake, it comes back with a new head. We should have gone back to Daram and found the source, the money, as soon as we realized they were not going to go away quietly.”

“We are going after the source. These things take time, you know that.”

“Fuck that. We could go to Daram and put pressure on people. We could go to Aziz’s hotel and make him talk. Talk to the wife. There are options we could have done that might have prevented this.” Tyler put his finger up in Dex’s face.

“We’re not mercenaries, Tyler. We can’t run rogue with no fucking proof and terrorize people into giving us answers. That makes us no better than them. Now get out of my face.”

“Oh, but it was OK to go rogue and get Kelly—”

“For God’s sake! Since when did we start fighting between ourselves.” Kelly stepped between them.

Before either man could speak, Max’s shout got their attention.

“OK, guys, can we get Sam back on the line?” Max ran toward them. “My guys are down there and ready to clear a way out.”

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