Page 1 of Complicated Past

ONE

Poland

Watchingthe Ukrainian team’s sniper trip and fall to his hands and knees, Staff Sergeant Linc Porter’s entire body clenched. In combat, that mistake could be fatal. What happened next, though, made him interrupt the exercise.

“Youneverleave a man behind,” he barked at his squad of soldiers.

“He can’t keep up. He’ll get us all killed,” one of the young Ukrainian trainees complained.

“He’s the best marksman on your team. You need him. Would you want your team leavingyoubehind if you twisted an ankle and were the slowest man?”

Two of the younger soldiers glanced from each other to their older teammate. “No,” they admitted.

“Right. We’re going to run this exercise again and then again.” Until they understood this was a team and each man had worth.

If they didn’t gel as a team, they wouldallend up dead.

“I can’t believe we’ll be sending these troops into the field in two weeks,” Dev said.

He voiced the thought that also went through Linc’s head as the men regrouped to practice today’s infantry tactics training exercise.

The men on Linc’s Bad Karma team each had over a decade of experience and highly specialized training. That’s how they’d earned their spots on one of the most elite units in the US Army. However, his team only had two months to impart what they could to improve these men’s chances. Few of these men had any military experience, but they stepped up to serve because they were motivated to protect their homeland. However, they didn’t have the skills or equipment needed to adequately defend their country or their lives.

Half the men were in their mid-thirties or older. Two hadn’t managed to complete the ten-mile ruck. Several of the men still couldn’t make it over the five-foot wall on their own. And now they were willing to sacrifice their own team members.

The grim reality was that many wouldn’t come home to their families.

Linc signaled for them to begin again. “It sucks we can’t do more.” Except it wasn’t their war. At least not yet.

It took the US nearly two decades to withdraw from the Middle East, and watching the Taliban sweep right back in and negate so much of what they’d done there didn’t sit well with any of the men on the Bad Karma team. The US sent troops over to train the Ukrainian military, but Washington wouldn’t risk committing to another war where they weren’t assured a victory. That limited his team’s involvement.

Chief Lundgren dismissed the men after a ten-hour day turned into nearly twelve hours. No point exhausting everyone to the point they wouldn’t retain what they learned. Linc and Dev joined the rest of the team and headed to their temporaryquarters at the Polish military base. Accommodations were not quite on par with the barracks when Linc had gone through basic training at Fort Jackson twelve years ago but were still a step up from his numerous Middle East deployments in the past decade.

Once inside the cramped bunkroom, half his teammates called their wives and significant others. Linc saw he had a missed call and message notification from Brianne and did a double take. He’d managed to tick off his sister again before he left for this deployment, so they’d only talked when he initiated calls. Maybe this was a good thing. He could hope.

“Linc, I did something stupid and don’t know what to do. I’m?—”

A woman spoke over Bri, drowning her out before the call ended abruptly.

Shit. Something stupid? What this time? His gut constricted as his mind immediately went to the obvious. He replayed the message. Bri didn’t sound strung out, but her low tone wasn’t normal. The best he could make out, the other woman asked who she was talking to. While Bri might not want her co-workers overhearing, something about the other woman’s tone pinged Linc’s radar.

Though it’d been nearly two hours since she left the message, Bri hadn’t called back or texted. Maybe she’d figured out how to handle whatever it was. He couldn’t count on that, so he hit the call button. Seconds later, the call connected but went directly to voicemail. “I got your message and wanted to check in. Call me back. Tell J-man Uncle Linc says hi. Love you both.”

He drummed his fingers on his leg. Maybe Bri emailed him. He checked. Nothing from her there either. She was a grown woman. Since completing rehab, she’d gotten her life together with some help from him and a lot of motivation from Jalen. In that way, she was different from their mother.

Please don’t let her backslide.There wasn’t much he could do from halfway around the world. His limbs hung like weights, and swallowing didn’t dislodge the lump in his throat.

“Everything okay?” Dev asked as the team headed to the mess hall for dinner.

“Not sure. I got a message from Bri saying she’d done something stupid,” Linc confided.

“You thinking she relapsed?”

Dev knew his sister’s history. Hell, the whole team knew. “I’m hoping not. I didn’t reach her when I called, but I’ll try again later.”

“If you need, Stephanie can check on her.” Chief Lundgren’s gaze fixed on Linc.

The chief’s wife headed up the Family Readiness group, but that might be beyond the scope of her responsibilities. Though they’d met, having Stephanie show up at Bri’s door when she had already accused Linc of being overprotective wouldn’t go over well. He was trying to trust her, but with their past, it was damn hard to let go of the need to protect her. “Thanks, Chief. I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

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