Page 62 of Fire Meets Fire

I don’t expect the visceral punch in the gut that that question causes. Sure, I already knew that he hadn’t recognised me, but it suddenly hits me that this is the man who wants me dead and hedoesn’t even know me.I’d always imagined things like him sticking pins into a voodoo doll impression of me.

He must have given someone else the information to investigate me, and took no further interest himself.

Sitting up, I swing my legs off the bed. He pushes himself back against the door, hands splayed and the whites of his eyes showing.

“Who are you?” he asks again, his voice not quite as firm as before.

I stalk toward him. “You don’t know? Just how many women have you taken a hit out on?”

He looks like he’s just been kicked in the balls. His Adam’s apple works as he swallows a couple of times before he spits out my name. “Queenie May?”

Having no need to confirm it, I don’t. “You want me dead. I want to know the reason for that.”

“Take off that… thing,” he waves his hand toward my chest, “and we’ll talk.”

“It’s comfortable.” I shrug. I’m not lying. For all the time I’ve been wearing it, I’ve gotten used to the weight. “Just start talking.” My eyes narrow. “If you’ve got a good reason for wanting me dead, well, perhaps I can get on board with that.” Inwardly I wince, knowing Chaz will be hurt. But whatever he says, so many things could have been done differently that day, maybe more people left breathing. It might have not been my fault, but why is it me who survived? Why not someone more worthy? “If you don’t give me anything I can agree with, then this bomb explodes, taking us both with it.” My tone is flat. There’s no doubting my words.

His eyes have gone wide, and his chest is heaving as though he’s run a marathon.

My shoulders rise and lower once again. “Or maybe I’m just so fed up with everything, I’ll press the trigger anyway.” I show him a device I’ve been hiding in my hand. It’s the dummy switch, but he doesn’t know that.

His mouth opens. “You’re suicidal.”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. But I’m getting pretty fucking tired of not hearing any explanation.” My lids half close over my eyes, and I tilt my head. “Perhaps I should just forget it. I doubt there’s anything you can say that’s worth telling.”

That lights him up. “No?” He takes a threatening step forward, and I raise my hand in reminder and warning. “No?” he shouts, but stops a few feet away from me. “You’re a woman playing games in a man’s world. You’re the weaker sex. Youshouldn’t be anywhere near a uniform. And the result was just what I’d been cautioning people would happen. You got good men killed, and all for nothing.”

“I did my job.”

That my tone lacks emotion seems to incense him. “Your job? You’re crazy. You flew into a sandstorm against expert advice. You crash landed, killed or got your crew captured. You should have stayed grounded, both you and your craft.”

But that’s not how it works. Pilots like me follow orders. Of course we’ve got leeway whether the conditions are too dangerous to fly, but you don’t get medals for being too careful. Anyway, it wasn’t the weather that proved our downfall, but Netherton isn’t impressed when I tell him.

His hand slashes down through the air. “If you’d taken off when those SEALs still had radio reception, you’d have known they’d been captured.”

He’s right. No matter what duress they were under, any message they were forced to send would have included a coded warning. Then the rescuing part would have been planned accordingly.

I turn my back on him, knowing my senses would alert me if he went on the attack, and that even if the device I’m holding is a dummy, I’ve got backup nearby. But I can’t face him while I get my thoughts in order.

The batteries died.

But the SEALs had already been captured.

Should I have taken the lack of radio contact as an indication all was not right?Fuck, I would have done, had the weather not delayed us.

Another thought hits me as I spin around again. “Who told you of the delay? Where did this expert advice come from?” All of our missions are top secret, and no details should have been leaked about them.

“I was on the committee.”

God save me from politicians.

His voice goes hard. “I recommended my nephew for a posthumous commendation. But like they never listened to me about the dangers of having females serving on the front line, they refused to give it to him. They gave you the medal instead.”

“Your nephew?” I frown at him, trying to think of any of my crew who had relatives in government. Or maybe it had been one of the unfortunate SEALs. I can well understand why there would be any number of reasons they’d want to keep their relationship with Netherton quiet.

He swallows hard. “Brendan Scott.”

My eyebrows hit my hairline. “Karen?” Crews have more than enough time to share their backgrounds, and the information he’d shared was about how he’d grown up poor. Like so many, he’d joined the Army to escape going down the rabbit hole of crime. He was the unlikeliest man in my view to have a senator in his family. Surely not one who could fly first class and golf at expensive mansions.

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