Page 90 of Over the Top

“I can’t agree with that,” he declared. “I hate all of this.”

“Hell, I hate killing. But in my world, it often comes down to kill or be killed. If you can accept that, then we’re okay. But if you can’t, then we’ve got a problem.”

Chas clamped his mouth shut so he wouldn’t say something he could never retract. But God, it was hard. He was not the bad guy here for being unable to accept outright killing as a viable option for dealing with problems. Sure, he’d had to defend himself a few times over the years. But punching a guy a few times was a far cry from putting a bullet in his head.

Where did it stop? This wasn’t a sanctioned SEAL mission, but Gunner thought it was okay to kill in this situation. What if a more casual friend’s life was threatened? Was it okay then? Or what if the threat was slightly more vague? Was a lethal response still okay? What if an asshole in a bar assaulted Chas? How much violence was okay then? Or what if Chas really, really pissed him off? Would Gunner resort to violence in that situation?

No matter how many ways he turned it over in his head, examining the morality of it from every angle, he couldn’t find a way to accept murder as a necessary evil.

“I’m sorry, Gunner. I just can’t.”

Gunner’s arm tightened around his shoulders briefly, convulsively, and then fell away from him.

Gunner stood up swiftly, silently, every inch a predator, and disappeared into the night, leaving Chas to sit alone on the sofa with his regrets and a dead man in the next room.

GUNNER EXHALEDhard in frustration for at least the hundredth time. How could Chas do this to them? How could he ask him to choose between the only kind of career he knew and their love?

He and Chas had spent most of the night separately writing out statements for the police and being interrogated by the FBI after the agents had secured the Brentwood estate. A few dead Oshiro gang members’ bodies had been collected and the rest of the gangsters arrested. It had taken hours to clear the entire grounds of the estate, but eventually Mr. and Mrs. Brentwood, Poppy, and the nanny/bodyguard friend of Drago’s had been let out of the panic room. They were all spending the night at the Brentwood mansion under heavy FBI guard.

Gunner’s interrogators had made him start at the beginning, when he’d gotten that frantic phone call from a childhood friend begging for help, and had him walk them all the way through to clearing the house and killing the intruders.

The good news was initial forensics indicated that the weapons the Oshiro gang was using were the same types that had shot up all those people in Misty Falls. The FBI was inclined to be lenient with several ex-Spec Ops types who’d taken down the perpetrators of the Misty Falls massacre, and he, Spencer, and Drago had all been released around dawn.

The house was taped off as a crime scene, so they’d picked up Chas, piled in a truck, and driven to a local diner, where they’d ordered a mountain of food and dug into it.

Spencer and Drago put their heads together across the booth to discuss something in private, which left him and Chas sitting side by side in awkward silence.

Gunner muttered the one thought that had been on his mind ever since their disastrous talk last night. “How can you ask me to choose between you and my job? You know how much it means to me. It’s not just some nine-to-five gig for the paycheck, and you know that too.”

“It’s not that simple,” Chas ground out under his breath.

“Then explain it to me. For God’s sake, help me understand.”

“Tell me something, Gunner. If you had to choose between what you believe in most and me, could you do it?”

Dammit. “Depends on what you mean by ‘what you believe in most,’ I suppose.”

“The thing you believe in above all else. Your deepest, most closely held belief. For example, my deepest belief is that love is the answer to most of what’s wrong in the world today.”

“I have no idea what my deepest belief is,” he argued, frustrated. God, he hated having to dig around in his feelings as if they were some dead animal he was dissecting.

“Well, I know you believe in your teammates. They’re family to you, and you’d do anything for them, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Could you choose between letting your teammates die or letting me die?”

“That’s not fair. I’d try to save all of you.”

“Can you choose between a life with your SEAL family or with me?”

“I think I already have.”

“Could you give up being a soldier, being a warrior, for me?”

“It’s not that simple. It’s not as if I can unlearn all the things I know how to do. I’ll always be a warrior, whether you like it or not.”

“Could you quit killing?”

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