Page 74 of Unmade

I shrugged. “It gives me purpose.”

“A plumber has a purpose too.”

I instinctively rolled my eyes. “Don’t even try, pup.” I knew what he was doing. He wanted to paint me as a good guy for what I did for a living. “I’m not gonna say it doesn’t feel good to break up a trafficking ring or bring home a little girl who’s been abducted to get married to someone forty years older than her—it absolutely does. But I don’t choose my assignments. Despite Hillcroft’s built-in moral compass, we protect shitbags from time to time too.”

My current assignment was the best example. Quinlan and his crew would never accept a client whom they deemed the bad guy in whatever situation or dispute. In this case, the man with oil money and a dead son. He wanted to get the killer. No problem. But in his spare time, that man wasn’t someone you wanted to bring home to meet the family. And I explained it to Leighton. I told him bluntly that we dealt with fuckers from that part of the world all the time, where women couldn’t take freedom or basic rights for granted, where slavery was widely accepted, and where speaking your mind could get you beheaded.

“But he’s paying us millions of dollars to get his son’s killer,” I finished.

Leighton turned off the water and chewed on his lip. “We protect the bad guys in our country sometimes too. Like, in the service.”

We sure did.

He glanced at me. “So, how are you any different from a soldier?”

I shut off the water too. “Not all soldiers are the same. You know that.” Hell, if you hadn’t stumbled upon cheaters, liars, and criminals in the Army, you hadn’t served.

For some reason, he didn’t feel the need to shield himself now. He walked over to where his towel was, and I did my best not to get stuck on seeing his dick. And yeah, I was screwed. I could no longer deny that I wanted to do all kinds of fucked-up things with that guy.

Go me. I wanted a recruit. Motherfucker.

“Either way, I don’t think you’re a bad guy,” he said, wrapping the towel around his hips.

I suppressed a sigh and aimed for my towel too. Did Leighton sneak a peek? Yes, he did. He tried to be subtle about it.

I smiled and knew exactly how to shoot myself in the foot. Rather than wrapping the towel around myself, I started by dragging it over my head, my shoulders, down my body…and here came the shot that would end it all, which was good for his sake.

“Nassim wasn’t extradited,” I said. “I threw him into an incinerator. He was alive when that happened. Sedated but alive.”

Leighton blinked and stared at me.

I stared right back and could practically hear Shira, Coach, and Quinlan cursing me out for going over the line. I didn’t care. My gut instinct told me I could be honest with Leighton. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t deny it if the kid chose to use it against me. Granted, he’d take a step back from me now, which was half the point, but I didn’t believe he’d freak out. The other half of the point—let’s call it preparation for the day he had clearance to know such things. More than that, he might have to do something like that himself.

I wrapped the towel low around my hips and?—

“I hope that’s true,” he said. Wait, what? “The extradition didn’t sit right with me. It seems stupid to leave loose ends.”

Was he just saying that to…what, come off as unbothered or stronger? As someone who was training him for a career at Hillcroft, I actually wanted to know. For several reasons. Doc would want to dig deeper too.

“Even though he didn’t do anything?” I questioned.

Leighton grabbed his laundry under his arm, his toiletry kit too, and shrugged. “He came to kill you. Whether he failed or not is irrelevant. As long as he’s alive, he’s a threat.” He nodded at the door. “Can we go eat now? I’m starving.”

I inclined my head on autopilot and followed him out of the shower room. Our units were a short walk past the rec room and down a hall, and my mind spun the whole way. His reasoning lined up with mine, and there was nothing wrong with it per se. But just like Doc had raised some concerns about how I compartmentalized things, he was gonna wanna do the same with Leighton. Death and pulling the trigger had never bothered me much. Granted, I had seen combat before leaving the service to join Hillcroft, so I’d been more prepared. I’d already developed coping mechanisms. Leighton hadn’t killed anyone yet, so whatever he said now was, at best, speculation about how he’d handle tough calls in the future.

We went our separate ways to get dressed, but as the seconds ticked by, I thought about sitting in the cafeteria now and…no. No. We started discussing the psychology of killing and torturing much later on in the training, when most of the recruits had already jumped ship. But I was ready to begin earlier with Leighton.

After pulling on a pair of sweats and a tee, I went over to the door only Alex had used so far, and I knocked twice.

I’d stared at the door plenty lately, though. Every time I woke up from a dream about Leighton, I cursed the fact that we had adjacent rooms as much as I wanted to rip the door open for easy access.

I heard him curse on the other side, just a second or two before he opened it. He jumped to steady himself, and he was clutching his foot.

“Are you okay?” I smirked.

He gritted his teeth. “Every fucking day, I ram my big toe into the sofa.”

I grinned. “You should stop doing that.”

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