Page 46 of Target Me
I thought about the request she’d made before she passed out. How many times had she had to pick up the pieces after being walked out on? As great as the General had been with me, I knew for a fact he had never shown much affection to his daughter. Had he said farewell before he headed off on deployment? I’d never seen her on base, or at the airport waving him off.
Her mother was another story all together. I knew Avery was convinced her mother was the one after her, but instinct was screaming something else was going on. The information Damon had pulled up just didn’t gel the way it was meant to. Regardless of the General’s political aspirations, someone didn’t just turn up out of the blue to start targeting her own daughter to get at an ex-partner.
Despite the recent orgasm, I was antsy, unsettled by all the unknowns and a feeling I couldn’t shake that the answers were right there, if I could just reach out and grab them.
Stomping out the front door, I settled carefully on the edge of the rotting deck and pulled Bear’s number up on my cell.
“Hey, man.” The phone had barely rung before Bear’s deep voice was tickling my ear. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he was waiting for my call. He’d always had a sixth sense about when one of the team needed him.
“Hey.”
“What’s up?” He kept his voice light, but concern still laced his words. Shit. May as well just put it out there.
“Too much without enough intel. We had to evac the General’s house. We were compromised there. Bear, nothing adds up. The intel Damon gave us is full of holes, and Avery’s convinced we’re being hunted by a militant ghost. Fuck. I feel like I’m losing it here.”
Bear sighed, the sound long and low in the way that told me he was sorting through not just what I said, but what I meant by it.
“Okay, I can’t move past the militant ghost comment, so let’s start there. What do you mean?”
I explained everything in detail. Avery’s suspicions, the most recent attacks—including the bullet meant for her fucking head—and our subsequent evacuation.
“So you settled at that farmhouse of yours?” he asked, eventually.
“How do you know about this place?”
“I know everything.” The grin in his voice was as annoying as it was comforting. I had backup if I needed it; and thank God for that.
We sat quietly for a moment, the evening breeze mussing my hair and reminding me that my ball cap was still in my truck. I rubbed absently at the scar on the back of my head, thinking of the other new information I’d learned, almost forgotten with the more pressing events of the day.
“Do you remember the night Lana died?”
“The night she was killed, you mean? Yeah. Of course I do.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. Bear had been furious at the attack, as though it were a personal affront that the enemy had infiltrated his camp and killed one of our own.
“What if… what if there were more to the attack than we knew?” I felt like a traitor even saying the words, and the silence echoed down the line was more cutting than any rebuke.
“Forget—”
“Tell me exactly what you think you know.” Bear’s voice was sharp as a whip, so unlike his usual laid back attitude that I pulled my cell from my ear to check who I had called.
“Logan.” Softer now, closer to the voice I knew. “If you know something, man, you need to tell me. You know that attack never sat right with me, and while I wasn’t as vocal as you were after the fact, believe me when I tell you I haven’t stopped investigating.”
Calling me vocal after the attack was like calling an amputation a paper cut. I’d been obsessed. The second I was out of my hospital bed, I was making enquiries, sending emails, harassing anyone I could reach to investigate the occurrence. We’d been in a heavily guarded location that should have been off the map to the enemy. We’d had assets stolen from under us, and the only casualties had been Lana, me, and five men on guard detail.
I’d run my career into the ground, making enemies of higher up officials with my refusal to let the mystery go. I’d never admit it to the General, but I left before they could kick me out.
“Logan.”
“Sorry, just thinking.”
I explained the paperwork Avery and I had found. The bank statements, the correspondence, and my suspicions, all of it. When I was finished, Bear let out a string of vicious curses that I would expect to come from Damon, not the giant teddy-bear of a man who acted like a mother hen to all of his brothers-in-arms.
When he had calmed down, Bear took a deep breath and released it on a sigh I felt deep in my bones. We were all tired. Tired of subterfuge, of fighting, or watching loved ones die. Tired of all of it.
“Okay. First thing’s first. You’re in love with the girl, aren’t you?”
Every muscle in my body seized at the thought of that one word. Denial screamed through my head, thoughts overlapping, scampering over each other like rats fleeing a burning house. Too soon. Boss’s daughter. Not a chance.
