Page 7 of Leading Conviction
“Thank you,” he answered roughly.
A few more moments of empty air filtered between them before Draco spoke again, “You never talked about her much after that first MF7 meeting with the General. I vaguely remember what happened then but I don’t know what went down afterward. She was your girlfriend, right?”
She was my world.
Hawk swallowed. The answer should be so simple, but nothing was ever simple with Hannah. Especially when Eagle was in the mix.
“No,” he finally admitted. “She was my fiancée.”
“She was yourwhat?”
“I proposed to her right before shit got serious in MF7.” Hawk could feel Draco’s judgment crashing into him.
“And then you, what? Just left?”
“As shitty as it sounds. It played out even worse. I’d talked the decision over with Eagle and at the time, I thought it was the best way to keep her safe.”
“Wasn’t Eagle friends with her too?”
Hawk snorted. “You’ve been hanging out with your girlfriend too much. What happened to the silent giant who minded his own business?”
“What can I say? My better half makes me better.”
Draco shrugged before shifting in his seat. He extracted a small case from his pocket and pulled a toothpick out before popping it into his mouth. The full-blast air conditioner wafted the light scent of peppermint toward Hawk.
“Hmm… I think a talkative Draco being consideredbetteris a questionable assumption.”
“Man, fuck off and answer the question.”
“That’s more like it.” Hawk laughed but it drifted off the longer Draco stared at him.
The intensity in the man’s gaze eventually forced Hawk to cave and fess up. Hell, it might be good to air it all out before he saw her right in front of him again.
“Hannah was always mine…” Hawk cleared his throat. “But back then? I think Eagle had wanted her too.”
CHAPTERTHREE
Nine years ago
“This is it, men.Thisis the team. MF7.” Eagle grinned at his teammates, pride welling within him as he watched them take their seats around the base’s conference table. They’d each just sworn their oath to the team, symbolically of course since their individual contracts were already signed weeks ago. The six of them were in it for the long haul now, whether their crazy asses liked it or not.
Hawk, his second-in-command. Snake, their comms sergeant. Phoenix, their pilot. And their two weapons sergeants, Draco and Jaybird. The best of the best Eagle had recruited for General Richard Smithers. Their team would defeat human trafficking once and for all throughout the world. It was a lofty goal, to say the least, but one he believed in all the same.
“Well, wewillbe MF7, as soon as we get our medic,” Hawk pointed out, his eyes were narrowed and seriousness furrowed his dark-brown skin. “It’s a good team, but until we get a medic, we’re fighting with our hands tied behind our backs.”
Eagle waved off his best friend’s concern. “In due time. We’ll be training for a while, and Snake can be our stopgap medic when we finally go on our missions. General Smithers has guaranteed me that the jobs we’re working right after training will be a piece of cake so we can get our feet wet until we find the right person for the team.”
A few of his teammates nodded, satisfied with his explanation, but Hawk and Jaybird still seemed skeptical. Or rather, Hawk seemed skeptical. Jaybird was pissed and had been ever since he ghosted his girlfriend to join the team.
The choice wasn’t one Eagle would’ve personally made, but leaving without explanation was apparently the best the guy could do. Having to leave loved ones behind sucked, but that was the nature of spec-ops jobs. The missions they were about to go on would be dangerous and there was no way to know if they’d return.
Eagle and Hawk would have to do the same soon, albeit theirs would be a “goodbye for now” rather than the brutal disappearing act Jaybird had committed. Luckily, they were training in Atlanta, so they could put off their conversation until they actually had to leave base.
Then again, maybe Jaybird had the right idea. The extra time was bound to only make things harder.
“I’ve got someone in mind for the medic position. Name’s Devil,” Draco rumbled from the back, his mouth working around a toothpick.
“Is that the redheaded kid we worked with during that joint op? With the jump training out of helos?” Hawk asked. “He was a near prodigy at rappelling.”
