Page 65 of Leading Conviction
As he stood, she wrapped her arms around his neck and got on her tiptoes to kiss him, loving that this powerful man tasted like her.
“It’ll be something better,” she promised against his lips, her chest alight with hope. “And unforgettable.”
“It’ll be perfect, dove.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
Two years ago
Eagle regretted it. Even seven years later, the memory of that night wormed its way into his conscience daily. An unbidden, unwelcome reminder of his betrayal every time he looked at his best friend.
Almost as soon as he’d left his old apartment the next morning, he’d wished he could take it all back. Succumbing to his feelings for Hannah while she was overcome with grief was the worst thing he could have done. Besides the fact he potentially ruined his relationship with Hawk, it just confirmed that he and Hannah would never be more than they were. Friends. And after all this time, they might not ever be that again, either.
The entire encounter was awkward. Hannah cried the whole time, and he felt like a prick for stabbing one friend in the back while taking advantage of the other. In the end, he became the coward he’d accused Hawk of being. He’d run away after having his tryst and never looked back. Instead of trying to reach out to Hannah again like he’d promised, he’d assuaged his guilt by holding strong to the pact he’d made with Hawk to leave her alone and keep her safe.
All those thoughts raced through his head as he drove to the General’s office. It was Eagle’s first time back on American soil in he didn’t know how the fuck long, years, at least. His team—including their new recruit Devil—were nomads and underdogs in the fight against human trafficking.
There seemed to be no end in sight, despite the fact they’d been picking off supposed ringleaders left and right. The trade was insidious, like the heads of a hydra. Every time they cut off one organization, two more syndicates would crop up.
And now that General Smithers had asked him for a secret, private meeting, it was time Eagle brought his team home, for good.
His friends didn’t know his plans, yet. He’d been afraid to tell them prematurely, just in case the meeting blew up in his face. But he was hoping the latest bit of intel would put him in a good negotiating position against the General.
“A little blackmail never hurt anybody,” he muttered.
Years ago, pre-MF7 Eagle would’ve been shocked to hear he was going to go toe to toe against his hero. The Eagle today, however, didn’t give two shits about the bastard. Eagle would do whatever he had to in order to get his team home. He hoped to fuck it wouldn’t have to come to that, though.
Their missions had become more and more dangerous, to the point that the team had a recurring joke that the General was trying to get rid of them. After what he’d learned during their last job, Eagle was beginning to suspect they were right.
They’d gone after a low-level pimp, rookie shit after the years of training and missions they’d endured, but one of the girls they’d saved had triggered something in his mind.
She’d looked a hell of a lot like Hannah.
He and Hawk had talked about it before, how uncanny it was that a few of the women over the years had looked so much like her. They’d first noticed it a couple of years ago on a job back in the States. But during the most recent mission, the resemblance was too striking to ignore. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from checking back in on the survivor.
That’s when things got fucked up.
The team worked side by side with the Rahab Foundation, an organization that helped trafficked and abused survivors reintegrate back into society, giving them tools to thrive after everything else had been stolen away. But the more Eagle looked into it, the more he found some disturbing discrepancies.
No matter how hard or how long he’d searched, he couldn’t find records on the women they’d saved in the Rahab Foundation’s database. Granted, MF7 rarely got a full name, date of birth, and hometown from the women before the Rahab Foundation came to help them. That was the foundation’s job. But of the faces and names Eagle could remember—specifically the Hannah lookalikes—he’d only been able to find one woman, and she had just committed suicide in a psychiatric hospital.
Even though Eagle wasn’t a genius at computers like Snake, he was no novice. He understood enough coding to hack the foundation’s records, and to realize important shit was missing from the files.
Eagle had thought about bringing it up to Hawk. But what if he was wrong? And how the hell would he even broach the subject?
“Hey brother, I think the women we’re saving might be getting sold back into sexual slavery. That’s one of the reasons why the trafficking never stops and the kingpins seem to only get bigger and bigger. Oh yeah, and the General? You know, the love of your life’s father? Yeah, he tricked you into this shit so he could have Hannah all to himself for some sick reason. Anyway, go USA and go Braves.”
Yeah, no, that wouldnotgo over well. If he was going to ruin Hawk’s world,again, he was going to do it with fucking proof. And to be honest, if Eagle got what he wanted for his team without having to blackmail, he could be tempted to just forget his “theories.”
What he suspected was more than diabolical. It was treason. So fucking unbelievable that Eagle prayed he was missing crucial components to the puzzle.
For example, the foundation often gave survivors new identities, so maybe their information was wiped from the system afterward. And obviously, there was always the possibility that he and Hawk had been going slightly crazy without Hannah. Hawk especially.
Hawk used to be full of laughs and happiness, all centered around Hannah. Now he was serious, sullen, and rarely spoke. The only time he fell back into the old Hawk was when they watched baseball or drank orange-flavored sweet tea, like the kind Hannah used to make. Eagle’s best friend had become a shell of who he once was.
They all had. Spending this much time doing this kind of work would eventually wear down any man’s soul. They needed to be done, for good.
That was why Eagle was going to firstaskthe General about coming home and staying home. If that didn’t work, there was one final puzzle piece he wanted to gather before he revealed what he knew, and he’d have to wait until after the party that was coming up.
