Page 56 of Wild Card (The Trident Trilogy 3)

I lean over and put my head in my hands. “Why didn’t he tell me? God, this is my fault.”

“Mason, it’s not your fault. I know I don’t need to tell you that.” Culver pats me on the back once. “You know some of our guys are using to help them stay energized. We’re trying to eliminate it, but it’s there.”

I sit up quickly. “No one on my team was or is using. No one. I don’t know how he hid it from me.”

“He didn’t hide it from you. I don’t think he was using when you were here. By the time he started, you were out in San Diego. There’s no way you could have known.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have left—”

“Mason, I know there’s not a brain cell in your head that believes that,” he says sternly. “You know you made the right decision.”

“Yeah, for me, but not for him.”

“Everybody’s got to do what’s right for himself. If you had stayed with the team, you would have been thinking about Millie all the time. You know you wouldn’t have been happy. You made the right decision for you. That’s all that matters. JJ needed to figure it out. He just chose the wrong way.”

“But he seemed fine in Pakistan,” I say, squinting as I try to remember it clearly. “He was focused, calm. It’s just been these last few weeks that he’s been all over the place. I should have listened to you. He wasn’t ready for the lead.”

“Look, JJ was one of the finest operators to ever wear the uniform,” Culver says. “I wouldn’t have appointed him at lead if I didn’t think he was capable. It was more than that—the divorce, the team breaking up. Some people can handle a full-on firefight better than they can handle change. I think he was one of those people. Best thing we can do now is get over there and find the people who did this. Get your head in the game. We owe this to him.”

* * *

---