Laura Kaye - Hard As It Gets

With a laugh, he turned off the lamp and left.

BECCA CAME AWAKE on a gasp. “Nick?” she said. In the darkness, the clock glowed the numbers 5:18. The lamp confirmed what her instincts had already told her; she was still alone.

The guys must be back by now. Right? Then again, Nick promised he’d wake her if something important happened.

Taking another moment to wake up, she rubbed her face and stretched. Here and there, her muscles twinged with delicious, little aches from their lovemaking, and she didn’t mind one bit.

Indulging in a quick shower, Becca’s mind started racing. What had the guys learned? What new challenges would the day throw at them? Would they find Charlie today? God, how she hoped.

She dried quickly, careful of her guitar drawing even though he’d said it wouldn’t smear, and dressed in jeans and a baseball-style T-shirt that was one of the most comfortable things she owned. Hair still damp, she threw it into a ponytail and stepped into her sneakers.

The rest of the loft apartment was quiet, and she wondered whether that was because everyone was asleep or over in the gym. The living room was empty, so she slipped out into the stairwell and crossed to the opposite door.

Voices sounded from inside as she entered the code into the keypad and pulled open the door. She only took half a step inside, unsure what she was walking into. The door rested against her shoulder.

“Jesus, Nick. All of this is her father’s fault. So she can damn well participate,” Shane yelled. The words shoved away the last of her sleepiness. What the hell was going on?

“That’s bullshit,” Nick raged back. “She has nothing to do with what her father did. It’s not her fucking fault the man was a goddamned criminal.”

Criminal? The walls of the huge space sucked in on her, her brain repeating that word in Nick’s angry voice. Why would he say that? Her heart pounded against her sternum.

“Guys,” Marz said, standing up from his desk chair.

Shane didn’t back down one bit. “Stop leading with your dick and think strategically—”

“Guys,” Marz said louder, looking right at her. Her fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and she had to force her feet to remain planted and not run away from whatever was happening here.

“What?” they both yelled.

Marz nodded to where she stood frozen in the doorway on the far side of the gym. And then five pairs of male eyes swung toward her.

“Shit,” Rixey bit out, crossing the gym in what felt like one giant leap. “Becca.” Not like this. She wasn’t supposed to find out like this. Goddamnit .

She stepped all the way inside, letting the door click behind her. “Why did you say that? About my dad being a criminal?” Disbelief and hurt colored her expression. Pleading filled her eyes, and it shredded him. “Why would you say that?”

Heart in his throat, he reached for her. “Becca—”

“No.” She batted his hands away. “What was my father’s fault?”

Panic stalked around the edges of his mind, but Rixey refused to let that fucker have a way in. He gestured toward the guys, resignation a weight on his shoulders. “Okay. Come sit down.”

Her eyebrows slashed down over stormy blue eyes as red climbed up her cheeks. “Just tell me what you meant.”

His mind raced a moment too long with a response, apparently, because she pushed past him and marched to the corner where his team stood, their gazes alternating between the pair of them. Nick hustled after her. When the truth came, it had to come from him or she’d never forgive him. Maybe she already wouldn’t.

Christ, they’d made love—and that’s exactly what it had been, not sex, not fucking, not some fling—they’d made love and he hadn’t been honest.

She faced off with the team. “Somebody man up and tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Becca—”

Nick glared at Marz, and the man ate whatever words he’d been about to say. When the call had come in on the reward phone line that had led to this fight with Shane, they’d already agreed to Nick’s appeal to trust Becca with the truth once they recovered her brother. Finding Charlie didn’t necessarily mean the Merritts’ troubles were over. Not if their enemies were still looking for whatever had led them to toss both their apartments. Moreover, Charlie would hopefully be able to corroborate some part of their story anyway. And if he was the one talking about whatever his father had been into, the NDA became moot as a reason for continuing to withhold the information.

Gauging the temperature of his team, it was clear from their gazes and their nods they thought she should know. And that was enough for him. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, especially the more he’d gotten to know her, but that ship had sailed. And fuck the goddamned NDA. If he was going down, it wouldn’t be with this secret standing between them.

Shoulders braced and feet apart, Nick heaved a breath. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Arms crossed, she slowly turned toward him. Her gaze told him to get to it.

Unsure which knife to throw first, the words tangled on his tongue. “Shit, Becca, I’m sorry. Your father . . .” He shook his head. “For five years I served under him. Frank Merritt was my mentor. The kind of soldier I wanted to be. He loved being out in the field, leading men and making a difference. He could’ve gotten cushy on a base somewhere, but he stayed with his team. And I respected the hell out of him for that.”

Damn, it wasn’t easy admitting how much Merritt had once meant to him. He kept his eyes on her, not wanting to see the guys’ inevitable reaction to his next words. “Frank was dirty. He had some black op running on the side—”

She blanched. “What? No. My dad would never—”

“Let me finish.” Rixey raked at his hair. The scowl looked so out of place on her face, and God , he hated that he’d put it there. “For months, I’d noticed little things. How he started to go off on his own for meetings. Afghan farmers—new to all of us—who seemed to know him. Supposed last-minute changes in orders while on counternarcotics missions, including the day our convoy was ambushed.”

The men knew all of this. And, damnedest thing was, after the fact, they’d all opened up. He hadn’t been the only one to pick up on some of Merritt’s oddities in behavior. But they’d all admired him so much that not one of them had believed what had been right before their eyes. Until it was too late, and half their team was gone. All this time that he’d beaten himself up over seeing but not believing what had been going on with Merritt, he’d forgotten that the others had experienced the same thing. His brain had piled all the blame on himself, when it wasn’t any of their faults. Somehow, he hadn’t had these insights until now.

“Go on.” Anger, sadness, and suspicion clouded her expression and made him want to go to her. But everything about her posture screamed Hands off, and it parked a Humvee-sized ball of regret right in the middle of his chest.

He shook his head, his gaze skating over the empty gym equipment, and he heaved a breath. “We were transporting a huge quantity of seized opium. In our area of operation, there were two drop locations, but we almost always used the same one. Right before the convoy got underway, Merritt said we had to drop at the alternate location. About halfway there, out in the middle of BFE, we hit a two-truck roadblock that shouldn’t have been there. I was in the tail gun truck and hung back. It didn’t feel right. And your father was too reassuring on the radio, like he knew it would be okay. When, damnit, that shit is never okay over there.” He scanned his gaze over the group.