He shakes his head. “Rome gave me such hell over the whole relationship, which is why I kept you off the grid, I didn’t think they’d come even if I asked. And then there would have been the small matter of trying to explain to you who the hell they were. ‘Friends from the office’ didn’t quite cut it.”
“But they came anyway.”
Dane smiles. “They couldn’t let a brother take the plunge without being there.”
“I wish I’d known.” I pull up to a stop sign. “Which way?”
“Take a left.”
Excitement bubbles up inside me that I’m finally going to see his office. Dane is mostly healed and going stir crazy from being at home and taking it easy, per the doctor’s orders, and me forbidding him to do anything strenuous after sustaining two gunshot wounds.
When he said he needed to get something from the office, I begged for the chance to tag along. He’s been in this office for a year, and I’ve never seen it. He would have said no, except that Arianna has been tracked back to Israel, and according to Rome’s message this morning, Vargas is no longer a concern. Anya is still a ghost, but they’ve determined she’s not a viable threat.
Basically, we got the all-clear, and the cloud that’s been hanging over our life has lifted.
Also, miracle of miracles, I’ve learned to delegate. I didn’t tell my own team that I returned early, mostly because I looked like I’d gone up against a heavyweight champ and lost, and they’d thrived without my constant micromanagement. I hired great people, and left with autonomy, they kicked ass.
So I extended my vacation for as long as necessary for Dane to heal, only working from home occasionally when an issue required my attention.
“Which building?”
“The gray one with the white roof.”
I pull into the parking lot of a crappy little building near the port. “This is it?”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover. Come on.”
Dane climbs out of the car, and I follow him up to the door. The security measures aren’t obvious, but Dane explains all the sensors and biometrics to me as he opens the office and lets us inside. He does a quick sweep to make sure nothing has been disturbed, and finally lets me check it out.
I can see why he said don’t judge a book by its cover. While the reception area looks as run-down as the outside, once we’re inside the inner sanctum, it’s a hundred times nicer.
The shiny concrete floor is gray with stained black marbling throughout. Dane’s office is done in gray and black, with a giant desk and two computer monitors that lift out of it when he presses a hidden button. The paneling on the wall slides back to reveal a dozen flat TV screens that I assume can play different live feeds at once.
“So, what exactly do you do here?”
“I watch the feeds to try to spot any additional threats. I man a drone on occasion to get an aerial view and send it through to the feed in Central America. We take turns because I can’t cover everything 24/7. I also interface with the insurance companies who don’t want to pay out on their kidnap-and-ransom policies and would rather pay us to extract the targets before the ransom is due. That’s a good eighty percent of the business we do now. It wasn’t always like that, but we’ve gotten to the point where we can pick and choose jobs.”
“And those nights you work late?”
“I’m usually sitting here watching the feeds or wading through contract bullshit that Rome doesn’t want to deal with.”
I open my mouth and shut it again, not sure I want to ask the question, but Dane sees it on my face.
“What?”
“I know you feel responsible for them losing Luis and two of the clients, so why do you keep doing this? Watching from afar where there’s nothing you can do if something goes wrong?”
Dane lowers himself into the chair behind his desk, and I sit in one of the club chairs across from him.
“After that mission went south and I wasn’t there, I figured I had two options—walk away from you and make sure I was always there when they needed me, or walk away from the field so they never relied on me that way again.” His dark brown eyes drill into mine. “Leaving you was never a real choice, so I took myself out of the equation for operations.”
“But why not remove yourself completely?” Maybe I shouldn’t push, but it’s something I don’t understand.
Dane shrugs. “They’re my brothers. I’ve spent years watching their backs, and walking away completely would’ve been the easy way out. I guess . . . this was the only way I could try to keep them safe without being there.”
Everything he wasn’t saying came through loud and clear.
“You’re punishing yourself.”
Dane’s eyes widen when I say it.
“You are. This is your penance for not being there when they needed you. You’ve sentenced yourself to this purgatory where you punish yourself over and over.”
“I guess you could look at it like that.”
I stand and come around the desk. “Baby, none of those guys hold it against you. I saw them. One call, and they were there for you without a second thought or hesitation. They’ve forgiven you.” I lay my hand against the side of his face. “You need to forgive yourself. You are not responsible for what happened to that little boy and his mom. You don’t know what would have happened if you had been there.”
“I wouldn’t have made the same mistake. Luis was inexperienced—”
I press my finger to his lips. “You can’t know. None of us can. A sinkhole in the jungle is a freak occurrence. You have to let go of the guilt or it’s going to drag you down. I just got you back, and I don’t want to lose you again. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for us.”
Chapter 44
Dane
Kat’s words hit me so hard, I can feel the impact.
What good am I doing anyone holding on to this? She’s right—Rome doesn’t blame me. He’s grateful to have me watching over their ops, not because he wants to punish me, but because it’s the only way I would stay part of the team.