Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112244 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112244 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
He wouldn’t understand the kind of loyalty and work ethic that had been ingrained in me by my former-Marine dad or the brotherhood that had formed between me, Champ, and our other teammates when we served together.
Kev didn’t get that sometimes you fucking had to succeed because failure wasn’t an option…
Or that letting down my team would crush my soul.
After several hours of trying to find the vulnerability and failing, I was at my wit’s end. Champ eyed me over the giant mug of coffee he’d brought over from the fancy machine on the kitchen counter. “Take a break, Hux. We need to talk strategy.”
“I can’t,” I argued. “I’ve got scans running, and I… I fucked up by not finding this myself. I need to make it right.”
“You fucked up,” Champ agreed with no heat. “But that happens. Nobody’s perfect. That’s why we work as a team. Our success or failure isn’t all on you, okay?”
But it was. The tech part of it was.
And the fact that his words reminded me of what Kev had said earlier… well, that made me clench my jaw tight.
Champ lowered his voice, and his eyes met mine in concern. “Is there a reason why you won’t ask Kev for help? Beyond the gamer rivalry, I mean. Anything I need to know?”
I felt like Champ was managing me, and I hated that. I hated being someone who needed to be managed.
So I was sure as hell not gonna admit something as childish as “Kev Rogers has everything I’ve ever wanted, and I’m not gonna let him take my fucking job too.” Not when I knew how silly that sounded.
“Nah. We just work differently, that’s all.” I shrugged. “But I can work with him if I have to. No problem.”
We both knew I was lying.
“Right. We’re moving to the den for a planning session. Nonnegotiable,” Champ added before I could argue again. “We need your input before the meeting with HOG Corporate.”
I gave one last, longing glance at my machine, then logged out and followed him through a small hallway into the wood-paneled room we’d taken over for our strategy sessions. There was a giant sectional sofa in front of the stone fireplace, with two comfortable chairs making up the rest of the seating area. A low wood coffee table filled in the empty space between the seating and the hearth. Thankfully, the furniture had been deliberately selected to withstand the abuse of ten men treating it like their own personal playground.
Champ pulled one of the chairs around in front of the fireplace to face the rest of us scattered across the sofa and spoke solemnly, “First things first: you did a fucking incredible job on Saturday. I wanna thank you all.”
We all exchanged glances, and I saw Jordan and Elvo nod. Champ was never stingy with praise when we’d earned it, the same way he never hesitated to call us on our mistakes.
“We didn’t have a lot of time to plan this one,” he went on. “We were flying by the seat of our pants, but we made it happen. I think it’s safe to say that when I assigned Riggs a mission last November, none of us expected this—”
Riggs snorted. “Now, that’s an understatement. Let’s see… Since last November, Champ’s forced me into a shitty personal protection assignment in Venezuela with a rich doctor—” Riggs counted off on his fingers.
Champ rolled his eyes. “Yeah, my bad. I see how poorly that worked out for you and your new husband.”
“We got kidnapped by the head of a notorious drug cartel,” Riggs continued counting, “only to learn he wasn’t actually the head of a notorious drug cartel. We found that HOG Corporate’s missing lead programmer was being held at the cartel’s compound also. We rescued Buck, then found out that he’d stolen a Horn device full of cartel data.” He shook his head. “I definitely hadn’t expected any of that.”
“Don’t forget falling in lurve in the jungle with the doctor you were sent to protect.” Elvo batted his eyelashes and made a bunch of teasing kissy noises. “That was the most unexpected of all.”
One corner of Riggs’s mouth tipped up, and he didn’t seem embarrassed in the slightest. “It was,” he agreed, glancing at the shiny new piece of hardware on his left ring finger. “But what Carter and I have… that’s the part that makes all the rest okay.”
I restrained an eye roll and a gagging noise only with incredible strength of will.
Look, it wasn’t that I didn’t believe in love, or think it was cool, or whatever. But the idea that love could make a person change their whole interpretation of events, elevating an utter clusterfuck into something that was “okay” simply because love came out of it? Lolz. No.
Love might be a sweet power-up in the game of life, but it would never be my reason for playing.