Broken Honor (27 page)

And saving top-secret files to a flash drive the day of the car accident.

Holy. Fuck.

A headache sliced through his brain with the memory. He’d started getting suspicious of his commander and four other SEALs shortly after Liam Miller was ejected from SAS, but he hadn’t had proof until after his team was sent in to rescue Seth Harlan from Afghanistan. There were discrepancies in Commander Bennett’s reports of what had been found in that village with Seth. The numbers hadn’t added up. Seized opium and weapons were never logged, so he’d started snooping and found more inconsistencies going back for years. He’d saved those reports to a drive mere hours before the crash that ended his and Gabe’s careers. That’s why he’d been in such a bad mood when he picked Gabe up that day.

And now—he searched through the fragmented memories of the weeks surrounding the accident but came up blank. He had no idea what he’d done with the drive, but none of the people involved could have known that, and it suddenly made a hell of a lot more sense why his place had been ransacked and his former teammates wanted him dead.

He had the power to blow their illegal operation wide-open.

Heavy footsteps thudded toward Quinn, and he backed away, ducking into the first room he came to. Luckily, it was empty, and he watched Jasper stride past the open door. He had the phone still clamped to his ear and was speaking in a brusque, businesslike tone. “Yes, this is Jasper Bristow. I need to speak to someone about contesting a power of attorney…”

The envelope in Quinn’s pocket suddenly felt as heavy as a brick. He took it out, read his name scrawled in Gabe’s messy script, and had a good idea of what he’d find inside. But, no, he couldn’t read it here and tucked it away again. He needed the privacy of his hotel room before opening it.

Just because he knew what he’d find didn’t mean it wasn’t going to rip what was left of his heart out of his chest.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Quinn,

So it finally happened. We always knew this was a likely outcome, right? Every op, it was the risk we took. Though, I have to admit, I always thought you’d be the one in the casket and I’d be left behind to mourn your sorry ass. Bet you thought the same thing. Bet you’re wishing right now that’s how it all went down.

Yeah. I’m sorry, buddy. I know this sucks for you, probably more than it does for me.

I’m sure you’re wondering why I broke our rule and wro
te you a letter. Don’t worry. Raffi and Audrey are still getting theirs. I put them both in the other envelope. But right now, you and the team are in the other room, preparing to go after Mara, and I decided I had things that need to be said, so I’m writing them down. Just in case.

When we were in Colombia, you called me a coward for walking away from Audrey, and you were right. I was terrified of losing her, of opening myself up to her and losing her, so I ran away instead of manning up and facing what I felt. But you know what? Not having her in my life was even worse than the fear. This is gonna sound sappy, but she made me whole, and I want you to find that with someone. I suspect you might have already, and if that’s the case, if Mara is your Audrey, don’t fuck it up.

And right now you’re thinking, “Fuck you, Gabe. This is a different sitch than what happened with you and Audrey.” No, it’s not. It’s exactly the same, and you damn well know it. Mara and the baby are the best things that have ever happened to you. They need you, and you need them. Don’t make my mistake. Don’t walk away from them.

And, Q, the whole fatherhood thing? Don’t let that freak you out. You know more about being a good father than any of us. You got the blueprint. Just do the exact opposite of everything your old man did, and you’ll be golden.

I’m sorry I won’t be around to see your kid. Yeah, babies scare the daylights out of me, but still. I would have liked to meet Baby Quinn.

And now we come to the second reason I’m writing you. Fair warning, it’s going to hurt.

I lied to you, buddy. When you asked me about the moments before the car accident and if you had said anything to me? Yeah, I lied. You did tell me something. In the days before the accident, you found files that proved widespread corruption, and you suspected it stretched all the way up the chain of command. I was so entrenched in the navy at that point, I didn’t want to hear it, and we were arguing about it when the truck sideswiped us. I know you don’t remember any of this, but you mentioned you put the files on a flash drive. You wouldn’t give me any names of the people involved other than Liam, and I don’t know what you did with the drive. You didn’t have it with you because you were nervous they’d try something to make sure those files never saw the light of day. It’s a good bet you were right to worry and that’s what this clusterfuck is all about. I just didn’t realize it until you spotted Liam here in Transnistria. Part of me hoped this all had something to do with Mara and not us. Should have known better, right? Given our track record.

Find those files, Quinn. ASAP.

You’re probably swearing right about now. Pissed off at me, and I don’t blame you for that. I should have told you sooner, but I was afraid for you, man. Afraid of the shitstorm it would have brewed up and what they’d do if you pushed them. So when you didn’t remember any of this, I decided it was easier, safer for you, if I let it drop. It was wrong to let them get away with it for so long and I’m sorry for that. I just wanted to protect you.

I know I don’t have much right to ask you for a favor at this point, but I’m going to anyway. Don’t take your anger at me out on Audrey. If I’m gone, she’s already hurting, and I wish more than anything I could take her pain away. Please look after her for me.

And look after yourself. Get healthy. Find some happiness. Have a good life. God knows you deserve it more than anyone.

I’d better not see you for at least fifty years, but when you do get to the afterlife, look me up. I’m gonna miss you, man.

Over and out,

Gabe

Quinn folded the paper and stared at the floor in his hotel room for…he didn’t know how long. Too long, probably, but the note was too much to process, and his brain was scrambling to make sense of it.

Gabe had known about the corruption all along. And he’d ignored it, brushed it under the rug. To protect Quinn.

And…to protect Jasper and Michael Bristow?

No. Gabe had said he didn’t know the names of the people involved, and it made sense that Quinn would have kept that to himself…to protect Gabe.

Dammit, he couldn’t be angry when he would have done the exact same thing in Gabe’s shoes.

I’m gonna miss you, man.

He was going to miss Gabe, too, more than he could vocalize. Very carefully, he refolded the letter and replaced it in its envelope. He had to keep it safe because before this was over, he’d need to see his best friend’s words of good-bye again. And maybe he’d need them every day until the hole Gabe’s death created in his heart started to heal. But right now, he was cold down to the marrow of his bones and so raw that even the weight of the clothes on his back was painful. He tried to imagine his life without both Gabe and Mara in it and couldn’t do it.

Didn’t want to do it.

Didn’t want to live it.

His cell phone rang, vibrating across the nightstand, and he grabbed it before it jittered over the edge. A cold pit opened up in his stomach when he spotted Audrey’s number on the screen, and he silenced the call. He didn’t have to answer. He already knew what she was going to say.

Gabe was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The whole team was there, milling around in the hallway in front of Gabe’s room. Quinn refused to meet their gazes, didn’t want to see their grief when his own was sharp enough to slice him in two.

He drew a breath, fortifying himself before he went through the door, expecting to be overwhelmed by the sorrow of a widowed woman.

Instead, Audrey was laughing. She was leaning over the bed an
d laughing.

Quinn slammed to a halt, disoriented. Hope and adrenaline sang through his veins, and he moved forward on autopilot, his stomach fluttering.

Gabe’s eyes were open, and they shifted from his wife to Quinn. He reached up with a shaking hand, and Quinn met him halfway, clasping their palms together.

“Hey, man. About time you stopped sleeping on the job. You know I hate being in charge.”

Audrey gave a startled laugh. “Quinn!”

Gabe’s hand slipped from his, and he made a scribbling motion at Audrey.

“Oh. Okay. Hang on, honey.” She turned to grab a whiteboard and a dry-erase marker. “His doctor is going to try weaning him off the ventilator later today. Since he can’t talk until the breathing tube comes out, the nurse gave us this so he could communicate,” she explained, handing him the marker. She positioned the board in front of him, and it took him a few tries, but he finally scrawled out,
F U, Q
. Then he emphasized it by sticking up his middle finger.

“Gabe!” Audrey said in the same half-horrified, half-amused tone she’d used moments ago with Quinn. Her husband gave her a reassuring thumbs-up before his hand dropped heavily back to the bed and his eyes fell shut.

Yeah, Gabe was back. He wasn’t going anywhere yet.

Quinn leaned over the bed’s railing and lowered his voice, “Gabe, do you remember what happened?”

Yes
, he wrote. Then his gaze lifted, and despite the cloudiness brought on by pain meds, his eyes asked all sorts of worried questions.

Quinn nodded. “Yeah, I read it, but I’m not pissed off at you, okay? I get why you didn’t say anything. I would have done the same to protect you.”

He blinked slowly, a silent thank-you.

“But you know I can’t drop it now, right?” Quinn hesitated. “And this is going to hit close to home for you.”

Gabe nodded with his eyes more than his head and scrawled,
Michael shot me.

“Yeah, I know. He’s dead, but Jasper’s in this, too, and he’s more than willing to kill you to keep his secrets. He’s already tried twice.”

Gabe paused for a moment, his hand dropping with exhaustion. Then he wrote,
Twice? The car accident?

“Wasn’t an accident. And maybe Michael and Jasper weren’t directly involved, but they knew someone was going to try for me, and they were okay with you ending up collateral damage to protect themselves.” He tilted his head toward the ventilator that was currently breathing for Gabe. “And now Jasper wants to pull the plug on you.”

“What?” Audrey demanded.

Let them. I can breathe on my own. I’ll pull the plug myself.

Quinn chuckled. “That’ll piss them off, huh?”

Gabe blinked twice, then added in big letters,
Not my family anymore. Fuck them over 4 me.

“Hooyah,” Quinn said. “I’ll make things right.”

Gabe swiped his palm over the board, erasing it. He had to pause for several long minutes to gather his strength, then he wrote,
Mara?

Quinn huffed out a breath that was caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Nag, nag, nag.”

u already fucked it up?

“Probably.” At Gabe’s narrow-eyed glare, he threw up his hands in surrender. “All right, yeah. But I’ll fix that, too.”

Go 2 Mara 1st.
He underlined the statement twice, then added,
rest can wait
.

“Yeah, yeah. When did you turn into such a romantic?”

Gabe dropped the marker and groped for his wife’s hand. He raised it to his cheek, leaned into her palm.

Audrey laughed through her tears. “I think he’s saying I’m rubbing off on him.”

The conversation must have drained him because he drifted off just like that, his cheek pillowed on her hand. Audrey freed herself and lovingly stroked his hair. She leaned over to kiss his forehead.

Yup. Time to leave.

Quinn slipped out the door and closed it. The guys were still in the hall, and a hopeful optimism permeated the air.

“He’s going to be okay now, isn’t he?” Harvard asked.

Quinn looked at the closed door, and the fluttering in his stomach exploded into a sense of euphoria so heady it made him dizzy. He couldn’t control the laugh that erupted from his chest. “Yeah. He’s already issuing orders. He’ll make it.”

The bubble of tension surrounding the team popped. Shoulders relaxed, smiles appeared. Laughter rippled through the group. Someone cracked a joke. Someone else suggested a round of drinks to celebrate. They were in London, after all. You couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a pub.

Quinn held up both of his hands. “Guys. Wait. This isn’t over yet.”

The noise settled, and everyone got serious again.

“Liam?” Jesse said. After his close brush with death, he’d let the doctors check him out but had refused to stay in the hospital.

“Yeah,” Quinn answered. “Liam’s a problem we still need to deal with, but after killing Michael and Bauer and the rest of them like he did, he’s gone to ground. If he’s smart, we won’t be seeing him for a while.”

“So then what’s up?” Marcus asked.

“I need volunteers to guard Gabe’s room.”

“You should know you don’t even have to ask,” Seth said, and everyone else voiced their agreements. “But if not Liam, who are we keeping out?”

“His family. None of the Bristows except Raffi are allowed inside.”

Jesse whistled. “Dayam. That’s not gonna go over well.”

Quinn nodded. “It could get ugly. I’m sure Gabe will also tell the hospital staff he doesn’t want Jasper or Catherine around, but I’d still feel better knowing you guys were here to make sure they stay away.”

“Why? What’s goin’ on?”

Quinn hesitated a beat, weighing his options. In the end, he decided the guys deserved to know. And, if something happened to him, they’d be able to take over where he left off. He explained everything as concisely as he could—the widespread corruption, the files, the car accident that wasn’t an accident, the Bristow family’s involvement. When he finished, there was a beat of silence.

Finally, Jesse said, “Okay.”

Quinn managed to hide his surprise at the easy acceptance, but just barely. “Okay,” he echoed. “I have to figure out what I did with those files. I know I wouldn’t have kept them in my home. I would have stashed the drive someplace I knew nobody would ever look.”

“Which would be where?” Harvard asked.

“Hell if I know.”

“Would you have left clues for yourself?”

Quinn had to laugh. Sometimes he forgot how young Harvard truly was. “Nah. I didn’t know I was going to end up with faulty wiring.” He tapped his temple.

“We could fake the files easily enough,” Harvard said. Everyone looked at him, and color stained his cheeks. “I mean,
I
could fake them. They’d be real enough to pull off a bait and switch. If we have something more concrete to turn over to the authorities—like a confession—we won’t need the copies you made.”

Jesse opened his mouth but apparently couldn’t think of a protest, because he closed it again and shrugged. “It’s actually not a bad plan, except for one thing. How we goin’ to pass off the fakes as the real deal?”

“Well.” Harvard pushed his glasses up his nose. “All we need is for one of us to convincingly switch sides.”

Quinn glanced up as movement at the end of the hall caught his attention. “You mean like a traitor?”

Everyone followed his gaze to Jace Garcia, who hesitated a good ten feet away. “I know I’m not welcome, but I had to find out how Gabe’s doing before I leave town.”

Quinn sent Jesse a sidelong glance.

The medic glowered but then sighed and rubbed his temple. “You saved his life, Garcia. He wouldn’t have made it without your help.”

“So he’ll recover?”

“The prognosis is good,” Jesse said.

Garcia nodded. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

Quinn let him walk several steps away before calling, “Hey, Garcia. We’re big about second chances around here. Want to redeem yourself?”

…

“You sure we can trust him?”

Quinn low
ered the binoculars and glanced over at Seth, who sat in the driver’s seat of a rented SUV. “No. And that’s why this will work. They think Garcia is one of theirs.”

“Well, he’s not one of ours,” Jesse said from the backseat.

“No,” Quinn agreed and lifted the binoculars again. “I don’t think he’s anybody’s. He does what suits him.”

Across the hospital parking lot, Garcia waited by the car Jasper Bristow had left twenty minutes ago. Any moment now, The Admiral would be returning to it, hopefully shaken by the fact Gabe was alive, awake, and strong enough to come off the ventilator today.

“Hey, there he is,” Seth said and whistled. “Oh, man. He looks pissed.”

“Not as pissed as he’s gonna be when he realizes he’s been had,” Quinn said.

Jasper stopped short at the sight of Garcia leaning on his car. Words were exchanged. Garcia motioned to their SUV.

“Dayam,” Jesse said. “What’s he doin’? He’s not supposed to expose us.”

“Hang on. Give him a chance.”

“Uh,” Seth said. “They’re coming this way. That was not part of the plan.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Jesse said. “We’ve given him plenty of chances, and he keeps fuckin’ them up.”

Yeah, they were right. The pilot had just fubar’d all of their previous plans to use the fake drive to leverage a confession. Time to improvise. “Stay here and hidden until Jasper reaches for his weapon.”

“You think he will?” Seth asked.

“I know he will.” Quinn grabbed the handle and shoved open the door. He strode across the parking lot, meeting the pair halfway. “You’re a liar, Garcia.”

He shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

“You don’t want redemption.”

“Nah. Money’s better. And speaking of…” He turned to the Admiral and handed over the fake flash drive. “This one’s a fake, but I know what’s on the real one. If you want my silence, you got it. For a price.”

The Admiral took the drive and crushed it under his boot, then opened his wallet and pulled out several thousand in fresh five-hundred-dollar bills. “That should do.”

Garcia’s mouth kicked up in a smile as he pocketed the money. “For now. We’ll be in touch.” And with that, he jogged away.

Fucking Garcia.

“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” Jasper said with a smirk. “So, Quinn. Here we are. I have to tell you, I only agreed to this meeting as courtesy to you. You were a good SEAL at one time.”

“Funny.” Quinn crossed his arms over his chest. “I was going to say the same thing about you. What happened, Jasper? Was it the money? Or did you just get bored walking the straight and narrow?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” He pulled another flash drive from his pocket and held it up. “I suspected Garcia would betray us again, so yes, that drive he gave you is a fake. This one? Not so much. You know what’s on here?”

Jasper’s jaw tightened until a muscle in his temple jumped, but he kept silent.

“The top-secret documents I stole from the Department of the Navy. Actually, from you. I highly doubt the navy had any previous knowledge of these documents. And until recently I didn’t have any knowledge of them, either.” He tapped his temple.
“Car accident scrambled my brain, and I didn’t remember. But that accident wasn’t an accident at all, was it? Was it hard to convince Michael that the only way to keep your pockets lined was to have his big brother—your
son
—killed? I’m betting not.”

Jasper still said nothing, but he didn’t have to confess in words. The guilt was written all over his eyes.

Quinn nodded. “Yeah. It was your way of trying to get rid of me—and Gabe, because you couldn’t be sure I hadn’t said something to him—without making it look like an obvious murder, which would raise too many questions. Kicker is, the whole thing might not have gone down as you planned, but it worked. If you hadn’t sent Urban after Mara, I probably would have gone on not remembering. Hell, I still don’t remember all of it. All I know is what I left for myself in a handful of notes when I downloaded the documents.”

A red flush worked its way up Jasper’s neck and into his face. “What do you want? I’m sure we can work something out and put this whole mess behind us.”

“I want you to stop trying to kill me and those I love.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Yeah, nobody believes that. You were just too damn afraid I’d spill your secrets to leave well enough alone.”

Jasper ground his teeth together. “That car accident should have been fatal. You were supposed to die.”