Page 34 of Direct Action

Did everyone but me know?

“Quiet professionals.” Fallon recited the old adage, which had me rolling my eyes.

“You do know, I’ve lived here my whole life, so I know Team Guys live large and in charge. There’s nothing quiet about them.”

One side of Fallon’s mouth hitched up. “You got me there.”

I knew I did, which invited the question, why the secrecy, especially when none of them were active duty?

Or . . .

Wait.

“Are you still active?”

It took a moment for Ryan to answer, which left me enough time to filter through memories. There were times when some of the guys would disappear—well, not disappear, per se, but they’d leave to go camping or fishing or skiing or float a river somewhere, always leaving behind one of them to manage the bar. These trips weren’t very long, definitely not long enough for a deployment, but long enough they could be gone for training. And to be fair, there were some Team Guys who didn’t broadcast they were Seals. But normally they told you they were garbage collectors, or something else equally lame, which really was their way of broadcasting they were a Seal without sounding like a douche. So, bringing it back to the camping, fishing, skiing, and whatnot, that totally sounded like code a Seal would use for a training mission.

“Not in the sense you’re thinking, no.”

I waited for him to say more, to give me some clue as to why he was telling me any of this when he was very obviously uncomfortable.

“I don’t get it, what does this have to do with work?”

Ryan unclasped his hands, sat upright, and scrubbed his palms over his stubbled jaw.

Of course that drew my attention not only to his strong features but to the five-o’clock shadow that would look amazing if he allowed it to grow into a full beard. It also made me shift on the couch, remembering how close I’d gotten to feeling those whiskers between my legs.

Stop.

Reboot.

No more thinking about Ryan’s face between my legs.

Not ever.

Not after we’d been caught. I’d never, ever again fantasize about his amazing body, or his fabulously good looks, and now that I had proof of his big dick and the mastery he had of . . .

Stop.

“There are things you see on deployments that are beyond the scope of the mission,” he started and glanced at Pete. “Horrible atrocities that even though you’re there—you know they’re happening, you witness them—you cannot step in and intervene. For men like us, that’s not a kick in the gut, it’s a mark on the soul. Knowing you walked away without helping. Knowing you left someone who needed you behind because they didn’t fit into the parameters of an op.” Ryan paused, and before he could blink it away, I saw the depth of his guilt. “People talk about the horrors of war, and what they’re talking about is the shit servicemen and women do on the battlefield. The carnage, the death, the destruction. What they don’t talk about is all the shit we see that we don’t stop even though we can. That’s what haunts you. Seeing the little girl being sold. Standing feet from her, wanting to snatch her up and save her, but having to walk away. Knowing that women are being brutalized, seeing it firsthand, but instead of rounding these women up and taking them to safety, we roll out and leave them to their fates.”

My stomach churned at the images Ryan was conjuring up. It revolted when Ryan’s guilt turned into pain that saturated his every feature. But it was the sorrow I saw in his eyes that made my heart squeeze.

“Ryan,” I whispered.

It was like he didn’t hear me when he went on, voice now devoid of any emotion—flat, desolate, empty. “We knew we had to leave the Teams. So we did.” He again indicated the guys with a tilt of his head.

My gaze followed, and I wish I would’ve kept my eyes planted forward. Pete looked enraged. Fallon the same. But it was Gavin who made me wince. He looked positively wrecked. Like shame was eating at his innards. Which made this whole conversation seem cruel. Obviously, Ryan felt guilt and no small amount of it. He was close with these men, so he knew they felt the same. Why he was bringing any of this up I didn’t understand. Especially in front of them.

When he continued, he told me, “Pete’s sister Mia joined our new mission. Instead of leaving behind the people who needed us, we saved them. But once we did, they had nowhere to go. We sank all of our money into the safe houses. But it wasn’t enough. We reached out to people with deep pockets who would help fund our operations and more safe houses. We’ve expanded since those early days. Mia no longer works with us. We’ve taken on government contracts. We’ve broadened our network, made the right contacts.”

By the sound of it, he’d helped a lot of people, which made his blank stare all the more confusing.

“I don’t get it,” I cautiously told him. “I mean, I don’t get why you sound like you’re telling me something bad.”

“What we do is dangerous. It’s ugly. It leaves you with more scars than it does relief. For every woman, child, and man we save, there are hundreds more we couldn’t. We play Whac-A-Mole with traffickers—we take one out, five more pop up.”

That squeeze in my heart was back. This time, it was at the knowledge Ryan and the rest of the guys put themselves in danger. Which, duh, rescuing people would inherently be unsafe, but I didn’t like knowing people I liked and respected were in harm’s way. But the thought that, unbeknownst to me, Ryan was out there putting himself in danger, which meant he could’ve gotten hurt—or worse, not come home—made me sick to my stomach.