Page 6 of Broken Trust
She found him when he was supposed to be unfindable.
Why?
For revenge? Closure? Or something else entirely?
Maybe they wouldn’t cross paths. The mansion was big, with several wings sprawling across the expansive grounds. There was more than enough space for a team of SEALs to live without tripping over each other, not to mention that several of the men had significant others who all lived here with Charlie team.
He could avoid Elin—stay in the east wing, take his meals at unusual times, bury himself in mission prep.
But she’d still be sleeping under the same roof. Breathing the same air.
Goddammit, the problem wasn’thowto avoid her. It was the fact that he didn’twantto avoid her.
She was his one regret. The thing that kept him awake at three in the morning when the rest of the team was dead to the world. Elin’s angelic face haunted him during downtime, and it was her voice he heard in his head when he made decisions that could get him killed.
But that fateful day,shecame damn close to losing her life. Liam was sent to retrieve a flash drive holding intel she acquired about a strike.
Only she got stuck in traffic and texted that she’d be ten minutes late.
Those ten minutes saved her life.
The meet went sideways. Hostiles materialized out of nowhere—three men with automatic weapons and the kind of training that whispered they weren’t local thugs. Mason’s team swooped in to assist.
Every day since, he thanked God that Elin hadn’t been one of those bodies that dropped.
A mere hour later, he was standing in his commander’s office with a recruiter.
They’d seen his performance and reviewed his file. They wanted him for Blackout, a team that didn’t exist on paper, doing work that never made the news. The timing was perfect.
Or maybe it was fate telling him what he needed to hear.
If he stayed, he was going to get her killed. Every day meant she was a target, an opportunity for his enemies to figure out that the way to break him was through her.
Walking away ensured that could never happen. He was saving her by disappearing.
She was strong and brilliant. Though he knew his “death” would hurt, he knew she’d be fine.
Except she was clearly seething about all this. The looks she gave him—when she bothered to look at all—weren’t just dirty. They were deadly. Like she was plotting all the ways she could make him suffer and deciding which one would hurt the most.
Mason pushed to his feet, his sore shoulder protesting the movement. In the hall outside the war room, another countdown clock mounted on the wall ticked away the seconds, a constant visual reminder of their reason for being here.
Mason didn’t take two steps before Con emerged from the computer lab. He spotted Mason and twitched his head for him to follow.
Dammit. He wasn’t prepared to answer questions about Elin, but he’d thrown himself into the fire by trying to get her attention in the war room.
Each step he took, he felt his own adrenaline fading, so his boots felt like concrete. When he entered the room behind his commanding officer, Con said, “Close the door.”
He did, then turned at attention.
Con narrowed his eyes. “Why did you interrupt during the briefing?”
He stared at him for a long beat. He couldn’t spin a story—not with Con. Not to one of his brothers.
“I saw you looking at Miss Lindgren. Have you met her before?” Con’s voice held an edge of curiosity.
Mason gave a single nod.
“When?”
