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Gabe, Zach, and I all look at Nataliya, who was staring at us like we’d all grown a second head. “What?” I asked.
“You want to turn over all of the evidence to the FBI? After seeing how he’s blackmailing people in government positions?” she asked. “I may not know what all those titles mean, but I’m pretty sure it signals that they’re important. Important enough to get an investigation shut down before anything can come out that paints them in a bad light.”
I could feel my face pinching. “We have to go through the proper channels,” I said. “That’s how he ends up rotting in a prison cell.”
Nataliya shook her head. “You just saw how he’s been getting away with his crimes,” she said, and I tried not to flinch at the tone in her voice. It was like she was speaking to a bunch of toddlers. “So, he gets arrested by your government, and then what? His friends pull strings to get everything kept out of the press? He turns over evidence against other people, ‘cooperates’ with the authorities, and manages to avoid serving any time at all?”
A part of me understood what she was saying, but that was vastly overshadowed by outrage. “What do you suggest?” I spat.
“Burn it all down,” she said with a shrug, as if it were that easy. “Even if Hayes is arrested, there’s no guarantee he’ll actually face charges. But if we leak what we have to the public, then Hayes wouldn’t have time to hide anything or clean it up. He’d still get arrested, more than likely, and he’ll actually have to answer for his actions in court. So will the people he bought off or blackmailed.”
“You want to use the court of public opinion to blow it all up,” Gabe said.
“Social media has power. Let’s use it to our advantage.”
It was a solid plan, except we’d seen a document that had SEAL team locations in it. Some of those missions were still ongoing, and a lot of the troop locations for peacekeeping missions were still active. If we released the information, it would compromise hundreds of servicemen and leave them open for attack. I told her as much. “We can’t just drop a load of secret military intel onto social media,” I said. “We would be putting all of those peoples’ lives at risk.”
“Yeah, but they’ll find out that the info is out there at the same time as everyone else, so they’ll be able to put up additional defenses or just relocate,” Nataliya argued.
“They may not be able to move fast enough to avoid all the attacks,” Zach said.
“It’s a risk,” she conceded, “but aren’t SEAL teams trained to defend themselves?” She gestured at all of them. “You’ve proven that time and time again, haven’t you?”
“Being trained to face danger doesn’t mean they should have to just Rambo their way out of a life-or-death situation that we put them in,” Gabe argued. “Going on the offensive is much, much easier to plan and control. Being on the defensive means people could die. We could be the reason whole teams get torn apart.”
“But it would truly be over,” Nataliya said, almost pleading. “All the sell-outs would be exposed; Hayes would go to prison. It would be done.”
“And if people died?” I demanded. “You could live with that?”
Nataliya winced, deflating. “I don’t know,” she said softly.
I shook my head, blood boiling. “We’re not going to compromise anyone’s security,” I said, and the words were like nails in a coffin, final. “It’s not going to happen.”
“But—”
I was done listening to this. “No.”
NINETEEN
NATALIYA
My lungs felt frozen. “No?” I asked. “Just ‘no’?”
Adrian stared at me, face hard and unmovable. “That’s what I said,” he replied. “It’s just ‘no.’”
Gabe and Zach jumped up at the same time. “We should do a loop of the hotel,” Zach said hurriedly.
“Yeah,” Gabe agreed, “just in case.”
The pair disappeared out of the room like there was fire licking at their heels, leaving Adrian and me staring each other down. I could get where he was coming from—I knew he didn’t like the idea of servicemen being in danger—but I couldn’t believe he would just shut me down cold, like what I had to say didn’t matter. I was the one in danger; I was the one Hayes was so desperate to capture. I was the one who could never have a normal life until the man was truly, definitively stopped. And now, we finally had a way to make that happen, and he refused to even compromise? Surely there had to be some middle ground that would guarantee Hayes would be stopped without putting other lives at risk—but Adrian wouldn’t even consider it.
“You’re not being logical,” I said.
“And you’re being heartless,” he spat back, and his words whipped through me. “If we do things your way, service members could die.”
Anger sizzled beneath my skin. I was hot, unbearably so, and it was reaching a boiling point. “And if we do it your way, he could get away with everything and keep ruining lives in all the places where his company is operating overseas! Or do vulnerable lives only matter to you when they’re American service people?”
He looked stung, but he didn’t say anything. The implication of it hurt deep in my gut. Why does it matter what he thinks? I reminded myself that I’d known him for barely a week. So what if we’d gone to bed together? So what if I thought I might be falling for him? If this conversation had shown me anything, it was how big of a gulf there was between us. I didn’t see any way to cross it.
