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“Got you covered,” JB said, and it helped to remove a little of the weight from Noah’s shoulders.
Moving as quietly as possible, Noah hurried across the kitchen to the living room entrance. He placed his shoulder against the doorframe and slowly looked across the room. There were two dead bodies on the floor, blood pooling around them. Rowe stood stiffly in the center of the room, a large knife pressed to his throat, held in place by an even larger man with a shaved head and a wicked leer.
“There you are, Keegan,” the man said in a low voice.
He struggled to pull his eyes from Rowe’s pissed expression. The man holding his lover hostage was undoubtedly Erik Johnson. The man looked leaner and harder than the picture that Gidget had supplied. He’d also had a head of black hair, but shaving it either saved his vanity or worked as a disguise. Didn’t matter. This man was not getting out of here alive, and he wasn’t going to harm a single red hair on Rowe’s head.
“Johnson,” Noah said. He stepped away from the doorframe, his gun raised and pointed just over Rowe’s shoulder. The larger man was doing the best he could to use Rowe’s wide frame as a shield, but Erik easily had six inches on Rowe, making it an awkward fit. “Looks like we’ve wiped out your team.”
“Also blew up your building,” Rowe added smugly. He winked at Noah and gave a little smirk even as Erik tilted the knife up, digging it a little deeper into Rowe’s throat. A trickle of blood spilled down his neck, soaking into the collar of his black T-shirt.
Noah swallowed hard against the lump that had grown in his throat. He wanted this man dead. He wanted to put bullet after bullet into Erik Johnson for ever laying a hand on Rowe. He knew he should want the man dead for being behind the deaths of Chris and Paul, but at that moment, he couldn’t see past the threat he was leveling on Rowe.
“Let’s not forget that you’re the reason my brother is dead,” Erik snarled.
“No, that was your doing. You killed your brother and Joseph Cates. You killed Paul Grimes and Chris Perkins too. How many more people have you killed to get what you want?”
“I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way! I was willing to devote my life to the military, but they chucked me into prison because of one little scuffle. Of course, those same fuckers don’t mind using me and my men for their dirty jobs. They thought we were expendable.” He paused and chuckled. “Proved them wrong. We were willing to do the things they weren’t, but we expected to get paid.”
“And you didn’t get paid as much as you wanted so, what? You staged the Afghanistan ambush?”
“Had to be done. They had to know not to fuck with us.”
“They were your fucking comrades!” Rowe barked. He struggled for a second, but Erik dug the knife in deeper and Rowe settled again.
Noah shifted a little to the left. He didn’t lower his gun, but he didn’t have a good shot. Not yet. He just had to be patient. Erik had to know he was not getting out of there alive. And there was no way in hell that Noah was going to allow him to take Rowe from him.
“They were expendable. That’s how all those government hacks saw us. Expendable. Just fodder to throw at one military group or terrorist cell after another. Does it really matter why they died?”
“Yeah, it does,” Noah grumbled.
“I’ve got a shot,” JB whispered in his ear. Noah struggled not to react. He couldn’t allow his eyes to shift focus from Erik or it would give away JB’s location. His friend had likely moved around to the front of the house and had lined up a shot through the front window. It was the only way he had an angle on Erik. Noah hesitated. Even with a headshot, Noah was afraid that Erik would jerk and press the blade straight into Rowe’s throat.
He needed to keep Erik talking while he thought, but he didn’t care about his wild reasonings. Noah knew his thoughts. Chris, Paul, and JB were all a threat to his dark secret. He kept the government contracts coming so long as the secrets stayed buried. They could have unearthed everything about the Afghanistan ambush, so they had to be silenced. Since Noah was the head of that team, he had to go too.
The secrets, lies, and Erik’s trail of murders stopped now.
Taking a deep calming breath, Noah held it for a second and met Rowe’s eyes. He doubted Rowe could guess what he was planning, but he smiled and winked all the same, trusting his lover completely. Rowe’s stocky frame relaxed as he waited.
