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I can’t protect everyone, but I sure in hell am going to try to protect her.
I wasn’t sure how the hell I was going to pull that off when TJ, a Marine who’d been trained in combat, died. Not that I wanted it, but I needed Bennett’s help. Fucking it up meant risking Meri, and I wasn’t willing to do that. Time to set my arrogance aside. I was still going to do whatever I needed to do but couldn’t do it alone.
This need to take care of Meri was...unfamiliar.
While I sat there thinking about Meri, Bennett had been texting someone. He once again seemed fine with not keeping me updated on what was going on. He turned to me an hour later and announced, “We’re leaving in ten minutes.”
“For?”
“The hospital.”
He had my full attention now. “Good. You agree Meri needs protection.”
“We’re meeting with Brice. As I mentioned, we need to make them aware of what might happen,” Bennett stated.
Unlike me, who has to figure everything out for myself.
I was glad he was asking me to join him, instead of me insisting I come along. Maybe we were making progress. Or maybe he was figuring out that I was not going to back down. Stone men are known for being stubborn, and he excelled at it.
I’d been hoping we could talk on the drive, but as usual, he was connected to someone else, and they were responding in her earpiece. At least I got half of the conversation. Bennett hadn’t lied. He was checking on each member of his team. Some were being relocated, and others were being told to keep as they were. Where that was, only Bennett knew.
Between calls, I asked, “How many men do you have working for you?”
“I have people who are working for me full time, and others, as I need them,” he replied.
“You mean in situations like this? Or are you talking about when you and your team overthrew the government here?” I questioned.
“You know nothing about what happened.”
“But I’d like to. What made you get involved? I mean, this was after you left the Marines, so you weren’t sent here by the US government. And I have a feeling the Tabiqian people didn’t hire you as a mercenary either.”
He snapped. “I’m no mercenary.”
“Then why were you and your team here?” I asked.
“We don’t have long before we get to the hospital. We can talk about this later,” he stated.
“That seems to be your standard answer. And what I have learned is that later never seems to come with you. So, tell me, why was your team brought to Tabiq all those years ago?” I asked again, this time in a firmer tone.
“The Hendersons were here. Ziva and Alex were taken hostage.”
“Alex Henderson. Damn. What did they want? Money and his family brought you in because they didn’t want to pay the ransom?”
“Not even close,” Bennett stated. “His wife, well she wasn’t his wife then, had been what the government called, a rebel. She was fighting for the rights of women. Protecting and hiding them in any way she could. It was very risky for her to do that. When Alex came to Tabiq, he met Ziva. While trying to help her, they pissed off the wrong people and were held captive. There was no ransom. They weren’t going to be released.”
“They were going to be held prisoners indefinitely?” He shook his head.Fuck.“You mean, they would’ve been killed.”
“Exactly. It was a covert operation to rescue them, but in the process, we also took that opportunity to crush those in power. That included the government and the so-called police of that time.”
“Wow. And yet you stayed,” I said.
“If we didn’t, someone else, maybe someone even worse would have stepped in and taken control. We had no choice but to stay and act as the law until we could stabilize the country. It’s been a long hard road, and a lot of progress has been made. I thought...”
“That enough had changed, and you could go back to your old life?” I asked.
“That will never happen. I’m not the same person I was years ago either. But I really thought with Reesa as president, and everything my in-laws had done here, that Tabiq might be able to stand on its own. Now, I’m not sure that will ever happen. If someone is running for president and willing to work with a known murderer in order to win, then the evil that we once fought wasn’t crushed, and just hiding,” he stated.
“Then Tabiq is lucky to have you and your men here to watch out for them.”
