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“Look at what she lost to this life.”
“All of us carry the same risk, Syd.”
She scrambled off his lap and put a few feet of distance between them. “Gage and all of them? In your mind, you guys aren’t part of a Black Ops unit. To you, it’s a brotherhood.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”
“You’re not them, Joel,” she choked out. “You’re not anything like them.”
He stood. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They recruited you onto the team to take Curtis’ place. And, in taking Curtis’ place, that means you’re expendable. Should shit go down again, you’re the body they want to take the bullet or fall on the grenade or whatever.”
He stared at her, lips slightly parted and his brows so low, they might as well have been touching the ground floor of the building.
“Sydney, you couldn’t be more wrong.”
“Then why did they recruit you?”
“Because I already knew them. Because I fit. Because I can do the challenging shit, and I was mentally done with the FBI by then. Julien said they’d had their eye on me for a while, but I was still with the Bureau.”
“And if you’d said no?”
“Then I would have said no,” he said. “But, if memory serves me correctly, you were ‘ecstatic’ about me doing this too.”
She jutted a hand at him. “I lied to keep you happy! Why don’t you understand that?”
“I do, but do you expect me not to care that you did? Do you expect me to brush it off like it’s nothing? Tell me, Sydney, how should I react to you lying about us having kids? To you demanding that I give up the most purposeful career of my life? To you telling me you want to split up while I’m overseas and then leaving divorce papers behind at the house before we even had a chance to talk? How should I react? You’ve made all the decisions for us up to this point. Make this one too.”
“Joel…” She closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “I’m trying not to get loud with you.”
“Why? This place is expensive as shit. The neighbors aren’t going to hear—”
“Joel, you’re mine!” Her voice cracked, and she glared at him with narrowed eyes and damp eyelashes. “I don’t care about Dez, Giorgio, Julien, Mike, or Gage. I’m not married to Dez, Giorgio, Julien, Mike, or Gage. I’m married toyou.So, I don’t care about what they would do. I care about what you would do, and you’re one hundred percent the type to toss your fucking body on top of a grenade, like Curtis stupidly did, without thinking about the fact that he was leaving behind a kid and a wife. Do you think they’d do that shit for you? And look at how Curtis left Ayesha. What’s she doing now? Struggling with two little boys, one of them aninfant.Curtis dying changed her heart, changed her forever. The way she talks about Curtis? She’ll never love again. You can’t love again after loving like that and losing everything.”
At the moment, he had no response, but she was wrong about the guys. Gage, Dez, Giorgio, Julien, and Mike would do the same for him.
Without question.
The knowledge that they would look out for each other to the bitter end kept them on their toes. He didn’t want to lose them, just like he didn’t want to tragically lose his older sister. In a perfect world, they would be a seven-man team. However, in a perfect world, Sydney would have never lied to him.
“You don’t know that she’ll never love again,” he said, in defense of Ayesha without knowing whether she even wanted to. “You’d be surprised what the right love can do to a broken heart.”
Sydney waved a hand. “You’re reaching.”
“Syd, you’re wrong.”
“You really think they’d die for you?” She snorted. “Joel, I love you. I’ve loved you since I was sixteen. They don’t have your best interests at heart. I do.”
“And that’s the only way to fix this? To leave the team?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“And then what?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I want a family, Syd.”
