By the time he turned back to Tram, his buddy had already closed the sedan’s trunk again. Thank Christ he hadn’t busted the latch—Sarah would have killed them if they’d damaged her prized Nissan.
Langley’s guard detail were huddled together, speaking in the low voices and cryptic code so common among spec ops teams. After hundreds of life and death operations, where every second counted, the elite units developed their own shorthand to expedite the passing of intel.
Tag walked off. Let them toss around their super-secret soldier speak; he had more pressing concerns. With Tram’s dress shoes crunching the gravel beside him, he headed for the wedding center’s front entrance and prayed the men inside had new information to share.
With each step, his impression of the place dropped, and his sense of wrongness climbed. He couldn’t see any version of Sarah wanting to get married in this dump.
A dozen or so of his teammates from ST7 were waiting in the chapel. They looked up as Tram’s dress shoes hit the scuffed wood floor. When they saw Tag, most of their expressions soured. Tag tensed before banking the flash of anger. You’d think he’d have gotten used to their reactions by now. But fuck no, it stung every single damn time.
They were his brothers. They were supposed to have his back. They were supposed to fucking believe him.
While the twelve men gathered around in one big cluster were members of ST7, most of them were in Delta Platoon—his sister platoon—same as Mitch. And they’d swallowed the bastard’s lies hook, line, and sinker. Had they bothered to ask Sarah if she’d been engaged to Mitch when she’d hooked up with Tag? Fuck no. The word of a platoon brother was good enough for them. No need to investigate whether there was truth to the charge that Tag had broken team code, particularly when Tag refused to deny the accusation.
Only a handful of Delta brothers had asked him directly if Mitch’s allegations were true, and none of them had checked with Sarah. Instead, they’d ghosted him. Unless they were crewed together for a mission or team training, Tag no longer existed.
Fine with him.
Tram claimed he’d let his pride fuck him over, that if he’d explained the circumstances, Delta would have backed off. Hell, he wasn’t wrong either. But in good conscience Tag couldn’t deny the accusation. True, Sarah had broken things off with Mitch before Tag had stepped into the equation. But an engagement wouldn’t have stopped him from going after her. Sure as hell not one to Mitch. Team code was fine and dandy until it tried to marry the love of your life off to a fucking sociopath.
Besides, he had tried to win her back after she’d returned to Mitch, so he’d broken the bro-code either way.
The whole damn thing just hadn’t made sense—still didn’t for that matter. Sarah had never been fickle, yet she’d been hot and wild for him one moment and then back with Mitch the next.
“What the fuck’s he doing here?” Bobby Westfield, one of Mitch’s closest friends asked, nailing Tag with a disgusted glare.
“Looking for Sarah, which is more than your fucking psychopath of a groom is doing.” The snarled comment came from Trammel.
Tag shot his buddy a look of gratitude and sucked back the nasty rejoinder prickling the tip of his tongue. While his teammates on Echo Platoon had fallen on his side of the feud, he still picked up disapproving vibes from some of the guys now and then. Not Tram, though. Trammel had come down hard on his side and never wavered. Until half an hour ago, his buddy might not have believed that Mitch was as bad news as Tag claimed, he might even have agreed to attend Mitch and Sarah’s wedding, but he’d had Tag’s back through the past two years.
“Sitrep?” Devlin Russo, the lieutenant commander from Echo Platoon, stepped out from behind Westfield, his dark gaze shifting between Tram and Tag.
“You don’t know what the fuckin—”
One look from Russo’s icy black eyes shriveled the rest of Westfield’s retort.
What the hell was Devlin doing here? Dev was their lieutenant commander. He didn’t run with the Delta crew. Hell, the guy rarely socialized. The last time he’d seen his C.O. hanging with anyone was when Echo Platoon had helped Trammel clean up Emma’s place after it had been ransacked. It was hard to believe Dev would waste a Saturday on a wedding.