ditched him. Which put it a couple of weeks after they’d returned from that op where he’d caught Mitch with his hand in the cookie jar.
Mitch must have targeted Sean the moment his boots hit San Diego.
Fuck. Everything that had befallen Sean and Sarah had been because of Tag. Because of a psychopath’s need for retribution. Because of Mitch’s lust for revenge.
While he’d picked up a hinky vibe from the bastard, this…this kind of manipulation went beyond anything Tag had expected.
And it wasn’t over yet.
Had Sarah figured that out? That her torture wasn’t over? Which meant Tag’s punishment wasn’t over either.
Fucking hell…to bring Mitch to justice, to make him pay for everything he’d done, to shut down his fucking arms trafficking ring, Sarah would have to come forward. Once Sarah came forward, her life would be over. Sean wouldn’t be the only one paying for his shitty, treasonous choices. Sarah would pay for them too.
Even given the circumstances and the threat to her brother, the government would not look kindly on her silence. Those stolen guns had been used to kill American soldiers. Sarah’s silence would be held against her. If she turned state’s witness, the backlash might be less substantial, but that option would only be open to her if they caught Mitch and brought him up on charges.
And fuck—Mitch was long gone by now. The bastard was smart, with plenty of money and contacts; he could stay gone forever.
Tag scrubbed at his temples, which were pounding like crazy beneath the ugly, swelling certainty that the only person who’d take the fall for Mitch’s operation was Sarah. If Sean was already dead, as Hayes had claimed, the only person left holding the bag was Sarah. They’d make an example of her.
His cell phone chimed. He picked it up. Tram was blazoned across the screen.
“Hang on,” he said quietly into the mic as he sat up and swung his legs off the bed. Sarah didn’t stir when he stood, nor when he grabbed the keycard off the dresser and eased the door closed behind him.
They were four floors up. The window didn’t open. Nobody could get in and she couldn’t get out—at least through the window. He slipped into the stairwell but kept the door open so he could keep an eye on the door to their room.
“Sorry,” he said, raising the cell back to his ear. “Sarah’s sleeping.”
“Fill me in.” Tram listened in silence as Tag recounted everything that Sarah had told him. “Holy hell.” Shock and disbelief rolled down the line. “After what he said over the phone the other day, I didn’t think the bastard could surprise me again.”
“Yeah.” Tag left it at that. It was still hard to wrap his head around the depths of Mitch’s cruelty.
“How much of this are you going to tell Rio? NCIS?” Tram asked, his voice slow and cautious.
Tag knew exactly what his buddy was subtly asking. Are you going to turn her in? He just hadn’t figured that out for himself.
“I don’t know.”
“We can take care of this without bringing her into it,” Tram said, his voice even more cautious, as though he didn’t know how Tag would react to the suggestion. “If we left out mention of the video Mitch showed her, and told them Hayes was the one who informed her Sean was involved…”
“I know,” Tag said tightly.
And it would work too. That was the hell of it. They could leave out the video and use Porter Hayes to tie Sean to Mitch and from there to the sale of the stolen weapons. Since the knowledge of the video was the only thing that tied Sarah to Mitch’s operation, leaving it out would allow her to skate free.
The fact she hadn’t told Rio about Hayes wouldn’t even blow back on her that much. She could claim that she’d come to Dark Falls to find her brother, to find out if what Hayes had told her was true and that after she talked to Sean, she planned to tell the cops everything.
Fuck—the fact she’d taken off for Dark Falls in the middle of the night, the day of her kidnapping, immediately after she’d left the police station would bolster her story.
The cops would believe her. NCIS would believe her.
And sure, while that approach would allow her to escape the consequences of her silence, it would also let Mitch escape the consequences of every fucking thing he’d done to her over the past two years.