It swung shut behind her, clicking into place with a resounding thud.
Just like that, I was alone in our room for what felt like the first time all year. My dad would be waiting, but I needed to take a nap. And a shower. Once that was done, I’d make my way back to Coronado Island and the military base I called home.
Chapter 3
Lincoln
“You nervous?” Eden asked as he came to stand next to me in the eerily empty hallway of the administrative wing. He had his cap tucked under his arm and he looked smart in his whites.
I whistled between my teeth and gave him a firm slap on the butt. “Nope. I’m not nervous. There’s no reason to be.”
His light eyebrows swept up on his forehead. “We’re about to go in front of a panel of superior officers to be questioned about the mission we just went on. You know, the one where we went in without authorization?”
My jaw hardened. “Just remember that we did the right thing. We saved a lot of lives and lost zero. If they want to give me a rap over the knuckles for that, then so fucking be it.”
“It could be a lot worse than a rap across the knuckles,” he mused, shifting on his feet. There was a light sheen of sweat on his forehead and a vein jumping below his jaw. “They could end us for this, Linc.”
“They won’t.” I knew they could, but I really didn’t think they would. If we’d lost a hostage, sure. But with all the valuable American assets back safe and sound, they’d be stupid if they tried to get too heavy handed with us.
Eden glanced up at me, his tongue swiping across his lower lip. “If this is it, you should know it’s been an honor serving with you.”
My lips rose into a smirk as I arched a brow at him. “It has? Really? That’s great, Phillips. Tell me again at our retirement party fifty years from now.”
He rolled his eyes at me, but my confidence seemed to give him something of a boost. “Cocky asshole.”
“You love it—”
“Dobbs?” a curt voice called. An officer I didn’t know stepped out of the room the panel had convened in, turning his steely-gray eyes on me. “Lincoln Dobbs?”
“That’s me.” I gave Eden a final smirk, planted my clean white cap at an angle on my head, and went to face my fate.
Despite what I’d just told Eden, I wasn’t a fucking robot. Nerves buzzed like angry hornets beneath my skin, but I refused to let it show. What we had done had been the right call. I just had to make the panel see that.
I’d expected the room we were going to be in to be decked out like some kind of court in a fantasy movie. Perhaps there would be raised seating around a coliseum-like arena or, at the very least, some hooded figures standing behind evenly spaced podiums.
In reality, it was just another room on the base. A plain long desk that looked like any self-assembled picnic table had the three superior officers behind it who held my career in their hands.
Commander Charles fucking Cantor had the seat in the middle. The man was a highly decorated officer who had been a SEAL instructor since before I’d been born.
His square jaw was set, and his spine was so straight that there had to be a broomstick up his ass keeping him from slouching over. Hazel eyes filled with hate met mine, and his mouth twisted into a grimace.
Every time he saw me, it was like he suddenly smelled shit. He wasn’t a nice guy, and he’d been vocal in his dislike of me before. And he’s the guy who has to decide if I get to keep doing the job I love.
Charles and I had never seen eye to eye. I had no reason to believe we’d start now.
Thankfully, it wasn’t all in his hands. I planted my feet about a foot apart once I reached the spot where I had to stand, snapping my fingers to my forehead in a salute. One of the men sitting next to Charles nodded. “At ease, Dobbs. Have a seat.”
The officer playing bailiff for the proceedings gestured to a plastic chair behind a table the size of a pea. I folded my big body in behind it as best I could, but my knees kept hitting the underside of the fucking thing. It was like it