I don’t take shit from suits who sit behind a desk in Washington, shit all over our chain of command, throw out rules that will not leave his ass swinging but my team’s. But there again, it’s not my job to care what he thinks, my job is to carry out the mission. As far as I’m concerned, Dr. Davidson can kiss my ass. I don’t need his respect or his approval. He’s not the one putting his ass on the line and it won’t be him taking my back when bullets are flying. He can dislike me, hate me, think women should sit at home and knit afghans. His opinions are not gonna stop me from strapping on my vest, my gun, and doing my job.”
Sour hit my gut and I knew every man in the room was feeling the same thing I was. Liberty might not care. And was damn well right not to give a fuck what some dickhead thought about women in Special Forces. I may’ve let Liberty win our shooting competition but I’d barely let her win. Considering I had years of sniper training and more years of long-range training, it was damn impressive she could keep up with me. Something no other man at Triple Canopy could do. Not her father, her cousins, nor her uncles could outshoot me.
But that feeling in my gut had nothing to do with her rightly standing up for herself and everything to do with evidence suggesting that her commanding officer had been a traitor, and some dickwad with a hard-on for her had paid a man who she’d trusted to off her.
Which now put a whole new spin on her capture. She was not just bait to draw out Roman, she was meant to come home in a pine box because she’d dared to be a soldier while female.
“You need—”
“No,” Liberty cut Carter off.
“No?”
“Don’t,” Liberty spat. “Not you, too. Don’t treat me like a woman. You all know how hard I’ve fought to earn my place. How hard I fought to come back from what happened. I fought hard, Carter. Don’t shit on that, disrespect me, and tell me I need to stand down. I’m your equal. I’m active duty. I’m an officer. Treat me as such because I damn well deserve that.”
After that, Carter looked properly chastised and my respect for the lieutenant grew. That was saying something since I’d already held the woman in the highest regard.
“You’re right,” Carter mumbled.
“We still need to trace the origin of the deposits. A few emails between Davidson and Berkshire’s not enough if we’re gonna prove Berkshire took a payoff. And no disrespect, Liberty, but there’s over two million dollars, no way in fuck—”
“Are you saying I’m not worth two million dollars, Brady?” Liberty smiled.
“You’re worth more than that, darlin’. But the two million wasn’t paid in a lump sum, the payments are spread out. Did all two million come from Davidson? Or was Berkshire selling information to others? The no disrespect part is, you’re gonna have to dance the line, look at these statements, and hark back to what missions you were on during those dates.”
“I would, but I was captured on my first mission out. I have no knowledge of what came before me.”
“Fuck, I forgot.”
“We’re gonna have to call and ask General Wick. He’d have the answers, though he won’t give them to us. My suggestion is to have my dad call him,” Carter suggested.
General Wick was a close friend of Levi, Jasper, Lenox, and Clark. They’d served together back in the day. I, too, knew the general well. Something I was almost positive my bosses didn’t know about, and information I’d prefer they didn’t find out.
My gaze slid from Liberty to Drake then back to Liberty. She was still out bravely serving, doing so with a possible target on her back.
Fucking shit.
I had no choice.
Liberty’s safety was more important.
“We’ll meet with the guys on Monday, get him up to speed, and ask him to call the general.”
“Great. So we’re done?” Trey asked, not masking his impatience.
“Yeah.”
“Great. I’m gonna head out.”
“Head out? Hadley just ordered a crapton of food and everyone else will be here in a minute,” Liberty argued.
“There’s six other men here to eat all that food. Trust me, Liberty, it won’t go to waste.”
Proving once again that she was sharp, Liberty took in Trey standing, yet leaning slightly, taking some of the weight off his bad leg. Her eyes got squinty.
“Why are you rushing