Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I can’t even muster up a grateful smile. Instead, I tip the bottle back to my mouth. To my surprise, Bodie takes the bottle from me and mutters, “You need to slow down.”
“Fuck you,” I snarl as I push up from the bed, swaying only slightly, and hold my hand out for the bottle.
Bodie’s dark eyes scrutinize me and I feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. He hasn’t shaved for days, and that scruff makes him look older and wiser than his twenty-six years.
I snap my fingers, indicating to pass the booze, and he finally gives a sigh. Turning to the wet bar, he pours two glasses halfway to the rim with the amber liquid. Setting the bottle down, he picks the glasses up and hands me one.
I take it from him, trying to ignore the way my head swims from the bourbon, lack of food, and sleep. I still have enough sense within me to slow it down a bit, and I take a delicate sip.
Bodie moves a few steps back and plops down in one of the cushy armchairs. The hotel Kynan arranged for us is five-star with no amenity lacking. It’s not a reward for a job well done, but rather he thinks it looks less suspicious for us to pretend to be vacationers. So, we’re going to spend two nights here in Paphos, Cypress before we head back to the States, and I intend to use the time catching up on my sleep.
If I can sleep, that is.
Thus, the reason for the bourbon.
“It’s not your fault,” Bodie says quietly, and I come to a dead stop. It’s then I realize I’d been pacing, and my agitation was loud and clear.
As is my guilt, apparently.
“My perimeter was bad,” I say in a pissy voice.
His eyes go hot with anger. “Your perimeter was fine given what we were working with,” he practically snarls as he comes out of his chair, bourbon swishing over the edge of his glass. “The munitions dump was thirty clicks west of where the intel said it was. We did the best we could with what we had.”
Bodie comes at me like a cat, and I know without a doubt I’d never want him stalking me as a potential kill. He’s one of our explosives’ guys, so his job was to rig and detonate a known ISIS munitions dump, but he’s still got wicked skills when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. Four years in the Navy SEALs hones all the broad-based skills needed as a mercenary.
Coming to a stop before me, Bodie bends down so his face hovers over mine. “We had limited intel, and we gambled to go forward with what we had.”
“I made the decision to go forward,” I say bitterly. I turn away from him and walk toward the bed. I’m the team leader, and it was my call to finish the mission without complete knowledge of what we were facing.
I bring the glass to my mouth and take a long swallow, hissing through my teeth.
“Put the booze down, Hart,” Bodie says tauntingly, calling me by my last name, which is how we usually address each other on assignment. “It’s making you morose.”
I know deep down he’s doing what any team member would do, and that’s to get me to suck it up. It’s not the first mission that didn’t go perfectly, and it won’t be the last. But I think of Joram, our guide and interpreter, who is in surgery right now because he took a bullet high in his chest, and I flush with self-directed anger.
Hot, irrational fury rages through me, and I decide to take it out on my teammate.
“Fuck you, Bodie,” I yell as I turn on him, cocking my good arm back. I let the glass fly at his head, but his reflexes are too good. He just ducks slightly to the side and it sails past, smashing against the far wall. Good bourbon goes spraying everywhere.
And it pisses me off even more that he’s right and I’m wrong. That he easily ducked my glass when I would have probably felt better if it hit him in the face. And mostly because he’s standing there looking at me with sympathy when that’s not what I want or need.
“Fuck you,” I yell again as I take long, angry strides at him. He watches me warily, body fully tense as if he’s playing chicken with a freight train that’s barreling at him.
All of my anger and guilt goes on a nuclear boil, and I wonder at this moment if Joram’s family hates me for the role I placed him in and the danger that got him shot.
“Fuck you,” I yell again as my hands slam into his chest.
Bodie has about seventy pounds on me, but he doesn’t budge an inch. It causes me to see red, since it’s a subtle reminder that I am, after all, just a girl playing at a man’s game. I lean back, pull my arms in to launch another strike, but before I can try to push him again, his large hands come down on my shoulders.