Page 24 of Steel Vengeance

“So, are you?” she whispered.

“Am I what?”

“Going to kill him?” She held his gaze. “I know you want to.”

Damn. He couldn’t hide it from her.

“Maybe,” he admitted, his voice low.

Without a fucking doubt.

He stared down into his cup. “If I can get him alone. He’s always surrounded by guards.”

The silence stretched again.

“What did he do to you?” she asked softly.

He didn’t answer.

Killed my wife. My wife’s family. My village.

How could he explain that to her? He hadn’t even told his brothers in arms. Fellow SEAL operators he’d trusted with his life didn’t know the whole story.

The silence hung heavy between them. Finally, she changed the subject.

“What about the drugs?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Not my problem.”

“Don’t you care that they’re shipping heroin to the West? Kids are gonna get hooked. Some of them will die.”

“If I take out Omari and Ghani, it’ll slow things down.”

“Until they get replaced,” she pointed out. “Guys like that always have deputies waiting to step up.”

She was right. He knew it. And yeah, the drugs mattered. But not enough to stop him from pulling the trigger when the time came.

“They’re gearing up to move a shipment, aren’t they? That’s why those men met with Omari today,” she said.

He didn’t respond. But she was right about that too.

She might be a rookie, but he could see why her boss had recruited her. The language skills coupled with her natural intuitiveness were valuable assets in any field agent.

“Yeah, those men were here to talk logistics. I’d say there’s a deal going down. A new shipment.”

“Maybe the Agency is trying to stop it?” Her eyes lit up. “Perhaps that’s why they have me watching Omari.”

“Could be.”

Sure, why not? Let her feed them intel on Omari’s agenda, find out when things are happening and swoop in and bust the shipment. That was more the DEA’s remit, mind you, but what did he know? The internal workings of the CIA were a mystery to him.

“I just don’t know why they couldn’t have told me that in the first place?” Hurt flashed across her face.

She was thinking about her boss, the man who’d recruited her. Matthew.

“Perhaps they will now,” he said. “Once you show them what you’ve got.”

She nodded, but he could see she wasn’t convinced.