While his brother had been held captive in a camp.
Slade’s fiancée.
“We’re going to do more recon tonight. We don’t have time to waste. We need to use the darkness while we can
,” Logan said. His voice was stiff. “Syd, I’ll need you to get working on the satellite imagery. We’ll all go in to sweep the area. Then we’ll plan for extraction at 0600.”
Extraction.
His brother’s extraction.
The silence in the room was too heavy.
“Gunner, I want to talk to you alone.” Logan’s words held the snap of command.
And Gunner realized he was staring at Logan, but seeing nothing.
But he gave a rough nod and turned toward the room’s door. He brushed by Sydney—can’t look at her yet, can’t—because he didn’t want to see the regret in her eyes.
She loved Slade, not him, and to find out that he might still be alive, after everything, had to be tearing her apart.
Logan shut the door after them. They were in the hallway. Alone. There was no sound from the room behind him.
Nothing at all.
“You gonna be able to handle this?” Logan whispered.
This? Finding my brother? Losing Sydney? Gunner nodded. “I’ll get the mission done.”
Logan grabbed his arm. “I saw the way you looked at her. I know you were with her in Baton Rouge.” His voice was a bare whisper of sound. “Man, I’m so damn sorry.”
Sorry that Slade was alive? They should be celebrating that miracle. Sydney would be celebrating.
And Gunner was glad. His brother’s death had weighed on him for two years. They’d fought just before Slade’s plane went down. Fought because...Slade knew how Gunner felt for Sydney.
Gunner had known that Slade didn’t deserve her. He’d caught his brother cheating on Sydney, twice. He’d threatened to tell her the truth.
“You don’t deserve her.” That had been his snarl to Slade. But the truth was...
Neither of us deserved her.
But it looked as if one of them would still get her.
“Mercer wanted you on this mission because Slade’s your blood, but the boss didn’t know about you and Sydney—”
“There is no me and Sydney.” He forced himself to say the words. There couldn’t be a he and Sydney. Not now. Maybe after the mission, maybe after—
Stop lying to yourself.
His dream had ended, just as he’d known it would. But he’d just wanted more time with her.
More.
“Gunner...”
He shrugged away from Logan’s hold. “We’ll do the mission. We’ll get him out—if he’s Slade, if he’s someone else...we’ll get him out, either way.” Because that was what they did.
The mission.