Page 71

“Is he always this much of a hard ass?” Aidan asked.

Ricardo glanced at Sean, sighing. “He’s...always been demanding. That’s how being a team leader goes sometimes.”

Aidan was more than aware of that, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Sean was specifically targeting him. In fact, he damn well knew he was. Extra sets were forced on him during workouts several times during the Gauntlet. He’d been made to repeat some harder walls and crawls while the rest were not. If there was some flaw Sean could find in what Aidan did and force him to repeat it all over again, he did it without hesitation.

Aidan grunted. “I guess it’s just new guy syndrome, is all.”

Ricardo frowned. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

Which was a damned lie, but he wasn’t going to tell Ricardo the truth. The rest of the team seemed to be tolerating his presence pretty well. Nick didn’t say much, but Matt was friendly, and Ricardo was at least trying to be nice. Sean, however, seemed to hold everything against Aidan and didn’t want to let up.

“You could try not goading him,” Ricardo said.

Aidan looked askance at him. “What, and treat him differently than I treat anyone else? I tease you guys too. It’s who I am.”

“He is the team leader.”

“And we’re supposed to be a team. Maybe if he wasn’t such an obstinate ass, looking to take offense at every little thing I did, I wouldn’t give him such a hard time. Instead, he’s being a complete dick, and you can’t stand there and tell me it’s all my fault for giving him a little sass.”

Ricardo looked away, shrugging. “He’s?—”

“An ass.”

The corner of Ricardo’s mouth twitched, but the smile never fully formed. “He can be, sometimes. I’ll be honest with you, Aidan, you seem to set something off in him, which is...weird. The past few months, he’s kept his temper in check, but I get the feeling he’s barely holding on.”

Aidan sighed. “Then maybe he should let it out, get that shit out of his system, and then we can all deal with it. I’m tired of waiting to see if he’s going to lose his mind or continue being an asshole forever.”

Sean turned around and motioned the two of them over with a curt gesture. Ricardo looked at Aidan, giving another shrug and walking to meet the rest of the team. Aidan closed his eyes for a moment, cursing himself for doing precisely what he said he wouldn’t. Ricardo didn’t need to know that Aidan was just as frustrated as it seemed Sean was, and he didn’t need to hear Aidan bitching about their team leader either.

Sighing, Aidan followed Ricardo. “What’s up?”

Sean glanced his way, green eyes flicking over Aidan’s face before returning his attention to the rest of the team. In moments like that, Aidan was left wondering what was going through Sean’s head. When Sean wasn’t glaring at him, there was always a strange look in his eyes, some emotion that disappeared too quickly for Aidan to detect. It drove him nuts, especially because it was so much easier to dislike the man when he was being a blatant asshole.

“We’ve been doing the Gauntlet enough for the past few days, so we’re going to use it differently this time,” Sean told them.

Ricardo glanced over. “Is that what the guns are for?”

Sean nodded. “This time, we’re going to drag equipment through, and targets are set up along the course. Instead of everyone at once, we’re going to run through in pairs. We share the burden in the field, so we’re going to share the equipmentcarrying between two people, and they’re going to work together to get through and take down the targets on the way.”

Aidan raised a brow. “And how’s that going to work with five people?”

It probably meant someone would have to run the Gauntlet at least twice, and he suspected he knew who the prime candidate was.

Sean snorted, eyes flashing in Aidan’s direction. “I don’t have to know if the others can work well together; we’ve fought side by side several times. You, however, I need to know about, so you’re going to be the one to run through with everyone.”

Aidan bit back his immediate response. “Everyone?”

“Yes. Everyone. We need to know you can work with everyone, so you’ll run through first with Matt, then Nick, then Ricardo, and finally me.”

Matt scoffed. “So what, during the rest of that time, we all sit around with our thumbs up our asses?”

Sean eyed him. “You’re getting a free day after your run. Why are you complaining?”

Aidan clenched his jaw and said nothing. A glance at the rest of the team told him he wasn’t alone in thinking there was something wrong with Sean’s decision. Even Ricardo, who normally looked disinterested, seemed faintly troubled as he looked at Sean.

Aidan hadn’t expected anything less from Sean, however. The team leader was hellbent on finding whatever he could to break Aidan. It hadn’t happened, but after days of being run through the mill, Aidan’s temper was at risk of snapping. His body and mind could withstand anything Sean threw at him, but he wasn’t sure how long he could keep his temper in check.