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“We were in Afghanistan.” Lachlan’s voice was low, halting, the words ripped from him against his will. “My troop was assigned to hunt down and capture or kill leaders of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.”
He returned to the bed and sat, his jean-clad hip grazing her sheet-covered one. The ice creeping into his expression chilled her. His stare was unfocused—present, yet far away.
“Nadia served as an interpreter and liaison between the villagers and our teams. Her father had been a prominent physician in Kabul. When the Taliban took power in the mid-nineties, he brought his family to London, where Nadia was raised and educated. Most of the local Afghan men wouldn’t deal directly with her, of course, but she could still interpret for us, and she picked up valuable intel from the women in the villages.”
A brief, sad smile touched his lips. “She was beautiful and intelligent, and she had a way about her—I canna explain it. I think every man she met became a bit enamored with her.”
Sophia’s throat swelled until she could barely swallow. “She was important to you.”
He grimaced, then his eyes lost focus again. “Nadia texted one afternoon, asked me to come to her base housing unit—that it was urgent. Once I got there, she told me a local man visiting relatives in a remote mountain village had seen three Westerners held prisoner nearby. Two months earlier, the Taliban had abducted three foreign aid workers from a village outside Kabul. Nadia said one of the hostages was a woman, and the Taliban planned to execute them as a political statement. She begged me to convince my superiors to mount a rescue mission, insisting the information she’d obtained was authentic. I trusted her.”
He swallowed hard, his gaze darting around the room.
“I trusted her,” he repeated, an echo spoken softly that reverberated throughout her bedroom.
His pain called to her, and she instinctively answered, reaching out. “Lachlan—“
He shot to his feet, his back unyielding, and her arms dropped, empty, back to the bed.
“I urged our commanders to green-light the mission.” Lachlan paced back over to stare out her window.
This time, she followed, wrapping herself in the bedsheet. His back was warm against her cheek. He stiffened at her touch, then relaxed when she didn’t let go.
“They knew we were coming. It was a disaster from the beginning. We’d just approached the village when we came under heavy fire. My team leader, Staff Sergeant Barnwell, was killed almost immediately, and the female hostage, Katherine, died in the crossfire trying to reach me.”
Barnwell.The name on the tag around his neck. Her arms tightened around his waist as she fought back tears.
“Three of my other men were injured—Fitzy died soon after we returned to Bagram. Another group of insurgents on higher ground ambushed the SEALs supporting us, so they couldn’t help. They lost a man as well. The helicopter providing fire support took an RPG and went down.”
He turned from the window to face her. “It’s a bloody miracle any of us made it out alive.” The remoteness in his eyes and voice frightened her more than if he’d been raging. “Three good operators, a hostage, the crew in the Apache—all dead. Nadia betrayed us. I didn’t want to believe it. She sent us into a trap, then ran off to join the Taliban with Mohammad Razul Khan’s son.”
His focus turned inward again. “Thom never trusted her. I thought he was being a crusty old bugger. But he was right, and he died because I didn’t believe him.” He swallowed hard, then again, visibly trying to hold back emotion now when before he’d been set in stone.
“How did Nadia die?” She had to know.
He stared out the window. “I took a bullet to the thigh during the mission. Busted my bollocks rehabbing and lied my arse off to the medical staff and my commanding officer so I could return to my troop. They were going after her. I needed to be there when they did.”
Her throat ached from holding back tears. She should stop him right there. “And when you found her?”
His eyes turned cold, like a forest waterfall in winter. “I killed her.”
She’d thought she was prepared.
His simple declaration, wrapped in ice, froze the breath in her lungs and pierced her heart.
He’d locked all his emotions back up in whatever box he’d constructed in his head. Nadia’s betrayal had destroyed his ability to trust. Maybe he was too damaged to ever care for her the way she needed, but she wasn’t giving up.
She grabbed his hands, willing him to look into her eyes. “No. You make it sound so simple. I don’t believe that.” Lachlan would never kill a woman he cared about in cold blood, even if she betrayed him the way Nadia did.
“It was—“
“Something happened.” She cut him off, her voice strengthening with a certainty born of conviction. He was a man of honor. Hesufferedbecause he cared. The deaths of his men and Nadia’s betrayal still haunted him.
“You killed her because you didn’t have a choice.” A cold-blooded killer didn’t have nightmares.
Lachlan’s jaw worked like he wanted to speak but couldn’t form the words. Finally, he spoke, “She would have killed one of my men if I hadn’t taken the shot.” His voice was thick with remembered agony. And regret.
“That makes you a protector, not a murderer.” She rested her palm against his bare chest, over his heart, and willed him to believe her. “You acted to save your teammate. Everything awful that happened, the ambush, the deaths—all of it—was Nadia’s doing and the Taliban’s. It wasn’t your fault.”