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This is now a hostage situation. Fuck. How the hell did Charlie manage to get herself taken hostage?

Charlie has never, not once, not gotten the drop on a target. I snarl.

“What is going on? Dean? What is going on?” June pleads.

I played this wrong. I should’ve told June. Instead, I threw her into a trap.

“Tell her what’s going on, or I will.” Pierce leans left, and I aim a kick at his right side, anticipating the shift in direction. My foot connects with his ribs in a meaty thud, but a wave hits the boat and I lose my balance, falling hard onto the slippery deck.

“What is he talking about, Dean?”

“Seems to me yourfriend,” Pierce loads innuendo into the word, “has been lying to you. Taking advantage of you.” His eyes narrow, and he whips to June.

No. I won’t let Pierce hurt her. Hell will freeze over before I let him touch her. I stand unmoving between them.

“Dean?”

“June. Princess. He’s lying.”

“Dean didn’t tell you why he left the Marines, did he?”

I aim a mean left hook at Pierce, but he neatly dodges it. He’s smaller and faster, and I’m tired from swimming for the better part of two hours, from sleeping on a boat, from running the last two days straight—I’m slow.

Too slow.

Pierce’s hand twitches at the gun holstered at his side, and my pulse throbs in my temple.

“He was expelled. Like the traitor to his country that he is. He’s been working with the smugglers the whole time. The drugs are down there, aren’t they, Dean?” Pierce’s smile is razor-sharp now, and I don’t know how I missed the edge to him these last few months. “They are, and he knew they were, and he wanted to use you as a hostage, as leverage, to get the drugs back to the cartel.”

“It’s not down there, Pierce. The sub isn’t down there.” I’ll lie forever if it means keeping June safe.

“You were kicked out of the Marines?” June sounds small, but I can’t turn towards her. Can’t hold her close and tell her everything is going to be okay.

“He was. And for fucking the enemy, for selling secrets.”

“No.”

It was a lie. I didn’t tell Fiona shit. I’d never sell out my people, never thought her questioning was more than curiosity. I knew better than to ever indulge her curiosity.

Unlike the piece of shit in front of me trying to twist my life and hurt June.

Enough.

I whip the dive knife out of my belt. Not my preferred weapon, but it’ll do.

“See? He can’t even deny it.”

“I just did deny it, asshole.” My rage begins to spike. I would love to plunge the knife straight into Pierce’s smug face, to end this bloody. “I wasn’t kicked out.”

I hadn’t re-upped. Under a cloud of suspicion, sure.

“You knew you could never live down the rumors.”

Stabbing Pierce gains even more of an appeal.

It wouldn’t show June he’s lying, though, and it would ruin any hope at getting my firm off the ground.

No, attacking Pierce, as satisfying as it would be, would only prove I’m a fucking traitor. The whispered allegations that follow me would be even worse if I knifed my government-issue partner.