Page 36 of Forgiving His Past (Eagle’s Nest Securities #5)

Van took out one of the two men with expert aim. A shot from somewhere behind him took out the other.

Thank you, Chase.

The man he recognized as Felix swung the barrel of his pistol toward Logan, but Archer was behind him, more than ready to put the bastard down.

That left Webb and the other man.

“Vice President McDowell?” Van stared back at the man, confused as hell as to what sort of clusterfuck pile of shit they’d just stepped in.

The Vice President of the United States stared back at them with utter shock. Webb, on the other hand, was looking straight at Logan. The expression on the man’s aging face was that of pure guilt and shame.

“Logan?” Webb started to move toward him.

But Logan held him in place with the pistol gripped tightly in his hand. “Don’t you fucking move,” he warned.

“Son, I don’t know what you heard, but I promise, I can explain. Just put the gun down, and we can?—”

“Don’t call me son, you lying piece of shit!” Logan raged. “I heard everything I needed to hear. But now I want you to look me in the eyes and say it again.”

“I didn’t kill your dad.” Webb gave a hard shake of his head. “That was all John’s doing.”

“Gee, Mike. You think maybe you could have held out a little longer before rolling over on me like that?” McDowell sounded more disappointed than anything else.

Webb looked past Logan to the other man. “It’s been decades since we dishonored Nick’s memory. It’s time to put it all to rest.”

“Don’t.” Logan took another broad step toward Webb. “Don’t you say his name.”

“Logan—”

“You were there , Mike.” Pain etched across Logan’s face. “My mother let you into her home. She made you meals and invited you to family events. You came to my high school graduation, for fuck’s sake!”

Van stood to the side, pretending not to notice the single tear that had just fallen down the side of Logan’s face. He didn’t fault the man for being overcome by his emotions.

The situation was turning into an even shittier one than any of them could have imagined.

“So let me get this straight.” Van decided to jump in and help Logan out, because dammit, he needed to get to Kam and make sure she was okay.

“McDowell accidently kills Logan’s dad, but instead of reporting it as friendly fire, which it was, the two of you concocted some bullshit story that your enemy actually was the one who did the shooting? ”

“Worked, didn’t it?” McDowell quipped.

The man was seriously one disturbed human being.

“Not working so well for you now, is it, Mr. Vice President?” Van shot back.

The well-dressed man’s narrowed gaze slid to his.

“So what will it take, Mr. Braddock. Oh, yes, I know all about you and your little team. If it’s money you want, I can certainly make that happen.

Think of your business…what’s that little security firm of yours called…

that’s right. Eagle’s Nest Securities. Just imagine the kind of business you boys would get if you were endorsed by the Vice President of the United States.

You’d be billionaires by the end of the year. ”

“We don’t want or need your blood money, asshole,” Van growled.

“Okay, fine.” McDowell glanced back over to where Kam was sitting, too still. “Perhaps we can agree on some sort of trade. The woman’s life for your silence?”

“Go to hell.”

“Funny. That’s exactly what she told me to do right before Felix gave her an up-close and personal display of his boxing skills. You should have seen the way he went at her. It really was quite something to see.”

Van was so tempted to put a bullet between his beady eyes, just like he’d done to Damon Young when the dickhead shot at him and Kam out on his boat. Instead, he followed his training and kept his cool.

Sort of.

He stared McDowell down. “I will shoot you where you stand if you so much as think about moving her way.”

As it was, Van couldn’t allow himself to look at Kam or wonder how badly she was hurt. If he did, his focus would be split, and that would put them all—her included—at risk. So he forced himself to hold back as long as he could.

“So what happened?” Logan demanded of Webb. “You agreed to keep your mouth shut about my dad in exchange for this bastard’s support of your career?”

Webb gave a defeated sigh. “Your dad was one of my closest friends, but he was already dead. Telling the truth about what happened and ruining both my and John’s careers wouldn’t have changed that or brought him back.”

A look of disgust filled Logan’s tortured gaze. “Maybe not, but at least you would have been able to keep your honor. Now you’re just like every other politician out there, lying to everyone around you every fucking day of your pathetic life.”

“I take offense to that remark.” The V.P. started to head in Logan’s direction.

But Van shifted his body and pointed his gun at the man’s head. “Move one more inch, and it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“What are you going to do, Braddock?” the other man challenged. “You going to shoot an unarmed man?”

“Why not?” Van shrugged. “You’ve admitted to shooting a decorated American soldier in the damn back. Seems like the perfect kind of justice to me.”

Poetic, actually.

“I may have shot Nicholas Hayes, but like I said, it was an accident . You, on the other hand, are threatening cold-blooded murder.”

Logan kept his weapon trained on Webb as he spoke directly to McDowell, “Let’s talk about murder a minute, since you brought it up. Now that I know you two assholes covered up my dad’s death, how about you tell me the real reason our team got shot to hell that day on the mountain.”

“And why you’ve gone to so much trouble to make us think Kam’s the one behind it all,” Van added.

Because that shit still made zero sense.

Van and the others watched Webb closely as they waited silently. And once again, the answer wasn’t one he could have guessed.

“You want to tell them, or should I?” Webb looked to McDowell for direction.

“I think you’ve told them enough, don’t you?”

A shot rang out, and Webb’s body jerked from the bullet’s impact. Van looked back to see McDowell holding a literal smoking gun.

What the fuck?

“Drop the weapon!” He stormed toward the murderous V.P.

The man dropped the pistol they didn’t know he had. Van rushed over to where it lay, kicking it away, the metal scraping against the dirty concrete as it slid well out of anyone’s reach.

“Get down on your knees, you son of a bitch!”

Surprisingly, McDowell followed Van’s command. “It’s too bad you won’t be able to hear the rest of the story. It’s quite entertaining, really.”

As he secured the V.P.’s wrists with plastic ties, Van looked over to where Webb lay. There was a bullet hole in the center of his chest, and a crimson stain was rapidly covering the man’s stark white shirt.

“I-It was my f-fault…” The injured man stuttered as he attempted to talk.

“Kaamisha’s mother and I…w-we had an affair back then.

She c-contacted me…three years ago. T-tried blackmailing me into using my p-position to send aid to Kanda…

har. She wanted U.S. t-troops there to help stop the T-Taliban extremists. ”

“But you couldn’t agree to something like that, because then you’d have to explain your sudden interest in sending troops to that part of the country.”

“Too many questions.” Webb nodded. “Too high a…risk.”

“What did you do?” Van demanded.

It was McDowell who answered.

“We did what we always do.” The kneeling man smirked. “We took care of the problem.”

“So you two have this secret about the truth behind my dad’s death, which created this sort of quid pro quo between you,” Logan summarized all that they knew.

“You stuck together throughout the years, supported each other in your political endeavors…and it was all going according to plan until Kam’s mom contacted you —”Logan added even more pressure to Webb’s wound—“and asked for help.”

The injured man groaned as his face twisted with pain. “She…demanded. Would have ruined…everything. F-Family…career…I would have l-lost it…all.”

“And once again, you put yourself above an innocent human life and made it so Ayrana Dawari could never bother you again.”

These two men, these monsters , had killed Logan’s dad and Kam’s mom?

“N-Not…m-me.” Webb sputtered a cough. “J-John.”

“It doesn’t matter who gave the orders,” Logan seethed. With his hand covering the wound, he continued trying to stop the bleeding. Giving aid to a man who was clearly their enemy.

“What about us?” Van asked next. “Why go after our team?”

“Because we were there the day Kam’s mom was killed.” Archer appeared at Van’s side. “The V.P. here probably got paranoid that we’d keep looking into what happened that day. It was our first and only failed op, remember? That shit never did sit right with any of us, and Webb knew it.”

“He’s…right,” Webb confirmed Archer’s educated guess. “J-John was worried you’d keep…digging. Then you’d figure out…Ayrana’s death wasn’t an accident, but…an execution.”

Van recalled that day three years ago in Kandahar. The meeting they’d been sent in to observe. A pre-arranged meeting supposedly set up by the leaders of the two most powerful groups of Taliban extremists at that time.

Now they were all beginning to understand it wasn’t the Taliban who’d arranged the meeting but players in their own damn government.

Their SEAL unit had been sent in to watch the top lieutenants of those groups and to gather intel. They’d sat at those tables, sipping on drinks across the street. Watching as the men they were observing exited the small café.

Van and his team had witnessed the unexpected gunfight right there, out in the open. They’d gone straight into action, taking cover while trying to protect the civilians who were around them and doing their damnedest to avoid catching a stray bullet in the process.

In the end, the groups of men had all taken each other out. When the dust had settled, they’d realized an innocent woman was lying dead in the street.

Ayrana Dawari.

Kam’s mom.