Page 48 of Hunted (Desert Island Duet #2)

Chapter thirty-one

Weston

I groan, pulling back and resting my forehead against hers.

“We should get her dressed, we don’t know who that is,” King suggests, making me groan again. I have half a mind to kill whoever’s at the door right now.

Whoever it is, I don’t want them seeing Darla half dressed.

I reluctantly pull back, giving her a quick peck and the only smile I can muster, as King passes me her dress. I readjust her bra, then lift the dress over her head and pull it down, covering her delectable body.

Bower was right, it really is delicious. I find myself wanting to lick every inch just to know if any part of her tastes sweeter than another.

I grin as I lift her to her feet and hold my hand out to Reece for her panties. Ah yes… this is one place I know tastes divine. I kneel down and pull them up as Arnold’s voice carries into the room.

“May I come in now?”

How long has he been standing in the hall?

I look down at Darla and readjust her clothing a bit, then run my fingers through her hair to calm it down as Reece replies, “Yes, come in, Arnold. ”

“Sir, there is a Mr. Brian Callahan at the door.” My head shoots up in surprise.

“Is that your brother?” Darla asks, grabbing my hand and squeezing it, pulling me out of my shock.

“Yeah.”

“Shall I see him in?” Arnold asks.

Reece glances at me and I nod, then he turns back to Arnold. “Yes, bring him in here, please.”

Arnold leaves and I run my free hand through my hair.

“Have you spoken to him since the airport?” Darla asks.

“We’ve texted a couple of times. He keeps trying to get me to meet him in person, but I’ve been pushing it off. I told him I needed time.”

“Well, if you need me to get rid of him for you, just say the word.”

I smirk down at my little wild thing, then pull her in for a hug. “Okay, if I say Steve, you can help me get rid of him.”

“You got it.”

“Brian Callahan,” Arnold, says, announcing the guest before he enters like this is Victorian England and not modern-day America.

“West,” Brian says, stopping in his tracks when he sees me embracing Darla. She moves to my side, but we keep an arm around each other as we look at him.

“I told you I needed some more time.”

“I know! I’m sorry, but it’s important.” He glances around at the other three men in the room, then his eyes land on Darla before moving back to me. “Uh, could we go somewhere and talk alone?”

“No.” His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “These four are my family. Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of them.” There’s a flash of hurt in his eyes when I use the word family, but he’s the one that abandoned me, not the other way around.

“It’s just this is a sensitive issue—”

“He said no,” Reece says, surprising me. He crosses his arms over his chest, and he moves to stand closer to me, leaning against the counter that separates Brian and me.

“We don’t keep secrets from each other, and we don’t trust you to be alone with him,” Darla pipes up, her fingers digging into my waist.

“You haven’t earned that right yet,” Kingsley says, moving to Darla’s side along with Bower. A strange sense of warmth fills me at not only their words but their actions.

Losing my brother had been just as painful as the plane crash itself, and knowing my new family won’t judge me like that, brings me a sense of comfort and security I haven’t had in a very long time, if ever.

“It’s about what happened… you know… five years ago.”

“Go on,” I tell him.

“It’s kind of a long story. Should we sit down or something?” he asks, finally taking a moment to look around the large living area and kitchen. “Whose house is this, anyway?”

“It belongs to all of us,” Reece says without missing a beat as he walks past Brian to the living room. “Come, let’s have a seat in here. Would you like a drink?”

“Some water would be good, thank you,” Brian says, taking a seat on one of the large armchairs, allowing me to sit in the middle of the couch opposite him.

Bower and King sit on either side of me, and I pull Darla into my lap, her back to my chest and place her legs between mine so she doesn’t accidentally flash Brian .

Reece brings over bottles of water for everyone, then sits in the other armchair.

Brian’s eyes slightly narrow, as he watches Darla and me. I can tell he wants to know about our relationship but is probably afraid to ask anything right now. Good, it’s none of his business.

“So, what did you want to tell me?” I ask, impatience slipping into my tone. I just want this over with so I can get back to what I was doing before he decided to drop in like we were on speaking terms and he hadn’t abandoned me for five years.

Brian takes a long sip of water, then presses his fingertips together—an old nervous tic I haven’t seen since we were teenagers, and he had to confess to denting Dad’s new truck. Or when he announced he was enlisting.

“Like I said at the airport,” he begins, his voice low and cautious, “I’ve been looking into your plane crash, the one from when you were a marine.

Officially, there’s almost nothing I could access without tripping alarms. The first two systems I poked around in had restricted access, and they were locked down hard.

Which struck me as odd, considering your file was marked non-sensitive.

Just a basic ‘pilot error’ case, or so they said. ”

I open my mouth, ready to rebuttal, but he holds up a hand.

“I know it wasn’t pilot error, West. I should have listened to you back then.” His jaw tics. There's regret there, I think… and maybe a bit of guilt?

He leans forward, bracing his forearms on his knees, his voice dropping.

“I didn’t want to pull my family into anything dangerous, so I had to get creative.

I used a few anonymous channels and paid someone on the dark web who specializes in digital recovery; military leaks, buried comms, that sort of thing. Took weeks, but he came through.”

Darla shifts slightly on my lap, and I tighten my arms around her without thinking. My pulse thuds in my ears.

“What he found,” Brian continues, staring at his water bottle, “was a series of encrypted messages between a mid-level military intelligence officer and someone a lot higher up. Someone whose name was redacted, even in the leaked threads. But the message was clear. Your flight was greenlit for disruption using an onboard EMP device, disguised as a maintenance panel component. It was set to detonate mid-air.”

My breath stalls. I always knew something was off, that it wasn’t my fucking fault… but this? This is confirmation of a goddamn conspiracy.

“Why?” Darla asks, her voice small but sharp, cutting through my haze like a scalpel.

Brian nods slowly, as if he knew this question was coming. “Two working theories. One, your unit saw something classified during that last op. Intel they weren’t meant to stumble across. Something so sensitive it made wiping the whole unit a cleaner option than dealing with leaks.”

Brian hesitates, then adds, “The second theory is a little more complex, but honestly, it’s the one that makes the most sense, given everything.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “There’s evidence that one of the men on that flight, Staff Sergeant Devault, was under quiet investigation.

Off the books. There were whispers that he’d been selling classified intel, possibly to foreign buyers.

He’d been moved from base to base for months, kept away from operations, but then somehow, he got placed in your unit at the last minute. ”

My brows knit. “Devault?” I echo. “He had just joined that team. ”

Brian nods. “Exactly. That last-minute reassignment may not have been an accident. I think they used that team as a cover to neutralize him. A crash in enemy territory? Clean, no fingerprints, no investigation. No headlines about internal corruption. Just a tragic loss of a patrol flight in a war zone.”

Darla’s breath hitches and her fingers dig into my arm.

Brian looks up at me, guilt clouding his expression. “You survived something they never expected anyone to walk away from. And because you didn’t know what Devault was into, you weren’t a threat once you disappeared into recovery and retirement. There was no reason to tie up loose ends.”

I press my face into Darla’s neck and close my eyes. Seven innocent men died that day because someone higher up was worried about their damn public image? If Devault was corrupt, the chances are there were other officers working with him, too.

I glance up at my brother, suddenly worried about him being in there, amongst possible treasoners. “Are you safe?”

His eyes flash with a hint of surprise at my question. “Yeah, I work with a good group of men, and as far as I can tell, there is no corruption surrounding me. But it doesn't make me feel good to know it exists.”

“Now we know, what do we do about it?” Darla asks, turning those gorgeous green eyes on me.

“I don’t think we can do anything. We don’t know who ordered the hit, or who reassigned him—do we?” I ask, looking back at Brian.

He shakes his head. “No, not one name could be found, and trust me, he looked everywhere. They were smart, they covered their tracks.”

“I guess I should just be happy that they let me walk away. ”

“They were only after Devault, the rest of you were… collateral,” Brian says with a frown.

We’re all silent while we let that information sink in.

On one hand, I’m happy to finally have some answers about what happened that day.

On the other hand, it makes me angry to know someone who was supposed to be a senior member of the military, was making decisions that sacrificed good, honest soldiers, just to quietly take out one bad one, instead of bringing him to justice.

“West, I, uh… I told Mom and Dad what happened,” Brian says nervously. I watch as he presses his fingertips together and hold my breath, needing to hear what he has to say. “They don't believe me.”