Chapter 15

"It's time, Nebraska. The truth's out, they all need to know."

Nebraska looked like she was ready to come out of her skin.

And when her eyes closed, Zane's warning hit me square in my chest.

Don't let those pretty blue eyes and all that soft you think you see under her hard exterior fool you. She's a fixer, same as her mother. She'll sell her services to the highest bidder. Women like that have no loyalty. And right now, she holds more power than I'm comfortable with.

All that soft you think you see under her hard exterior fooled you.

I'm just a piece to move around the board when I need to be used.

I'd fallen straight into her trap.

Everyone uses me.

I should've pushed for answers when I had the chance, but I'd fallen for her shit. I'd backed off when I should've gone hard to get the truth from her.

I would not make that mistake again.

"Tell me, Nebraska, that shit you spewed in the car—"

"Easton," Smith interrupted. "Patience."

Nebraska's eyes snapped open.

Fuck patience.

"What shit?"

Smith stepped between me and Nebraska, which was to say he came chest-to-chest, eye-to-eye with me and lowered his voice to say, "Think carefully about the next words that come out of your mouth, brother. Sometimes there are things that can't be unheard or forgiven. We haven't heard what Z has to say."

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from lashing out at my friend. He'd know a thing or two about saying shit in anger you couldn't unsay. Shit that was unforgivable no matter how much you loved the other person. But this was nowhere near the same situation. Nebraska wasn't my fiancée. I didn't claim to love her and I certainly hadn't made any promises to her.

But he was right. We hadn't heard what Z had to say, and right then, the mission was more important than my pride being stung and my feelings being hurt. The last bore contemplation. How in the fuck could a woman I barely knew hurt my feelings and why in the hell would her not telling me she worked for…

"Black," I ground out.

Smith's brow winged up before the same realization I'd just had hit.

Zane obviously heard.

"Haiti was a learning experience," Z started. "For me more than for Dutch. He'd been in longer, he understood the game, he'd long since stopped looking for the good. The missions we went on, the people we dealt with both in the field and the assholes who sat behind a desk, everything was bad or worse."

Once Zane had started speaking Smith had stepped away—not far but away enough I now had eyes on Nebraska. She no longer looked anxious, nor did she look like she was paying attention to the conversation—all of her concentration was honed in on shooting daggers at me.

Ten minutes ago, before I heard her rant, I would've been concerned at her worry. Now, not so much. She could stare at me all she wanted.

"But it was the next op that killed whatever belief in justice I had left. True justice, not this bullshit we think is justice."

"What was the op?" Smith asked.

"Africa. UNICEF aid was being hijacked. The suits knew who was seizing the packages. Dutch and I were sent in to negotiate a deal. In other words, we were sent in to hand over large sums of cash to a warlord to buy safe passage of food, water, and meds. The deal was done. The next UNICEF delivery was hijacked. The warlord had gone back on his word. The suits' brilliant plan was to hand over more cash and ask again. Dutch pitched another plan—take out the warlord and call it a day. But the problem is, that doesn't solve shit. Take out one and five more are ready to take their place. The merry-go-round continues. Shit needed to change. So we found a way to change it and Black Team was formed."

Black Team.

"How does that work and where do they fit with Red, Gold and Blue?" Smith carried on.

The three flagship teams until me, Theo, Smith, Jonas, Cash, Kira, and Layla came to work for Z Corps and Silver Team was formed.

"Until last night, no one but Lincoln and my wife knew Black existed."

There it was, the truth.

Zane had a team no one knew about.

"This is the secret you said would cause a war?" I asked, not understanding the drama.

Nebraska's stare became acute and assessing when she addressed Zane. "How pleased are you right now you were forced to divulge something you weren't ready to reveal?"

"Murderous."

She nodded like she knew that would be the answer.

"And how pleased are Red, Gold, and Blue you've been keeping this secret from them?"

"Pretty fucking unhappy," he grunted.

Another nod.

"That was what Maddon wanted. Disorder within the teams. Dissention. Suspicion. Men distrusting their leader, because if he didn't tell them about Black what else isn't he telling them? It is no secret when Viper feels threatened he strikes. Maddon's hope is, with Zane's company in turmoil and no one there to talk him down, Zane will act out of emotion and activate Black. Dutch will follow orders, Badger will back that play because he's been jonesing to take out Maddon for months. Three powerful men, reacting instead of planning. That's chaos. That will lead to someone getting killed."

She paused, brought her hands to her hips, and shook her head.

"Maddon sent a GB Team to take me in. Now imagine Black in that same situation, having to take out a good guy to protect themselves, to protect me or Zane or you. They'd do it. Their loyalty is with Black. But they'd die a thousand deaths and have to live knowing they took out a good man, who was just misguided."

Fuck.

She wasn't wrong about any of that.

"More chaos. More reacting. The war Zane would wage would be bloody. There would be no winner, just a bunch of good men dead for no fucking reason."

"And you?" Smith rejoined. "Where do you fit in?"

"I'm inconsequential—"

"That's a lie," I cut in. "It seems to me, all of this revolves around you."

"Does it, Easton, does it all seem to revolve around me? Because where I'm standing it looks a hell of a lot…" she trailed off, her head jerked to the side, and she got a faraway look in her eyes.

I glanced at Smith. He was studying Nebraska, eyes narrowed, looking just as perplexed as I was.

"Looks a hell of a lot like what?" I prompted.

"Where's Badger?" She asked instead of answering.

"Hunting."

Nebraska was rapidly shaking her head at Zane's announcement. There wasn't that much room separating us in the small living room but whatever space there was she quickly closed and stopped right in front of me.

"Call him home," Nebraska demanded as she reached up and curled her hand around my bicep. The hand curl was an unconscious reaction to whatever had her so scared.

"As you're well aware, that's not my call," Zane returned. His tone clearly communicated even if it was his call he wouldn't make it.

Nebraska might've been aware, however I was not.

"Why isn't that your call?"

"Black Team might fall under the umbrella of Z Corps' protection but it is not my team, it's Dutch's. As you're very aware it's his team, his call."

Nebraska's fingers dug into muscle, her grip getting tighter and tighter as she continued to shake her head.

"Dutch will listen to you," she disagreed. "You know he will. You're his moral compass."

Well fuck. If Zane Lewis was this Dutch dude's moral compass we were all fucked. Not that Zane didn't have one, he did—his pointed true North. The problem with that was Zane's North tended to be other people's South. Zane didn't have moral dilemmas; the code he lived by didn't allow for such things. There was honor, integrity, and loyalty. When you lived by those principles there were no dilemmas.

"Dutch is—"

"He's playing into Maddon's hands," she interrupted Zane in a panic. "He'll be ready for Badger. He'll hide behind—"

"Do you know what your problem is?" Zane calmly cut in.

My arm jerked with Nebraska when she rocked back clearly unprepared for Z's question. "In all this shit those two assholes taught you, they left out the most important lesson. They groomed you to be the best Mediator, the fixer they needed. I can't say they didn't do a damn good job leading you to hone in the skills your mother passed down to you. You are the best Mediator the Black Team has. You earned the respect of powerful people. You were fair in your negotiations. You're fucking smart as hell and you see the field clearly. You understand the board, and move your pieces accordingly. It's impressive. But you lack two skills and I suspect it's because they lied to you and told you they were weaknesses. Trust and family."

Nebraska looked like Zane had slapped her and in doing so she swayed back. I twisted my arm from her grasp in order to reach out and reverse our positions. Now I was holding her steady. Which turned out to be the right call since Zane wasn't done with her yet.

"Maddon's play didn't work. It never would've worked because nowhere in that fucked-up head of his does he truly grasp loyalty, trust, and family. He thinks loyalty is something you buy instead of earn. He thinks trust is a vulnerability. He thinks family is a liability. A man like him will never understand without those three things you have nothing. Sure my family was pissed at me. I lied to them and I've been doing it from the beginning. But they know me down to my soul because I trust them, explicitly, and have given them every reason to trust me. It took less than an hour of them giving me shit to burn themselves out and come to the conclusion I had my reasons for not sharing. That's done. We're moving on. That's what family does. And there's the fatal flaw in Maddon's play. He has no fucking concept of family. Let that be a lesson to you, Dove, before it becomes your greatest failure. Without family, trust, and loyalty you've fucking lost."

Zane's aim was true. Every word he'd said was a bullseye.

I wasn't sure lecturing her about family and trust when the sting of betrayal was still fresh was the way to go, but in true Zane fashion, when he had a point to make, he made it.

"The lesson you need to learn and learn really fucking fast is family isn't perfect. Sometimes what was meant to protect, hurts. Sometimes decisions are made for the right reasons even though from the outside they look wrong. Sometimes you have to trust what you know rather than what you feel. Sometimes you have to go with a gut feeling when all your intel is showing you something different. You're correct in your thinking. Maddon wants chaos. He needs it for his plan to work. But you were wrong in your assessment. I'm not the chaos, Dove. You are."

Since I was still holding Nebraska's phone I couldn't stop her from stumbling back. Smith saw her start to go down, took the phone I was holding out to him, and did it quickly so I could use both hands to pull Nebraska to my chest and keep her upright.

It was then Zane delivered his final blow.

"Badger's not headed Maddon's way. He's out looking for Pidge."

Nebraska's reaction was so violent my body jolted with hers. With her tight against me, I heard her swift intake of air. Though if I was standing across the room from her I wouldn't have been able to miss it—I knew this to be fact when Smith didn't miss the sucking in of breath or whimper she made doing so. His face went hard—harder still when he watched her burrow so close. Just like she'd done when she'd woken up, only this time it felt like she wanted me to absorb her.

She'd either missed her calling as an Academy Award winning actor or her performance wasn't a performance and the pain she was feeling had once again overwhelmed her. There was no other excuse as to why she'd seek me out unless what she was feeling was so huge she didn't have it in her to beat it back alone.

I was leaning towards the second.

If she was acting, I needed to quit my job.