Page 29 of Mitch

Chapter Twelve

Mitch restedhis elbow on the car window as he watched the deserted area around the abandoned farm. The sky was dark, with only a crescent moon to offer any light. Luckily, he had his NVGs if he needed them, but this should be a quick meet. A tendril of unease crept down his spine as they waited, the meeting time coming and going.

“He’s late,” he said stating the obvious, knowing Jack and Alex would pick it up on the comms, even as he spoke to Waggs and Decker who were in the car with him.

Waggs was sitting in the front beside him. “It’s only a few minutes.”

Mitch turned to Waggs his brow raised. “Have you ever known Gunner to be late?”

“Did we ever know Gunner at all?” Waggs asked with a sardonic lift of his brow.

Mitch wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he didn’t. The fact was, Gunner had betrayed them all, throwing everything back in their faces. Fuck, he’d even knocked him out and tied him up when he’d confronted him about the op in Monaco. It was a bitter pill to swallow to know someone he’d trusted with his life had been the one sabotaging everything.

Yet Mitch understood on some level. The bastards had threatened his sister, kidnapped her from the nursing home where she was cared for after a brain injury had left her unable to care for herself.

Would he have done the same? He hoped not. He hoped he would’ve been a better man. These men were as much family as his blood were. Gunner choosing to go against them rather than trusting them to have his back had almost ripped the team to shreds. Only Jack being the leader he was had kept the team together.

“You think we can trust him?” Mitch asked the million-dollar question.

“No,” Waggs answered sharply.

Mitch lifted his head to the rearview mirror to look at Decker. “What about you? You’re the shrink, what do you think?”

Decker’s lips tightened. Mitch knew he hated when they called him that. “I think there’s something else going on we don’t know about.”

“Like what?” Mitch asked, surprised by this analysis.

“I don’t know, but something. The Gunner I knew would’ve come to us about his sister.”

“Even though he kept her a secret?” Waggs asked.

“Yes. Because from everything I’ve seen, Gunner still trusts us, despite how it looks.”

“Yeah well, that shit doesn’t go both ways,” Waggs snarled as he checked the time on his watch.

As he did headlights slashed through the night sky and the tension in the car rose, electricity pounding out of them.

“Heads up, boys,” Jack said over the comms as Gunner stopped the old car close to the old, metal silage barn. He got out and instantly Mitch could see something was wrong. Gunner staggered before falling to his knees.

“Waggs, get out here now,” Jack demanded through their ears as he stepped forward to grab Gunner.

All three men were out of the car and running towards Jack and Gunner as Alex covered Jack’s back. Mitch had his gun in his hand, not trusting this wasn’t a trap of some kind. When they got to the two men, Gunner was on the ground. His face was barely recognisable and covered in blood. He had a cut above his eyebrow and a broken nose by the looks of it but Mitch suspected it was the injuries he couldn’t see that were causing the most problems.

Waggs was on his knees, his medic training kicking in as he triaged Gunner, lifting his shirt to show his abdomen covered in so many bruises it looked like one giant injury. “What the fuck happened to you?”

Gunner tried to brush his hand away. “It’s fine.”

Waggs ignored him. “Don’t be a dick. Let me check you over. You could have internal injuries.”

“Nah, just some broken ribs.”

Jack was standing slightly back, assessing things with Alex. “Let him check you over, Gunner.” The words were harsh and commanding and seemed to get through to Gunner because he fell back to the ground with a grunt.

Mitch kept his eye on the surrounding area, knowing Jack was doing the same as Alex walked around the back of the car. Lopez had them on camera from the drones he was using remotely.

Trust was a hard-won commodity in this job and even more so now.

He thought of Autumn and Maggie, hoping they were tucked up safely in bed. Nate had offered to stay with her once Mitch—with her permission—had shared her situation with him. With Liam, Reid, and Blake being on a recon op in Belize after a contact gave them a tip about increasing violence against the Crown, they were short on bodies. With the Royal tour next year, it was vital they stay on top of these things, and that included wrapping up this threat from inside.