A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(125)

Several minutes later the door to the room opened and Risner walked in followed by Captain John Andrews, Risner’s boss. Neither man looked happy, although Risner looked at Garrett with sad eyes and a sympathetic smile.

“Lieutenant McCarthy, have a seat,” Captain Andrews said stiffly with a nod of his head to the table in the middle of the room.

The two men who held his future in their hands sat. Garrett remained standing.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Garrett asked.

“Granted,” Captain Risner replied.

“Get me the f*ck out of this room and back to Parker!” Garrett yelled as he slammed his palms on the table in front of them.

“We understand your anger, Garrett…er, Lieutenant McCarthy,” Risner replied, glancing nervously at his boss. Garrett and Risner had been friends ever since they met in the Naval Academy. The fact that Risner was Garrett’s boss never changed that. Risner trusted Garrett to do his job and left him alone to accomplish it. It was obvious now, by the way he kept glancing at Captain Andrews, that things were out of his hands as far as Garrett was concerned.

“If you would have just contacted us and willingly came in for the debrief, you might already be on your way back to the Dominican to Agent Parker,” Captain Andrews informed him arrogantly. “A member of your team, who we thought to be dead for a year, had gone rogue and taken up with the enemy. Your silence and unknown whereabouts concerned both the Admiral and Commodore. It doesn’t look good.”

Risner gave Garrett a look of sympathy. He knew Garrett would never even come close to doing something against the Navy or against his country. He felt bad that Parker was harmed and knew Garrett wasn’t thinking straight because of it, but it was out of his hands. The higher-ups in the Navy weren’t happy. Milo’s actions shined a negative light on the entire SEAL program, and now everyone was under scrutiny.

“The fact of the matter is, Lieutenant McCarthy, there is a man with over forty-seven counts of underage prostitution and thirteen counts of voluntary manslaughter that is sitting in a Dominican prison awaiting trial. There are also three United States Senators, four Supreme Court judges, two employees of the State Department, one employee from the Executive Office of the CIA, six members of the State Council of China, four members of the Cabinet of Australia, and the President of Egypt that were all his customers. Each one has been charged with numerous counts of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Nothing can be done with these individuals until you are fully debriefed by the Navy and we can begin trial proceedings,” Captain Andrews stated calmly.

The battle inside of Garrett raged quietly. He had a responsibility to his country to see this finished. He made a vow to protect this land and all of the people who lived here. Among the forty-seven plus young girls that Fernandez sold into sexual slavery, twenty were Americans. But he’d also made a promise to Parker. Even though she was unconscious at the time, he swore to her sleeping form that he would never leave her side again, that he would love her until the day he died, and he would do everything in his power to make up for the fact that his jealousy did this to her.

Garrett knew if he managed to get away from the building and back to Parker, he would only be dragged away again. The second time wouldn’t be as easy. He’d be thrown into the brig and denied any leniency. He would be seen as a traitor for not standing up for the people of his country and doing what he could to put the monsters behind bars for a very long time.

If he stayed there and went through the debriefing required by the Navy after a mission like this, conducted meetings with his SEAL team and the team of lawyers hired to try this case, organizing their testimony and evidence, and finally went to trial, he’d be looking at weeks if not months away from Parker. He knew she would understand, but at the same time, the guilt he felt for leaving her would eat him alive. The choice was not an easy one to make.

In the end, Garrett knew he needed to do whatever he could to put an end to all of the disgusting men that took advantage of children. He could do nothing but hope that the sacrifices he made now would be worth it when he was back with Parker, where he belonged.



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Two days after Parker’s endotracheal tube was removed from her throat, she was able to talk without coughing and was clear-headed enough to listen to her nurse explain that three armed military guards took Garrett away in the middle of the night right before she woke up. She was told by several people she was lucky to be alive. Many people didn’t come back from a class six hemorrhage on top of the all the injuries she sustained before being shot: one broken rib, a broken thumb, a cracked bone in her jaw, one in her cheek, and a bullet hole in her side with an even bigger hole in the back from the exit wound.



Once Parker was stable enough, she was flown to George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. so she could begin physical therapy and start the long healing process. Parker assumed she’d get a say in what hospital she was transferred to, obviously wanting to be close to her home in California. However, the CIA made the decision for her and without her consent.

As the days passed, Garrett’s absence felt like another bullet wound, this time to her heart. During the day she was busy with therapy and the constant flow of doctors and nurses checking her vitals and asking her questions. But at night, in the quiet of the hospital where she was left alone to rest, Parker had plenty of time to think about how alone she was. She had no one there for her except for a blue eyed, black haired exotic beauty named Olivia.