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He flipped through other shots of her: professional poses, advertiseht in an unguardedfor clues, insight into her character What was behind the litz Not that it made any difference if she was a chaood heart only visible in public He’d do the job because that hat he was paid to do Whether he liked or approved of a potential client didn’t mean shit if his team took the mission
He couldn’tnot e on first iut instincts They rarely failed hiitis But they all had one thing in co to charity, helping to raise funds for charitable organizations She visited sick children in hospitals and donated her ti indeed for there not to at least be speculation or even blatant made-up shit published for hype and to sell lies His cursory read didn’t bring up a single negative thing about her No secret pregnancies, drug use, crazy exes and for that matter no love interests He frowned at that A woe ofto wonder if the woht No one was that perfect Everyone had their faults He wondered what hers were
He wondered if everything he was reading was an extreid public persona and what she was really like behind it all Ryker would have hi the news reported and more, but he wasn’t exactly an unbiased party But he’d never heard Ryker utter a single bad word about her He grumbled about Raid, his older brother, and even his father, calling him a set-in-his-ways old fart who still liked to bark orders like a drill sergeant
He knew that Ryker had lost hisand that it had deeply affected them all but his father had taken it very hard By all accounts, Eden was a replica of her rowing up that she too could have been a ht Her favorite place in the world was being at ho time with the family
She’d been a military wife, and military wives were a very special breed of wo heroes when it came to service to their country But they made sacrifices above and beyond what most women experienced in their lifetime
When their husbands were away on a tour, they were at ho the fa their husbands It took a special woive up her husband for the protection of others People those wives would never ratitude to the soldiers, much less to their wives
Swanny had infinite respect for ard for the Kelly wives and the team leaders’ wives For all practical purposes, their husbands were still h they weren’t still enlisted
But KGI could be called up on a mission as quickly as they had been today, and they dropped everything to take on a mission to protect or rescue others and the wives re if their husbands would co Resilient
He glanced again at his phone, where a particularly stunning photo of Eden was staring back at hi into the cae mastiff Her eyes sparkled with happiness; her sht, ultrawhite teeth
When Joe plopped down into the seat next to hie where he’d been staring at the photo of Eden
He was practicallyover a woue it wasn’t even funny She wouldn’t see him Few people ever did He was quiet and usually kept to hi sure the mission went off without a hitch was his job As well as his tea his job didn’t require him to be verbose, and he liked it just fine that way
And if people did see himWell, the reactions were typical Horror Revulsion Fear And pity He shook his head, knowing Eden would be no different than everyone else even if she had a heart the size of Texas
She was surrounded by beautiful people Wealthy people People ere polished and refined She was abreast of the latest fashion and Hollywood gossip, in all likelihood And yether family, her imrounded in reality? The i three men who’d experienced the worst of humanity, had blood on their hands and honor in their hearts, was incongruous A rose a poetic
Her career took her to places that werewine in Paris at a swank cocktail party was a world away fro for a five-secondof tiht days with no sleep, because if he lost focus, even for a tenth of a second, he ht miss his opportunity
No, Eden wouldn’t look at him And if she did, she certainly wouldn’t look twice But that didn’t ined that just being in her presence would be like standing under the warh