“Shit happens, Nick,” Turner responded. “It was really her as an agent who shouldn’t have blurred those lines but that can happen to anyone. I had a job once. A job that involved a girl and it happened to me. I fell for her. It wasn’t right but I couldn’t stop it. I lost her too.” His gaze grew intense as he hid a flinch. Knowing he’d said the wrong thing, he finished quickly, “Not like you lost Hettie. But I fell hard for her and she’s still not mine.”

Nick didn’t want to sit around listening to Turner telling tales he hoped would help Nick feel better. Turner knew no words would make that happen.

There was only one thing that would make Nick feel better.

Turner knew that too.

Which was why he asked, “You gonna stay in town?”

Fuck yes, he was gonna stay in town.

“Yeah,” Nick answered.

At that, Turner did what a lot of people were doing these days.

He studied Nick closely before he said, “Doesn’t feel like it, but with time, it’ll hurt less. It just will, Nick. Give it time and then get on with your life.”

Turner had no fucking clue what he was talking about. He didn’t know what girl Turner fell for but if she wasn’t dead, never to see her again, never to smell her hair, taste her pussy, listen to her laugh, eat the fried eggs she always broke the yolk when she flipped them over, knowing she wouldn’t give that to him or to anyone…

If he didn’t survive that then he had not one fucking clue what he was talking about.

Nick did not share this.

He just repeated, “Yeah.” Then, to turn the subject, he said, “Talked to Knight, Raid, Sylvie, Marcus, all of ’em. Had to, Eric. Their women and families were targeted. They had to know what we were doin’, why we were doin’ it and how they were gonna use anyone that was close to me or Knight in order to use him to get to me to stop us from doin’ what we were doin’. My brother and his crew also dragged my ass out of that hellhole so they had to know why I was there in the first place.”

“Not thinkin’ any of those folks will talk,” Turner muttered in reply.

He was absolutely right.

Nick nodded.

His gaze still intense, Turner stated, “We were planning an extraction, Nick.”

Nick nodded again, this time sharply.

He didn’t want to go there.

“I know you were,” he said in an effort to stop Turner from talking about it.

He did know that. Turner wouldn’t leave Nick hanging. He definitely wouldn’t leave Hettie that way.