Free Solid Steel (Unseen Enemy Book 6) by Marysol James

her? If we even have any fucking right to know any of this?”
    “I’m sorry,” the younger man stammered. “I – I thought you knew already –”
    “Get out,” Dallas snarled at him. “Get out and don’t say one more word about this to anyone.”
    The man scurried away without so much as a backwards glance and the three men looked at each other, gauging each other’s reactions. Finally, Dallas sighed.
    “I guess that explains where she was for six weeks.”
    Mark and Luke nodded, still shocked.
    “She – she didn’t tell you?” Luke asked cautiously. “I know she didn’t tell Griff, but when she asked for the leave, she never said what it was for?”
    “No.” Dallas drank some more coffee, hoping for strength. “She just said it was for medical reasons and that it was voluntary surgery and it may interfere with her ability to fire a weapon. She showed up at work after six weeks with a recertification document for firearms and just handed it over without comment.” He paused as he remembered something. “She did say – she said that the surgery was preventative. That if she didn’t get the surgery, something bad would happen to her in the future.”
    They fell quiet again. Mark broke the silence tentatively.
    “Her Mom and sister died of breast cancer. Her grandmother, too.”
    “And her aunt,” Dallas added.
    They stared at the floor, hating everything about this fucked-up morning. This time, it was Luke who spoke first.
    “So, you think she had her breasts removed to prevent the cancer? That she has some kind of – genetic predisposition to the disease and this was the only way to be sure she wouldn’t contract it?”
    “Yeah,” Mark said slowly. “Yeah, it’s possible.”
    “Fuck,” Dallas burst out. “Why wouldn’t she tell us this? We’re her family , we’d have been there for her… had her back.”
    “I think she thought you’d coddle her,” Luke said, remembering what she’d said that day at the track. “She told me that she hates when you guys worry about her or talk behind her back. She’d find pity intolerable.”
    “ Pity ?” Mark said, aghast. “Jesus, we’d never pity the woman, but we sure as hell could have been there when she’d woken up. We’d have stayed with her as she recovered and brought her home. Done some cooking and cleaning, watched movies and hung out. And no way she didn’t need a shoulder to lean on as she dealt with all of this – any one of us would have been there. All she had to do was ask.”
    “Well, she didn’t ask,” Dallas said. “And she’s gonna be fucking horrified that we know this now.” He paused. “Furious, too.”
    “But we have to tell her that we know, right?” Mark asked his boss.
    “Yeah.” Dallas sighed again, dreading that conversation. “For now, though, we can do all the things that we didn’t do three months ago. We’ll stay here. Take care of her. Help her out.”
    “Count me in,” Luke said suddenly.
    Dallas and Mark stared at him, took in his set jaw and tense shoulders.
    “Yeah?” Mark said.
    “Yeah.” Luke shook his head, so angry at himself for pressuring her for a date. No goddamn wonder she’d pushed him away: she had to be struggling with her body right now, struggling with feeling sexy and beautiful.
    Well, he had no problem with seeing her that way. Luke hated how he’d found out the truth, but he was glad to know it and it didn’t change a single damn thing for him, anyway. She was still the most gorgeous, strongest, smartest woman that he’d ever known and nothing would take any of that away from her. Not even a fucking surgeon’s scalpel.
    “Yeah,” he said again. “I want to be here for Griff and Selena. What do I need to do?”
    Just then a doctor walked in to the waiting room. He gazed at them with tired brown eyes.
    “You’re here for Selena Perez?” he asked.
    “Yes.” Dallas almost launched himself at the man. “You’re Doctor Innis?”
    “Sam Innis, yes.” He