Chapter 2 Gutted
Duncan
It was close to seven hours from Huntington to Quantico if I drove straight through.
Seven hours with only bitterness and regret to keep me company.
Or so I thought. An hour in, the text messages started.
When those went unanswered, she called. I knew exactly who was blowing up my phone without having to look.
Waverly.
My best friend was planted firmly in the middle of an epic shitstorm and I’d left her there to deal with the fallout.
I was an asshole––no––I was a fucking asshole, on so many different fronts.
More than once, I was tempted to turn around.
Then I thought about everything I missed, like watching Sloane’s belly expand as our babies grew, or holding her hand while she brought them into the world.
Moments I’d never get back. Memories I’d never have because of one man’s lies.
My grip tightened around the steering wheel when the phone rang again. Only that time I answered, asking the one question burning a hole in my gut since I took off like a bat out of hell.
“Is Sloane okay?”
“She’s in shock. What about you? Where’s your head at, D?”
Fucked. Vacillating between disbelief, joy, and pissed off, giving me a severe case of emotional whiplash. But I didn’t say any of that.
“If this is a dream, I don’t ever want to wake up.”
“It’s real. They’re real.”
“Thank fuck.”
“Which is why you should be here with them instead of wherever the hell you are.”
“You don’t understand, Way.”
“Then explain it to me, Duncan.” She sighed heavily. “It’s time to exorcize those demons you’ve been battling since the day I met you.”
“How?”
”Let me in.”
So I did. For the next thirty minutes, I told her everything, starting with the investigation into Murray and how it led to meeting Sloane.
Through it all, Waverly remained silent, letting the story tumble from my lips.
Reliving the memories, knowing the outcome was not the one I’d been led to believe, was almost cathartic in a way.
At least until I got to the crash. The pop.
The flash. The sick feeling when the car left the ground.
My hand automatically went to the area right below my heart, rubbing across the gnarly scar where a piece of shrapnel had lodged itself deep enough to puncture a lung.
Breathing had hurt for weeks afterward. Even now, the ache remained, like an echo from the past.
“We hit an IED in the middle of the road.”
“Jesus.” Waverly muttered.
“I’ve never thought about it before, but someone had to have been following us, reporting our location to another person up ahead. Otherwise, any car traveling up the mountain before us would’ve met the same fate.”
“Makes sense,” she added.
“At some point, I passed out. When I came to, we were upside down. Sloane was unconscious and bleeding pretty badly from her head. I didn’t want to move her, but the car caught on fire. The last thing I remember was carrying her out of the wreckage.”
“The last thing you remember?” Confusion was evident in the way she posed the question.
“One minute I was there, the next, it was days later in the hospital. There’s nothing other than a black haze where my memories should be. All these years, I assumed my mind blocked out the trauma of Sloane’s death, except…”
“She’s very much alive.” There was a brief moment of silence, then a muffled curse as Waverly put the pieces together. “Who told you she died in the accident?”
“Niall.” My jaw clenched hard enough to crack. “My handler. Back then, he was with the Irish national police. Since he called tonight with information about my old case, I assume he still is.”
I’m sure Niall thought he could spark my interest, maybe even lure me back into the fold by dangling the ultimate carrot in front of my face. Revenge. What he did not expect was for me to hang up on him midway through his lame-ass pitch.
“Whoa, hold up. My head is spinning.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
“First off, why the hell would he lie to you?”
“I’ll let you know when I find out.”
He’d betrayed my trust in the worst way imaginable.
Finding out why was only part of the reason for my hasty departure.
I needed to know if I was in danger. Rogan James had been ousted as an undercover agent, but what about Duncan Palmer?
Were Sloane and the kids safe? I’d have a better idea in a few more hours, if I was lucky.
“Sloane’s the reason you didn’t date, isn’t she?”
“Never stopped loving her, even when I thought she was gone forever.”
“That’s tragically beautiful.”
All of a sudden, the sound of kids––my kids––squealing with laughter burst through Waverly’s end of the line.
I sucked in a pain-filled breath, recalling our brief interaction.
Damn, they were beautiful. Both of them were the spitting image of their mother, except those icy blues. Those were all me.
“Rogan and Reagan, right?”
“They’re perfect, Duncan.”
Clearing my throat, I quickly uttered, “I’ll be back tomorrow,” then ended the call.
I was fast approaching my breaking point, much more, I’d completely shatter.
In my head, the urgency of knowing whether we were safe outweighed anything else, including a long, drawn out reunion with the love of my life.
If only my heart understood the rationale.
After all this time, it had started beating again…
for her. Although that wasn’t entirely accurate anymore.
There was an additional flutter to my erratic rhythm––or rather two.
My twins.
How would they react to the news? Would they accept me? Would they hate me? Fuck, I’d hate me. DNA aside, I was a stranger, not their father. They didn’t know me, didn’t know the lengths I’d go to protect them, and worse, they didn’t know I already loved them.
But they would.
Nelson deserved a raise. After a too-early-to-be-considered-morning phone call, he pulled off the impossible.
He found Niall in a quaint, no-name hotel near Quantico in the town of Dumfries.
His room was located on the first floor with an outside entrance, making it easy for me to watch for signs of movement from the comfort of my Jeep in the parking lot.
Cup of coffee in hand, I sat and stewed, which––hindsight––may not have been the best idea I’d ever had.
By the time the sun peeked over the horizon, I was wound tight from lack of sleep and too much caffeine.
I also couldn’t wait any longer. Crossing the lot, I banged on the door of room one-oh-seven with a tad more force than was necessary.
A light flipped on inside, then a few seconds later, the door flew open.
“What?” His scowl melted into a grin when he saw it was me. “Duncan. Does this mean you changed your mind?”
At six foot six, I towered over Niall by a good five inches. His coppery hair was short of the sides with longer, messy waves on top. Other than the crow’s feet on the outer edges of his moss green eyes, he hadn’t aged a bit since I’d last seen him.
“We need to talk.”
Without another word, he turned and walked back into his room.
It took everything in me not to lay the fucker out the second he opened the door, but I had a plan which didn’t involve witnesses or getting recorded by one of the seven video cameras I spied mounted around the hotel property.
So I followed, kicking the door closed with the heel of my boot.
Between the open suitcase lying in the middle of the small sofa and the clothes thrown haphazardly over the backs of the chairs, there was nowhere for me to sit.
Niall made himself a cup of coffee at the kitchenette, offering me one, which I declined. He began to whistle as he stirred in a packet of sugar. The tune was one I’d heard before, though I couldn’t immediately place the song. I was about to ask him what it was when he finally turned to face me.
“It’s good to see you, old friend.” He took a sip, then relaxed against the counter as if the air wasn’t thick with tension.
“We’re not friends, Niall.” I stalked farther into the room, keeping my body between him and the door, effectively blocking the only exit. “Seems we never were.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sloane.” At the mention of her name, he looked away, his fingers tapping nervously on the side of the cup. It was enough to confirm my suspicions. Niall knew exactly what he was doing when he destroyed me all those years ago. “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
Before he could react, I was across the room, fisting the front of his shirt. His back hit the side wall with a dull thud at the same time the paper coffee cup bounced off my boot, spilling its contents on the floor.
“You do not want to test me, motherfucker,” I growled, enunciating every syllable.
“Christ, Duncan. What’s gotten into you?”
More than a whisper of worry coated his words. It was exactly what I wanted. Fear was the perfect motivator, and right then, he needed to be afraid of what I’d do next. Hell, I was a little afraid of myself. But I wasn’t leaving without answers..
“Sloane didn’t die in the accident, Niall.” My hands curled tighter. “Ask me how I know.”
The veins on my neck pulsed wildly to the beat of my heart as I waited. Each moment that passed without a response tested the limits of my self-control. As an FBI agent, there were lines I swore I’d never cross, yet there I was, riding precariously close to the point of no return.
Could I live with the consequences?
The answer was a resounding fuck no. I had a future with Sloane and our children to think about.
We’d suffered enough, thanks to my—so called—friend.
There were other ways to exact revenge without losing myself in the process.
When the time was right, I’d rip the hinges off Niall’s closet full of skeletons and bury him beneath them.
Until then, if I needed to act unhinged to get what I needed, so be it.
It would be an award winning performance.