Chapter Six
RYAN
“Always so much rage in that tiny body,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood. The sarcastic comment made Celine giggle and seemed to simmer Amber’s rage as her body relaxed into the couch, her one hand still holding her head, but I still saw the anger in her green eyes, making them burn emerald. So damn pretty, even when she was furious with me.
“I think I’ll head home—let you two figure this out,” Celine suggested as she reached for her bag on the table. Amber’s burning gaze cut to her, making Celine pause and swallow nervously. “On second thought… I think I’ll stay.” She then sank into a chair at the glass kitchen table, her eyes darting between Amber and me.
“I’m waiting, Ryan,” Amber’s voice cut through the silence, bringing all the attention in the room to her.
Looking at her small body wrapped in a white, fluffy blanket on the brown, suede couch, my heart softened. So much had changed in the last year. We had experienced life and trauma while we were apart, all because of me. Had I not decided to sign another contract, we would have been together a hell of a lot sooner. And maybe we would be avoiding all this.
I couldn’t stop admiring her beautiful, freckled face. Even with her green eyes slitted in anger, her red hair falling out of the perfect curls she had painstakingly created that morning, and her makeup smudged, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid my eyes on. Regardless of everything that had changed, she was still the girl I had fallen in love with all those years ago. The only difference now was that time had aged us both. No longer did we look at the world through rose-tinted glasses that a na?ve teenager took for granted.
Instead, we both knew the horrors and struggles of adulthood. We felt the ache of a broken heart, the fear of trying to figure out how to put food on the table, and the worry of trying to get the electricity bill paid before the cutoff date.
The only difference between us was that the woman sitting in front of me hadn’t seen the horrors that still played in my mind on repeat. She never had to make a split-second decision on whose life was more valuable. She would never understand the grief and guilt that I would carry to my grave.
How did I explain to the woman that I loved the most on this planet that going to bed at night terrified me more than any horror movie I could ever watch?
How did I tell her that there were days—weeks even—that I had permanently blocked from my mind, and there were others that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get rid of? I couldn’t forget the faces of my victims. I couldn’t forget the screams of my brothers when we got caught by a bomb or the time we were ambushed.
She may have looked at me now and saw my scars and accepted that I was not the same man I was six years ago. With a bullet wound on my right shoulder, my left wrist covered in long, red, jagged scars from having to be reconstructed after the enemy had broken it with his combat boot as he held me down and shot my right shoulder. I knew by now she’d seen my slight limp from my latest injury.
Would she accept me once she knew what I did? Would she accept the man I was today after all the lives I’d taken?
Fear settled in the pit of my stomach, and I sank down to the floor next to the couch, watching her eyes follow my every movement. Her body stiffened at my reaction, the blanket pooling around her waist as she tried to sit up and reach for me, but I shook my head, and she stilled.
Her eyes, a complete reflection of every emotion passing through her, shone with worry, and I hated myself a little more for putting it there, but still, fear paralyzed my body, and I felt weak.
I hated showing weakness to her.
“I don’t know where to start, Amber.” She sucked in a loud breath, and I couldn’t look at her. My eyes were fixed on the carpet beneath me. “Celine doesn’t know about this either. I didn’t want either of you to know.” It was Celine’s turn to make a soft noise from the kitchen table, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from the carpet. I didn’t want to see what they were feeling all because of me.
“Who knows, Ryan?” Amber whispered, inching closer to me, her breath warm as it brushed against my cheek.
“Ace.” I could feel the anger rolling off her in waves as she finally sat beside me on the ground, the blanket falling in a heap at our feet. Her cold fingers grasped my face, and I had no choice but to look into her big, shining emeralds, her lashes dripping with silent tears.
“How long has he known?” Celine hadn’t moved from the table, but her soft voice floated through the air easily. I couldn’t focus on anything besides Amber’s big eyes, all her pain and pity slicing me open.
I struggled to swallow the lump growing in my throat, and I coughed, trying to give myself time—time to come up with an answer they would both like.
But I was out of time, and neither the woman in front of me nor the one at my kitchen table were going to like what I had to say, regardless of the way I phrased it.
“Since he came back.” I closed my eyes when I saw the anger surge through Amber’s face. Celine sucked in a deep breath, and there was a loud gasp in the ever-growing silence.
“You’ve been keeping secrets from me for five years, Ryan?” Amber choked on her words, emotion clogging her throat, yet I couldn’t move. I couldn’t pick up my fucking arms and wrap them around her. I couldn’t fix this. How would I even begin to fix this? A simple hug and an ‘I’m sorry’ wouldn’t work.
I’d broken her trust in me.
“Ace hasn’t said a word in all these years.” Opening my eyes, I saw the pain in my little sister’s eyes as she came closer and sat on the couch, hands clutching at her necklace, fiddling with the chain. Her chest rose and fell quickly as she sucked in each breath, and her eyes filled with tears. “What else is he keeping from me?” Her blue eyes, filled with so much sadness, fixed on me.
Amber grabbed my arm, her nails biting into my skin as she shook me, begging for my attention, her eyes wide, mascara running down her cheeks in black tears. “How could you lie to me all these years? I tell you everything!” she wailed, her body trembling as she continued to shake my arm.
My own anger flared at her statement. She had been keeping secrets, too. She changed a lot in the last year. “I’m not the only one who kept secrets, Amber.” I finally found the strength I’d been looking for and glared down at the wild woman sitting beside me.
If she were a cartoon, her hair would have been on fire with smoke flaring out her nose, but alas, the glare she shot me was enough to know I’d provoked the wild girl I fell in love with.
“How dare you?!” she screeched. I resisted the urge to wince at the loud volume of her voice. “You were gone for an entire year, Ryan! How do I tell you everything going wrong in my life in a fucking letter!”
“You can’t put all the blame on me for keeping secrets here when you did, too!” I shouted at her.
Amber shot up and started pacing the room, arms crossed, red hair swishing back and forth as she stomped around the small space. Celine and I watched her, waiting for the explosion. Because there would be one, and it was going to be ugly when it did happen.
She stopped suddenly and turned to glare at me, so much anger and anguish in her expression. I wished she would just hit me. At least then, I would have a reason for the growing pain in my chest. She opened her mouth and then closed it, squeezing her eyes shut. She suddenly began shaking, and I couldn’t move fast enough.
“Make it stop … please!” Suddenly, she was desperately tugging at her shirts, her nails scratching at her neck and chest, her face panicked. “Fuck, Ryan, make it stop!” she sobbed, her legs wobbling before she collapsed in a heap on the ground.
I rushed over to her, not knowing what to do, and Celine stood beside me, biting her lip, nervous and confused. Bending over, I tried to pick her up, and she shrieked. “Don’t touch me! You secret-keeping son of a bitch!” She scooted away from me, her eyes darting between me and Celine, hands still clutching at her neck. I focused on her rapidly rising and falling chest, praying she wasn’t having another panic attack.
“I can’t help if you don’t let me, spitfire.” I squatted and inched closer to her, using the old nickname I gave her years ago. I was trying my best to be soothing. She was panicking, I knew it in my gut. Her world was falling apart, and I had no idea what happened while I was gone, but her entire existence had shifted while I wasn’t home to help her.
She stilled, and I saw through her panic and her anger that she was just scared. “Stay away from me,” she whimpered, causing my heart to shatter in my chest. How did we come to this shit?
“I’ll tell you everything, both of you, just—please let me hold you, baby. Let me fix this,” I begged her. I couldn’t stand seeing her like this, and I hated that I was the cause of it.
“How can I trust you after finding out for almost our entire relationship that you’ve been keeping secrets from me?” she demanded, her breathing quickening again. “And now, you want to marry me?” She laughed, wiping at the black-stained tears on her red cheeks. Her words cut me.
“Because I love you, Amber. I will tell you everything. I just wanted to protect you from the horrors I’ve witnessed. I wanted to make sure you always see me as a good man,” I pleaded, desperate for her to understand why I never told anyone but Ace about the shit I’d done, the shit I’d seen.
I wasn’t sure she could handle it. I still wasn’t sure, but I was desperate to keep her with me. And if telling her everything would do that, then damn it, I would ruin myself in her eyes.
The expression of horror on her face stole the next breath right out of my lungs. “What have you done, Ryan?” Celine whispered, and I turned to see the two girls share the same look of horror.
“I… I… uh…” Stumbling to make sense of the memories swarming in my mind, I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. Looking at the woman I was completely in love with, I didn’t want her to see this side of me. I wanted to always remain her hero, her Prince Charming, not a killer.
“Ryan, what the fuck did you do over there that has you so scared to tell me?” Amber stood, her hand on the wall for support.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to look her in the eyes and tell her that I’d taken lives—some innocent but most of them evil people. How did I tell her I had no choice when a man hid behind his own family after orchestrating the slaughter of dozens of our troops, and it was my order that had all of them killed, including his wife and children?
How did I explain that without becoming the villain? How did I make her understand it was them or me?
The silence was broken by a loud, high-pitched ringer from one of the phones on the dining room table. Both girls looked to the table, and relief flooded through me at the momentary break, at the chance to find the right words to make them understand.
“It’s Ace,” Celine mumbled, worry creasing her brow.
“Tell him to get his ass over here,” Amber was quick to reply.
“Are you suggesting I confront him now?” She was holding the still-ringing phone.
“Might as well have both men here.” Amber shrugged, glaring at me. I swallowed past the lump of fear in my throat. “Maybe one of them will finally tell us the truth.” Amber was still leaning against the wall, her body trembling. I was itching to hold her, to wrap my arms around her and make this all go away. I just wanted to ease her fears with a kiss, but the anger in her gaze kept me rooted to my spot, far away from my beautiful fiancée.
There was a pause, a soft creak of the floorboard as Celine moved toward the table and held the phone in her hand, staring at it with a grim look on her face.
The ringing suddenly stopped, and she held the phone to her ear. “Hey, baby. I’m at Amber and Ryan’s.” Her panicked eyes land on Amber, who nodded in encouragement. “Can you come here? There are some things we need to talk about.”
I knew he’d ask her questions now. I knew I had put him into a corner, but I had no one else to talk to. “About all the secrets you’ve been keeping from me!” she suddenly screamed, her voice bouncing off the small apartment’s walls.
She threw the phone onto the table and turned to Amber, whose arms were crossed over her chest. “Are you happy now?” Amber looked mildly amused but still pissed.
“Well, I didn’t tell you to do that.” The girls glared at each other before turning back to me.
Fuck me.
Ace, brother, I’m sorry for dragging you into my shit with me.