Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Dean
I took Keira’s hand, and we walked inside. “I need to bring my stuff in,” I murmured.
“Okay. I’ll meet you in the kitchen. Yeah? You’re not going to take off and scare me again?”
I managed a faint smile. Kissed her on the forehead. “No, baby. I’ll be right there. Just give me a sec.”
“You’ve never called me baby before.”
“Is it okay?”
She shrugged. “I guess I don’t mind it.”
Yeah, she was still mad. But that was okay. I couldn’t blame her.
If Keira still accepted me after I confessed everything, then I would never leave her again.
Keira’s footsteps moved away, and the faucet ran in the kitchen. Grabbing the gun cases, I carried them inside along with my duffel.
I really had almost left. I’d packed my stuff with every intention of hunting down Ryan Garrett, regardless of whether or not Harris Medina had a problem with it. Now that we knew Garrett’s name and his involvement, I doubted it would be hard to track him down.
Really, all I had to do was follow Medina’s men. They would lead me to Garrett. I’d wait for the right moment and take Garrett out from a distance. My sniper skills were probably rusty given my lack of real practice lately, but whatever. I was sure I could make it work.
On an impulse, I’d taken off my necklace and left it on the pillow while Keira lay sleeping. I’d bent to kiss her one last time too.
But when I walked out on that porch, my feet stopped there. Wouldn’t let me go a step further.
She’d told me she loved me. That she’d loved me years ago, and she still loved me now, even after seeing the broken-down parts of me. Not all of them, but enough that she should’ve been running in the other direction.
She’d held her chin up when she told me, pure defiance, fucking regal. And I was going to slink away in the night? What kind of man was I?
Well, I knew I wasn’t much. But Keira thought I was worth the risk.
If we were really going to try making this work, she had to know everything I’d been hiding.
In the kitchen, Keira was heating a pan of water on the stove and adding spices. “Chai?” I asked.
“Yeah. I could use something warm and cozy. I think we both could.”
I sat on a barstool and watched, my knee bouncing up and down. Might as well get started on telling my story. It would be easier with Keira busy and not staring at me with her big brown eyes.
“I grew up in rural Oregon. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that.”
“No, you haven’t.” She dropped a cinnamon stick into the pot. “You’ve hardly told me anything about how you grew up.”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “It’s not a very happy story. My parents never wanted me. They left me with my grandmother, and she raised me. She’d been diagnosed with MS before I was born.”
Keira watched me from her peripheral vision while stirring the pot. “That’s a rough start for any kid.”
I chuckled humorlessly. “Very.”
It had all been so long ago, and I rarely thought about those days anymore. Who wanted to admit that his own parents didn’t want him? But if I was going to give Keira all of me, this was part of it. And it hadn’t been all bad.
“Grams had a great sense of humor and was tough on me in all the ways I needed. Taught me how to work hard. How to fight, mentally I mean. She fought her illness the best she could. She was a grocery store clerk with inadequate health insurance, so there was only so much she could do.” My fingers drummed on the counter. “Passed away when I was seventeen.”
“I’m sorry,” Keira said softly. “I know how hard that must’ve been.”
“Of course you do.” Keira had lost her dad in a car accident. “As a Marine, I found my family. My purpose. I tried to give all I had every day. Training as a sniper just added to that. I was proud.”
“It’s something to be proud of.”
I nodded. The mixture was bubbling now. I watched Keira pour in milk.
“Then you joined Force Recon?” she prompted. “And…the less official stuff?”
“When some intelligence guy approached me about serving my country at the next level, I didn’t hesitate.
The missions got further afield. Most of the people I killed, I had no idea why they were marked.
I did what I was told. It was gradual, I guess.
The shift. They took away my brotherhood, my sense of meaning, left me with nothing but my orders.
Nothing but the next mission. At the end, I didn’t even know who I was actually serving.
Not really. But I enjoyed it, Keira. I liked being good at killing. It seemed like all I was good for.”
I got lost in the memories for a while, until Keira set a mug in front of me and sat on the barstool beside me. Her expression wasn’t horrified, so I took that as a positive sign.
Even better when she placed her hand over mine. “Is there more?” she asked.
“Unfortunately.”
“I love you, Dean. You can tell me.”
I didn’t deserve her. I really didn’t.
But I wanted to.
“My last mission.” My heart thumped, and I resisted the urge to reach for my rifle round pendant. Keira had left it on the counter, the leather cord limp, the clasp open.
Just say it, I ordered myself. Get it done.
“I was in a city in Eastern Europe. Specifics aren’t important.
” Also, they were beyond classified. But that wasn’t my top worry at the moment.
“My target was a diplomat. I had a cover story as a journalist living in the building next door. My days were spent preparing. Studying his movements, making sure I had my exit plan in place.”
Funny how dry these details were, when told this way. As if I wasn’t confessing the worst thing I’d ever done.
“My handler had told me to wait for a certain important meeting to take place at the diplomat’s home. Then I was supposed to execute everyone in attendance. Kill shots to the head with the rifle. Follow my exit route. Escape detection. The usual.”
“Okay.” Keira’s hand still rested over mine.
“Turned out there were…” The words faltered, but I kept talking. “The diplomat’s wife was there along with another couple. I watched them through the scope. It looked like a social gathering. But I had my orders. I took the shots. Killed them all.”
My eyes closed, seeing through the scope. Feeling the recoil of the rifle and the low sounds from the suppressor. One. Two. Three. Four. Quick and efficient, before they could even react enough to escape.
“Then, through the scope, I saw a teenage girl run into the room. I hadn’t even known she was in the diplomat’s house. I think she was the daughter of the visiting couple. She was…screaming.” I swallowed, my throat dry. “I had orders to kill everyone there. Everyone. No survivors.”
I wrapped my hands around the mug, feeling the warmth, but my stomach was roiling too much to take a drink.
Keira was quiet. When I didn’t go on, she said, “Whatever you did, I forgive you.”
How could I possibly deserve her? “I almost killed that girl. But I didn’t. Couldn’t take the shot. First time that ever happened.”
Keira exhaled slowly. “You told me before that you lost your soul a long time ago. Sounds to me like you took your soul back that night.”
“But I killed that girl’s parents, Keira. Traumatized her for life. And for what? I have no idea. I hadn’t wanted to know. But that night, it was like I looked in a mirror and found a monster staring back. The monster inside me. Dealing out death as if it was my sole purpose.”
“You thought you were doing the right thing.”
“I suppose I do that a lot. Fuck up my life based on some twisted idea of what’s right.” Like when I left Keira two years ago.
“But that was your last mission,” she pointed out. “You quit afterward. You stopped.”
“I had to. Felt like waking up from a nightmare, and the nightmare was me. I kept that bullet as a reminder.” I nodded at it. “The last shot I would never take.”
“Your superiors let you walk away?”
“If they’d wanted to stop me, they would’ve had to kill me.
They decided not to. I tried to live a simple life after that.
To make up for my mistakes. But deep down, I was still Bullseye.
I didn’t get rid of my rifle or other weapons.
I couldn’t. They were still…parts of me.
I wandered around for years not really knowing what to do with myself. ”
I turned to look at her.
“And then I met you.”
Her eyes were shining, but not with pity or fear or judgment.
“All I wanted was to be good enough for you,” I said. “Never thought I could manage it.”
“You are a good person. You’re a good man.”
“How do you know?”
“I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you otherwise.”
I knew what she was trying to say. She had faith in me. Knowing the truth, the full truth, about my past hadn’t changed that.
“I love you, Keira. I didn’t want to admit that to myself because it scared me.
But I loved you two years ago. Loved you a while before that.
I think…I think I probably realized it the day we took that photo in Owen’s backyard.
The one I printed out and kept? That day, you truly felt like mine, and I wanted to hold on to that. For me, it’s always been you.”
“It’s always been you for me too.”
She leaned into me. Our lips touched and opened to each other. Keira tasted like spices and milky sweetness. Everything soft and good that I hadn’t believed I deserved.
I still wasn’t sure. Maybe she could have faith enough for the both of us.