Chapter 8
Patch stood on the porch, leaning against the half-rotten railing, and stared at the moon.
Being this deep in the swamp brought back old demons.
Old memories. The kind of memories that Patch tried to lock somewhere in the corner of his mind, because if they came out too often, he’d slip back into that shell of a man that was only good for three things.
Killing. Stitching people up. And the odd assignment from the Brotherhood Protectors.
The first two always balanced out. He justified some of the things he’d done in the military because he saved more lives than he had to take.
But all the lives he couldn’t save hardened his soul and left him without much in his heart. His sister used to tell him that if he couldn’t find a way to deal with darkness, he’d be lost forever.
Then she up and died, and just when her life was getting back on track after a nasty divorce and finding out she was pregnant at forty-five.
A true miracle baby, and Patch thought he’d been more excited at times than Hannah.
But he was going to be there for his sister.
Not just because she’d been there for him when their parents died, but because his sister meant more to him than anyone—except maybe Savvy.
Boy, had he screwed that up and Hannah let him know it every time she saw him.
Patch snagged a beer from the cooler. These last couple of months had been all about learning how to be a human being again.
He shifted his gaze to the old cabin crouched low beneath the weight of the bayou night, wrapped in darkness thick as oil.
Stars flickered behind long, draping moss, and the porch creaked as Patch lowered himself onto the top step, an elbow braced on his knee.
“Mind if I join you?” McGuire settled down beside him with the stiff movement of a man who’d seen too many fights and hadn’t had time to rest between them. He cracked open a beer. The hiss and snap echoed in the stillness.
“Feel free.” Patch waved his hand.
A few frogs croaked somewhere near the water. The occasional pop of the fire inside flickered through the cracks in the boards.
A slow silence spread over the two men. It was an easy silence.
Comfortable. One both were used to. They’d known each other a long time.
Longest on the team. They’d met when Patch had been fresh out of Combat Medic Training and McGuire a new SEAL.
They’d been handpicked and assigned to their first Task Force Sentinel team.
McGuire wasn’t a team leader then, but it was obvious that’s what he was destined to become.
The two men hit it off immediately, and they’d been best friends ever since.
Well, as close as two men could be who were in vastly different Special Forces for different branches of the government and constantly deployed in different parts of the world.
But they were always brought back to Task Force Sentinel and always on the same team.
Patch considered himself a lucky man to work with—and under—someone like McGuire.
“Cross and Remy are going through your place now. Gerard Guidry and Stone are back at my place going through paperwork that Darius and Wyatt sent over. Darius figured they could comb through some of my sister’s missions, especially those we touched or Gunner was involved in.
Stone is mortified by the things Darius has found…
hacked into… he’s paranoid now. As if Darius knows things about us. ”
Patch snorted. “I’m sure he does. It’s his job to find out who Hank and Remy are hiring.”
“We weren’t just any hire.” McGuire tapped his beer against Patch’s. “We started as a detail. A group of men that my sister needed to hide. It snowballed from there.”
“It sure did.”
“I like where we ended up.” McGuire took a long draw of his beer before setting it on the step. “I’m not thrilled with the how or the why, but the result is good. The job is better. The people aren’t so bad.”
“Agreed.” Patch nodded, glancing over his shoulder.
Through the small screen door, he could see Savvy and Riven in the kitchen.
His heart fluttered, doing a little dance.
He rubbed his chest. It had been a long while since he’d thought about his future.
When he’d joined the military, he’d only cared about his career—moving up the ranks, being part of a team, saving lives.
When he’d met Savvy, he’d thought about what life would be like if he’d committed to one woman.
To a family. It had tickled the back of his brain, and they’d even discussed it…
once. Put it out there. Tried it on like a pair of shoes, but they put them back, saving them for another day, as if they couldn’t afford them.
As if it wasn’t their time. And maybe it wasn’t because that damn mission happened, and Patch lost a part of his soul.
He’d come back knowing he’d had nothing left to give. He’d walked away and never looked back.
“Where’d you go?” McGuire asked. “Because you’re no longer here.”
“Just thinking about your sister.” Patch sighed.
When Hannah came to him, informing him she’d left her husband but was also pregnant and planned on having that baby, something in Patch shifted.
It was quiet, but the change was there and suddenly Patch wanted more.
He’d itched to call Savvy. To start over. To have that second chance.
But then the unthinkable happened and more of Patch went into the ground with his sister and her unborn child.
“What about her?” McGuire asked. His normal overbearing older brother tone was long gone. In this moment, he was just McGuire, Patch’s age-old friend.
“Has she ever stopped moving?” Patch asked quietly.
“If you’re talking literally.” McGuire chuckled. “Only when she’s asleep. And even then, I’m not convinced.”
Patch gave a tired smirk. “She’s got that switch inside her. Always on. Always watching. It’s hard for her to shut down. Even when she does, it’s always right there, just below the surface, ready to pop.”
McGuire took a sip of beer. “She was born sharp. She’s always been wired that way.
But Division 73 carved the rest of her out.
Trained her to be invisible, and in some ways, invulnerable, but it’s impossible to take all the emotion out of someone, at least someone who gives a shit, and my sister, she cares almost too much. ”
Patch nodded slowly. “You ever wonder if we broke her more than we saved her?”
McGuire glanced sideways. “We didn’t break her. The job did. The world did. We’re just the ones still standing beside her.”
“I don’t know, man.” Patch leaned back on both elbows.
“We both know what it’s like to be betrayed by someone.
Langley fucked us and Dane is dead because of it.
But whatever is happening inside the 73 and this Black Ledger thing, it goes way beyond one person going rogue.
Or a small group turning their back on what’s right.
It’s a fundamental breakdown in the system that she’s clung to with every fiber of her being.
Everything she’s believed in for the last ten years, she’s now questioning.
Disappearing into the depths of silence and being a ghost isn’t about saving herself. It’s about hiding from the truth.”
“That’s profound,” McGuire said. “Are you speaking from experience?” McGuire lowered his chin and waved his hand back toward the cabin door.
“Yeah, I might be, a little.” Patch lifted his hand, making an inch sign.
“I can be man enough to admit I’ve spent more than this last year running from demons that might not actually exist. But her demons, those are real.
I’m not talking about the people gunning for her, but the ones settling in her bones like guests who refuse to leave. ”
“Patch, you’re not making much sense. What the hell are you trying to say?”
“If your sister doesn’t go back after we figure out who’s behind setting her up and who’s running Black Ledger side by side with the 73, she’ll have nothing to hold on to. She thinks she will, because she’d be out here with us, but it’s not enough for someone like Savvy.”
“Living off-grid, looking over her shoulder, not being able to be someone with purpose, yeah, that would be no good for Savvy,” McGuire said. “But she doesn’t have to go back. She could work with us.”
Patch chuckled. “I suppose that could be an option, but that wasn’t the direction I was headed when we started the conversation.”
“Would you want her to stay?”
Patch chewed on that question for a long minute.
“I don’t want her to leave,” he admitted.
“But I don’t want her to stay for me. That’s not fair.
The 73 does. We both know that. We’ve run ops for that division, and she’s brought us both home when all hope was lost. When all is said and done, she’s got to go back and see all this through.
Only she can tie up all those loose ends. ”
“Why do you do that?” McGuire asked.
“Do what?”
“Talk her right out of your life when you fucking love her.”
Patch ran a hand over his scruffy face. “I don’t know. I only want what’s best for her, and maybe I’m not that.”
“At least you're no longer denying you love her.”
“I suppose not.”
They sat in silence a moment. The frogs sang on. The night pressed close.
“What about Riven?” Patch asked, needing to change the subject.
McGuire’s jaw flexed. He looked out across the water where the moonlight danced in slivers between the trees. “I love her.”
Patch waited, knowing McGuire didn’t say things like that easily.
“She’s lightning in a bottle,” McGuire continued, his voice low. “All fire and fear, wrapped in silence. She doesn’t need saving, but she sure as hell deserved someone who’d stand beside her when the storm hit. I didn’t mean to fall for her. I just… did. And now I can’t see past her.”
Patch gave a quiet chuckle. “You’re a poet, LaSalle.”
“Don’t spread that around.”