Chapter 2 #2
“I was Special Forces, Delta to be precise. You already know that.” Though it’s not for general consumption, I’d come clean to the officers when I first joined the club.
I pause for a beat, then, after getting the up and down movements of their chins, continue.
“Wasn’t something I advertised, but like tends to stick with like, and the bar my fellow Delta operators and I would hang out at when we were back in the states?
Well, that was a popular place for women wanting to nab themselves a soldier in uniform.
Of course, we didn’t let on who we were, but there must have been something about the way we carried ourselves that attracted women like bees to honey.
” I pause, letting my mind drift back to those days.
Our missions, like our unit, were top secret and dangerous, great for people like me who lived for the adrenaline rush and thought they were invincible, which, to be honest, most of the time wasn’t far from the truth.
I’d joined the Army at seventeen, with my parents' consent, glad I was following in my father’s footsteps.
I’d found my niche, a brotherhood to belong to.
An order and routine that I was already used to at home, courtesy of my strict Army-wife mother.
Apparently, having seen something in me, I quickly came to the attention of the officers, was promoted quickly, and then, when I was twenty-two, applied for and was accepted into the elite team.
“By the time I met Josie,” I resume. “I had three years of Delta under my belt. I’d stared danger in the face too many times, lost comrades, and, when she’d come walking into that bar that particular night, was ripe for the picking.
It was easy for a pretty young girl to take me home with her.
I needed something to help me forget the clusterfuck of the last mission.
” I pause and shrug. “She looked like a fucking angel, fucked like a whore, and I admit I fell hard. Saw her again, she was fun, outgoing, and with a sexual appetite to match mine.” Breaking off, I shrug, “There was something about her that just made me keep going back. I met her mom – the only family she had– and by the time I went back out with the teams, she’d moved into my apartment.
” I chuckle, but not in amusement. “Her mom didn’t seem keen on the arrangement.
And fuck, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but I wish she’d tried harder to warn me.
I was only with Josie for a month before I was sent back out, and there had been no red flags.
“We’d been fuckin’ like rabbits. She’d told me she was on the pill, so I went bare.” Shaking my head, I scoff at my younger self. “Came back from being deployed to find she was six months pregnant.”
“Ace definitely yours?” I shoot Tempest a look, but then he didn’t know her.
“Never had cause to doubt it. Josie was a lot of things, but she’d stayed faithful.
” Giving a mirthless chuckle, I add, “Kelly, her mom, would have told me if she’d been stepping out.
We’d become close.” I bark a laugh. “Sometimes I thought she liked me more than her daughter.” My brow creases as I frown.
“Josie loved being pregnant, but Kelly wasn’t happy.
Not that she came right out and said it, but something was off.
I didn’t overthink it, just thought she didn’t like the fact we weren’t wed.
” I sigh, then hurry this along. “I’d been cooling on Josie for a while, and it solidified while I was overseas.
Good sex can only get you so far. There has to be compatibility out from between the sheets as well.
Truth was, I’d already decided to end it before I returned stateside.
A wedding was never in the cards.” Pausing, I grimace.
“I wish now Kelly had told me the truth, but she’d kept that to herself. ”
Both Prez and the sergeant-at-arms raise their brows at that statement, but I continue relating the events in my own time, not immediately answering their unspoken question.
“Being Special Forces, I could be called out anytime.” Raising and lowering my shoulders, I add, my mouth twisting, “I was only home for a couple of weeks before I was sent back on the mission that had continued to go south. That meant I was away for the birth, and due to the mission I was on, totally incommunicado. Her due date came and went, but until I came to the end of my tour, I didn’t know if my son was born alive, whether he was healthy…
” I break off and take another sip of the whisky.
All this talking is making my throat dry.
Bullseye takes my momentary pause to ask, “She was unhappy you weren’t there when he was born?”
My shrug is dismissive. “She knew the score.” I huff a laugh.
“If it wasn’t for what was revealed later, she’d actually have made the perfect partner for someone with a career like mine.
Normally, she didn’t make an issue of not knowing where I was, or of not being able to contact me while I was working.
She’d accepted that came with the territory of dating a Delta operator.
” I frown to myself. A few times, she had protested, especially my last mission.
Now I suspect it was during one of her downward swings.
“She sounds like the perfect woman, but you didn’t want to play family with her?”
Raising my chin at Tempest, I let out a heavy sigh.
“I’d already sensed something was off about her.
” I allow the corners of my lips to curve upward.
“Ace was perfect, you know? Ten toes, ten fingers, and by the time I’d returned, he’d chuckle and smile.
He might not have been what I’d planned, but I could tolerate him.
” Again, I move my shoulders up and down.
“I wasn’t going to be raising him full-time, not with my job.
My re-enlistment was coming up, and I had every intention of continuing on the teams and, despite the danger, enjoyed what I did to put food on our table.
To be honest, knowing I could be summoned away at short notice, I didn’t interfere in how she was raising him.
She seemed to be doing a good enough job on her own.
He was fed – bottle-fed, not breast-fed – kept clean, and as far as I could tell, happy. ”
Already knowing the ending, Bullseye sits forward, and Tempest half turns in his chair, so he can look straight at me.
“I was home for eight weeks, then was sent out again, a follow-up from our previous mission.” I frown as, in my head, I go back in time.
The first time out, we’d lost eyes on our target, and when he emerged from hiding, we were sent back out.
Didn’t take too long before we neutralised him, and all behind enemy lines.
Shaking the past out of my head, I continue, “When I returned, he was just coming up six months. I’d sent her a text when the plane had landed, but she hadn’t read it and wasn’t expecting me home.
And I definitely wasn’t expecting to get to our apartment, to see our neighbours anxiously hovering around, while yelling and screaming was coming from inside.
” Placing my head in my hands, I take a moment.
Christ, this is hard. Normally, I avoid letting thoughts of that day enter my mind.
But I can’t stop now, so I pull back my shoulders.
“I used my key, entered, and followed her voice to the bathroom.” I shake my head as the visual memory comes back.
Shuddering, I tell them, “She was standing there, shouting at Ace and shaking him, while he was screaming. His red, sore eyes suggested he’d been crying a while.
” I gulp, my mind replaying the picture, seeing his little legs flailing.
“She was holding him just above the bath. The water was steaming, obviously hot. To check, I reached my hand down, and just wetting my fingertip told me it was fuckin’ scalding.
I don’t think she’d even registered I was there.
For a moment, it was like I was glued to the spot.
I hadn’t a clue what she was doing, although I sensed whatever it was had to stop.
Then, suddenly, she started lowering him into that fuckin’ bath.
I jumped forward and snatched him out of her hands.
I thought, you know, that maybe she was tired from looking after a baby, and she’d just made a mistake.
But then, she fuckin’ yelled at me. And you know what she told me? ”
As I break off, I see two shaking heads. I don’t make them wait. “She said she was going to burn him like the devil he was.”
“She fuckin’ what?” Tempest roars.
Rapidly, I move my head side to side. “Josie had literally lost her mind. Her eyes were wild, pupils dilated, and when I took Ace from her, she hit me, pulling at my arm, trying to get him back. I had to fight to keep hold of him. Her strength was almost inhuman.” Christ, my head hurts at just the memory.
“Josie’s mom rushed in. One of the neighbours had called her.
” Again, I shake my head, stunned as much now as I’d been at the time.
“Her mom wasn’t surprised. She tried to calm Josie down, but, man, that woman had lost it.
She batted Kelly away as if she were a fly.
Realising there was something badly wrong with the mother of my child, I quickly passed my son to his grandmother, and she took him out of danger, but stayed hovering by the door.