Chapter 2
chapter
two
Four months later
Izabel
I stared at the ceiling.
The sun peeked through the blinds, promising another glorious fall morning, but my world was painted in shades of joyless gray.
Every day, it was a chore to get out of bed, to shower, to get to work, and to keep my mind busy, because the alternative was to shrink into myself and disappear into a desolate landscape. That wouldn’t do.
Movement in my belly gave me a reason to stay strong. I put my palm reflexively over it, as if it gave me strength.
“Thanks for reminding me, baby girl.”
That was the only spark of happiness in a stretch of bleak days. I forced my body to leave the bed.
I ached.
Deep in my heart to the bottom of my soul, I ached, because I missed him desperately. “Why can’t you be here, Drake?”
Pain formed a lump in my throat and hot tears pooled in my eyes. A scene replayed every morning since the day my husband was killed.
The phone rang.
Cindy calling.
I sighed. Cindy Lake was my best friend and coworker. She was also the personal assistant of my project manager at Stockman and Bose.
“You’re coming in late?” she asked when I answered the phone.
“I think I can make it on time.”
There was a slight pause and then, “I know it’s hard, Izzy, and you do phenomenal work when you show up, but I heard the boss griping yesterday about your tardiness.”
“I’ll try harder,” I whispered. Though Drake’s insurance covered most of my expenses, my job kept me sane. It made me get up each morning. For that alone, I couldn’t afford to lose it.
“Did you go to your session yesterday?”
“Yes.” I attended group bereavement services besides my private counseling sessions. “I’m not sure it’s helping.”
“Give it time, Izzy.”
That was what everyone told me, but I was beginning to believe it was a lie. The hollowness inside me kept growing each day, threatening to swallow me whole.
“Well, I have to go if I’m going to make it to the office on time.
” I ended the call and sucked in a ragged breath, fortifying my resolve for the workday ahead.
Leaving my bedroom, I passed by the big picture window with a planter situated underneath.
Twelve potted orchids—once my pride and joy—now sat shrunken and dead in their clay pots.
In my own morbid way, I purposely didn’t throw them in the trash can because they reflected the current world I lived in.
I walked into the kitchen, sighing again as I pulled out my breakfast from the fridge. No matter how hard it was to muster an appetite, I made sure I ate properly to nurture the life growing inside me. I was clinging to hope that the last piece I had of Drake would pull me out of this darkness.
Dammit, I was going to be late!
I ditched the basement garage and parked on the street. I hurried out of my car, bumping the door closed with my hip. I beeped the locks and glanced at both sides of the street before I started for my building.
“Watch out!”
I registered a dark blur before the most excruciating pain rammed into me. My body was airborne before the unforgiving pavement stole my breath.
“My baby!” Contractions started almost immediately amidst screams and yells. “Help me…oh, God, please.”
I folded over in a fetal position as if it would ease the agony.
And then there was nothing.
“A bike hit her…”
“…placental abruption…”
“…too much blood...”
“Need a C-section now!”
I drifted in and out of consciousness. Lights, shadows, and unfamiliar faces hovered over me.
“Drake,” I mumbled. “I need Drake.”
“I’m here, Iza.”
“I want to be with you, but our baby needs me.”
“I understand.”
“…lungs underdeveloped. Can’t survive…”
I awakened to a dimly lit room and a cloak of numbness. A blond head was bowed over folded arms, sleeping at my bedside.
“Cindy,” I croaked, reaching out and touching my friend.
Cindy bolted up straight, and the look on her face strangled my heart in fear.
It was then I knew. Even before my friend uttered a single word, I knew.
I lost my baby.
Numbness disappeared, replaced by the agony of having my heart ripped from my chest. Fate couldn’t be so cruel a second time to snuff the life growing in my womb.
My mind spurned the terrifying thought.
“No!” I choked. “Tell me I didn’t lose her, too.”
Cindy’s eyes filled with tears and spilled down her cheeks. She gripped my hand. “She was too small.” Her lips quavered as she explained, “At twenty-two weeks, her lungs…”
“My fault…”
“No, Izzy, it was the fault of that bike messenger.”
We clung to each other in shared sorrow. No other words were spoken for the longest time; the room filled with the heartbreaking wails of a mother who had lost her child.
How can I survive this? Without Drake. And now without our baby, too?
“I need him to be here!” I cried in my friend’s arms. “Why can’t he be here? I can’t go through this alone.”
“I’m here, Izzy.”
“I need Drake,” I sobbed over and over.
It was then I realized that my life in the coming months was going to be a cycle of chilling numbness or gut-wrenching pain.
There was no in-between.
Drake
“I’m sorry, brother.”
My chair scraped back as I sprung up, backing away from the screen in disbelief.
“When?” I rasped.
“Yesterday,” Hank said solemnly. “A bike messenger took a corner too fast and hit her.” He blew out a breath. “She hit the pavement with too much force, caused some complications and severe bleeding. They had to do an emergency C-section.”
Hank’s words grew muffled as I processed the horror Izabel had gone through—must still be going through.
Losing our daughter…
“… she’s banged up, but otherwise okay…”
Rage flared through my veins at his words. “She. Is. Not. Okay,” I gritted. “She just lost me…and now…”
Without saying another word and with emotion making it difficult to speak, I pivoted on my heel and exited the comm room, ignoring the pain shooting down my bad leg and the discomfort in my back.
I was leaving this place and going home to Izabel.
My wife needed me. We would figure out a way to survive the threats against us.
I was stuffing clothes into a duffel when the door to my room opened. Out of the corner of my eye, I made out my teammates, Brick, a ginger-haired former SEAL, and Edmunds, one of Viktor’s Guardians.
I ignored them and continued packing, even as the air bristled with my aggression.
“Where are we going?” Brick asked slowly.
“Home,” I clipped, muscles coiled, ready to take on my teammates. I zipped the duffel closed and turned to face them squarely, lifting my chin in challenge. “Izabel needs me.”
“We heard what happened,” Brick said, eyes wary, voice soft. “We’re sorry.”
I nodded. “I’ll catch a flight from Ramstein.”
“How do you propose to do that?” Edmunds asked evenly. “You don’t exist. Drake Maddox is dead.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” I shot back. “A couple of keystrokes and I can be reinstated.”
“And how about Fire Team?” Brick challenged. “Remember them?”
I charged my friend and slammed him against the wall.
“What do you think?” I snarled. My head felt like exploding from the force of my anger, not knowing where to direct my fury.
“I have nightmares. Every fucking single night, I’m trapped in that cave.
I see my brothers blown up. Repeatedly. I hear their screams for help.
” I let go of Brick’s shirt and staggered back.
“But it’s not real because they didn’t even get the chance to scream.
They were simply…obliterated.” I shuddered.
“Sometimes, I wished I had died along with them, but…Izabel.”
These past few months, I was a man conflicted.
Duty to avenge my brothers versus my love for my wife.
Guilt that I survived and hope that I would be reunited with my Iza.
Just when I’d accepted that going after the bastards was the right thing to do, the universe threw me a curve ball and all I could see was Izabel’s despair.
It was tearing me in half.
“I have to go to her.” I turned away from them and resumed shoving the rest of my things into another bag. The hairs on my back prickled as I sensed an imminent threat and, before I could react, something stabbed my neck.
“What the fuck?” I roared, clamping down on Edmunds’ wrist at the same time jabbing him in the face.
Cartilage cracked, and blood spattered.
I yanked the still-embedded needle from my neck and squared off against Brick, but they simply watched me.
My vision darkened even as hopeless rage consumed me. “Fuck you both,” I slurred, falling against a chair. I tried to remain upright. “Damn you.” I was about to pitch forward when someone caught me.
“Sorry, man.”
I spent days in solitary confinement. A room with no windows and one light bulb.
A room used for captured hostiles. No way to tell time.
The bastards had taken my watch. I slept on a mattress with no bed frame.
There was a toilet and a sink in one corner.
Food and water were shoved through an opening in the door.
I hadn’t fully healed from my injuries, and missing my physical therapy sessions made me hurt like a motherfucker.
I massaged my right leg where a muscle spasmed.
I regained consciousness and found myself locked in a room, but I was lucid enough not to cause myself further injury.
All I could do was roar and curse. There was an overwhelming urge to hit the wall with my fists, but I had just overcome the tremor in my right hand.
If I re-injured it, I could kiss shooting straight goodbye.
Endless hours and days passed. In the beginning, I seethed with impotence.
But through the war waging inside me, I finally saw clarity by remembering one of the best moments of my life.
The Nor’easter dumped two feet of snow in Ithaca, New York, but even mother nature couldn’t stop a determined SEAL.
Commercial flights were already grounded, but I got into the city before the worst of the weather hit, hitching a ride with one of my friends who worked for the National Guard.
Air travel by Black Hawk was nothing new.
I was holed up in Izabel’s tiny studio apartment, the wide windows set against exposed brick walls served as a front-row seat to the winter tempest. The wind howled balefully, and the radiator struggled to keep the dwelling warm, but there was no place I would rather be.
Stirring cocoa into a mug of steaming milk, I walked over to the dining table where Izabel was studying for an exam. She was in the final year of her architectural degree. The last thing she needed was distraction from a boyfriend, but I couldn’t help myself.
She needed to be mine.
Izabel glanced up distractedly when I laid down the hot cocoa beside her. Books, notepads, and crumpled paper covered every inch of the surface. She wore her fleece robe over her flannel pajamas, her nose red from the constant sniffles as her body attempted to stay warm.
“Thanks.” She smiled before burying her nose back into her textbook.
“That’s the least I can do.” I sat in the chair beside her, grabbed her hand that wasn’t holding a pen, and rubbed it between my palms to help circulation. “Since you don’t want me to keep you warm in bed.”
Izabel’s soft laugh made my chest contract. “I told you not to come up this weekend because I was going to be busy.”
“Nothing was keeping me away.”
“I see that.” She put down her pen and surrendered her other hand to my ministrations. “Oh my God, that feels so good,” she groaned as I massaged her hands between mine. With her eyes closed, I wanted to pepper kisses all over her face.
Staring at her unusual beauty was a habit I never grew tired of, but more than her physical attributes, it was her inner strength and determination that drew me into her orbit. A heady combination of fire and sass and a whole lotta sweet.
Izabel had stolen my heart and I didn’t want it back.
“Iza.” My voice was gruff.
Her eyes fluttered open—mesmerizing caramel irises that made words stick in my throat. When a crease formed between her brows, I found my voice and spoke, all words from a prepared speech forgotten.
“Mother nature ruined my plans,” I led in. “I’d planned to take you out to a romantic dinner.” I glanced outside and grinned ruefully. “That’s not happening anytime soon.”
Her lips parted and trembled slightly.
“But I couldn’t wait, Iza.” Not letting go of her hands, I knelt in front of her.
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears and she held back the sob that rose to her throat when she realized what I was about to do.
“Every time I’m away from you it’s as if I’m missing a limb.
I can’t leave for another mission without worrying someone is going to steal you away from me.
” At her confused gasp, I added, “I’m an insecure son of a bitch when it comes to you.
Can’t help it, don’t wanna help it, deal with it. ”
At her annoyed huff, I sighed. “Before I mess this up further.” I reached into my pocket and held the ring I’d purchased weeks ago.
“Marry me.” Tears spilled down her cheeks and my own heart expanded to the point of exploding. “I’m soul-deep in love with you. I never understood what that meant until you. So marry me, Iza. Make me the happiest damned bastard on the planet.”
That memory was like a faded photograph, but I never forgot the feeling of the day she said yes .
I’d never experience that level of happiness with Izabel again until I hunted down the murderers of Fire Team.
I loved her with my entire soul, but the core that held my spirit lay in ruins at my feet like the jagged pieces of rocks that buried my brothers.
An eerie calm settled over me as I regained perspective of what needed to be done.
I didn’t know how much time had passed when Viktor walked in. I sat up and scowled at the older man. Viktor grabbed the lone chair in the room, flipped it so the back rest was facing me before straddling the seat.
“How are you feeling, Lieutenant?”
“What do you think?”
“I apologize for your accommodations.”
“When are you letting me out?”
“Are you still planning on leaving the task force?”
“How’s Izabel?” I countered.
Viktor sighed. “She’s coping as best as she can.”
“I need more than that.”
“Your buddy Hank flew out to see her. I assume Izabel knows him?”
I gave a brief nod. “How many days have I been in here?”
“Five.”
“You can let me out.”
Viktor scrutinized my countenance and his slight smile indicated he liked what he saw.
A stone-cold killer.