Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
I n some ways, the surgeries were worse than the torture. Decisions were made without his consent, all under the guise of being ‘life saving’ procedures. Had any of them asked if Julian wanted to live?
Commander Arik was by his side every step of the way. The torment in the older man’s eyes grew worse with each passing day. He was never able to fully meet Julian’s eyes, yet he was constantly taking Julian’s hand and speaking what he believed were Julian’s wishes.
Commander Arik even tried to help him figure out what was next, after he got his discharge papers.
Like Julian had the option of a future.
Like parts of him weren’t still back in that fucking cave.
The only time his Commander left his bedside was when he was either going in for another surgery or he had a visitor—and Julian only ever had two.
José came to see him. Time had lost its relevance for Julian. He had no idea how long he’d been in the hospital for before José arrived. The emotions Julian felt at seeing his last surviving brother were indescribable. José stayed with him for as long as he could before Uncle Sam called him back to duty. It fucking sucked watching his brother walk out that door, knowing he was heading off to danger and Julian was stuck in that fucking hospital bed.
The sedations were the worst. Being forced to sleep and wake up at their discretion and whim. Knowing that anything could happen to him while he was unconscious and not being able to do a damn thing about it.
Through it all, he never spoke, never said a goddamn word. They sent in therapists and psychologists while the military questioned him over and over again about what had happened. They wanted to know what had fucking happened ? They wanted him to speak and tell them that seven of their soldiers died for someone’s selfish reason to sell out their country? They wanted him to relive every fucking moment inside those caves so they could fill out their fucking forms and feel better that at least they had done everything within the bare minimum of their power to have saved his life.
Since Julian’s team fell under national security, there was no media coverage and the military was able to redact everything and hide it away in a file room to collect dust. Like it never happened. Like seven of the best fucking men Julian had ever known weren’t dead.
Per Commander Arik, their families were informed that they’d died in the initial ambush.
When the surgeries finally stopped and the United States Army decided Julian would be better off at a hospital stateside, his second visitor arrived at his hospital room.
“Good evening, Solo. My name is Alpha and I have a business opportunity I think you’ll find quite beneficial…”
* * *
They died. All of them. All the terrorists that had survived the raid that had rescued Julian from those fucking caves, they all died. Slow. Bloody. Screaming.
Alpha had offered to simply destroy the mountain, but Julian wanted his face to be the last one any of the depraved men saw before they left this existence. Then he let Alpha obliterate the mountain off of the surface of the Earth.
For a long time, so long that Julian purposefully stopped keeping track, he was nothing more than a mindless weapon. Alpha pointed him in a direction and fired. Julian ended a lot of lives, never asking a goddamn question.
It wasn’t until Julian overheard a conversation between Alpha’s second-in-command, Beta, and another man Julian had never met before that it all came crashing down. For the first time in years, Julian felt something. A burning inside him that overtook everything.
If what he heard was true…
The puppet strings snapped and Julian attacked without directive. He snapped Beta’s neck but was blindsided by the dagger that came down at him. Julian moved too slow. The blade sliced him from temple to jaw, carving a ragged arc down his left cheek.
Julian didn’t even flinch. He broke the hand of the man who wielded the weapon before gutting him with his own blade.
Julian walked out of Primis, never to look back. He had an old superior to see.
* * *
Commander Wallace Arik awoke with a start when Julian flipped on the man’s bedroom light. A woman who was not the man’s wife screamed at the sight of the bloody-faced man standing before them. The dagger still gripped in his hand silenced her a moment later, flung with accurate precision from across the room.
Commander Arik’s pale face went even whiter. His uneven breath made his words shake. “I wondered when I would see you. I always knew you’d come for answers, eventually.”
Julian stood in the man’s doorway, waiting like a volcano before eruption.
“I was ordered not to say anything, Solo. And you have to believe me, I fought long and hard with them about it. I swear, I was against it from the beginning too. I always thought you deserved to know the truth, but they threatened to court-martial me and I had to think of my own career, my family.”
Julian stared unblinkingly at his Commander, not pointing out the obvious question of whether the man was still thinking about his family when he was fucking a woman thirty years his junior who wasn’t his wife.
The man rose slowly, his hands raised to show that he was not armed. Naked as the day he was born, Arik reached for his robe that was hanging on a wall peg next to his nightstand. “You need to look at it from our side, Solo. Things are different now, new leadership, new policies. We were trying to weed out a mole. Intelligence knew there was a leak. For months, they planted the idea of a new, dangerous weapon. Something that would change the course of the war, something even more devastating than nuclear warfare.
“The package we gave your team, Solo…” The man wiped a shaky hand down his unkempt face and Julian absentmindedly noticed the Commander’s haggard appearance. “Fuck. The whole thing was a set up. It was fake. To catch the leak. And it fucking worked too. We found the men responsible, but… We knew about the ambush. Intelligence decided to keep up the ruse, so they could use the possibility of such a weapon again. Make it look as real as possible.
“They didn’t know the local cell was so vast. When we learned where the ambush had taken place and just how many terrorists there had been… Fuck, son, I saw it on their faces. The CIA had no idea.”
It truly was a testament to just how black Julian’s soul was when he found his former Commander’s tale almost funny. If he could laugh, he would have. The entire thing was fake, a ruse. The fucking package that he’d protected, that his brothers had died protecting, hadn’t even been fucking real.
It had all been for nothing. He hadn’t been protecting anything, hadn’t been saving anyone. And the years that followed, everything he’d done for Alpha… What had been the point? He thought he’d killed all those responsible.
He hadn’t even come close.
“Are you going to kill me now?”
He dared to ask Julian that question? When Patriot, Lamb Chop, St. Nick, Sparkles, Farmboy, Cajun, and—fuck—Little Tyke had died for his lies?
Julian walked forward slowly.
The Commander backed away. “Wait! Please! Solo, I was your friend—I am your friend. I tried… I helped you in Germany, remember? I helped you get back on your feet!” He’d helped Julian to assuage his own guilt. Nothing more. “I hunted for you. I hunted for all of you. I swear, I didn’t rest until I found you.”
But it wasn’t fast enough! Seventeen minutes! Time came crashing down on him, acknowledging its presence for the first time in years. Seventeen fucking minutes! If the Commander had arrived seventeen fucking minutes earlier, Little Tyke would still be alive ! He wouldn’t have jumped!
And the Commander dared to live on? To move on? To bury the truth as easily as he’d buried Julian’s brothers?
Patriot.
Lamb Chop.
St. Nick.
Sparkles.
Farmboy.
Cajun.
Little Tyke.
Julian stalked forward, not an ounce of remorse for the man he’d once respected and obeyed without question.
* * *
José tracked him down months later in a seedy bar in Texas. Julian might hate the fucking state, would never again call it home, but it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go. Drifter, wanderer, a living corpse.
Reaper.
He was sure this time. Sure he’d gotten them all. But now there was…nothing. No reason for tomorrow.
He was so fucking tired. How the mighty had fallen, drowning his sorrows in liquor and blood. When he found the underground fights, it had been an outlet, but also a chance to feel something. To punish himself for not seeing the truth sooner. For believing the lie.
Seeing José again, it didn’t make him feel nostalgic for what was or even for what could have been. If anything, it made him feel lower. Lower than low. Because José still looked at him like he was worthy of… something .
If only he knew just how unworthy Julian truly was.
“Good to see you too, brother. I’m out. Did my ten and now I’m looking to start something new. A Marine I know is starting a motorcycle club. He’s looking for officers and wanted to know if I knew of anyone who’d make a good Enforcer. I thought of you.”
* * *
PRESENT DAY
To this day, he still had no idea what made him go with José that day in Texas. A motorcycle club? What did he know about motorcycles? All he knew as he dropped José off at that sleazy motel was that he was not prepared to lose another brother. His last brother. If José was about to go off to do something dangerous, like join a motorcycle gang, he would be right there to protect him.
In his wildest imaginings, he never could have predicted that he would find a home, family . He never could have dreamed he’d find purpose again.
He didn’t have to be just a killer, a mindless weapon.
He could become more, a protector.
But none of it mattered. It would never cleanse him of his sins. Never wash him free of the blood.
He would never be worthy of her.