Chapter 27 Rosco
ROSCO
“What the hell do you mean she isn’t here?
” I bellow at Luke. He can’t be serious right now!
Rachel isn’t at Luke’s when I arrive after spending countless hours answering questions at the police station.
Even Det. Atwood couldn’t get me out of answering questions from not only local but state and federal investigators, too.
It seems when the mob decides to shoot your house up, it gets the attention of a lot of agencies.
It’s six a.m. Monday morning. It’s been almost twenty-four hours since I let Rachel walk out of my house and evidently my life.
I did the right thing. She can’t be shackled to me, but my traitorous heart has been screaming at me to find her, hold her close, and make any promise she demands of me so I can keep her.
I can’t explain the relief I’d felt when I pulled into Luke’s driveway.
Just knowing I would see her for myself and know she is okay.
I’d been texting Dalton. He told me he’d dressed her hands when she’d gotten to Luke’s and that she seemed to be physically fine, but he wasn’t so sure about her mental state.
There’d been an argument between her and my brothers regarding her plan to head out on her own to find the twins, but she’d eventually caved and agreed to wait for a plan. Afterward he’d said she’d been unusually quiet. She’d gone to her room, and they hadn’t seen her the rest of the day.
I walked in the door less than a minute ago to find my angel isn’t here. She’s gone. Despite my ability to yell loud enough to wake the dead, I feel like I can’t breathe. She’s out there somewhere, unprotected, and the fucking mob wants her dead.
“Why the fuck would you let her leave?” I demand of my brother who’s glaring at me like I’m the one who did something wrong.
“Stop yelling,” Luke growls. “You’ll wake Marley and the baby, and trust me, you don’t want to do that.
” He’s right. I don’t want to wake my nephew or piss off my sister-in-law because let’s face it, Marley is scary when she’s pissed, but I need to know what the fuck is going on with my woman.
My brothers and friends enter the hallway where Luke and I are arguing, catching my attention.
“Then tell me where the fuck my woman is, and I’ll get out of your hair,” I growl back at him.
The look he shoots my way has me bracing for an ass chewing.
I know I fucked up when I let her leave like she did.
I saw the disappointment in Luke’s eyes when I didn’t go after her, but he doesn’t understand my motives.
“Why didn’t you call me before she left?” It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d called. The police had confiscated my phone, and I wasn’t allowed to have it with me during interrogation.
“We only just discovered she’d left,” Luke admits with defeat in his tone. My mouth drops open with shock. How is it possible that she left without anyone knowing?
“Your woman?” Dalton questions, giving me the stink eye if ever I saw it. “You don’t have a woman. You let her walk away, as I recall.”
Now, I’m beyond pissed. They all know Rachel is mine, even if I can’t permanently claim her.
“What the fu—” Dalton’s hand in my face shuts me up. I’m half surprised he didn’t deck me from the look on his face.
“Shut it!” He growls. “You had your fucking chance, and you blew it. That woman loves you, dumbass, and you love her. You left her blowing in the wind just when she needed you most, and for what? Some fucked-up past shit that can’t be changed?
If you would’ve just opened up, we could’ve worked this out and fixed it, but you decided to wallow in self-loathing instead.
“You were right when you said she deserves better,” he continues to blast me, “because if you aren’t going to man up and claim what’s yours, then she does deserve better. She should be more than just your fuck buddy until you decide you’re done.”
I stare at the man who has been my best friend for more than twenty years of my life. He’s always been straight with me, but damn if he didn’t just blow up my world with an atomic truth bomb.
Fuck! I’d known the moment she walked out of my house I had made a huge fucking mistake. My gut and my heart had been screaming at me to go after her, to tell her how I really felt, but my head said I had to let her believe I didn’t care. It made me believe she’s better off without me.
Besides I thought she’d be here when I was finished with the investigators. I’d believed I still had time to figure things out. How could I have ignored my gut, again?
“You don’t understand,” I mumble pathetically, all the while knowing I don’t have a leg to stand on. I fucked up, again, is playing on repeat in my head.
“You’re damn right, we don’t fucking understand,” Bo agrees, loudly. “You have refused to talk to us about it so we can understand. You haven’t been right since you left the Navy, brother.
“We all know something happened on that mission. Something that you blame yourself for. I know you, man. You wouldn’t make a careless mistake. What the hell happened? Did you get bad intel? Or trust the wrong person?”
The whole time I’m shaking my head, because I don’t want to have this conversation, which seems to agitate Bo even more.
“Then what the fuck happened?” he demands, placing his hands on his hips, as he glares at me. “You’d been all set to re-enlist. We’d talked about it just hours before you deployed for that mission. The next thing I know, you’re accepting a medical discharge. Why?”
I scrub my hand down my face. I’ve been hiding my demons for so long I’m not sure where to begin.
“Let’s go to the dining room,” I suggest. “This is gonna take a while.” We all move to file into the room. Luke slowly turns himself around and follows us inside.
All eyes are on me as I enter the room. I have to tell them; I know I do, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to see the disappointment in their eyes when they realize how badly I fucked up. How I let her die on my watch.
Dalton walks up beside me laying his hand on my shoulder in silent support. While he knows some of what I’m about to say, he doesn’t know everything.
With a heavy heart, I take a seat at the head of the table where they can all see me. Might as well get this over with. What else do I have to lose? I’ve already lost Rachel, might as well risk losing my family, too.
My brothers, both by blood and by choice, sit in silence when I’ve finished the tale of how I allowed 1Lt. Brooke Montgomery to die on my watch. I wait, fully expecting to see disgust in their eyes, or even worse, pity.
My gaze moves from one to the other, but I’m not seeing the reactions I expected. The primary expression is confusion, which makes me confused. What aren’t they understanding about this?
“So let me get this straight,” Dalton begins, rubbing his hand over his bald, tatted head. “You rescued the 1Lt from an insurgent compound after a member of the C.I.A. got a lead on where she was being held?”
“Yes.”
“And you kept getting ambushed while trying to get to a safe extraction point?” Bo questions. I nod because I’ve already explained this to them.
“I’m sure your team had done reconnaissance on the area and had planned for multiple contingencies and extraction points?” Dalton questions.
Again, we’ve been over this, but I humor him with agreement. “Of course.”
“What did the 1Lt say to you when she heard your team leader admit he thought someone was sabotaging the mission?” Dalton asks.
I pause, allowing my mind to drift back to that moment in time. I actively avoided consciously remembering that day, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t relived it every fucking night since.
“I couldn’t hear well with all the gunfire, but I’m pretty sure she said, ‘It’s because of me’. I tried to ask her to repeat it, but she just said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I know what I have to do.” Dalton is nodding, looking thoughtful.
“Tell me what she said when she was dying,” Kelvin demands. I stare at him in anger. I’ve worked damn hard to forget those moments. Why is he making me relive this?
“It isn’t going to change a damn thing. She’s still dead,” I say with disgust.
“Humor us,” Dalton says, softly. If looks could kill, my BFF would be pushing up daisies as we speak. I don’t want to remember her bleeding out under my hands. I don’t want to remember watching the life fade from her eyes or the last words she tried to utter.
Closing my eyes, I grip both sides of my head as the memories flood in against my will.
The oppressive heat is beating down on us. 1stLt Montgomery is standing a few feet away with my Ka-bar in her hand. “We have no fight with you SEALs. We just want the girl.”
There is no way in hell we will let them take her back. The 1stLt is standing stock still between us and them. She turns slowly to face us, no emotion on her face. I expect to see fear, anger, something, but it’s just blank.
“I won’t let them take me again,” the 1stLt calls out as she shifts the knife to her right hand and raises it to her throat. “Tell my sister I love her and not to join the service.”
“No!” I shout, “don’t do it! Please don’t hurt yourself.
We will get you out of this. Trust us!” With a shake of her head, she digs the knife into her throat.
A crimson spray shoots out from her neck as I run forward.
Gunfire explodes all around me, but I don’t pay any attention to it.
I have to get to her to stop the bleeding.
I fall to my knees at her side. A huge puddle has already formed around her. The metallic odor is so strong I can almost taste it. Nausea rises in me as I watch bloody bubbles gurgle out as she takes her final breaths.
“Fuck! Why?” I yell, trying to staunch the flow with my bare hands to no avail. My mind is trying to make sense out of her actions, but I’m having no luck in making sense of any of this. She stares up at me with wide eyes. Her lips move, forming words.