Chapter 37
MIKEY
As I leaned back against Scottie’s stomach, we’d accepted our fate and just rolled with it. She kneaded her fingers through my hair, sending waves of absolute bliss through my body.
“Btw, you got mail,” Bernie stated, digging through his stuff and throwing an envelope my way. It bumped against my leg, fluttering to the ground.
“Why?” Scottie grumbled. “Why would you do that?”
“Do what?” Bernie asked as I grabbed the letter and read the name on the return address.
“Why would you ruin me finally getting some dick by announcing that his crazy ex wrote him? Again.”
Ford spewed water all over his bed, coughing and choking on his drink as Duncan fell over backwards laughing. Bernie shrugged his shoulders. “You want to know what I’m wondering, is how come you’re still walking? With Mikey’s size, you should at least be sore.”
“Because we might have—” Scottie paused and narrowed her gaze. “Hold on. How the hell do you know this?”
“We’ve all seen it, Scottie. We’ve all seen all of the team’s dicks before. Keep up,” Ford said, coughing through his drink.
Her fingers in my hair paused. “Right. Mikey mentioned that once. Did you guys just one day decide, hey, let’s compare our junk and whip them out?”
“No, Scottie. It doesn’t work like that,” Bernie replied.
I looked up, tipping my head backwards, and furrowed my brows. “Besides, why are you talking about our sex life when I remember you specifically asking me to not to say anything after the first time we fucked?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, they already knew what we did this time.”
“We did talk first…” I muttered.
Bernie chuckled as Ford inhaled deeply. “Sure you did,” he spewed through a bite of a granola bar.
“First time? You’ve done it more than once already?” Duncan’s eyes bugged out of his head, and Scottie slapped a hand over her mouth.
I smiled to myself. “You can’t get mad at me. I didn’t say shit.”
“Hush, Blondie,” Scottie hissed through her teeth, her fingers tightening around my hair, dropping her palm from her face. “Can we please talk about something else?”
“Absolutely. I want to know what you’re going to do to Rachel,” Bernie nonchalantly brushed us off, laying flat on his back on his bedroll. Nothing but moonlight surrounded us. We should have been asleep, but this conversation, this completely carefree moment was more captivating than a few hours of rest would ever be.
“What I want to do is illegal back home,” Scottie grumbled. I chuckled, trailing my fingertips up and down the outside of her thigh.
“Damn, you two are so fucking perfect for each other,” Ford muttered.
“Me wanting to do something illegal to Rachel makes us perfect for each other? How?” Scottie asked.
“Mikey, tell her what you want to do to Reyes,” Bernie quipped.
“Why?” I closed my eyes.
Duncan chuckled to himself. “Just tell her.”
“He’s the mole and kidnapped me. Even I want to do some not so nice things to Reyes,” Scottie defended me.
“Yeah, but that’s not why Mikey wants to hurt him, is it?” Bernie said.
Rolling my eyes, I shook my head. “I haven’t said shit about him, so why would you think I have a different reason to be pissed about him than the rest of you?”
“Because he calls Scottie ‘squib.’ And we all know how you get about shit like that,” Duncan explained.
I sighed, exhaling slowly. “I wanna do nothin’.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mikey. You’re not going to scare her off!” Bernie argued.
“I’d like to kill him. There, happy?” I bluntly stated, leaving out the gory details I knew they were fishing for.
“I’m kinda curious,” Scottie quietly said, urging me on.
“See? Even your girl wants to know,” Duncan prompted.
Ford smacked his lips together. “What new, grotesque way has Mikey concocted to get rid of Reyes?”
Scottie’s fingers clenched down on my hair and she wiggled my head. “Come on.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, shaking free of her grip. She resumed her mindless massage. “I’d like to gouge his eyeballs out and feed them to him. Then, I’ll cut his dick and balls off and stuff his ball sack up his nose so he can’t breathe and shove his own dick up his ass. If it’s too small to hurt, I’ll chop his fingers off and add them to the lineup. Only when he’s screaming for me to stop, will I rip his shit-covered dick out and force it down his throat to shut him up. While he chokes on his junk, I’ll cut his toes, ears, and tongue off, too, maybe electrocute him a few times, and then watch him bleed to death. There? Happy?”
Crickets.
Despite being in the desert, surrounded by soldiers and movement that kept the usual night crawler sounds at bay, I could’ve sworn crickets chirped.
“Told you that you didn’t want to hear me voice it,” I muttered.
“Honestly, that’s the least creative shit you’ve come up with,” Bernie said, sounding disappointed.
“Least creative?” Scottie gasped.
“Least. Creative,” Bernie emphasized.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven’t really given it too much thought, honestly. As long as he suffers, I’m good.”
“Damn, and I just wanted to beat Rachel up enough to permanently disfigure her face,” Scottie muttered.
“See? Perfect,” Ford stated, waving a hand in our direction.
“By the way, Bernie, you owe me twenty bucks,” Scottie blurted out.
I smiled to myself, knowing exactly what she was referencing.
“Twenty bucks? Why?” Bernie gasped, sitting up right.
“You bet me twenty bucks to kiss anyone on the team.” Scottie extended an arm, wiggling her fingers at Bernie.
Duncan bellowed in laughter. “That’s right you did! I totally forgot about that!”
“And it was my dirty mouth she kissed.” I grinned wide, smirking to myself and feeling very proud.
Scottie whacked my shoulder. “Anyway.” Returning her attention to Bernie, she extended her hand again, palm up. “Pay up!”
Bernie pouted, plopping back down on his bed. “In the morning. I’m not going to dig through my shit to find twenty bucks in the dark.”
Laughter filled the tent as canvas crinkled and the flap flew open. Dom ducked into the tent, his gaze narrowing, and quickly silenced us. “You idiots should be asleep.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re getting there,” Ford said, laying down. Dom was right, and with the impending mission once they broke into the Black Box, the lighthearted banter immediately swallowed into the night.
Dom chuckled. “It’s nice to hear this shit again, though.”
“There’s plenty more to come in the morning,” Bernie replied, exhaustion creeping into his voice.
“Goodnight, assholes.” Duncan yawned, rolling to his side.
Sitting up from Scottie, I glanced at her. Her eyes twinkled, as she slowly laid her head down, not breaking eye contact with me. I winked and crawled out from between her legs and she rolled onto her side. I shamelessly nestled into her back.
I couldn’t believe this was real. Snuggling against her, her body right next to mine. Not an inch separated us. Joy filled my usually dark soul, such a strange sensation that sent chills racing across my skin. I wrapped my arms tightly around her body that fit perfectly cradled within my embrace. How lucky was I? Placing gentle kisses against her neck, sleep crept quickly into my bones.
For a moment, all felt right in the world. Exactly as it should with her right next to me. My team, my family, the people I cared about and loved the most, knew and accepted us. They loved her, too, and that meant more to me than words could express.
Breaking into the Black Box turned out to be more challenging than expected. But it afforded us plenty of time to wait in this bubble as if nothing was really wrong. A lot of time at the gym, heading out on a few rounds of patrol, bantering with the team, tons of sparring practice for my girl, and my favorite part—a lot of sex with Scottie.
A week where, while I knew the impending battle of confronting Karim was encroaching on us, it was a week unlike I’d ever experienced before. So much casual peace, so much serenity, and a sense of belonging. Laying across from me beneath the blazing sun, Scottie’s thumb worked against mine, still not once winning a single thumb war.
“You should just give up, it’s zero for you, and I’ve completely forgotten how many for me,” I teased, and she clicked her tongue.
“I’m no quitter,” she grumbled, narrowing her gaze and scrunching up her face in determination.
“You’re cute.” I smiled, quickly trapping her thumb beneath mine again.
“Cute? Of all the words in the dictionary, you choose ‘cute’ to describe me?”
“Yes.” It was no contest at this particular moment. Though, at other times there were plenty of other more accurate words.
“This is what you decide to do with some free time?” Bernie’s grating voice interrupted my particularly relaxing and casual moment with Scottie just outside our tent.
Rolling my eyes, I let go of her hand and glanced over my shoulder. “The fuck you want?”
Bernie chuckled. “I thought you’d be having sex right now or doing something more entertaining than a thumb war.”
“You’re an absolutely disgusting human being, you know that? There’s more to a relationship than sex,” I grumbled in response, pushing upright and dusting sand from my chest.
“Besides, we already did that like twenty minutes ago,” Scottie nonchalantly added, an innocent smirk lifting on her lips as her eyes sparkled, and she rose from her prone position.
I threw my hands in the air in defeat. “I don’t even know why I try to be semi-appropriate.”
Bernie laughed. “I love you guys. Anyway, Dom wants us at the colonel’s tent.”
Scottie stilled, her hands paused halfway down, smoothing out the front of her uniform. “Did they finally crack it?”
His grin widened, excitement twinkling in his gaze. “Some of it. Enough that we finally get to go in and fuck shit up. So come on! I wanna suggest exploding shit! BOMBS!”
Bounding to my feet, Scottie leapt up beside me and we jogged after Bernie. I honestly couldn’t protest his idea. Raiding and blowing Karim up sounded exactly like the therapy I needed. Also, Reyes. Though, I was determined to find Alex Reyes myself and make him suffer. He didn’t deserve an easy out. Not this time.
Not after all of the hell he put my girl through.
With that thought, I glanced at Scottie grinning beside me. Though, she might beat me to the punch when it comes to Reyes. And I knew, if in the end, she wanted to take him out, I’d let her. She didn’t need me for that. She could have at Rachel too. That would be fun to watch…
Rounding a corner, Duncan and Ford ducked into the colonel’s tent just as we approached the exterior. Buzzing from faint conversation rose from inside. More than just my team was in there.
Slicing like ice through my veins, anticipation raced to my heart. Adrenaline pumped fuel to the very tips of my toes and my skin prickled. This was going to be one hell of a fight and one I was going to absolutely enjoy.
As soon as the tent closed behind Scottie, the room silenced. A few extra soldiers waited with the rest of my team. Colonel Duke stood at the front of the same white table we had crowded around for our first mission brief during this portion of our deployment.
“Today’s the day,” he began with a grin. “Now, we haven’t been able to get into everything on the Black Box. There’s something external we believe to be blocking our full entry, but we’ll get that sorted out in time. What we do have is a map and location of Karim al-Jabari’s compound.”
“Can we fucking blow that shit up?” Bernie blurted out. I chuckled, ducking my chin against my chest and crossing my arms as Dom shook his head.
“Yes. An airstrike should be just what we’re looking for,” the colonel replied.
“That explains our guests,” Ford muttered, nodding toward the men not a part of our team.
Colonel Duke nodded. “Your job is to go in and confirm two things. One, that Karim al-Jabari is actually at the compound before we drop a bomb on his ass. And two, we want confirmation of what’s in the armory.”
“An armory?” Duncan asked, stepping forward. I tipped my head toward the table and briefly scanned the map.
“Yes.” The colonel leaned forward, resting his palms on either end of the paper. “It’s a simple design. One single breach point. One way in or out that takes you directly into the main area of the compound. Off to the left there’s six bedrooms. To the right is the chow hall, latrines. and something they have labeled as a laboratory.”
His finger slid to the middle of the page. “But here,” he traced it to the back, directly opposite the entrance. “Here is the armory. And with the size of that, if it’s full, they could have enough weapon power to outfit an army two times over. I just want a quick report on how much is in there for when we break through the rest of the Black Box, and then we’ll destroy it all in one fell swoop.”
Dom scanned us as my stomach swirled with excitement. Finally. We were here with a game plan that couldn’t go wrong.
“Questions?” the colonel asked.
“No, sir,” came the simultaneous answer.
It was time to destroy Reyes and Karim al-Jabari.
The devil inside was coming out to play.