CHAPTER FOUR
Hadleigh – Syria – One Year Ago – Age 26
“I t’s too fucking dangerous ,” I shout into a satellite phone crouched inside an abandoned police station outside Damascus.
“In one hour, you’ll be surrounded by rebel soldiers,” Cherise warns through the line.
Who told the Deputy CIA Director we were in enough trouble for her to call me is something I don’t question when bombs are going off all around me.
“Copy,” I say to my best friend, livid at having to retreat.
We both failed out of BUD/S that year, rang the bell the same night. I tried again. Cherise didn’t. My bestie rose to the rank of a three-star vice admiral before resigning from the Navy to take a job in the CI-Fucking-A.
I left the Navy when my second enlistment was up, and now, I command my own covert ops team as a contract officer working for Cherise’s department. My unit has been assigned to rig abandoned buildings and detonate them as soon as the rebels show up. Then stay to kill off any stragglers the bombs didn’t tear to shreds.
As the leader of my team, I had a one hundred percent success rate. Until the last set of munitions didn’t go off due to faulty wiring.
“Fall back, RAVENs,” I address the team with our code name which stands for Reconnaissance, Assault, Vigilance, and Elite Neutralization.
We’re identified by an all-black Raven tattoo behind our right ear.
We’re a black-op squadron of disenfranchised female soldiers from all military branches and we are the best of the best. It’s just a unit most people don’t know about.
Unlike when we served under male sergeants and commanders, we’re allowed to keep our hair long to take back our femininity. We don’t want to be men. We want to be strong, badass women .
I’ve not really felt like a woman since that Irish security guard fucked the daylights out of me in his motel room all night. I had the perfect cock, the perfect lips in and on my pussy, and the perfect orgasms. I didn’t think it would be possible to match that night. So I never bothered trying.
I keep myself satisfied with toys. And memories.
Of him.
Whose freaking name I never even got. But I didn’t need it.
I kept my promise to Cherise, I didn’t tell the guard what I did to Rand Miller, and my hot date that night never brought him up either. I didn’t even talk about BUD/S at all, just fell into an easy conversation about music, world events, and ammunition of all things. I loved listening to him speak, and I fell under the spell of that Irish accent. Our bodies spoke loudest to the needs we both had.
The things he did to me for those hours still star in my dreams.
Until they turn to nightmares.
During one of our final rounds, I caught sight of the tattoo on his calf that read sicario. The mark of a hitman that Alexander taught me to fear. My mind blanked, and I worried the guard had been sent by Mr. Christou to kill me for disappearing.
Private security must have been his cover. And I fucking fell for it.
It would be typical of a hitman to fuck his target before he finished the job. I tied him up and got the hell out of there, went back to the base, and never saw him again.
Rand Miller never came back either, and no one mentioned him again. I worried he died, and that I killed him. That’s when killing someone sent me into the bathroom vomiting. Now, it’s second nature to me. It’s my duty.
“Castille, do you hear me?” Cherise bellows into my earpiece, knocking me from my thoughts.
“I said, copy ,” I yell back into the comm.
“Get to the roof and get your team the fuck out of there.”
“How? A bird can’t fly—”
“This one can. Trust me, Hadleigh.”
Those words she said to me a few years back vibrate through me like some silent command and it all snaps together for me. I trust her with my life, just not my true identity. “Where are we going?”
“A military plane will take you to Italy.”
“Why? What is my team needed for in Italy ? The fight is here! Where is Samuels?” I ask about the CIA commander I technically report to.
I took this call from Cherise because she’s my best friend.
“Samuels is in DC explaining why...” Her voice drowns out when bombs go off around us.
“Do you hear that?” I yell to her.
“That’s to cover you.” Her voice crackles, going in and out. “Get your fucking ass out of there!”
I end the call and put my head down. My heart pounding, I sniff and fight the feeling that I’ve failed. Like the Trident’s been torn from my grasp again .
My team stares at me, they need me so I pull it together.
Clearing my throat, I say, “A battalion of rebels is on the way. We have to get out of here, our munitions are dead. An airlift is coming to the roof.”
They don’t argue, and we start climbing stairs, breathing in dust and death. On the roof in the smoke-filled air, lights shine with the Morse code signal.
The black bird lands and we pile on. Lifting away, I stare at the decimated landscape. Buildings look like Swiss cheese, sides sheared right off. I weep for the lives turned upside down. I’m still fucking human.
Fighting tears and hunger and the need for a hot shower, I meditate on the bird so I don’t detonate out of anger.
We land at Camp Ederle in Vincenza, Italy where I’m brought to an officer’s barrack by the CO’s admin to get cleaned up.
“All I have are dirty clothes.” I slap my rucksack.
“I brought in a fresh uniform for you, Lieutenant.” She points to the cot with camo gear, socks, and boots laid out. In plastic wrapping is a bra and panty.
Finally, someone respects my rank. Sniffing, I give in and take that shower, feeling like I let so many people down.
I comb out my wet hair that’s still blonde, but a softer tone from a box and not straight bleach anymore. I twist it into a tight braid. Then I get dressed and wait for my strength to come back to me.
Outside, I go to join my team in the debriefing tent, but the admin stops me. “ You’re needed over there.” She points to a man standing off in the distance.
My heart stops, seeing dark hair, olive skin, and golden eyes like my mother. Oh my God, now this all makes sense. Only a man as connected as the head of the Greek Mafia could get me exfilled out of a war zone and then flown to Italy .
But I hold it together and hike up to the man who put me on this path until I’m standing less than a foot from my blood. “Alexander, what the hell are you doing here?”
On my one-year anniversary with the Navy, Alexander broke his silence and sent me a letter with an update. While I’ve been in the service where I thought he’d forgotten about me, Alexander had not only killed our father but Mr. Christou as well. Along with my brothers Ares, Atlas, and Ambrose, they reclaimed the Greek crown that Father had lost years back. My brothers have been spilling blood in Lower Manhattan ever since.
Irish blood. Good. I hope that guard was the first to go. Okay, maybe not.
But I never heard from Alexander again and I’ve felt so alone all this time.
Now he shows up here? Fuck him.
“I need you to come home,” he answers me, sounding so...dead. Like fighting the Irish has taken a toll on him.
“There’s a war here , Alex,” I argue. “I’m needed here , and I’m staying.”
He grabs me by the shoulders, clearly not used to hearing no. “Now, you listen to me, Ava...”
“Hadleigh, my name is Hadleigh Castille. The name you gave me.” I wiggle away from him, angry he’s forcing me to be that scared eighteen year old again.
“You have to come home. I need you.”
I meet his eyes with a cool glare. “You don’t need me, you’ve made that clear. You have Ares, Atlas, and Ambrose.”
My father gave us all names that start with A out of some superiority fetish.
“You have skills I need.” He tugs me a few yards into a chow tent that has been miraculously emptied. “Sit.” He points to a table and snaps his fingers.
A woman brings over two trays of food. But Alexander pushes my tray away.
“That’s cruel. I’m technically your prisoner and not feeding me is a violation of the Geneva Convention. I can have you charged at the Hague.”
Alexander throws his head back and laughs. “You definitely need food.” He pushes the tray back at me.
“Fine.” I stare down at more food than I’ve eaten in the last three days.
“How did you get so tough?” He digs a spoon into a cup of soup and looks ready to spit into it.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I sip the same soup, not caring what it tastes like. The warmth brings me back to life. “To make me a badass?”
“A badass for me!” He slaps his chest. “Don’t make me get Ares involved. Our psycho brother would have backed Father’s plan to sell you to get us out of debt.”
I put down my spoon, and shudder, thinking of how that life could have been forced on me.
“Things are bad in New York. I won’t lie, Ava.” Alexander grips my hand. “I know what you’ve accomplished. And I’m proud of you.”
I swallow down his pandering compliment. I failed to become a SEAL. That’s all I see when I look in the mirror. “What do you need me for now? I’ve been gone almost eight years.”
He grips the plastic spoon and snaps it in half. “I don’t know if the kind of fighting and bloodshed with the Irish can last much longer without the Feds descending on us with indictments.”
My throat goes tight. “What’s the plan?”
He pushes a thumb drive at me. “It’s all in here.”
“Alex, I don’t even own a computer.” I push it back to him. “Just give me the cliff notes.”
“I’ve done serious tracking of Troi Keller’s top captains, where they live, their routines. I know better than to take out Keller, or his son, Devlin. Cut off a head and another one grows in its place. I will decimate them from within, weaken them, and maybe they’ll destroy themselves.”
Diabolical.
“What do you need me for?”
“I need you as the tip of my spear. You’ll be my second.” He sits back. “Assassins are more feared than kings.”
That wars with the work I’ve been doing with the Navy and the RAVENs. We’re trying to help people. I guess my family counts as people.
“What about Ares, he’s your second, isn’t he? What’s he going to say when you put me in his position?”
Alexander and Ares have always clashed. I never felt close to Ares, who’s cold and calculating. Alexander is hot and blustery, he’ll let you see his rage when he slits your throat. Ares will stab you in the back.
Alexander smiles. “I can wait one more month. I will give you time to wrap up your work here. In thirty days, you’re coming home and killing for me, whether you want to or not.” That chilly bastard who dropped me off without looking back eight years ago returns. “I can call Cherise and have your contract revoked. You’ll have nowhere else to go.”
“That’s fucking low.” I kick him under the table.
He grabs my foot and squeezes my ankle. “I’ll sweeten the deal. Come home and you get to see Ares lose his shit when I tell him he’s being pushed down in the ranks.”
As exciting as that sounds, I don’t want someone as dangerous as Ares mad at me. Even if he is my brother. Sounds like I don’t have a choice. Eight years later I still don’t have a choice .
Fuck this...
“Okay,” I give in, but my wheels are turning.
“One month,” Alexander says and slides on aviator shades. “And don’t try anything. I hid you. I buried you. I can dig you up. I respect you, Ava. Don’t make me come back with hitmen to take out innocent soldiers to get you out of here. In thirty days, Hadleigh Castille dies.”
Shaking, I watch him get up and walk away.
“A call for you,” a uniformed officer appears at the table and hands me a phone.
“Castille,” I say, my voice unsteady.
“I just got handed a letter from a private courier telling me to let you out of your contract in thirty days,” Cherise says. “Or else. What the hell? Who are you?”
“I can’t go into it right now. But I need your help, Cher.” I look around, suspicious of everything and everyone.
“Okay, what can I do?” I love that she’ll take care of me, no questions asked.
“Hide me. Do you have any outpost assignments?”
“Hmmm... Give me an hour.” Cherise hangs up.
Walking through the army base camp, I sit down with women soldiers readying for a mission to provide aid at the border while I wait for Cherise’s call.
A tap on my shoulder spins me around. I find a different man holding a phone out to me this time. A pit forms in my stomach, thinking Cherise can’t help me.
“Lieutenant Castille here,” I say, pushing away the dread.
“Lieutenant, this is Navy Operations Admiral Locklear. I hear you’re good with explosives, and you’re familiar with Navy protocol.”
My heart stores as he describes a mission in the Eastern Mediterranean aboard his warship.
“Yes, Admiral. I’ll look out for the travel arrangements.”
Cherise outdid herself with this assignment. I bet she could have me installed as the next Queen of England.
Ugh, I don’t want to be anyone’s queen.