Chapter 2
Two
Colt
Pain.
It’s all I’ve known for four long years and today is no different.
Maybe a little different.
Instead of pain drowned out by fear, today it’s just… an ache. Discomfort. A soreness that transcends everyday life. But the bed I’m in is soft and the blanket covering me is warm, which is a step in the right direction. Not like the last four years.
The cold was numbing.
The growls of hunger from my stomach were sometimes louder than my screams during the beatings. Somehow, the pain was always overshadowed by fear. Not of what else they were going to do to me—my training prepared me for that—but of what I was going to miss.
Fear that I wouldn’t live to fight another day.
Fear that I’d never see my brothers again.
Fear that my sacrifice would be for naught.
Fear that I’d never get a chance to tell the woman I loved how I felt about her.
And last night I followed her to a cemetery where she was kneeling in front of my fucking grave before I stepped out of the trees and scared the crap out of her.
My beautiful Briar.
The thought of coming back to her is the only reason I’m still alive. The reason I continued to push through when it would have been so much easier to give up, let them kill me.
A brisk knock at the door startles me fully awake and I sit up in confusion. Then the door opens and—Briar.
Fuck, she’s a breath of fresh air, the brightest sunshine of summer, and beauty personified. If I could bottle her up, I’d never work another day in my life. That might be corny, but it’s true.
“Good morning.” She steps inside briskly, letting the door click closed behind her. She’s carrying two big shopping bags, and the scent of coffee and something slightly sweet hits my nostrils.
“If you brought breakfast, I might kiss you.”
She arches a brow. “You’re in no condition to be kissing anyone. Lay down and let me look at your bruises.”
Who am I to say no when the love of my life asks me to lie down in bed?
“Christ, Colt, what happened?” Her eyes are sharp, fingers light, touch warm as she runs her fingers over my torso.
“It’s a long story, babe.”
She flinches—almost like I hit her—and regret settles over me like a dark, heavy blanket.
I have so much explaining to do, I don’t know where to start.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says finally.
Yeah, my girl is upset.
I’d be worried if she wasn’t.
I’m just not sure how to explain the massive clusterfuck I created.
“How far back should I go?” I ask after a moment.
“Uh, how about the beginning?” she snips, dabbing a cotton ball of something that burns like hell on one of the open sores on my chest.
“Well, the basic story is that I didn’t re-enlist—I was recruited to a Black Ops unit. It’s not officially part of any agency. Or the Marines. That’s all I can tell you for security reasons.”
“You became…a spy?” she asks, her eyes snapping to mine.
I nod.
It’s close enough. There are other terms we used, but they don’t matter. None of it matters to me anymore.
The salve she rubs on one of my bruises is cool and soothing, and the moan that escapes me is inadvertent. My eyes close, and I just lie there as she rubs a little more on my shoulder, the underside of my jaw, my forearm. Eventually she stops, and I realize she’s waiting.
Fuck, but this is hard.
“So, when I left you, I went dark for a year. Complete immersion in hardcore training. All the things you see on TV times a million. Navy SEAL training combined with MMA fighting, foreign language studies—it was the most intense thing I could’ve imagined.
” I pause. “They didn’t tell me ahead of time that it would be a complete blackout, no contact with the outside world at all.
I didn’t know, Briar. Every night in my bunk I wrote you letters and—”
“You did not.” Her face is steely.
I take a breath. “I did. I know now that they never sent them, but I wrote them.” I pause. “I also had no idea they…killed me off.”
This time she sucks in a breath, her eyes fixed on mine. “You didn’t…know?”
I shake my head. “When they sent me out on my first mission it was supposed to be simple: Get arrested in Siberia, find the agent who was already imprisoned in the prison there, and break us both out. We had people on the outside waiting, so it should have been a quick in and out.”
She’s stopped moving. I don’t even know if she’s breathing, she’s staring at me so intently.
“And then it all went wrong. Our agent was already dead, and when they got wind of the questions I was asking in trying to find him…” I let her use her imagination.
“You were captured.”
“Well, I was already in prison. But instead of spending thirty days for being a careless American who did something stupid, they figured out I was a…spy. And everything changed.”
Her eyes get cloudy and then she abruptly turns away. “I have breakfast. Do you still like your coffee with sugar?”
She remembers.
“Yes. Thank you.” I take the proffered cup.
“And chocolate croissants.”
God, I love this woman.
“Perfect.”
She busies herself putting croissants on plates, digging out napkins and arranging our breakfast for us. “Eat the sandwich first,” she says, thrusting a bagel with what looks like bacon, egg and cheese at me. “You need protein. The croissant is dessert.”
I take the first bite staring into her gorgeous green eyes.
She’s even more beautiful now that she’s older. Emerald-green eyes, ivory skin, and fiery-red hair that matches her sometimes explosive personality. It’s one of my favorite things about her.
“What?” she asks, scowling when she catches me smiling at her.
“I’m enjoying my sandwich—and the view.”
Her cheeks flush pink and she dips her head. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s been five years, Colt!” There’s that temper I love so much. “This isn’t like you were deployed for six months. We buried you. We mourned you. We lost you. I…lost you.” A single tear rolls down her cheek and she swipes at it angrily, another wave of guilt hitting me right in the gut.
I didn’t know what the powers that be were doing in the background. I was focused on the mission. And getting back to my girl. I figured with a year’s worth of salary building up while I was in training, I could buy her a ring when I got home.
Once she started receiving my letters, she’d understand.
She would wait.
Except those letters were never sent and… the painful reality hits me that Briar didn’t wait. She had nothing to wait for.
I was dead.
For nearly five long years she believed I was dead.
Fuck. Me.
“Babe, I—”
Her phone buzzes, and she whips it out of her pocket.
“I’m sorry, I have to take this.” She answers in a cool, professional voice I’ve never heard before.
“What’s going on?” She listens. Annoyance crosses her features.
“Are you kidding me? Now?” More silence, and it ticks me off that I can’t hear the other end of the conversation even though it has nothing to do with me.
“Yes, I’m coming. I’m on the other side of town, though, so it’ll probably take me an hour in traffic…
Yup. I’m on my way.” She stuffs the phone back in her pocket.
“I have to go. I’m sorry. There’s an issue at the office. ”
I don’t know exactly what she does for work, but I know she works for my friend Atlas Delarosa.
Who has apparently become one of the richest men in the world in the last five years.
I assumed she was his secretary or some kind of executive assistant, but the tension in her face and her body language tell me she’s more. A lot more.
And I’m dying to know how much.
Are they together?
I can’t even fathom it.
Atlas would never touch his buddy’s little sister.
Unlike me.
“Are you coming back?” I ask finally, practically holding my breath as I wait for her response.
She doesn’t disappoint.
Her brows rise up toward her hairline as she snaps, “What the fuck are you talking about? Of course I’m coming back! You think I’m letting you disappear again?”
I almost smile.
Almost.
I sense she won’t take kindly to jokes right now, so I have to be careful.
She’s upset—and it has nothing to do with work.
“I’m not going anywhere, Thorny.” The old nickname slips off my tongue easily and it has the expected reaction: Aggravation.
Good.
I’d rather she be mad than resigned or indifferent.
If she’s mad, she still cares.
And that’s the most I can hope for.
Somehow, I have to dig myself out of the nightmare my life has become and find my way back to my family.