Chapter Four #2
As he prepared for the debrief, pulling my file and whatnot, I plopped down on the couch.
Suddenly, my body remembered how much I missed this spot.
I’d never had an issue with debriefs, not like the rest of them did.
In fact, after a mission, I couldn’t wait to get it over with.
To brain dump all the shit I’d gone through and felt on the mission, whether it was a hunt or just to gather information.
It felt good to release it all, to not have to be forced to hold it in.
Holding shit in had the power to turn a person into something they never wanted to become.
I knew who I was and after everything I’d been through. There was no way in hell I was allowing that version of myself to slip through my fingers.
“Before we begin, I need to ask you one question,” he said.
I looked over to him, finding his eyes on me, his jaw clenched, hands in his pockets. “You want to know how many,” I guessed.
“I think, after everything you and I have been through, it would be best to know.”
“Ten.”
“Including Alan Benson?” he prompted, lifting his chin slightly, the sun bouncing off his lenses.
“Yes.”
“Did you leave a mess for Red Snake to clean up?”
“Nope,” I answered. “All but Alan were clean, swift.”
Every single one of us had taken life. Not out of joy or for sport, but because it was necessary.
Death was never easy, and I was sure that down the road, when I was old and gray, I would feel a twinge of regret for killing Benson’s associates.
Maybe. But I would never lose a second of sleep over him.
His death had been sweet, and I’d relished every damn second of it.
“Please forgive me if what I’m about to say is offensive. While I don’t doubt your skills, how were you able to track him down after you searched all this time?”
My jaw tightened. “We don’t have to do this.”
“I think we do.”
“You sound like you already know.” I ticked my head to the side.
A thin smile appeared on his face then. “Perhaps. But I would like you to tell me.”
I sighed, looking at the window. “I called in a favor.”
“With whom?”
My eyes slid back over to him. “Tuck.”
Tucker Fitzgerald was a fellow retired SEAL. Back in the day, one could’ve said we were brothers, but during our last mission, something happened. To this day I don’t know what, but I always suspected it had something to do with his post-military career choice.
“Do I need to alert Grayson?” Dominic asked. His concern was blatant. Tuck wasn’t the man I used to know. He was a private contractor, hired by various…colorful organizations for security and transport.
“No.”
He grunted. “Why didn’t you contact him before?”
“Because I wanted to do things the right way,” I answered.
“Right as in following the law or right as in a way to keep your conscience clear?”
“My conscience is clear.”
Something dark passed over his face, but whatever thought he had, he didn’t share. Instead, he cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses, and moved on.
“I want to go back to June twenty-sixth,” Dominic began, coming back around his desk with his pad and pen.
He turned one of the leather chairs around to face me and took a seat, his clipboard resting on his crossed leg.
“Do you feel comfortable walking me through what happened when she came into Rossy’s? ”
“You can say her name, Dominic,” I said, throwing my arm over the back of the couch. The new position allowed my shoulder to relax, the feeling damn near euphoric.
“Right, then.” He gave me a tight smile. “Angel. Tell me about that day.”
He hadn’t been there. In fact, he and Jake missed the entire show, the moment everything I thought I knew—or didn’t know—imploded.
It was the day of Rossy’s Book Festival.
The first one. After Hayes and Margo had gotten their happy ending.
After her insane ex, Gordon, had been arrested on criminal charges, tried, and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison without the possibility of parole.
Margo had graduated with her business degree and wanted to organize an event.
Thus, the book festival was created. It was a hit.
Nearly the entire town showed up to support and meet the thirty authors and vendors who lined either side of a main street.
Red Snake had been hired for security, so technically, we had all been on the damn clock.
Still, it had been a perfect day. When the guys and I stopped into the bookstore for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, there had been an alert that someone was hassling an author at their table.
So Dominic, Sheriff Humbly, and Jake left to take care of it.
Not even two minutes later, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen came into the store, the bell above the door chiming sweetly.
At first, I didn’t recognize her. The woman before me was healthy, radiant even.
Her skin, fair but sun-kissed, had freckles scattered across it.
Her hair was shining in waves I’d itched to run my fingers through.
She was dressed in white and pink, two colors that had stuck with me since that day.
Then.
Fucking hell. Then I saw her eyes. They were eyes I’d never fucking forget. No matter how hard I tried and begged for a higher power to rid me of the memory of their warmth, their glow, the utter raw beauty of them.
When I was done, Dominic jotted down a note or two.
When I started working for Red Snake, I’d hated when he wrote anything down.
The simple action of him doing so would send me into a spiral of anxiety.
Endless questions would sound off in my head like orders from a former commanding officer.
Eventually, that feeling faded. Dominic never noticed—or he didn’t acknowledge it. This damn doctor noticed everything.
“You seem very comfortable with saying her name,” he noted, looking up at me, eyes sharp behind his lenses. “Based on our previous sessions, I expected…” He trailed off, waiting for me to fill in the rest.
“I get what you’re saying,” I assured him, doing what he needed me to do. “For over two years, my days were consumed with wondering where she was, the state she was in, or if she was even alive. By the end, you and I both know I was taking the steps to close that chapter.”
The day before, June twenty-fifth, I’d gone to Jake and told him to close her file. After nearly two years of dead ends and no leads on her or Benson, my spirit was ready to throw in the towel. Nothing made sense and my world had been grim.
Dominic hummed. “Yes, you were. Walk me through what you felt when you realized it was Angel.”
“The initial feeling was disbelief. I wasn’t sure if she was real or if some part of my grieving brain had conjured up the image of her,” I explained, my voice growing thick.
“When she ran from me, the momentary relief I had felt vanished, and panic followed. Hayes and Grayson had to drag me back.” I paused, my eyes dropping to my jeans.
There, just on the outside of my thigh, a piece of thread poked out.
Normally, I wouldn’t give two shits, but today, I did.
I pinched the soft material between my fingers and tugged, feeling the resistance, the fight to stay attached to me.
I didn’t want this flaw clinging to me.
I didn’t have room for any more.
The thread snapped, a soft popping sound filling my silence, and I could feel Dominic’s eyes on me.
He was patient, as always. Not rushing or demanding answers like some of my previous therapists had when I was a SEAL.
“I thought she was dead. I was in the process of forcing myself to believe it,” I murmured.
“When she ran from me, I was hopeful. Then when Margo came back and told me what Angel had requested of me, that hope faded.”
“Hope for what?”
Lifting my head, I inhaled a deep breath. “Truth be told, Dominic, some part of me believed I was somehow owed.”
He nodded, twisting the pen in his fingers. We called it the Iceman Trick as it was the very same one Val Kilmer did in Top Gun. “You believed she owed you for what you did for her?”
“How fucked up is that?” I asked, suddenly angry with myself.
Dominic adjusted his glasses. “For a normal person who might have had a normal childhood, it would certainly raise some concern.” He paused, taking his own deep breath.
“But you aren’t a normal person with a normal childhood or young adulthood.
The majority of the love you’ve experienced in your life, Ash, has been transactional.
You saved her life, and in turn, you believed you had the right to be a part of it. ”
I swallowed, feeling my throat try to work around the lump. “Yes.”
Another hum. Another nod. “You’re self-aware, and that’s good. You recognize this. Angel doesn’t owe you anything. You saved her; you did a good thing. She made it out, and now both of you can move on.”
My jaw tightened and I looked out the window, noting a cluster of dark clouds in the distance. “She wants to live her life free of her past, and I’m a piece of that.”
“Yes, you are. You’re probably one of the better pieces, I would assume. I don’t know Angel, but I know you. I know how much losing her, not being able to find her, tormented you.”
Deep down, expecting something from Angel was wrong. I knew that. I also knew if my Nonna hadn’t instilled certain ideas in my head, I wouldn’t be so attached. Angel would’ve been on another mission. Another life saved and nothing more.
But when her amber gaze collided with mine in that empty mansion, my soul, despite all its scars and faults, knew hers. It was instant, unforgettable, and fucking hell on earth.
Angel was my soulmate, the person I’d been searching for since I was a boy.
And yet…
I could never have her. I could never know her.
My soul wasn’t tethered to hers…it was barely hanging on, and she was the one cutting the cord.