Chapter 6
He’d watched men die. He’d watched them die in ways that the language of after-action reports needed to be sanitized into clean operational language—KIA, hostile fire, Helmand Province—and he’d watched them die in ways that had no language at all, just the specific and irreversible physics of a body going from a person to something that used to be a person in the time it took to register the sound of the gunshot that took them out of this world and sent them to feast in Valhalla with the rest of the Operators who’d gone before them.
Zorro had watched a lot of things in sixteen operational years, and he’d developed, through the accumulation of that watching, a kind of internal clinical remove button that he could access on demand.
It wasn’t quite the detachment most people assumed it was.
He’d stopped confusing the two somewhere in his second year.
Detachment was an absence. This clinical removal was the absence of his presence of mind, specifically.
He’d trained himself to be able to stand inside a situation while simultaneously occupying a slightly different coordinate system that let him observe it clearly enough to be of use.
Usually, he could keep that distance in place.
Today all his fail-safes for keeping his sanity failed, and distance wasn’t possible when he’d watched Glenna and Kelsey’s reunion.
You had a kid, Raven.
And you didn’t fucking tell me.
Asshole.
Slowly, inch by inch, and breath by breath, he forced some semblance of calm back into his mind.
“Yo, Zorro?” Gunnar called from the war-room, “quit admiring the flowers like a fucking pussy and get your ass in here?—”
“You better not let Rena or Chari hear you swearing,” Remi cut across him, “they’ll string you up on the bell tower for the cats to use as a scratching post.”
“I’m boss here?—”
“No, you aren’t,” Colt needled. “Your wife has you by the balls. I think that makes her boss, don’t you?”
Talon, Zombie, and Chaos walked into the courtyard, and the youngest McKinley brother paused beside him. “It’s a mindfuck isn’t it?”
“Huh?”
“When the rug is yanked out from under your ass.” Talon deftly redirected the puppy from climbing on the fountain. “Especially when it’s by the appearance of a woman you already know you have no business wanting.”
What the hell is he on about?
Tyrone blinked, trying to buy himself a couple of seconds to figure out what the hell Lego was talking about; the asshole just smirked and whistled his dogs to follow him into the war-room.
“Take that puppy outta here, asshole,” Remi demanded. “It’s not even ten AM, and he’s chewed three wires, shredded the wastepaper basket, and exploded a can of Monster?—”
“He’s gotta learn how to be an Operator Pup and not a freaking assho?—”
“Out.” Remi ordered. “He can come back when you teach him some manners.”
Focus.
Mission first.
Always.
Tyrone stepped to one side to avoid being run over by a scowling Talon and his woofers, then walked into the war-room.
He crossed to the far wall where the tactical boards and the maps of locations where the Four X’s currently had Operators working were pinned.
The need to do something had him scratching at his forearms and, unusually for him, fidgeting.
Gunnar didn’t look up from the tablet in his hands. “Sullivan get back to you yet?”
“Not yet.” He grabbed a marker, uncapped it with his teeth, and pulled a new whiteboard to the front. “But he will.”
“He will.” Gunnar set the tablet down, the screen flickering with satellite imagery—some op in progress, some tango’s last day on earth. “You good?”
“Peachy.”
Gunnar’s snort was answer enough. The man didn’t buy bullshit, especially not from one of his men. “You look like you’re one wrong word away from putting a fist through the wall.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“No.” Gunnar stood, stretching his arms over his head until his spine cracked. “I get it. Shit you can’t control pisses you off. It pisses all of us off. If you need to do a few rounds on the mat, I’m game.”
Tempting.
Glenna wasn’t just some random woman off the street. She was Dwight’s. She was Kelsey’s. She was?—
Fuck.
He capped the marker and tossed it onto the table. It skittered, rolled off the edge, hit the floor with a hollow clack. No one moved to pick it up.
“She’s not your responsibility, Zorro.”
“Bullshit.” The word came out low and dangerous.
He turned, met Gunnar’s gaze head-on. “Dwight was my team brother. That makes her mine.” He didn’t care if that was all kinds of whacked; in his world, family, especially chosen family, extended to the wives and kids of the men he fought beside. Period.
Gunnar studied him, those pale eyes missing nothing. “You planning on telling her that?”
Tyrone looked away, absently rubbing at the spot on his chest that hadn’t stopped aching since Kelsey had dropped her bombshell on him.
“Didn’t think so.” Gunnar grabbed his tablet and tapped the screen. “Remi’s got a lead on the foster care records. Jorja’s gonna be digging into the trafficking cell’s finances. We’ll find out how Kelsey ended up in France.”
“And then?”
Gunnar’s smile was all teeth. “Then we make sure we got all the fuckers involved. If we didn’t, I’m considering a short come-to-Jesus visit, just for shits and giggles.”
Now, that’s what I’m talking about!
He exhaled slowly and forced the tension in his shoulders to ease just a fraction. This, he understood. This, he could do. “Copy that.”
“Got something.” Remi ramped the tension in the room right back up again. He sent a command to his laptop, and photos, printouts, and grainy, time-stamped surveillance stills populated the screens over his head.
Glenna standing outside a Portland DHS office, her face gaunt, her hands clenched into fists.
Another of a man in a cheap suit handing Glenna a folder, his smile not reaching his eyes.
Another showed Kelsey clutching a stuffed rabbit, her dark eyes wide and scared as she was led toward a black sedan.
Tyrone’s vision tunneled. “Where the fuck did you get these?”
“DHS server.” Remi shrugged. “Someone scrubbed the files, but I found the backups.”
Tyrone watched as Remi flipped through the photos on the screen. Each one was a gut-punch.
Kelsey in a foster home, her small body curled into a too-big chair.
Glenna, her back against a brick wall, her head in her hands.
A social worker’s signature on a form, the ink smudged like someone had pressed too hard.
“We’ll get answers, Zorro.”
Tyrone looked up and met Remi’s gaze. Saw the same fire there, the same need to fix what had been broken. “I’m not sure answers are going to be enough.”
“Revenge, then.”
“Justice.” Tyrone corrected. “For all of them, Glenna, Kelsey, and Dwight.”
Remi nodded. “Justice.”
“Kelsey’s safe. Her mom is here with her.” Gunnar drummed his fingers on the war-table, “ Right now, that’s what matters most, because we know they are safe.”
Tyrone looked at the photo of Glenna, her face a mask of exhaustion and determination.
She’s safe now.
They both are.
But safe wasn’t enough. He wasn’t sure it would ever be enough, not after what they’d been through. Not after what he hadn’t prevented. He turned back to the board, grabbed another marker. “Then let’s make sure it stays that way.”