“Complex but effective. But by getting involved with the cartel, he became mired in their shit. Similar to the mafia, once you get in business with them, you don’t ever get out. At least alive. He might have realized his mistake and that’s why he started skimming. I’m assuming that stolen money went into another offshore account where he would use it to eventually disappear once he had a shitload of it. Whether he planned on taking you with him or not, I have no fucking clue.”
“I wouldn’t have gone.”
“But if you didn’t, you might have ended up in the same situation you’re in now. With your life on the line. Cartels are nothing to fuck around with, El. He not only fucked around with them, he fucked them over. That’s an immediate death sentence. Even if he could’ve paid off the debt, the result would’ve remained the same. He would’ve been tortured and killed. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t snag you at the same time. But maybe they hoped to gain access to that stolen money first. And by you being his wife, and heir, you’d have that access.”
“They’d rather have their money than have me dead.”
“Yeah, but they also don’t like being fucked over. And, from what we found, McMaster fucked them over royally. I guess he didn’t think they would be checking their books with a fucking fine-tooth comb. They were. Even if he hadn’t skimmed the amount he had, he would’ve gotten caught eventually. At first, he was using the money to cover bad investments and deals gone wrong that he’d done. He took risks to make as much money as he could in as little time as possible, but all that shit collapsed around him. Then snowballed. Unfortunately, the asshole didn’t know how to make a good deal. He didn’t use his head, he used his thirst for the all-mighty dollar to make his decisions. And none of those decisions were good ones. I see why his father washed his hands of him.”
“I knew something was off. He wouldn’t discuss it and actually shut me out.”
“Here’s the thing, that’s only what we uncovered in Denver. We’re heading to San Diego to get a bead on the cartel. More recon is necessary to make solid decisions.”
“About me.”
“About your situation. How we’re going to resolve it.”
“I can’t see how to resolve it other than me just going ghost, as you put it.”
If anything, he wanted to leave that option as the final one. He wanted to avoid it if at all possible.
And mostly his reasoning was a selfish one. He knew it. So did his team.
Or if they didn’t realize it yet, they would when he met with them in the morning. They had to find a way other than ghosting Ellie.
He had an idea but would run it by the others. Six minds —or seven, including Diesel—were better than one. They all had different strengths, which was why they worked well as a team.
Her cell phone lit up on his nightstand. Before she could grab it, he did.
It was the cartel with their daily countdown.
Once again, he was reminded that the clock was ticking.
No, it wasn’t a fucking clock. More like a goddamn time bomb.
Walker glanced over his shoulder. He’d kept the light off, but there was enough early morning light leaking around the curtains to see Ellie sleeping. Her bare back was to him, the bedding pushed down all the way to her waist.
He let his gaze sweep over the line of her spine, the way her long hair spilled over his pillow, the way her ribs rose and fell with each steady breath.
Fuck. They needed to come up with a solution this morning and fast. He wasn’t going to lose her again. Not this time.
Whether she knew it or not, she was going to be permanently in his bed.
With one last look at her, he turned back to the large jar of coconut oil he kept next to the bed. When he reached for it, a hand shoved his arm away.
“Let me do it.”
Jesus. The thought of her rubbing oil onto his stump shouldn’t make his dick twitch, but it did.
“I thought you were sleeping.”
She didn’t answer as the mattress shifted and she came around the bed to stand in front of him.
Totally fucking naked.
As much as he liked it, that wasn’t going to work.
“Sweetheart, put my shirt on if you’re going to do it. Otherwise, I’m not going to get out of here on time.”
His cock was already at half-chub in the boxer briefs he had pulled on. Her going to her knees at his feet naked would only make it worse.
As he reached for his crutches, she shook her head and blocked his access. “What do you need?”
He wasn’t sure this was a good idea. He didn’t ever want to be dependent on anyone else. He sighed in resignation. “Cargo pants and my boots.”
“That it?”
“You’ll find a liner, a regular sock and I’ll need one of the shorter socks in my second drawer down.”
“Shirt?”
“Black T-shirt in the top drawer.”
She snagged the discarded T-shirt he’d tossed on the floor last night, and pulled it over her head as she moved to his dresser, got what he’d need and then went back to his closet to bring out his leg with the boot attached.
He wasn’t sure what he was feeling watching her carry it to him. He was resigned with what happened to him all those years ago, but seeing her accept him as-is kind of caught him off-guard. It shouldn’t. He should be relieved.
It was a weird feeling.
He’d been with many women over the years, most of them just one night stands, some of them were just women like Sami. Just sex, nothing serious. He’d even had women freak out and back out last minute when he removed his leg before fucking them.
Sometimes to make it easy, he wouldn’t. If it was just a quick bust-a-nut hookup, he’d take them against a wall or bent over where he only had to drop his pants enough to get the job done.
Then they never knew of his disability.
He was staring at his residual limb when her bare legs came into view.
“I’ve watched you do it a couple of times, but I want to help.” She raised a palm. “And before you say you can do it yourself, I know that. But I want to do it. Just let me, please.”
She dropped to her knees, a sight which would never get old, and he grabbed the jar and held it for her.
She dipped her fingers into the semi-solid oil and then tentatively began to rub it into his skin around the stump. “I’ve used coconut oil as a natural moisturizer.”
“Makes great lube, too.”
“You’re not doing your job if I need lube.”
“You’ll be thankful for lube when I take your ass for real.” Well, thinking that wasn’t helping his cock from getting hard, either.
She glanced up from what she was doing. “If I let you take it.”
“You’ll let me take it.”
She stuck her tongue out at him playfully and continued to rub the oil into his skin.
“Using some kind of lotion at the top of the liner helps prevent dragging on the skin,” he murmured.
She nodded. “Makes sense. Is that enough?”
“I’ll never get enough of you touching me,” he admitted.
“I meant enough of the coconut oil.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me what to do next.”
His brow furrowed. He wasn’t sure he wanted her taking care of him like this. He loved to be intimate with her, but this was a different type of intimacy.
He swallowed hard and cleared his throat to get the rough out before continuing. “Flip the liner inside out. Make sure the cup of the liner is secure against the end of my stump, and once it is... that’s it, El. Good. Now, roll it up, making sure there aren’t any air pockets.”
Her hand slowly and gently smoothed the silicone liner up his residual limb. She took her time, making sure there were no air bubbles like he’d said.
He had to look away while she did it. He focused over her head on a picture he had hanging on the wall. Even though he couldn’t see it from where he sa
t, he knew he wore a smile on his face while standing in front of a Black Hawk with the rest of his unit. The rest of them were smiling and laughing, too, since one of the guys had cracked an awful joke right before the picture was taken.
Some of his brothers in that photo never made it home. He did. He should consider himself lucky.
“Now what?”
He dropped his gaze to her upturned face as she squatted in front of him.
Fuck.
His voice was still a little raw when he said, “Roll the sock up next. All the way... That’s it. Smooth it out, then hand me my cargos that are on that chair.”
She popped up from her position on the floor and went to grab his pants, quickly returning. “Now what?”
“Now I put my pants on. And a sock on my other foot.”
She watched as he pulled his cargos over his foot and up his legs. He worked them over his hips and then rolled his left pant leg up past his knee.
“I guess loose pants help?”
“Yeah. There are different ways to get your pants on, but loose pant legs help.”
He straightened his left knee pointing his stump and the pin at the bottom of the sleeve straight out. “Grab the leg, El, slide it over my stump, making sure the pin is set securely into the locking device of the socket.”
As soon as she did so, he pushed up from the bed and the pin clicked into place, locking his leg on.
“The locking pin is how it stays on?”
“That and vacuum.”
He sat back down, put a sock and boot on his right foot, lacing it tight.
She hadn’t stepped back and was almost touching him. He could feel her body heat, she was that close.
Before he could grab his shirt and pull it over his head, she stopped him with a hand once again wrapped around his dog tags.
Her green eyes hit his and an ache swelled in his chest at the total love and devotion he saw in them.
A love that could easily be used as a weapon to destroy him if she wanted to.
He hoped to fuck she never wanted to.
He hoped to fuck he could find a solution to her problem.
He hoped to fuck that once he did, she’d stay.
What he was seeing made him think she’d say yes if he asked.
She dropped her gaze to his tags. “Tell me.”
“I don’t have time; I need to get to the warehouse.”
“They can wait.”
“El, your deadline is looming. We don’t have time to waste.”
“So, give me the abridged version. Give me something, honey. I want to know. You now know what happened to me during all those years. I need to know what happened to you.”
“I joined the Army and got a disability discharge.”
She shook her head. “No, Trace.”
“Yes, El.”
Her eyes turned sad, her lips turned downward as she captured the bottom one between her teeth.
For fuck’s sake. He didn’t want to make her sad. He didn’t want to be the reason.
He had always been the one who was supposed to make her happy.
He failed.
Now was a chance to make up for that failure.
At least a small part of it.
Though, the story might rip her apart. And make her even sadder than him keeping it from her.
If she stayed, he’d have to tell her eventually. She was right. She needed to know.
Maybe he was a coward for putting it off.
He grabbed both of her cheeks and leaned down to kiss her, pulling that bottom lip free by separating her lips, sweeping his tongue through her mouth. But only briefly because it wouldn’t take much to jerk his pants down enough to bend her over and fuck her again.
And then he’d really be late.
She sighed softly when he ended the kiss.
“I love you, El.”
His words didn’t push away her sadness, which he was hoping it would do. His story was only going to compound it.
“I won’t have time to debrief you after I tell you, so be prepared for it to haunt you the rest of the day until I get back. Then we can discuss it in more detail, yeah?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“You need to talk in the meantime, shoot me a text. If I can, I’ll call you back. But I really need to concentrate on the bigger, more important picture, which is keeping you alive and in my life.” Fuck, if he was going to reveal all, he might as well bear his soul, too.
“Okay.”
“This time I’m not letting you go so easily, El. I’m going to fight for you. Fight for what we can have. What we should’ve had all these years. I didn’t fight back then. I should’ve.”
“I should’ve fought, too.”
“You did what you thought was best.”
“So did you.”
“So did I,” he repeated, then sat back on the edge of the bed, pulling her with him. He settled her on his right thigh, with his arm around her waist. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Yes. I feel like you’re keeping a piece of you from me by not telling me.”
He closed his eyes and reluctantly took himself back to that day. The one that changed his life forever.
He had three major life-altering moments he would never forget. The first time he spotted Ellie across that gymnasium. The day he called home and she broke up with him.
And that day in Iraq.
“We were tasked with extracting some soldiers who had been caught behind enemy lines and needed a medical evacuation. We were to fly in at night, get them and get out.” Instead, he ended up being the one behind enemy lines needing the medical evacuation.
“When I talked to you, you said you were headed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom.”
“Yeah, I was there for a while and then I ended up in Iraq under the same pretext. An operation of freedom.” He did his best to keep the bitterness out of his voice, though it was difficult. “I was there until eight years ago when the Little Bird I was in crashed.”
Her eyebrows knitted together. “Little Bird?”
“It’s a smaller chopper, easier to maneuver for evacuations and rescues than something larger like a Black Hawk.”
“Your chopper was shot down?”
He shook his head. “No. It was a mechanical problem. But we crashed in a hostile territory where it was hard to miss a downed chopper. I was the co-pilot and was lucky in the sense that I survived the crash. The pilot wasn’t so lucky. When I came to, my leg was pinned. Crushed, actually.”
“So, it was amputated.”
Fuck. Yes, it was amputated, but not in the way she meant.
He closed his eyes and it all came back to him. The MH-6M was smoking, and though he hurt everywhere, he couldn’t feel shit from right above his ankle down. For a while he tried to dig the hard, arid earth out from under his leg with his knife to see if he could slip free. Unfortunately, it was like chipping away at fucking concrete.
He was sure the crash site would be spotted by insurgents once day dawned and the smoke rose high into the sky. That was if the Little Bird didn’t catch fire beforehand and burn him to fucking death.
His options of saving himself were limited. Try to wait it out until help arrived and risk being found and killed by unfriendly forces. Or get himself out of that situation and to somewhere where he could hide until he could be extracted.
He only had two hours before the sun would come up and he knew that time was ticking for him, just like it was for Ellie.
He couldn’t just lie there and wait for his destiny. So, he did what he needed to do. He removed his belt and used it as a tourniquet. He wiped his knife off the best he could on his uniform and he...
Ellie let out a low, eerie howl from deep within her chest.
He opened his eyes to see her crying, his face clasped in her trembling hands.
He spent over an hour sawing through skin, flesh and bone to free himself. He had blacked out a few times but as soon as he c
ame to, he forced himself to continue. And once he was done, when he was free, he crawled and dragged himself over the ground using his hands, elbows and his good leg, finding a radio, calling in a mayday and his location. He continued until he got to a place where he could hide in thick brush and wait for help to arrive.
The evacuator became the evacuee.
The help became the helpless.
One of the Night Stalkers’ motto was “death waits in the dark.” Unfortunately, it was waiting for him that time.
But he escaped the dark that night along with death.
He just didn’t escape it whole.
Chapter Sixteen
“No point in heading west, Walker, now we know who we’re dealing with. There’s no point in wasting time or resources to see with our own eyes what we can see right here,” Hunter said, looking up from one of the screens he was sitting behind.
Steel sat at the other computer next to Hunter, a toothpick moving at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know, brother. We’re motherfucking badasses, if I say so myself, but they out-badass us. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat.”
“And fucking with them may just stir the hornet’s nest. Last thing we need is to bring the wrath of a cartel’s army upon Shadow Valley,” Mercy said. “D would shut that operation down in a fucking second. He and everybody else have too much at risk for one woman.”
“We don’t need to start a war we can’t fucking win. And, brother, this is one we cannot win without total devastation,” Brick said, leaning against the wall, one boot planted on it, and his arms crossed over his chest.
“Agreed. It’s suicide to fuck with these people. They have endless cash, weapons and connections. I’m not one to give up easily but I’m also not fuckin’ stupid,” Ryder said.
“Can’t give up,” Walker muttered, looking around the room at his teammates. Never, ever had he seen them ready to throw in the towel. They loved challenges, so if they were saying it was a no-go, they meant it.
“You might not have a choice,” Mercy told him.
Then he had two choices left. Turn Ellie into a ghost before the cartel did or pay the fuckers off.
“Think they’ll let her off the hook if they get their dough?” Steel put into words what Walker was thinking himself.
Guts & Glory: Walker (In the Shadows Security Book 4) Page 18