Wounded Courage (Lucky Thirteen)

by S. M. Butler

Certainly wasn’t what I was expecting.

  Addison

  Chris shoved the folding chair back, letting it clatter across the concrete floor. He leaned over the desk. “My sister. She’s my sister. I’m not going to—”

  “Son, you want to sit down and shut your mouth a sec, okay?”

  Chris looked stunned, but he did as he’d been told. The concrete tone in the older man’s voice would not allow disobedience, and I saw Chris’s bravado crumble in the weight of it.

  The master chief turned his attention back on me. How did he manage to make me feel about twelve? “I don’t think that you really knew your boyfriend, honey. Not as well as you think you did.”

  “I knew him just fine.” I glared for good measure. “I know he did bad things. But we were trying to get him out.”

  “Oh, honey. Alex Giroux was a very, very rich man. If he really wanted out, do you think he needed to siphon money from his family?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “I suppose you thought you were going to fix him. You don’t fix his type, honey.” He thumbed through the file in front of him and pulled out another sheet. “This is your boyfriend’s net worth as recorded at the time of his death.”

  I took the sheet from him. I glanced over the numbers, which were right on par with what I thought. “I don’t understand.”

  “Now… men like Giroux… They have Plan Bs. They don’t just die. They’re like fucking cockroaches, always being swatted, playing dead, and coming back later to rob you of all the food you left behind.” He jabbed his finger into the sheet on the table. “This? He was at the highest net worth he’d ever had at the time of his death. He cashed in everything. Yet… no one could find any of it. It’s almost like he knew he was going to die.”

  Well, wasn’t that kind of the point of our original plan? He died officially and we moved to the Caribbean.

  “If he’s still alive…” Chris paused, “he’ll know she’s here.”

  “I think this facility is still secure.”

  “It’s a trap. It has to be,” Chris said.

  How much should I have told them? I should I have said I knew about it and why? It was terrifying to think about me doing this alone, continuing on in Alex’s stead. Only a few years ago, I’d been in high school, playing head cheerleader.

  Now… the reason I’d done it was dead and I was unwillingly worth billions in just a few days. And I’d lost a good friend. Tears bubbled inside me, just aching to be let loose.

  I’d never lost someone I cared about before. There hadn’t even been a death in my family during my lifetime. I’d never watched friends die. But I remembered the splatter of blood when Rene’s bullet dug into Alex’s chest. I remembered the surprised look on his face, and how he’d searched me out and met my eyes with regret and sadness. He’d known then. He’d known that his death would be a trigger for things to come, that his death would be the catalyst for everything else in my life.

  Alex had brought me into this world without even a second thought. Except Alex didn’t do anything without thinking it through. So his death had meaning, even if I didn’t know what it was yet. So what had Alex planned as a contingency.

  “No,” I shook my head vigorously. “I saw him die. He wanted you guys to find me because he knew you guys would keep me safe where Rene wouldn’t.”

  Master Chief Collins sighed and looked down at the papers in front of him. Chris slid back into the seat next to me. He turned it so it faced me and rested one arm on the back of the chair. “Addison…”

  “No!” I snapped, fury eating at my patience. “Alex is dead.” I ran my hands over my face. “Alex wanted out. His family wouldn’t let him go. I wanted to help. That’s all there is to it.” Admitting it out loud, that I’d freely become part of the mob, was at once freeing and scary as hell.

  I wasn’t sure how much they knew about Alex’s activities or the protection he’d given me. I glanced at Collins, who regarded me closely, but he didn’t say anything.

  “So you entrenched yourself in an international crime ring?” Chris’s voice was incredulous. “And then you come here, where you put us in jeopardy too. What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that the man I loved was in trouble!” I shot out and instantly regretted the outburst. “I was thinking that I watched him die!”

  Chris’s eyes rounded, his mouth parting. Shock colored his cheeks. But I didn’t look away. I’d made my choice months ago. Growing up and even into our early adulthood, I’d sat there while Chris made our family proud, listening to the rest of them gush about how amazing he was and give me passive aggressive vibes that I was a failure. I’d had a shot to make a difference, and I’d taken it.

  “I didn’t… I didn’t know who he was when we met. When I did find out, he said he was clean, that he was out of the life. But then his sister and two of his brothers showed up out of nowhere, and the next thing I knew, he was starting to get sucked back into that world and it was killing him, changing him.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?” Chris’s voice was a mere whisper. “Why did you stay with him?”

  “Haven’t you ever loved someone?” I asked, my face flushing slightly as I realized that Master Chief Collins still sat at the table, silently watching us. “I mean, really loved them?”

  He didn’t answer, and he really didn’t need to. Chris had never been a one-woman sort of guy. I didn’t even remember him having a girlfriend in high school at all. He’d always been too busy with kickboxing and running, and generally being the awesome offspring that everyone loved and adored. No matter what I did, I was always overshadowed by him.

  His eyes scanned over me. He was silent for a long moment before he turned away from me to the master chief. “You knew my sister was involved. You have an entire file on her. How long?”

  “Since she met Alex,” Collins didn’t even sound apologetic. “The information was need to know. There was no reason to tell you.”

  “And the raid… where we found her?”

  “Our intel had Marie as the only Giroux in the house.”

  “It was a last minute change. We were supposed to go to Paris. We were about to leave when I saw Devyn. And then I refused to leave.” The confirmation was followed by a few seconds of silence.

  “I should have been told,” Chris broke the silence.

  “There wasn’t any reason to tell you, Hardy. You, of all people, know we often withhold critical mission information. If we’d told you about her, you would have made her your priority and not Brody Battles and his wife. It would have compromised the mission.”

  Chris was seething. I could see it in the way his body tensed. He cleared his throat but no words came out. He wanted to say something, but he held back. He clasped his hands behind him, his feet shoulder width apart. I wondered if he realized he stood in the “at ease” position, if it was a purposeful stance, or if it was just that drilled into him.

  “Rene found out,” I said quietly, recalling my way through that night. I hadn’t remembered parts of the conversation right before Rene shot Alex. But now that I’d heard what the master chief was saying, I knew. Rene had discovered his brother’s betrayal. “Regardless of whether Alex is dead or not, he didn’t expect Rene. But Rene found out something… That’s why he was so angry. That’s why Alex wanted me out of the room. Because Rene knew about his brother’s side business. Alex knew he was in trouble.”

  “Addison, I know this is hard—”

  Rage. That was what I was feeling. But I wasn’t sure the direction of my rage. On one hand, Alex lied to me, again. Next, Rene pulled the trigger but he wouldn’t have killed his own brother for nothing. Not unless he believed he was already betrayed. So whatever angle that Alex had been playing, his brother had found out about it. Finally, there was Master Chief Collins, who had known about me for what seemed a while now, since he had quite a large file in front of him, and had not informed my brother of this little tidbit.

  I laughed. I cou
ldn’t help it. The situation was so incredible. If I’d written it in a book, people would have said it was unrealistic. Yet, there I was. “What you’re hoping is that I will feel betrayed and give you some kind of intelligence that will point you in the right direction. Give you some clue as to how to bring the Giroux family to their knees.” I shook my head, slowly, and deliberately. “I can’t do that, because I don’t know how. I barely knew about any of Alex’s activities for a long time. My primary goal was getting him away from them. That’s all. What you don’t seem to understand, Master Chief, is that I was just arm candy. That’s all. A pretty face for him to strut around.”

  “I think we both know that’s not true.”

  “So you don’t think I’m pretty?”

  “Addison, that’s enough.”

  “No, it’s fine.” The older man smiled, but the malevolence in that expression gave me pause, sent chills down my back. “Miss Hardy, I would truly like to thank you for your assistance and your honesty during our conversation.”

  I couldn’t believe how long Chris had remained quiet behind me. I turned to look at him, and was surprised by how serene he looked. If not for the clench of his jaw, I’d never have known he was holding anything back. His entire body was relaxed, but ready. I wondered if he was like that in combat situations too.

  I knew that was as much as I was getting out of them. And talking that long about Alex had dredged up all the misery I’d been pushing down over his death. I wasn’t ready to deal with it. Not yet.

  I stood and let Chris lead me toward the door. Alex and I had traveled a lot. We’d barely ever been to his house, the one where the team had found me. And now that I’d thought of it, I didn’t think that was by accident. Alex knew we were in danger, and he’d kept us moving constantly. But he hadn’t told me, because why? He hadn’t wanted me to be afraid? He didn’t want me to know? I didn’t understand it. Guilt held me down like lead weights. Had he been careless because of me? Had he tipped off his brother by being overly protective of me?

  He opened the door, and started to guide me through when I stopped.

  Considering the Giroux’s hatred of SEAL Team Thirteen as I’d learned here, he’d probably made it known to his family that I was a prisoner but didn’t know it. It had been his cover for me, and he’d blown it when Rene tried to kill Devyn and me.

  God, I was stupid. Alex was still dictating my life, telling me what I needed to do from the grave. If what he wanted was to be free of his family, he was now. So why did I feel beholden to him?

  “Master Chief?” I glanced back at the older man.

  “Yes, Miss Hardy?” He glanced up from his papers.

  “I’ll tell you what I can. That’s all I can do.”

  Master Chief Collins’s lips turned up in triumph.

  “I owe it to Alex to see this done.”

  “You owe him nothing,” Chris snarled. “The bastard probably isn’t even dead.”

  I didn’t want to fight with my brother over this, but I wasn’t going to budge either. I’d let him run over me growing up, and he was trying to do it again. I wasn’t going to let him. It didn’t matter that Alex wasn’t dead, or was dead. I had to do this.

  The heat of Chris’s anger steamed behind me, but he had to understand that I wasn’t a child. I was the same damn age he was. I was an adult with my own mind and he didn’t know what I knew. If he had, I was pretty certain at that point he’d be looking at me with the Typical Chris Disappointment. I wasn’t nearly as squeaky clean and duty bound as he was. I wasn’t sure what that made me.

  ~*~*~

  This time, I let my brother guide me out of the room. In the hall, his hand came down on my shoulder, a familiar weight from my much easier childhood. I missed those days, when I used to tag along with Chris and Murphy, even though neither of them wanted me there, and bug them to death. Now… everything was so much more complicated.

  Chris had a question in his eyes when I glanced up at him.

  “I’m okay,” I told him.

  “I know you are.” Of course he knew I wasn’t. I only said I was okay when I wasn’t. But now wasn’t the time to get into that. “Hungry?”

  I smiled back, glad to see my familiar Chris for a moment. He’d been so tense in that room, and I didn’t like how quiet he’d been. All these guys here had that way about them. They were professional, courteous.

  “Good. Because the chow hall is next on the agenda.” He bared his teeth at me in a solid grin again, which was contagious. He’d been so angry, at me, at his boss that I was afraid as soon as we’d left the room, he’d just start yelling at me. But he didn’t, and I wasn’t sure what that meant.

  I’d been there for two weeks. His team had returned the fourth day. While I didn’t have a lot of interaction with them, I’d still gleamed a lot about them from watching them. All of them were passionate about what they did, about their team, and they were inseparable. Brothers. Such different people on their own, like Chris and his temper, and Murphy and his calm, Dylan and his jokes… but together the team was a cohesive, closely knit family.

  I thought about this only because most of them were in the galley when we entered. The boisterous jokes subdued themselves for a moment, as they always did when I came in the room. I’d decided that they were probably boy jokes that I was better off not hearing.

  The medic, Gabe White was there, and naturally, I’d become most comfortable with him. I’d spent most of my time around him and Dylan while he took care of my injuries.

  Eamon Murphy was the enigma that drove me crazy. As soon as the rest of the team had shown up, he’d assigned Chris to watch me full-time. The guy was avoiding me, and I was just about ready to call him on it.

  Murphy was the ultimate alpha male. Not like those cocky assholes that were all ego and strutting their stuff. He was too serious. His quiet professionalism, even with the guys, spoke volumes. They listened to him, even though he wasn’t the ranking sailor there; Nolan Bonham was the first class and the official leading petty officer. But he didn’t have the commanding presence that Murphy did, and he was apparently more than willing to let Murphy take the lead.

  I think the one thing that unnerved me the most about Murphy was that he never smiled. He had when we were kids. He’d been a joker like Dylan. Sometimes, I would catch him, and when he did smile, it lit up his face, made him look so incredibly sexy. His demeanor should have put me off. It should have had me running the opposite direction. But I wasn’t. If anything, I wanted him more.

  Murphy

  The chow hall wasn’t much bigger than a twenty foot room, but we really didn’t need a lot of room here. There were only six to eight of us here at any given time anyway. But right then, it felt like it was a six foot box I’d been crammed into, forced into the same space as Addison. My master plan of avoiding her wasn’t really working anymore. She was everywhere. Not that the complex was that big. We were bound to run into each other.

  Dylan bumped my arm with his elbow. “Check it. The prodigal sister. Man, she’s hot… the things I want to do to her.”

  I rolled my eyes, trying not to let his words eat away at the restraint I had. “Urban, you need some serious professional help.” The guy was a nineteen-year-old sex addict. And it boiled my insides knowing that he got to see Addison, be near her, see her. I just knew that my self-control was practically non-existent where she was concerned.

  “Dude, I’ve been out here for months. The Aruguay girls are all about their virginity and marriage and shit. I’m dying here.”

  “You’re an ass.” I sighed heavily, watching Chris and Addison walk over to an empty table, her still favoring her leg. She sat, but Chris went off to grab her a plate. She folded her fingers together in front of her. She was facing away from me, and I was glad of it, in all honesty. I didn’t think I could take her gaze on me today.

  “Hey, don’t hate. The ladies like me.”

  I turned my head so I could see Urban. Was he really saying those words? �
�You might think that your little way of flirting with every female under the sun is a good thing, and that you’re awesome, but let me tell you this. That girl there, she’s off-limits to you. You don’t look at her, you don’t touch her, you don’t flirt with her.”

  Dylan frowned. “What? Murphy, I didn’t—”

  “What happened with you and Cadence Long, that’s not happening with Addison. That’s Chris’s sister and she’s been through a lot.”

  “Cadence was different. That situation was completely different than this.”

  “Addison is off-limits. You’re going to respect that boundary or we’re going to have problems.”

  “I was just joking around about Hardy’s sister, yo.” Dylan frowned.

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way, okay? Addison is off-limits.” Fuck. I was getting so bent out of shape. What was she doing to me?

  “I got it, man. Shit.” Dylan’s lip curled up in half-anger. “What’s with you? You never cared this much about any women we rescued before…” His eyes widened. “You like her.”

  I cursed inwardly. Was I that transparent?

  “I’m just getting you to be more professional. Your behavior lately has been veering into jackass territory.”

  “Fuck that noise. Don’t try to snow me. You like Addison.” Was he speaking louder? I wondered if I knocked his ass out if he’d hate me afterward.

  “Look, you fucktard. Shut the hell up. You say that shit out loud and some dumbass is actually going to believe you.”

  “You’re telling me it’s not true?”

  “Yes. I’m telling you it’s not true.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  Dylan laughed and ate the last of his food. He stood up. “Whatever makes you sleep better at night. But if I see it, then Hardy’s going to eventually see it. And then he’ll kill you for defiling his baby sister.”

  “They’re twins, and I’m not defiling her.” Now, the fact that I wanted to, so badly, was irrelevant and not conducive to the conversation. I just kept that little tidbit to myself.

  Dylan laughed again, but didn’t respond otherwise. He just lifted his plate and took it to the trash. The smirk he sported was enough to make me want to smack the shit out of him.