Chapter 12
Asher caught her just before she slipped off the chair. How in the hell she lasted as long as she had was beyond him. Leland had told him that there’d been a crisis that had required her to work all through the night with NATO, so she was going on less sleep than he was.
The carpet might look nice, but it still was just cream on concrete. Asher wished he had something softer to place Eden on, but as soon as he laid her down next to the wall, she curled up like she didn’t have a care in the world. What would that be like?
“Sweet dreams.”
He looked at his watch. He still had eighteen minutes before check-in. What was behind that door? He went back to his vest and pulled out his personal utility pouch. Every one of the team had theirs configured a little bit differently. Asher pulled out his handy dandy lock-pick kit.
His main job was ordinance. He liked blowing things up. He also liked disarming things. He’d been happy as hell when he’d read the term ‘improvised explosive devices’ in the ordinance manual. As far as he’d been concerned, that meant that it was his job to improvise a ton of shit. As the middle child, he’d been improvising his whole life. And since his job also involved blowing holes in things so they could get in and out of places, Asher had figured that meant he should figure out as many ways as possible to get in and out of places, hence learning how to pick locks.
He went over to the door and took a moment to examine it. It was a lever lock. He grabbed his curtain lock-pick out of the case, then it took him less than thirty seconds to get the door open. Too bad it wasn’t as easy to unlock Eden’s mind. There was so much that went on behind those witchy green eyes, it felt like his life and heart depended on finding out.
He snorted out a laugh. “Over the top, Thorne,” he whispered to himself. “You are totally caught up in the dangerous situation.”
He looked over at his shoulder at Eden and relaxed when he saw that she was sleeping peacefully.
He pulled open the door.
“Sorry, Eden,” he whispered. “No gold.”
It was a good sized room with table and chairs. Not nearly as ornate as what was in the other room, but still very nice. There was a credenza, a mini-fridge, trash can and two fake plants. They were certainly trying to impress people in here too. He opened the cupboards on the credenza for more of a clue as to what this place was. When he saw the different trays and velvet tablecloths, he realized this was probably where people brought their valuables after they took them out of the safety deposit boxes. They probably wanted privacy away from bank employees.
He snagged the tablecloths and checked the fridge.
Score!
Still cold bottles of Fiji Water. Apparently, they liked to serve the good stuff to their bank clients. He couldn’t have cared less what brand of water they wanted to serve. Okay, maybe not the previously used water bottles with the glued on tops with the germy local tap water that was sure to give you the runs. He’d gotten served that in a restaurant in Afghanistan and paid dearly.
He left the room with the tablecloths and knelt next to Eden. Slowly, gently, he lifted her head. Eden didn’t stir. Asher put one of the folded cloths beneath her cheek then tenderly rested her head back down on it. The little moan that fluttered past her lips almost made him groan. Never had he heard something so feminine and enticing. God, he had it bad.
“Sleep, sweetheart. We’re going to need the lioness soon enough.” And wasn’t that the damn truth?
He got up from his crouch and went back to the room so he could call Leo.
“Asher. What in the hell have you got yourself into?” his lieutenant demanded. “This is not the time to see if you can outdo Harry Houdini.”
“You’re showing your age, Max.” Asher chuckled. “I think you’re supposed to be saying David Blaine.”
“David who?” Now Max was sounding pissed. “Shut the hell up and listen. Right now, it seems like you have half of Maduro’s secret police force crawling over the bank.”
“Good, I hope it falls in on them.”
“Really?” came Max’s sarcastic reply.
“Instead of an hour to blow my way out of here, it might take two,” Asher blustered.
“Ah fuck, what do you mean?” He heard the defeat in Max’s voice.
“Ah fuck is right,” Asher agreed. “This thing was built in the fifties, back when they were thinking they had to withstand nukes. If I do any blasting from the inside, you won’t find even a DNA sample of either Eden or me. Our best bet is having someone using the combination that Suzanne gave Eden or having a precision C-4 blast from the outside.”
“What happens if it isn’t a precision blast?” Max asked.
Asher chuckled. “Well then, a lot of those stupid fuckers of Maduro’s are going to meet their maker.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Asher heard Kane McNamara chime in. “At least you knew that I wouldn’t be blowing myself up.”
Asher felt himself relax a little tiny bit at the sound of Kane’s voice. Granted, the man wasn’t as good with explosives as he was, but he was pretty damn good. If for some reason they couldn’t get the vault open with fair means, Kane might be able to get it open with foul means….and C-4.
“Ezio says that his guy on Omega Sky is as good as you, and he’s got him on stand-by to face-time me through everything. Of course, Ezio is probably just trying to talk up his team. Nobody is as good as you, buddy.” Kane was pouring it on thick. “But I prefer waiting until Suzanne is out of surgery and getting the code from her.”
“Why do we need her out of surgery?” Asher asked. “We have the combination.”
“Ash, this is Kane. There’s a teensy-eensy little problem. There is a revolving combination that’s employed after each use. There has to be some kind of numeric code for Suzanne to remember, but we don’t know what it is.”
“How do you know?” Asher demanded to know.
“It’s in the vault specs that Rafa pulled up.”
“Fuck!” Asher gave a frustrated groan. “Just when you think something is going to be easy.”
“My personal choice is Suzanne waking up and us finding out how to open that goddamn vault before the building collapses on it. Are we clear?” Max was still pissed.
“I love the sound of your caring voice, Lieutenant.” Asher teased.
“Ah Jesus, don’t go sounding like Cullen, otherwise I’ll leave you in there. Now tell me how the civilian is doing.”
“She’s fine. Hell, she’s more than fine. Did they tell you how she stepped up when needed?”
“Yeah, yeah, Leland can’t quit singing her praises. He told me that he would ruin my credit rating for life if I didn’t figure out a way to bring her out safely.” Max paused. “On a serious note, we should know about Señora Azua in about three hours. I’ve checked with the bank manager, Hector. He told me any kind of override rests with her. It’s going to be a while before the secret police can dig their way to the vault to set charges, so unless you have a problem, don’t bother checking in until midnight.”
“I appreciate it.”
Asher hung up and set his watch. That was one of the first things he learned, never pass up sleep, food, or water when it was available, because you never knew when you’d get a chance at it again. He picked up another velvet tablecloth. And a pillow, you never passed up a pillow if you had a chance for that, either.
How could Xavier look so calm? It never made any sense. None of it made any sense. Asher watched Xavier finish up scraping off the last dish in the sink, then put it into the dishwasher and start the dishes.
What the hell was that all about?
“Please, Xave, don’t do this,” Asher begged. He knew what was coming and it broke his heart.
Xavier ignored him. It was like he wasn’t even in the room with his brother. Asher could see Xavier clear as day, but no matter how loud he yelled, Xavier ignored him.
“Please no, I beg you,” Ash cried, his hands reaching out i
n supplication.
He tried to grab him, but his fingers went right through his brother’s body. Ash looked down at his hands and realized that they were made of mist. But he had to try. He had to.
Xavier went to the refrigerator and pulled off a picture that had been taped to the front of it. The photo was of him and the men in the unit he’d served with when he was in Afghanistan. Xavier took it with him into the garage.
Asher followed, still yelling at his brother to stop.
“Don’t go in there. Don’t go!”
It hit Asher hard when he saw that Xavier’s Mustang coupe and Triumph motorcycle weren’t in the garage. Instead, a plastic tarp covered the cement. He knew this from photos he had pulled from the coroner’s office. He fucking knew this was how it looked.
“Xavier,” he pleaded. Begged. Cried.
His brother propped up the picture of his unit on his workbench. He picked up the Glock and knelt in the middle of the tarp. His gun was steady as he held it against his temple.
“I love you, Xave, no!”
“Asher, wake up.”
“Don’t do it!”
“Please, Baby, wake up now.”
Soft, warm hands stroked his hair. A soft body nestled up against him. He kept his eyes closed, wanting to assess the situation before letting anyone know that he was awake. But he knew it was Eden in a heartbeat. Her touch and smell could never be mistaken for anyone else.
“Asher, it’s a bad dream, please wake up.” Her body was pressed against his, her arms wrapped around his neck. She whispered into his ear, coaxing him back from an old nightmare. One of his own making.
He reached up to pull her arms away, but she wasn’t having it.
“No. I’m not letting you go.”
“I’m fine, Eden.” His voice was hoarse. He hated that.
“Bullshit.”
He let out a dry laugh. “Warm and soothing didn’t last long.”
She sighed and settled closer. “If I thought warm and soothing would get my way, then I’d be all over it. It wasn’t working. So just lie there and accept comfort.”
Asher tried to sort out his feelings. He still felt sick at heart after watching Xavier’s last moments on Earth. How many times had he relived that in his dreams? Then to wake up to an angel in his arms offering him the type of solace he’d never gotten before. He was having a tough time reconciling things.
“Ash?”
“I’m here now,” he assured her.
He couldn’t see Eden because he’d stuck the glow stick under his vest, so they’d sleep better. Stupid. Shit, he wasn’t any better than a toddler who needed a nightlight, so he didn’t have nightmares.
Her arms tightened around his neck again. She slid her cheek against his jaw. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s not good. So, stop.”
He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the dark, like that made any sense.
“Talk to me, Ash.”
“I can’t.”
“You just did,” she teased gently. “Now say more words. Tell me about Xavier.”
He blew out a shuddering breath. Eden was potent. She could comfort and stick a knife into you at the same time. Then he felt her fingers stroking his jaw.
“I can’t,” he said again.
“Whatever it is, it’s killing you. We don’t know what the next hours are going to bring. We’re in this moment out of time, hidden from the world. Now will be the only minute you will ever be able to say your truth.”
Every single word pummeled his heart.
She brushed the softest kiss against the side of his mouth. “I’m not even here, you’re just speaking to your God.”
Who made that sound? The one that sounded like a sob? Was that him? He took in a deep breath.
“Eden?”
“Hmmm?”
“The only reason I would talk, is because it is you.”
She didn’t respond with words. Just another butterfly-soft kiss that started at his lips and trailed down his jaw to his neck. Then she rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m here.”
“Xavier is…was…the greatest man I’ve ever known. He’s my older brother. He was the rock that kept Lawson and me safe and sane when our dad died. He was there for our Maman to lean on. He was a hero in every sense of the word.”
Eden just hummed her agreement as her body pressed even closer.
Asher pictured Xave’s penetrating blue eyes and square jaw. “He joined the Army straight out of high school. It was another sacrifice—he hadn’t been trying for a scholarship, he’d been taking care of Law and me, so he skipped college and just enlisted. He was golden and was almost immediately tapped for Delta Force.”
Asher remembered the last picture that was taken with the three of them and their mom. He had it tucked away in his vest. It had been three Christmas’s ago. The pride on her face shone through on the photo.
Eden stroked his jaw, and Asher realized he’d stopped talking. “Xave…”
She rolled on top of him. The darkness was absolute, but he imagined her green eyes staring down at him. Willing him to continue. He swallowed.
“Xavier came back from a mission and he was different. He received the Bronze Star for heroism. The deal is, you don’t talk about missions, you keep it within the team or unit who was with you, but we talked. What the hell? We were both Spec Ops, and we’re brothers. But we didn’t talk about this one. Half his unit was wiped out on some Godforsaken hill in Afghanistan and he doesn’t have a scratch on him, but the remaining men are treating him like some kind of Messiah.”
Asher once again pictured Xavier, and how he looked when he came back.
“Eden, his body might have come back, but his soul didn’t. I would look in his eyes, and I couldn’t get him to really laugh, or really talk. He’d pretend and put on a pretty good show, but it didn’t fool me. The only time he seemed real was when he was with another man from his unit. Then he was manic, over the top with concern, like he was their father or priest or something.”
Asher must have been silent a while, because Eden prompted him.
“What did you do?”
“Not nearly enough. I tried talking to him. I went down to North Carolina three times, to try to get him to open up. Nothing.”
Again, he must have stopped talking because Eden’s voice was whispering in his ear.
“And then?”
“Then nothing. He killed himself. I fucked up. I didn’t take care of my brother.”
She pushed up on his chest. He could feel her looking down at him. Could she really see him?
“What else were you supposed to do?” she asked quietly.
“I should have reported my concerns to his lieutenant.”
“Did you think he was going to kill himself? Really?”
Asher rolled and Eden was beneath him. Then he got up. He snagged his vest and the green light of the glow stick made both of them show up in stark reality. He gave a half-smile. “It’s not our safe little bubble anymore. Talking time is over.”
Eden clabbered up off the floor and shoved her fists on her hips. “Bullshit. Talking time has just started, Buddy. Answer my question. Did. You. Think. He. Would. Kill. Himself?”
“Fuck no. If I did, I would never have left. I would have tranq’d him, tied him up, and dragged his ass to the V.A. hospital,” he yelled at her.
“Then what the hell are you blaming yourself for?”
“For being so stupid that I missed the signs. I thought he would end up fucking up his job. I thought he would end up being kicked out of the Army for not checking in, for dereliction of duty, and I wanted him to snap out of it because I knew how important being a soldier was to him.”
“Did you want him to get help?”
“Fuck yeah, but I didn’t think professional help was that important. I figured he could just pull himself up by his own bootstraps or just talk to me.” He slammed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I was so fucking wrong.”
Asher was breathing so hard that for a moment he thought the vault was losing oxygen. Then he realized he was hyperventilating, so he took a couple of deep breaths.
“Eden, I had Kane pull the file on that damned mission. It was a freaking miracle that anyone survived. One of the Afghan fighters they were working with sold them out, they were surrounded. Xave’s best friend in the Army died on that mission. When I read what he accomplished, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Then I pictured it from Xavier’s point of view—he would only focus on the twelve men who died, not the twelve men he saved.”
Eden stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. She rested her head on his chest, and he could breathe in the subtle hint of peaches from her hair. “What have you done since then?”
Ash tried to pull away, but she wasn’t having any of it. “Answer the question, Thorne. What have you done since then? Since Xavier’s suicide?”
“How did you know?” he rasped.
“I figure every hour together in a situation like this is at least forty-eight. So, I’ve known you for quite some time, Asher. Just answer the question. What have you done since Xavier’s death?”
He pulled her closer, taking her weight against his body. She felt good. The fact that she had burrowed into his head and heart felt better.
“I’ve checked in with each member of Xavier’s team, including taking them on a deep-sea fishing trip. I wanted to make sure they’re okay.”
“Were they?”
“All but one.”
“What did you do?”
“I talked to his wife. We had an intervention and got him into counseling. He’s doing much better now.” This time, he did push her away enough so he could see her eyes. “How did you know?”
“I know you. I’m so goddamn sorry about your brother. I would love to have met him. But the man you were then did the best he could. You need to forgive yourself.”
Her Chosen Protector: Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 3) Page 12