Badass - The Complete Series: A Billionaire Military Romance

by Leslie Johnson

  There is a pause then, “Yes. We walked into a trap.”

  “How?”

  There’s a hand on my arm. Squeezing. I feel the pressure of it remaining there. “That’s what we’re still trying to determine. And we will find out. We will find the mole; let me assure you of that.”

  “How many?” I need to know how many died because of that mole.

  Another squeeze on my arm. And silence.

  “How many?” I ask him again. Sharper. Harder.

  An exhale. “We lost fifty-seven. Thirty-one are missing.”

  The number is like a punch in my throat.

  From everything I’d been hearing, I knew the loss was catastrophic. I expected a big number. Twenty. Thirty at the most. I knew my team had taken a direct hit. But most of us? The Seals? The Rangers too?

  One hundred and thirty-six of us went in. Fifty-seven dead. Thirty-one uncertain.

  Why me?

  “Sergeant Duffy? Sergeant Duffy?”

  I focus back on the voice. “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me what you remember?”

  I try.

  I tell Colonel Vorhees about the IEDs in the alleys. The light coming on when we opened the door. The explosions around the perimeter and what seemed like the target areas. I tell him of the shooters that were already in place. The tank.

  “That confirms what we’ve been able to assimilate. The strike began on the Ranger perimeter, effectively taking out our ground troops. It was followed immediately by four rigged explosions that imploded the four main target areas. How were you and your team not in that building yet?”

  “IEDs in the alleys. Slowed us down.” Then it hits me. The men with the bound woman. “I think we went down the wrong alley. They sent decoys we were supposed to follow. Three men and a woman. We took next alley. IED alley. All other alleys had IEDs. Not the one with men and woman.”

  “So you think you were meant to follow them?”

  I attempt to nod. Can’t. My head is strapped down. “Yes.”

  A door clicks open. Murmurs.

  “Thank you for your time, Sergeant Duffy,” Colonel Vorhees says and my arm gets another squeeze. “The physician is here to speak with you. I’ll be in touch soon. Good luck.”

  “Wait.”

  I open my eyes and see him standing above me. The hand is back. Squeezing. Releasing. “Yes, Sergeant Duffy?”

  “My team. Gone?” I had to know. I had to know for certain. I had to hear the words.

  Another squeeze. “Yes. They’re gone. I’m sorry.”

  He steps away and a moment later, the door clicks shut and another face takes his place.

  “Sergeant Duffy, I’m Dr. Hallenbeck and I’ve been overseeing your care these past two days. Do you know where you are?”

  I try to nod again. Shit. “Yes. Germany.”

  “That’s correct. You’ve undergone two surgeries to remove a total of six bullets that didn’t pass through, as well as extensive shrapnel penetrations. We also removed your spleen and have done some repairs to your scrotum as well as set multiple broken bones in your left leg. You have four cracked ribs and a collapsed lung in which we inserted a chest tube. It appears to be re-expanding nicely. The left side of your body seems to have taken the brunt of the explosion.”

  Explosion?

  That’s right. The bright light. Being thrown. Deafness. It makes more sense now.

  “Sergeant Duffy. We’ve done everything we can for your left leg, but I’m afraid it might not be enough. It is already experiencing decreased blood flow and reduced pulse points. It also puts you at greater risk of systemic infection due to the extent of the wounds. We need to make a decision—”

  “Take it.”

  There’s a pause. “Sergeant Duffy, you need to be fully aware of the—”

  “Take it.”

  One limb isn’t a fair tradeoff for all the lives that were lost this week. But I’m not seeing it as a trade. I’m seeing it as a way to move forward. The sooner I’m back on my feet, the sooner I can find the mole and the sooner I can avenge my fallen comrades. I can do that with technology, but not with what’s left of my leg.

  “Take it!”

  “Very well. We need to do this immediately to reduce infection and give you additional healing time before you return to the states. I’ll assemble the surgical team now, if you’re sure…?”

  The question hangs in the air.

  Am I sure?

  I’m not sure about anything other than this … I will be upright again. I will fight to avenge my fallen brothers.

  “I’m sure.”

  I open my eyes and look at the ceiling. I won’t close them again until justice is served.

  Chapter 2 – Grace

  Thwack. Thwack.

  I punch with everything inside of me. Punch at the face mocking my efforts. The face pushing me past my limits. Telling me I’m not good enough.

  “Congratulations Grace. You’re dead.”

  In one swoop, I’m on the mat with no idea how I got there. My hands are behind my back, head pressed down, a fake knife held to my throat.

  “You’ve got to focus, Grace,” Paul, my trainer, says to me.

  I scream out my frustration when he lets me up and then pulls me to my feet. Paul doesn’t let me be frustrated for long. He charges, taking me down to the mat again.

  “You have no time for that, do you hear me,” he says as he pulls me to my feet again. “You go down, you get back up. You re-focus. You—”

  It’s my time to charge. I punch and then come around with a roundhouse to his chest. He goes back three steps and I go after him. I’m not stopping this time.

  “That’s right,” he says as he takes one to the side of his face, but an instant later, he’s blocking my follow-up punch. He blocks another. “Come on,” he taunts, “you can do better than that. Who do you hate?”

  Rob.

  I punch again, landing this one under Paul’s chin. He staggers back, but not enough.

  “Better. Focus on the hate. My face is his face. Take me down.”

  I lunge.

  And find myself on the mat again.

  “Focused hate, Grace,” he says, his knee in my back and his lips at my ear. “Focus the hate. Let it bring clarity.” He stands up and I lay there, panting for breath.

  Finally, I roll over. “Why can’t I do this?”

  “You can do this. You will do this.” Then he walks to the side of the ring and begins to unwrap his gloved hands before tossing me a bottle of water. “Ten minute break.”

  I’ve been in Oklahoma for two days now, on a physical therapy assignment that’s supposed to last a week. This is my first workout with Paul. He was recommended to me by the department head at the hospital. The manager had given me a little smirk when he’d tossed me Paul’s card. Now I know why.

  In the five cities I’ve worked in since I left home a couple months ago, I’ve found a gym and worked out nearly every day. In the last gym, I was introduced to sparring and I loved it. I used to take my frustration out on a volleyball. Now I take it out on the side of someone’s face.

  Until today.

  “You’re a single woman traveling the country,” Paul said when I introduced myself less than an hour ago. “You need to step up your game, learn how to protect yourself.”

  I told him I’d taken a self-defense course in Texas. He just grinned at me, his coal black face lighting up with his bright smile. “Oh yeah. Let’s glove you up and see what you’ve got.”

  Apparently, I didn’t have crap. He’d handled me as easy as if I’d been a child.

  Still sitting in the middle of the mat, I try to lift the water to my lips, but I’m trembling so hard I miss my mouth. Paul sits next to me and I scowl when he laughs. “I’m not laughing at you,” he says in his super deep voice. “I’m just remembering the first time I had my ass handed to me like that.”

  “So it gets better?” I manage to huff out and finally get water in between my lips.
<
br />   “If you keep it up, it does. How long you in town?”

  “Five more days.”

  “Then come see me at least four of them and I’ll give you some tips. You’re strong. Tall. But you’re not using what God gave you. You’ve got to find your center first. Then your hate. Finally, you have to decide why you want to live. And if you can’t determine that, then you’ve got to picture who you’re fighting for.”

  I puff out a laugh and take a drink of water. “The hating part is easy.”

  Paul looks at me and nods. “That’s bad, but useful. You don’t want the hate to eat you alive, so you want to put it in a box and bring it out when needed.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me to forgive and forget? That seems to be the go-to advice everybody wants to give me.”

  He wipes his face with a towel. “Not the same thing in my opinion. You forgive for you. To find peace. You don’t want that toxic shit eating up your soul. But you can use the injustice to fuel you.”

  I feel my nose wrinkle up. “That’s a mixed message if I’ve ever heard one. Hate and forgive at the same time? Doesn’t make much sense.”

  He grins. “Don’t know what you believe, but I’m going to use the word “God” cause that’s what I believe, you cool with that?” I nod and he goes on. “Smart dude. He gave us all these emotions—happy, mad, sad, guilt. But we humans go and screw things up and label some emotions bad and some emotions good. But they’re all good. Happy is pretty self-explanatory on why it’s good. Sad is good because it reminds us of what matters, how important something or someone or something is to us. Guilt is good because it lets us know when we’ve crossed the line.”

  “And mad?” I ask, curious as to his thoughts.

  “Well, mad is good because it, if we use it wisely, creates change. And in your case, that mad helps you protect yourself. Helps you protect those you love. Helps you make this place a better world one person at a time.”

  “I don’t think I can forgive him.”

  “How long has it been?”

  I take in a deep breath. “About six months.”

  “Do you always ask that much of yourself?”

  I’m confused. “What do you mean?”

  “You were seriously hurt, betrayed, whatever, only six months ago and you think you should have healed by now? Like magic?”

  Well … yeah, I want to tell him, but I give it a little more thought. Same answer. “Yeah.”

  “The old saying is that time heals all wounds. That’s true, but only if you stop picking off the scabs. You keep picking; you keep hurting. Festering. Poisoning your system. Or you can let it heal. Just be sure to honor the scar. The scar is your reminder, not the wound.”

  I grin over at him. “How’d you get so smart?”

  He grins back. “Got taken to school a bunch, if you know what I mean. Hard knocks. Hard lessons. Learned from them all.”

  I look around the gym with about twenty sweaty men punching a bag or each other. Then I look at Paul. “Lessons, huh?”

  “Life is about lessons. Learning and growing from them. Whatever he did, you learned something from it. And not just how to hate. Remember, you also need to focus on who or what you’re fighting for. Do you know who that is?”

  Ryland. I’m fighting for my baby.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  He smiles again, the one that transforms his face so completely. He stands up and reaches out a hand and I groan as he pulls me to my feet. “Alright then. Be fierce. Fight like a mama bear would for her cub.”

  That stops me and I feel the pain slice deep, so deep it nearly takes my breath.

  “What if the cub is dead?”

  Face serious, dark brown eyes full of compassion, he says, “Nothing’s ever dead. As long as that cub lives here…” he taps my forehead, “… and here…” he taps over my heart, “…it lives. Not the ‘live’ you want, but it lives. Fight for it. Protect it. Mama bear it.”

  As I watch him re-wrap and glove his hands and pull the headgear over his bald scalp, I think of the journey that brought me to this new moment of awareness. “Do you believe everything happens for a reason?” I ask him.

  He spits the mouth guard he’d just stuck in his mouth back out. “I believe that everything happens. The reason? The reason is just some shit we humans make up so we can have some semblance of control. We humans don’t like not knowing something. Not having control. When we assign a reason, we aren’t so scared. We feel more grounded. So yeah, everything happens. Sun rises. Sun sets. Shit happens. I’m fine with leaving it at that.”

  Shit does happen, and trying to figure out why can drive a person crazy.

  “I just realized something,” I tell him. “Why? The word ‘why’ is just about the stupidest question in the universe.”

  He taps my forehead with his glove. “Damn straight. ‘Why’ is like a rabbit hole. It keeps you digging and searching and looking for the reason. The reason doesn’t matter. What matters is what you’re going to do next. That’s what moves you forward. Why keeps you in the past.”

  “And the past is hell. Don’t want to live there anymore.” I go to pop my mouthpiece in, but stop. “And what’s next? What’s next is that I’m going to kick your ass.”

  He lifts his gloves and taps them to mine.

  “Mama bear me, Grace.”

  Half an hour later, I’m still getting my butt kicked, but I’m getting in a few licks of my own. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to lift my arms tomorrow. Or next week. But I’m feeling pretty good about myself when I finally begin pulling off the gloves.

  “Same time tomorrow?” Paul asks.

  “You bet.” I grin at him. “If I can move, that is.”

  “Long hot bath tonight. Hot shower tomorrow. Two gallons of water. Stretch every couple hours and you’ll be fine. We have a lot of work to get in over the next few days.”

  I step through the ropes and hop down from the ring, my thigh muscles screaming in protest.

  “We’ll do less sparring tomorrow and I’ll put you in situations you have to get out of. We’ll practice those until you’re sick of them.”

  “Practice makes perfect, huh?”

  “Yep, something like—”

  He’s interrupted when someone yells, “Hey, turn that up!”

  All eyes turn to the TV in the corner of the room. “Breaking News” is flashing across the screen. We crowd closer to watch and the volume is finally turned up enough that I can hear what the talking head is saying.

  “CNC has just learned exclusively that there has been a massive loss for the United States military when a hostage rescue mission went horribly wrong earlier this week. Hours ago, CNC received this video from an unnamed source and we’ve been told the footage was taken in an airport hangar in Syria.”

  There’s a collective gasp all around me when the screen turns from the stony-faced news anchor to a grainy, shaking view of … coffins. Row after row of them, all draped in the American flag. Dozens and dozens of them.

  I raise my hands to my head, opening up my lungs for more oxygen when I suddenly forget how to breathe. So sad. The sight of all those coffins is so sad.

  The talking head is back. “As disturbing as this footage is, even more disturbing is the cover up that appears to be growing not only around the deaths of these soldiers, but the covert operation that went so terribly wrong.”

  The screen cuts to a man in a military uniform. He has a ton of badges and medals on his jacket and I’m ashamed that I don’t know which branch the man represents. “Major Whitmore,” a reporter is calling him, thrusting a microphone in his face. “Can you please explain what happened in Syria four days ago and why we, the American people, haven’t learned of the bloody mission until now?”

  The major says nothing, just turns on his heel and walks back into the building he just left.

  The screen cuts to another highly decorated man. Another reporter shouting, “General Hastings, why the secrecy behind the deaths of so ma
ny US military personnel? What happened in Syria? The American people have a right to know.”

  The general stops. “As this is an ongoing investigation, I’m unable to comment right now. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of those brave soldiers.” Then he moves on, ignoring additional questions until he is whisked away in a black car.

  Ambush after ambush plays out on the screen. Military officers being approached in restaurants, on the golf course, outside their homes. Few of them speak, and if they do, it’s ‘no comment.’

  “What the hell is going on?” one of the guys standing next to me says. I shake my head. I have no idea.

  The talking head is back on. “This just in. CNC has learned that the President of the United States will be addressing the nation later this evening to provide a statement regarding the news that CNC broke today. Time for that address is pending, but let me assure you that CNC will…” blah blah blah.

  I turn away from the screen, still stunned and horribly worried.

  What is going on?

  Chapter 3 – Duffy

  The door opens to my hospital room and I don’t care enough to even turn my head. Another nurse. Another doctor. Another therapist. Another doesn’t matter. It will just be another person who isn’t my friend.

  I arrived at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last night, under the cover of darkness. I was whisked from the airport and away from the glaring lights of a dozen cameras. I’d been prepped that the Syria fiasco was still big news in the states and that reporters would be vying to speak to anyone involved. They’d been staking out the airports as well as the entrances of the hospital for a glimpse of a story.

  But I’m not part of that story because I don’t exist. Not as a soldier anyway. Link Duffy is a ‘contractor’ and they are still spinning the story of the construction ‘accident’ that occurred in Afghanistan. The accident that cost the billionaire playboy his leg. But, I’ve also been told that my true occupation and cause of my injury will most likely be discovered and we should all prepare for that possibility.

  “Son.”

  The sound of my father’s voice startles me. I knew he was coming, but didn’t expect him this soon. I stare at the ceiling, focusing on the small black speck two inches from the overhead florescent light. I don’t see anything but that dark spot.