by Diana Gardin
I attempt to bore a hole into the table with my eyes.
“After Diaz pointed out the location, we holed up in the jungle to wait for the right time to make our move. Diaz returned to his home a few miles away. But when he got there…he found his family, held at gunpoint, by the devil himself. Suarez.”
Unbidden, a strangled breath escapes me. Because as soon as Jacob says the words, the memories come flooding back like a wave of salt water you try so hard not to swallow but can’t help it. I’m suffocating on the memories, choking on the emotions they evoke.
“Somehow, Suarez had intel that we never anticipated him having. He knew we were there, he knew what we were there for. And he knew that Diaz was the one who’d sold him out. Instead of killing Diaz’s family right then and there, Suarez used them as incentive for Diaz to go back to us, tell us to call off the rescue and the raid. Suarez’s whole operation would have gone down that night, and he knew it.”
I suck in a deep, shuddering breath as the horrific memories, the gruesome images I never wanted to remember bombard me. I bury my head in my hands, trying to keep the thoughts out. But they’re seeping in, despite my best efforts.
The gun. I remember how big and shiny it looked. I’d seen plenty of them before, growing up where I had, but never one so close to the head of someone I loved. So close to my own head. It seemed so much shinier and more solid than it did when I saw them from afar.
Suarez, shouting at my mother in a way that my father never would. My brother, Marcos, as a skinny fifteen-year-old, trying to shield us from the worst of it. But he was no match for Suarez. Suarez used the butt of his gun to knock Marcos to the ground, and I remember my mother pleading with him to wake up.
The blood, streaming from the side of my brother’s head? That’s what started it. The buzzing in my brain. The only way I was able to block it all out. I kneeled in a corner of the room and began to rock. I was vaguely aware of Suarez shouting at my mother, asking her what was wrong with her freak daughter. The strong resoluteness with which my mother refused to answer him.
Shuddering, I take a deep breath to try to calm my heartbeat.
Jacob continues. “Diaz ran straight back to our location, telling us what was happening at his home. I immediately decided that the mission still needed to go on. I knew the U.S. Army would never reconcile saving one family versus bringing down an entire cartel family’s operation and saving a diplomat. But I promised Diaz I’d save his family, along with bringing down Suarez and his crew.”
Jacob stops talking after that, leaning back from the table and pacing toward the windows. Grisham’s voice rises in the oppressive silence.
“What happened?”
I won’t look at Jacob’s face when he relays the next part of the story. I can’t. I stare at Bennett like he’s the only thing in the room, and somehow his eyes, burning into mine, seem to understand how much I need him.
My hands are wringing so hard in my lap I’m in danger of cutting off my own circulation.
But I stay.
Jacob’s voice gets rough, granules of sand scratching against the,weathered stone of his memories.
“The mission came first. It had to. I had orders. So we followed the procedure we’d planned and went in after the diplomat. After we got him out, with plenty of cartel casualties but none to my team, I sent three of my men to the pickup point without me, and took one man with me to Diaz’s home. The cartel took a big hit that night, but not all of them went down. One key member in particular, Suarez’s son, escaped.”
I suck in a deep, rattling breath. My lungs can’t seem to fill with enough air. All I can do is keep taking shallow ones because the breath going in and out of my body right now is the only thing keeping me upright.
That, and Bennett’s stare.
“By the time we got there, a gunshot sent us into overdrive. When I looked in a window, Diaz’s wife was bleeding out on the floor. Suarez yanked the little girl to him by the hair, holding her in front of him. The son was sprawled out on the floor, and I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. Diaz was pleading for his daughter’s life.”
Despite my best efforts, I can’t turn off my brain. Because of my autism, I can usually shut out any and everything that makes me uncomfortable. Block it off, tear myself away, whatever it takes. But this is my job; it’s a professional setting and I don’t want a single one of these men to think less of me because I need to leave the room when shit gets hard.
I squirm in my seat, and the next thing I know, there’s a warm hand squeezing mine under the table. I look up, startled, and Bennett gives me the smallest of nods.
He’s encouraging me. He’s here for me. Like I need him to be.
I squeeze the shit out of his hand, hard enough to hurt, but he doesn’t even flinch.
He just squeezes back.
My heartbeat takes off, my stomach takes flight. The smallest, most shredded pieces of me start to slowly thread back together again.
“We didn’t have time for a plan. I went around to the back of the house and snuck in through the back door. The little girl’s screams…Sayward’s screams still haunt me to this day.”
And that’s when it all comes rushing back. Every last detail that I didn’t want to remember.
My mama falls down, the loud pop still echoing through our small house. I’m right beside her, and as soon as she falls I place my hands on my ears and my mouth opens to scream.
But the scream never comes, because someone’s big hand lands on top of my mouth before I can make a sound. My heart beats so fast. Like I’ve just run a mile. I know what running fast and far feels like; I’ve tried to keep up with my Marcos more times than I can count.
“Please.” Papi’s voice is low, but it’s so full of pain and sadness that I want to close it out. I want to close everything out, this entire night. I don’t want to remember any of it.
A man I’ve never seen before creeps out from the kitchen, a gun aimed on the awful man holding me close to his chest. The man who yelled at my papi and shot my Mama.
My eyes skirt over to where my mama lies on the floor. Her head is bleeding. My stomach rolls, and I feel the need to throw up, just like when I’m sick from eating bad food.
The man pulls out his cell phone. “Pablo. Are you safe?” He listens, and then nods. Relief blazes in his dark, dark eyes. “Good. Yes, I have the man responsible for everything that happened tonight. He’ll pay. I have the loveliest little thing here, Pablo. I’m sure you’ll enjoy training her. And one day, she will be your wife. Her name is Sayward.”
His smile is what I later came to know as pure evil as he places his phone back into his pocket.
“Please. Don’t hurt her.” Papi’s voice is begging. “Don’t take her, too.”
There’s a mean growl behind me. “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m going to take her with me. Your daughter is going to make the perfect drug runner. Quiet, innocent–looking, unassuming. And then one day, she will make the perfect wife for my son, Pablo, who will take over my entire operation. And you will have to watch, watch her while she belongs to me. That will be your punishment.”
My papi lunges then, reaching for me with both arms as I hear another pop, pop, pop of gunfire. The clawing hands release me, and I drop to the floor. I want to rush to my mama, but instead I crawl toward the wall and curl into a small, tight ball. I cover my ears and I sing. Sing every single song I know, as loud as I can, until the noise is over and the horrible scene in front of me melts away into nothingness.
“Together with Ricardo and Marcos, we moved Suarez’s body and made sure it looked like a rival cartel encroached on their territory. It was the best we could do with what we had, and I told Ricardo he needed to take his family and run. We knew Suarez had gotten the call in to his son, and that he’d used Sayward’s first name. We had no way of knowing if the cartel would buy the cover-up or if they were already looking for Sayward, since that’s the only piece of information they had.”
&nb
sp; Jacob’s voice sounds like it’s traveling from somewhere far, far away. “Ricardo and Marcos refused to run. He wanted to stay, make sure that the cartel never caught wind of the fact that a bull’s-eye had been placed on his daughter’s back. He wanted to know if and when chatter started up about Sayward. He thought he could protect her better by staying in Colombia and keeping his ear to the ground. I promised him, at that moment, that I’d take his daughter and hide her. Make sure she couldn’t be found by the cartel. I brought her back to the States. Found her a family nearby to raise her. I knew I couldn’t do it, not when my marriage was falling apart and I was still on active duty. But I made sure that I could check in on her as often as possible.”
A heavy silence falls. No one speaks, and every single man in the room has eyes on Jacob while they digest our story. But I can only look at Bennett. I have the strangest feeling that if I look anywhere else I’ll lose it. I’ll start crying or screaming or rocking like when I was a child, and I’ll never be able to stop.
I’ve never allowed myself to relive that night.
Never.
And now the entire team of men I work with know exactly what happened to me, to my family, all those years ago. The fact that the truth has come out should be a comfort, but it isn’t.
My past is catching up with me; between Marcos showing up in my life here and Jacob having to share all of my deepest, darkest secrets…it’s all too much. Finally, I allow myself to break contact with Bennett, just as Dare speaks.
“What do you need from us?” he asks, his voice thick, rough.
These men, even though I haven’t known them long, have become like big brothers, and I know that whatever pain I’m suffering, they’ll suffer it right along with me.
“Sayward’s brother, Marcos, just showed up in town.” The dark cloud of suspicion in Jacob’s voice is something he’s unable to hide.
But I don’t want to hear it. The mention of my brother, the one connection to my past—to my family—that I have left, sends me running. I need air. I need quiet. I need solitude. I push up from my chair.
“Bathroom,” I mumble to the room as I scurry around the table and finally out the door.
Making my way downstairs, I find the bathroom just outside the lobby where Rayne’s desk is set up and lock myself inside. I slide down against the wall, and hold in my sobs as tears streak silently down my face.
7
Bennett
When Sayward gets up and practically runs from the room, it takes everything I have not to rise from my seat and go after her. But when I glance around the room, it seems like no one else is inclined to do so.
“Is she gonna be okay?” I ask the room.
I don’t know Sayward the way these guys do, but I can feel the sorrow evident on all of their faces mirrored inside me. It hurts, thinking about what happened to her all those years ago. It’s almost like I can feel what she’s feeling, and the desolation is a goddamned force trying to knock me backward.
Conners shoots me a sharp look, while Jacob levels a shrewd one on me. Rather than answering me, Jacob begins to speak about how Marcos showed up to tell Sayward her father died. Jacob says we’ll be traveling to Colombia next week so that Sayward can attend her father’s memorial.
“Wait…is that even safe? Is the head of the cartel still after her?” I stare around the room like every man there has lost his fucking mind.
“Suarez is dead.” Jacob’s tone is flat.
I stare at him, my eyes narrowing with suspicion. “But you don’t think the danger to Sayward has been eliminated. It’s why you’ve been hiding her all these years. And why we’re going with her?”
I sit back in my leather chair and fold my arms. On the inside, I don’t even know why words are coming out of my mouth right now. This is Day One on a brand-new job. A job in which I’m participating on a trial run, for shit’s sake. All I wanted to do was sit back and learn the ropes.
Only now, because of a woman I feel a strange, unexplainable pull toward, I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.
Jacob’s eyes cut toward me. He’s silent for a beat, before he answers. “I’ve kept tabs on the situation in Colombia. It appears that Suarez’s son, Pablo, did take over as head of the cartel. If a Suarez is in charge, I don’t trust anything that happens down there while Sayward is in Colombia. Even if she’s with her brother. As far as we know, Pablo bought into our cover-up, but he knows Sayward’s name. That’s enough for me to be concerned.”
He glances at Grisham. “Ghost, I don’t know how focused Sayward is going to be right now. I’m going to need you to handle planning and strategy with me. We don’t know what we’ll run into, and it very well could be nothing. But I have a schedule for the memorial and we can assess the lay of the land. I need Brains on tech and weaponizing us as we see fit once we find out more. You can handle doubling up, right?” He turns his attention to Teague.
When he starts using the team members’ field nicknames, I know that Jacob is in mission planning mode.
“Yeah, Boss Man.” Both men nod, but Abbott’s the one who speaks up.
Jacob nods. “The rest of you can go train. Rayne has information about the way guerrillas in the cartel are most likely to fight. Use that intelligence and train accordingly.”
Abbott glances at us. “We should have the bones of a mission strategy in place by tomorrow afternoon. We’ll start practicing maneuvers and how we’re going to implement them then.”
We all nod as we file out of the room. Glancing around, I don’t see Sayward anywhere, and damn…I’m worried about her.
Something inside me pulls, tugs, urges me to find her, put my arms around her.
As soon as we’re in the hallway, I stop Ronin with a hand on his shoulder.
“Nicknames. If you’re all gonna use that shit all the time, I need to know who’s who.”
I have a general idea from when I worked with them to save Ronin’s fiancée, but the names are fuzzy. I figure if I hear the stories behind the names, I’ll be more likely to remember them.
Ronin chuckles. “We don’t use them all the time, mostly in the field. But yeah, guess you should know that.” He heads for the training room, and I follow. Conners is already a few steps ahead of us. “Jeremy is Brains because he’s always the first to know about the new weapons and techy gadgets we can use on missions. He’s into it in a way that none of the rest of us are. And he outfits us accordingly. There’s a whole room here dedicated to all his shit. He’s also damn good with a computer, even though Sayward wears that hat better than he does.”
I nod, thinking that makes sense. I don’t know Teague that well, but he geeked out over some of the devices we used during Olive’s rescue.
“And Dare up there…” Conners glances over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifted. “We call him Wheels. Apparently when he was in the field as a Ranger, they called him Cujo. But no one drives like him. He’s really into cars, like rebuilds them and shit. And in the field, no one drives like he does. So to us, he’s Wheels.”
I call out to Conners. “You rebuild cars?” Despite myself and my less-than-friendly feelings toward Conners, I think that’s cool as shit. “Like old ones?”
He gives one short nod before pushing through the training room door. “Bikes, too.”
As Ronin and I file in, he points to his own chest. “They call me Swagger.”
He doesn’t elaborate, and I pause. “Why?”
A few feet away, Conners fits his hands with hand wrap. “Because he’s so cool and confident when he’s interrogating a target. It doesn’t even affect him like it does the rest of us. Doesn’t matter what he has to do to a guy, he gets that shit done. He’s a machine.”
I glance at my friend, one brow lifted. “We talkin’ about torture?”
His lips set in a firm line, his eyes narrow. “Interrogation.”
I nod, understanding completely. “Got it.”
Conners continues. “And we call Sayward—”
“Viper,” I interrupt. “That one, I know.”
And speaking of…
I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “No one checked on her after the meeting. She looked…I’ll be right back.”
Ignoring the questioning glances and the curiosity behind them, I turn and jog back down the hallway. Heading downstairs, I round a corner just in time to see Sayward exiting the bathroom. She spots me and freezes, glancing down at the floor.
Not pausing until I’m standing in front of her, I keep my voice low. “You okay? Damn…that was rough. Sayward…Jesus. I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head, still studying the smooth gray floor. “It’s in the past. I’m usually just fine. But today…having it all brought up in front of everyone like that…”
Sadness courses through me, pulling down the corners of my mouth at the same time it seizes up my chest. “One thing I’ve learned? That kind of negativity always rises to the surface, sooner or later. But I’m sorry you had to deal with it in a roomful of coworkers.”
She glances up then, her eyes meeting mine in a glance that jacks up my heart rate. It doubles when her mouth twists into a small smile. “Thank you. For understanding.”
I nod. “You gonna be okay?”
She turns away. “I’m always okay, Bennett.”
I watch her walk away, knowing that she believes that’s true.
But everyone breaks, at one point or another.
When I walk back into the gym, Ronin and Dare are standing near the door. Both men eye me, Ronin with curiosity and Conners with suspicion.
“What?” I can’t keep the irritated growl out of my voice.
Conners folds his arms across his broad chest. His dark brown hair almost reaches his collar, and his eyes are such a light green they’re almost colorless. They’re similar in color to Ronin’s, but where Dare’s looks like the foamy part of the ocean, Ronin’s are more forest-deep.
“Make a move on her and Boss Man will fucking castrate you. Unless Viper does it herself first.”
Irritation prickles inside me. Dare Conners might be my new teammate, but he’s not my friend and he’s definitely not about to tell me who I can spend time with.