“Tell me why!”
“Because I’m the one who got Ryan killed!” His roar was guttural and raw, as if the admission had been ripped from him unwillingly. The silence that followed was louder than either of our voices had been.
Havoc abandoned me, taking her place at his side. Havoc and Chaos. How very perfect they were for each other.
“I don’t understand,” I finally managed to say.
Beckett bent slightly, rubbing Havoc’s head in a way I’d seen him do hundreds of times. It wasn’t for her, but to soothe him. She was his working dog and his therapy dog all in one.
“Do you remember when I told you that I killed a child?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t likely to forget something like that.
“It was on the twenty-seventh of December. That intel didn’t pan out, and I lost it. You tell yourself that you’re the good guy. You’re there to stop the terrorists, to give the civilians back the country they deserve, that we’re keeping our country safe. But seeing that little girl die at my hand…it broke something in me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, about what I’d done, or what I could have done differently.” He rubbed his hands over his face but pulled it together.
My stupid heart swayed toward him, despite everything he’d done. I’d seen firsthand what those nightmares did to him. The rest of him might be a lie, but I knew this was true.
“The next night, new intel came in, and we had orders. Half of the squad was tasked to go, me included, but the thought of putting my hand on my weapon literally made me vomit. I knew I was a danger not only to myself and the mission but to my brothers. I went to Donahue and pulled myself off the line. I know that sounds simple, but it’s not. It’s admitting to your brothers that you don’t belong with them—that you’re broken. Donahue agreed and said I needed a few days of downtime to get my head straight.”
“That’s understandable,” I said softly.
“Don’t do that. Don’t pity me. Because when I pulled myself off the line, there was an empty slot, and Ryan took it.”
I breathed through the pain like I’d learned to when Mom and Dad died. All I’d wanted since those men showed up at the door was my brother back, but I would have settled for knowing what happened to him. Now that door was cracked open to the truth, and I was torn between longing to know and the clawing need to slam it shut and continue on in ignorance.
“He took your place.” Just saying the words sent a torrent of emotion coursing through me. Pride that Ryan had stepped up. Anger that he’d put himself in harm’s way one time too many. Gratitude that Beckett had lived. But the sadness overwhelmed it all. I missed my brother.
“He took my place.” Beckett’s jaw flexed as he drew a shaky breath. “During the mission, he was separated from the rest of the squad. They acquired the target, but Ryan was gone. Chatter indicated capture.”
My eyes burned with the familiar sting of tears. Keeping them closed, I brought a memory of Ryan to mind, laughing with the kids by the lake, skipping rocks. Giving up on teaching them finesse and just going for the splash contest. Alive. Healthy. Whole. I gripped that mental picture so tight I could almost feel the water on my skin. Then I opened my eyes. “Tell me the rest.”
He shook his head as his fists clenched. “You don’t want to know the rest.”
“You lost the right to tell me what you think I need. Now finish it.” This was like Maisie’s mega-chemo, right? Blast out everything in one powerful, excruciating procedure, and then rebuild.
“God, Ella.” He looked up at the ceiling and then down at my letters before dragging his gaze back to mine. “He was tortured. It took us three days to find him. When they told me he was missing, I pulled myself together, and Havoc and I went hunting. Radio chatter, sources…they all came up blank after that first night. I even searched the internet, thinking if they’d killed him, they would have posted it online.” He hissed. “Sorry, that didn’t need to be said.”
“It all needs to be said.”
He nodded. “Okay. We finally got some intel off a group of kids, goat herders a little ways outside the town. We rode out, but by the time we got there, the compound was empty. Havoc…she found Ryan about fifty yards away.”
“He was dead,” I guessed.
“Yes.” His face contorted, his eyes darting from side to side, and I knew he was lost to the memory. “Yes, he was dead.”
“Tell me.”
“No, it won’t help you sleep, Ella. Trust me, it’s the stuff of nightmares. The stuff of my nightmares.”
Did I really want to know? Would it help in any way? Would I regret passing up this one chance I had? “Give me the basics.” After this, I might never see Beckett again, and no one else in that unit was going to tell me anything.
“Basics? There was nothing basic about it.” His expression shifted every few seconds in the set of his mouth, the puckering of his forehead, the tension in his jaw. “We found him stripped of his uniform—down to his boxers and tee. They’d…worked him over something awful.”
The first tear escaped, streaking my cheek with fresh, ugly grief.
“Ella…” The anguished whisper was nothing like I’d ever heard from Beckett.
“Go on.” I blinked, sending another stream of wetness down my face without bothering to wipe it away. If Ryan had endured all of that, then I could cry for him without the social niceties of clean cheeks. “They wouldn’t let me see him. They said the remains weren’t suitable for viewing.”
“He’d been shot in the back of the head, and that kind of wound—”
“Executed.”
“Yes. That’s our best guess. They did it in a hurry when they heard us coming, and…left him as they escaped into the hills.”
I nodded, the motion sending wetness onto my shirt. “What next?”
He pulled out the chair and collapsed into it, deflated, with his hands over his face.
I should have felt guilty for putting him through this—making him tell me. But even after what he’d put me through with his lies, all I felt was an unexplainable connection to the man I loved, who had been there and recovered my brother. In a strange, horrible way, that pain connected us in a bond I was both terrified and desperate to sever.
“Please, Beckett.”
His hands fell listlessly to his lap as he slouched back in the chair. When he looked at me, misery was etched in every line of his face and deadened eyes.
“He was gone, but warm, and I flipped him over, thinking I could start CPR, but I couldn’t. There wasn’t…” He shook his head. “I can’t. I just can’t.” His eyes shifted like he was pushing fast forward in his mind. “The helo came, and we evac’ed him. I took his dog tag—I’d known he’d wanted you to have it—and sat with him all night before the plane came, and then Jensen brought him home to you. I was deemed too valuable to the mission to be given leave—especially now that our objective had changed to Ryan’s killers.”
“Did you find them? I don’t know why that seems important; it’s not like there’s really any justice in war.”
“Yes. We did. And do. Not. Ask.” His eyes turned hard and dangerous, and I saw him again—the man who was capable of compartmentalizing everything. I saw the storm in his eyes, the way his fists balled. This was Chaos.
And at one time, I’d had true, deep feelings for him.
“Did you get the other letters? The ones I sent after?” I needed to know. They’d never been returned. Those letters had been testaments to my pain. Had he read them and simply turned away?
“Yes. But I couldn’t bring myself to read them. Couldn’t make myself lift a pen and tell you what happened, not that I was even allowed to. I’d fallen for you, this incredible woman I’d never even met. I’d never felt love before, not in that way, and all I wanted to do was protect you.”