I felt like a freakin’ shrink with the way I was urging him to move forward.
“I couldn’t settle into civilian life, so my grandfather suggested that I go work for his best friend. He ran a rescue and recovery black ops organization, and I thought he was one of the good guys, in it for the right reasons.” He swallowed. “Turns out, I was wrong. He was only in it to make a buck, a whole lot of bucks, actually. He had his own agenda that he didn’t share with the rest of us grunts unless or until he felt like sharing it.”
I didn’t reply, waiting for him to continue. And he did.
Bitterly.
“One day, I was sent on a mission by Elais Beckett, the owner of the company and my grandfather’s friend, and it all went well. Intel was good. We found the kid. It was great, right up until it wasn’t.” He took another drink of his whiskey. “We were seconds away from making the recovery when the man came in, took hold of his son, and put a gun to his head.”
My stomach dropped.
“Then what?” I pushed.
I wasn’t sure whether I should urge him to continue talking or not, so I just did what I thought was best. Which was encourage, but not interrupt.
“Then I shot him. Shot right over that kid’s head. My bullet entered the man’s left eye, and expanded like it was supposed to do, which caused his brain to scramble and the bullet to leave out his left ear. Brains exploded, all over his son’s face and body,” he swallowed.
“I don’t see why that was bad,” I finally said. “I can see why it was ‘bad’ but not bad, bad. I mean, he was holding a gun to the child’s head, right?”
He nodded. “Right. But what I didn’t find out until moments later was that the gun the guy was holding was a plastic Airsoft gun, and it still had that stupid orange cap on the end of the barrel.”
I hummed in understanding.
“The guy was fucking crazy,” he said. “Probably would’ve killed the kid, but had I been paying better attention, we could’ve apprehended him and taken him in to get treatment, and that kid wouldn’t have had his father’s brain explode all over his face.”
I bit my lip. “I’m still not seeing why that’s so bad.”
His eyes broke from mine.
“I did research on that kid. Found out later on that the father had signs of PTSD, and reacted badly when startled. Which I’d done. Had I not entered the building like I was ready to storm the place, he would’ve likely answered the door just like any other normal human being.” I watched him swallow. “The mother, from reports I’d later read, had called it in not as an ‘emergency’ but as an ‘I want him back, get him here’ kind of call. Which Elais Becket had neglected to tell me about.”
My stomach was sick for him.
“What about the ‘killer’ part that your father was tossing at you?”
“I did research on the other ops we’d done, and apparently that one case wasn’t so isolated. I’d performed four ops that went sour. Four people were mentally impaired, sick, but generally good people.” I was sick to my stomach. “Two of them died. Two of them are paralyzed. I killed them, and didn’t even have any reason to, because they weren’t bad guys. They were just lost. Like I’d been at one point.”
He scratched his head with the lip of the whiskey bottle, and then leaned forward abruptly.
“And why does your dad call you a killer?” I asked, confused.
“Because I am.”
“How does he know that you are?”
“Because I told him. One day I needed to unload, and he was convenient. But, he didn’t make me feel better…only worse.” He cleared his throat. “My words, and actions ruined our relationship, and I’ll never have that back.”
I felt terrible for him.
“What happened next?”
“I hunted Elais Beckett down,” he said. “Hooked up with a man named Raphael that I knew from my SEAL days. He pulled some strings, and we got Beckett charged, tried and sent to prison after catching him red-handed pocketing ransom money from a rescue and recovery op that I actually think he orchestrated in the first place.”
Okay…
“Truth…”
He held up his hand. “Let me finish.”
I fell silent and waited for him to continue, which took a very long time.
“Elais Beckett made a vow to me the day I went to visit him in prison,” he moaned and leaned forward, letting his head hang. “Should’ve fucking known that he’d get out. He should’ve been denied parole. He was the last two times he came up for release. Unfortunately, the only crime he was charged with was racketeering, and he got twelve years for it. He’s served six of it, and the parole board obviously thought that was enough this time and let him go. Something that the detectives on his case failed to mention to me.”
I frowned. “They don’t normally ‘forget’ to do that, do they?”
His head came up.
“No.”
The way he said it made my gut clench.
“What happened to them?”
“Dead.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “Just like my grandparents.”
Nausea boiled in my belly.
“He killed your grandparents.”
One nod.
“And you think he’s going to come after you, next,” I assumed.
Another nod.
Another swig of the whiskey.
“And getting drunk is going to help you fend him off if he is coming?”
His jaw clenched, and he scratched the back of his neck.
“I’m a depressed mother fucker. Give me a goddamned break,” he snapped, eyes flaring hotly with anger.
I held up my hands and stood from the arm of the couch.
The first thing I did was clear the table of the empty beer bottles and trash from his food over the past week.
“Gross,” I said, holding up a piece of stale pizza.
He shrugged.
“I’m out of trash bags.”
He was. I found that out almost immediately.
He did, however, have eight million, three hundred, and forty-seven Wal-Mart sacks stuffed into an old Dr. Pepper twenty-four pack box, so I started filling them up with the trash I could find around the house.
I didn’t stop until I had eighteen bags filled.
“Jesus Christ, you’re a slob,” I told him, indicating the pile.
He set the bottle down with a clank, and stood.
His impressive height towered over me, but I wouldn’t be intimidated.
Not this time. Not with this man.
“You need to get the fuck out of my house,” he snapped. “Now, before I make you get out.”
I knew for a fact he wasn’t going to make me do anything. He wasn’t that type of man.
But he would say stuff to purposely hurt me to get me to leave. And I had to keep him from doing that right then, so I shut him up with my mouth.
One second I was standing in front of him, and the next I launched myself at him.
He was either going to drop me or catch me.
Thankfully, he chose to catch me.
I was glad he did because otherwise I would’ve hit the floor hard with how high I’d jumped.
He grunted as my body hit his.