Rogan
I’m not sure how I’ve made it through the last month. I’ve tried everything from exhaustion to redirection, and nothing seems to work. I even tried to get the Colonel to let me come and help him, help him find the man who’s targeting our team, but that didn’t work either. Couldn’t get ahold of him. Not that I’d be much help anyway. My focus is shit right now. Hell, I could be the next target for all I know, and I’d be a pretty easy one since I’m out of hiding in Enchantment and distracted as shit. But still, it’s the farthest thing from my mind. At least Katie is safe from that threat. We weren’t together very long and we were never public, so she was never in any danger.
Katie.
The only thing that’s getting me through the days is rage, I suppose. I’ve let it consume me. Well, I don’t know if I’ve let it, so much as it just has. It’s that or go completely batshit crazy. I didn’t realize what an important part of my life Katie was until she was no longer in it at all.
But I’m stuck. Trapped.
Some of it has been my own doing, some not. The thing is, I can’t change the past. As much as I wish I could, there are too many things beyond my control? things that have nothing to do with Katie. Yet everything to do with why I’m not with her right now.
I jerk off my sparring gloves and throw them aside in a fit of temper. I turn and walk off the mat, running my fingers through my wet hair. Damn it! If I’d only known that the two men who hurt her most in the entire world were two people that I was forced to work with . . .
But then what? Would I have kept it from her? Not told her I knew them, worked with them? Maybe I’d have told her elaborate lies. Or just never let her find out.
No.
Hell no. I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I’d taken away her right to choose like that. Even if I knew that choice would mean the end of us. And that’s just what it cost me—her. Us.
She thinks I’m a pile of shit for associating with the Simses. Actually, I couldn’t agree more. But it’s not just me who would suffer if I cut ties. And that’s what makes me stuck.
If it were just me or my career, or even my ass on the line, I’d choose her over them so fast it would make their heads spin. But it’s not. Only she can never know that. No one can. It’s a secret I have to keep.
That doesn’t mean that I’m sitting idly by, letting those two bastards get away with what they did, though. I’ve been having that shithole Calvin followed since the morning after Katie left. I’ll get him for something. I’ll nail his ass to the wall. For Katie. Even though no one will know that it was me who did it or that she’s the reason. That doesn’t matter, though. I’ll know. And that’s how I’ll be able to sleep at night. Well, what little bit of sleep I actually get without Katie.
THIRTY-NINE
Katie
I wake with a pounding heart and a heaving chest. My dream . . . it was so real. I was at work with my back to the door, putting away some new products, when Calvin walked in. I turned to find him just a few feet away, watching me. As big as life. As big as my nightmares.
I realize now that he hasn’t changed much. I didn’t really notice at Rogan’s match; I was too stunned by his presence to note much of anything. But I relived it all in my dream, and I saw. I really saw. Saw the handsome exterior. Saw the monster underneath.