Morning Star (Broken Mercenaries Book 3)

by S. Massery

  18

  DALTON

  I slip out the back door. My rifle is spotless. The handgun locked in its case is, too. The breeze off the ocean feels like joy against my hot skin. Since the accident that killed Caden, I haven’t set foot in the ocean. It’s my own personal nightmare as the sun fully sets, casting the water in shades of red and purple.

  I shudder.

  Dragging the pilot out of the plane was one of the worst moments of my life. Caden was already dead—I would’ve sacrificed the pilot to a bloodthirsty piranha if I could’ve saved Caden, you can bet on that. But he hit his head when we crashed, and…

  I’m not sure how the fucker managed to die instantaneously. I’m also not sure whether I was more devastated or jealous as life played out before my eyes in slow motion. The plane sank into the waves faster than I could get everyone out, and death was suddenly up close. I think it fucking scarred me.

  Ever since then, it’s been a high-wire walk between envy and grief.

  So I inch closer to the waves, swallowing the bile that rises up my throat.

  When in doubt, face a fear.

  Wyatt told me that once. I didn’t want to leave the group. There was a close call—a hostile snuck up on my team, and I couldn’t get to them—and they barely got out of the mess. It was the only time I felt truly helpless being so far away.

  Back at base, we regrouped, and I admitted my failure to him. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me that there would be times in my life when I’d have to make a decision: comfort or fear.

  I square my shoulders as I kick off my boots. My toes dig into the sand.

  There are two fears I could be facing right now: death is the easier of the two to swallow. I take a step and pause, trying to calm my hammering heart. Better this than go back upstairs and lie down next to Grace again. Better this than look at her face and start to picture a future.

  There’s a method to my madness, Wyatt told me. Trust me.

  I probably look like a nutcase, edging toward the water. There’s nothing separating me from the waves. It’s typical Miami-hot, the sun only just dropping beneath the ocean. The water might even seem refreshing to some. But in the end, it isn’t the sweltering heat that makes me break out into a sweat.

  “I tried to learn how to surf once,” Grace says. She comes up and stops beside me, shielding her face. “It ended in disaster.”

  “A sightseeing plane I was on crashed into the ocean,” I say. “I had to drag the pilot behind me as I swam to shore.”

  She sucks in a breath. “You know how to kill a mood.”

  I shrug. “My friend died. He’s all I see when I look at the ocean.”

  Her gaze turns from the waves to me. “Why don’t you move?”

  “Move?” Seems a bit ridiculous, if you ask me. When in doubt, face a fear. There’s a lot of doubt to go around these days. Living in a state surrounded by water on three sides is a pretty big fuck you to fear. “Miami is my home.”

  Even as I say it, I wonder how true it is. I’m really starting to hate that city.

  “Just a suggestion,” she says. “Somewhere inland.”

  I clear my throat and take a step toward the water. She mirrors my movement.

  “I should call my dad,” she says.

  “Hmm.” I try to imagine that. Her father put her through hell, and she still wants to reach out. Maybe it’s a form of shame, mixed with obligation? Right here, right now, she’s free of all of them. Hell, she already called him—listened to his drunk slurring and all—and she wants to open that line of communication again?

  “Dalton.”

  My eyes snap to her. She looks young. Younger than she did before, when everything was action and adrenaline. The weight of the world—and a good dose of worry—seems to have settled on her shoulders. Her lips are pink from when I kissed her silly, and I have the strangest urge to do it again.

  “Don’t tell him where we are,” I mutter, pulling out my cell phone. “My number is blocked, so…”

  She grunts.

  “I wouldn’t put it past you,” I say.

  She retreats back up to the house, and I move toward the ocean. I’m getting closer and closer, but I still have miles to go.

  “Come on, D. It’s just water.”

  I make it to the very edge of safety. Water rushes up and recedes inches from my bare feet, and I shudder. And then I remember that this is no way to live. Being afraid of something so… inconsequential… is stupid. Wyatt would tell me to grasp the bull by the horns and get in that damn water.

  Two steps later, I’m in it.

  The plane groans right before we crash. I slam into the seat in front of me.

  I take a deep breath and keep moving.

  I shake Caden’s shoulder as the plane fills with water.

  The waves break against my thighs, my waist. I hit it with my palms, suddenly too full of anger to control myself.

  He won’t wake up—he isn’t even breathing. The pilot grabs my arm, but I throw my elbow out. It clips him in the jaw, and he falls backward.

  Planes don’t just nosedive into the ocean.

  “Please,” the pilot screamed.

  The pilot had wanted to live more than I did. What a fucking disappointment I must be, if only Caden could see me now. I’m no better than a hired guard, selling my soul to the highest bidder.

  “Hey,” Grace calls, sloshing toward me. “Dalton.”

  I tip my head back and yell, surprising us both.

  The pilot’s hoarse voice as we hit a flock of birds. The whine of the engines as they failed.

  Delayed grief is a fucked-up thing.

  She touches me, ice-cold against the warm water, and I flinch.

  My stomach in my throat as the plane’s nose tipped down.

  “You’re freaking me out,” Grace breathes. “I mean, I’m kind of entitled to lose my shit. You have to keep everyone together.”

  My chest is heaving. My heart is racing. And waves roll past us, pushing us back toward shore. Every drop of water feels like my best friend’s blood.

  I shake my head. Caden has been gone a while. My other friends rallied around me soon after it happened (I secretly think Mrs. Paloma was the one to call them), but they all live scattered around the world. Me calling them for meltdowns would be irrational.

  So I never had a meltdown. I never shared my grief for Caden, my soul-brother, with anyone.

  Ugh. Emotional shit is the worst.

  “Sorry.” I glance down at her, half-surprised to find that she stripped out of my mom’s jeans and shirt. My stomach twists, and I look away. Half-naked in the ocean with a stranger? A stranger you just kissed. A lot. I shake my head. “I thought you were more rational than me.”

  She shrugs. “I thought you were going to keep going until the ocean swallowed you whole.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  The expression on her face…

  “Sometimes I think you might actually like me, Grace Jones.”

  She scowls for a second, then breaks into a laugh. The noise is better than wind chimes. “You might be growing on me.”

  “Hope you didn’t bring my phone in here with you,” I say lightly.

  “Threw it on the lounge chair before I ran down here,” she answers.

  I touch the bandage on her arm. “Does this hurt?”

  “Yep.”

  Guilt worms a hole through my chest. “Sorry.”

  She sighs. A wave almost knocks her over, and I grab her hips. We stare at each other for a beat.

  She shakes her head. “No.”

  I raise my eyebrow.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “I’m not looking at you any special way.”

  “You’re looking at me like you want to kiss me again,” she accuses.

  I smirk. “Grace, if I want to kiss you…” I lean down, close enough that we’re breathing the same air. “You’ll know it.”

  She sucks in a slight breath, and my
smirk gets a little smugger. It’s nice to know that I affect someone. And not just any someone. Her.

  I straighten and release her hips, casting one final glance back at the ocean. At Caden. It’s about time I said a proper goodbye. For some reason, his has been the hardest. I silently throw an apology out into the water, then exhale. I grab Grace’s hand and lead her back to dry land.

  “Hungry?” I ask.

  She nods, scooping up her clothes. “Yeah, I could eat. Let me change first.”

  When she reappears, back in dry clothes, she takes a seat at the table. I’ve been busy pulling open cabinet doors. There has to be something easy to make, like soup, or… boiled water. She’s going to find out I’m a fraud in about three… two…

  “When’s the last time you cooked something?” she asks. She’s directly behind me, but it isn’t even shocking at this point. She’s almost as silent as I am. “Like, something healthy.”

  “Probably a million years ago.” I close the refrigerator door. “You?”

  “I regularly cook.” She laughs. “I have to keep my dad alive, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I trade places with her, letting her look around while I take a seat. “How is dear old Dad?”

  She shifts her weight. It’s her tell when she isn’t being forthcoming, and it startles me that I know that. “He didn’t answer.”

  I don’t comment on that. “What are you going to make?”

  She turns around with a box of noodles in her hand. “Good ol’ fashioned mac and cheese.”

  I grin. “That used to be my go-to as a kid.”

  “Yeah, I think this box is from the nineties. Nice that they kept it.”

  The thought of my mother holding on to anything that I might like, and keeping it in her neat-as-a-pin pantry… “Nah,” I mutter. “It’s probably for my brother.”

  She freezes. “You have a brother.”

  “I mentioned it,” I say. “Right?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he’s in rehab.”

  Her eyes go wide. “Excuse me?”

  “Heroin, I think. I don’t know. Some expensive party drug.”

  “Heroin isn’t a party drug.”

  “Okay, fine. Pills, maybe.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Where is he really?”

  I grunt. “In London, teaching preschoolers.”

  She covers her mouth with her hand, hiding a grin. “Oh my god. That just absolutely killed you to admit, didn’t it?”

  Yep.

  “He’s my half-brother. I like to tell people that he takes after his dickhole dad.”

  She snorts. “What’s his name?”

  “Why, you think you’d like him better?” I sound like a petulant child, but I can’t help it. He came along when I was eleven, me already separated from my father entirely. Listening to a crying baby while I was trying to sleep before school, having him on my mother’s hip when she came to collect me from the principal’s office… he was always better in their eyes. Nicer. Calmer. Smarter.

  “Nah,” she whispers. “He sounds a little boring.”

  “His name’s Micah.”

  “Definitely boring,” she says. “Straight A student who never breaks the rules?”

  “Just ladies’ hearts,” I answer.

  “What a dick. You’d never do that.”

  I lean back and cross my arms. “I don’t.”

  She turns away from me, hunting for a pot. Once it’s on the stove, she glances back at me. “You might break mine.”

  I stare at her for a second, wondering if she’s serious. I decide I don’t want to know. “I don’t think you like me that much, Jones.”

  “Well, quit kissing me, then.”

  I laugh. We sit in comfortable silence while she cooks. I attempt a meager offer to help, but she just waves at me. She sets a bowl of pasta in front of me, and I try not to salivate.

  She sits beside me, then we dig in.

  I almost groan with each bite. “This is amazing,” I mumble through a full mouth. “Oh my god. I can die happy.”

  “Fat and happy,” she says, exhaling. She pats her belly. “I haven’t had that since I was a kid.”

  “Same.”

  We share a smile, but it fades rather fast.

  “How did we get here?” she whispers. “You stormed into my life… and now we’re at your mom’s house. Running from my uncle and his crazy son.”

  “I asked you what you wanted,” I say. I lean forward, trying to hold her gaze. Her eyes are a fantastic shade of golden brown. “And you had a pretty flighty answer. Care to revise?”

  Her cheeks turn pink. “Freedom.”

  It hurts to inhale. It brings back too many vivid memories. “What does that mean to you?”

  “Just… not under anyone’s thumb.” She stands. “I’m going to take a walk.”

  I sigh, following her down the sandy staircase. “I can’t just leave you alone after that confession. What if, in your desperate bid for freedom, you rush into the ocean and get eaten by a shark?”

  She snorts. “I doubt that will happen.”

  I stare at her. “It’s southern Florida. Of course it could happen.”

  We hit the sand and walk in silence for about ten feet before she stops, yanking off her shoes and socks. Her exhale is audible when her toes sink into the sand, and we continue on.

  She grins, kicking at the foam, while I stay well away from the water.

  It is nice to just… not be worried about anything for five minutes.

  “We should turn back,” I say.

  Her hair is starting to dry, and it’s curling down past her shoulders. In the sun, it glows like bronze.

  She glances at me, kicking at a wave, and sighs. “Sure.”

  We edge closer to each other, and I catch myself holding my breath. My arm brushes hers, and she doesn’t move away. All of the tension blows out of me when her palm slides against mine.

  Neither of us look at each other as our fingers lace. I’m more grounded than I’ve ever felt.

  Until I notice someone on my mother’s patio, watching us.

  19

  GRACE

  Dalton’s hand tightens in mine, and he tries to tug me behind him before we’re off the beach. I follow his gaze and slide out of his grasp.

  My dad stands in the doorway of Dalton’s mom’s house, pissed. And not the drunk kind of pissed. Anger rolls off him, the harsh lines in his forehead giving him an evil look.

  “Stay here,” I mutter to Dalton.

  To my surprise, he stops next to my shoes and socks. He bends and picks them up and I keep walking, climbing the stairs back to the small patio area where my dad stands. There’s a pool and lounge chairs to my right.

  Dalton told me this place was safe. And yet here my father stands, in the last place I expected him to be.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask in a low voice.

  His eyes bore into mine. “I’ve come to collect you,” he says. “What’s the meaning of this, Grace?”

  My cheeks flame, and I wonder what conclusions he’s drawn from whatever he witnessed. “How did you find me?”

  I sneak a peek over my shoulder, but the beach is empty.

  Stones drop into my stomach.

  Dad shrugs. “I had a tip or two.”

  He has on the sort of clothes he wears when Javier sends him on jobs—clothes meant to intimidate. Thick gold rings on his knuckles, a dark-navy button-up shirt. The sleeves are rolled halfway up his forearms. If it was colder, he’d be wearing a leather jacket. Sunglasses hang from the collar of his shirt.

  I wonder if he likes to punch people with the rings on his fingers, or if he takes them off before the physical violence starts.

  If I didn’t know him, I’d judge him based on that, and on the crookedness of his nose, his slicked-back brown hair. It hides the balding patch on the crown of his head. He’s smugger than anything else—like he’s put us in checkmate and we haven’t realized it yet.

&
nbsp; Except he hasn’t taken his eyes off me, and he hasn’t realized that Dalton has pulled a disappearing act.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  I shake my head. “I can’t.”

  It’s amazing what a little independence can do for a girl’s confidence. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to marry Marco and have his children. Hell, I don’t want any children—especially not in this environment. My mother couldn’t protect me from the evil bastards in our lives—how would I be any different?

  “Grace,” my father clips out. He starts toward me and freezes. He registers the bandage around my arm. “What happened?”

  “He shot me,” I say. Not sure why I feel the need to admit that, because Dad’s anger explodes out of him.

  He grabs my good arm and pulls a handgun from the small of his back. He plasters me to his side and drags me through the house. “The devil. That’s what I’ve said all along, Grace. Did you listen? No. You got on the back of his fucking bike—”

  “Going somewhere?” Dalton asks.

  Dad releases me and turns toward the stairs, shooting without hesitation. Shards of wood fly into the air. He narrowly misses a radio sitting on the bottom step.

  I swallow my heart back down into my chest, ears ringing.

  And suddenly, I’m yanked away from my father.

  Cold metal touches my temple.

  I spare a single glance back, and Dalton gives me a look that’s hard to decipher.

  “Dad,” I say, just so Dalton knows. He can’t kill my dad. He can’t shoot him in cold blood, or even in a fight.

  Dalton stiffens, and my father turns back toward me.

  The blood drains away from Dad’s face. “You monster,” he growls.

  Dalton shrugs. “You invaded my home and tried to kill me. From where I stand, you’re in the wrong.” He presses the barrel of the gun a little harder into my skin. “Drop your weapon, Sal.”

  “You kill her and you’re dead,” Dad promises.

  I withhold my groan.

  “I think I’m a quicker draw than you.” Dalton’s voice is almost lazy. Still, I can feel the rapid beat of his heart through my back. He continues, “You move a muscle toward her, I shoot her and then you—just so you can see her die.”