by Ari McKay
“Definitely not.” Drew retrieved his glass and downed the drink in one swallow. “I wanted to get out of there myself,” he said in a low voice. “But we were down two men, and Blaze needed me to help get shit back to normal. So I worked my ass off to wear myself out, but I had nightmares, anyway. Sometimes I was watching Stack die again. Sometimes it was me on that C-4.” He glanced sidelong at Joe with a small, rueful smile. “I’ve been saying it was age that drove me out of the desert, but it wasn’t just that. Not even mostly that. I was ready to be stateside, and I pulled my time on the therapist’s couch as soon as I got home.”
Joe wasn’t sure why Drew was telling him this, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell him to stop. There was a part of him that really didn’t want to listen to Drew’s pain because it made him harder to ignore, harder to treat as just another merc he didn’t much like. Another part of Joe understood what Drew had gone through in a way that anyone who hadn’t been in the military, and had their ass on the line, couldn’t. He knew what it was like to have friends and teammates die, to have to stand by while it happened because there wasn’t anything you could do to stop it. He knew what it was like to have not only his own life, but the lives of everyone he cared about, in jeopardy.
“I think I need another drink,” he said and then drained his glass. He stood up and held out a hand for Drew’s glass. “What about you?”
“I wouldn’t say no.” Drew handed over his glass without hesitation.
Joe took it, crossing to the minibar and got them refills. Two drinks wouldn’t be enough to get him even tipsy, but maybe they would help him sleep. He returned to the couch and handed Drew his drink before settling back in his former spot. He wasn’t sure what to say, but somehow he felt he had to acknowledge Drew’s admission of what many might consider a weakness. “Did therapy help?” he asked quietly. “I know Hunter said conventional methods didn’t work for him. I’m not exactly sure what he and Pita used that did work, but I have my suspicions.”
“It helped, yeah,” Drew said, sipping his drink this time. “But I was on board with it. I couldn’t keep walking around in that headspace. I didn’t want to.” He shifted to face Joe, his expression alight with curiosity. “Mind if I ask what you suspect?”
Joe hesitated, not sure he should reveal his suspicions, but he highly doubted that Drew would be judgmental about it, given his rather casual attitude toward sex. “Payne is a lot more… um, forceful than you might think. I overheard a few things between he and Hunter in the locker room. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but people seem to forget I’m around, so they say things in front of me. I think Payne took Hunter in hand in a very dominating fashion, if you know what I mean.”
Drew’s eyebrows climbed, but he didn’t seem shocked or offended. “Huh. I never would’ve guessed. I can see how that could have therapeutic value, though.”
“Maybe for some.” Joe grimaced before taking another swallow from his glass. “I couldn’t do it.”
“What, BDSM in general, or being dominated?”
For a moment Joe thought about refusing to answer, thinking it might be too revealing, but then he shrugged, realizing it probably wouldn’t come as any big surprise. “Being dominated. At least not in that way. I can follow orders and take direction at work, but otherwise? No.”
“Bet you’d be good at giving the orders, though.” Some of the weariness faded from Drew’s expression as he glanced at Joe with a small but mischievous smile.
Joe snorted. “Maybe, maybe not. It’s not Finn’s thing, so it’s a moot point.”
“I’ve tried it a time or two.” Drew watched Joe closely, as if gauging his reaction. “I liked it enough to do it again.”
“You’d damn sure better ask Finn if he’s okay with it, before you go tomcatting around,” Joe replied, frowning at Drew. “And me, too, for that matter. I’m not going to have mine or Finn’s health put in jeopardy if you engage in a lot of risky behavior. I’ll put my damned foot down about that, you better believe it!”
“Hah! I was right.” Drew gave him a playful wink. “You’d be good at it. But don’t worry. I haven’t been with anyone but Finn since the first time we hooked up, and I don’t plan to be. I don’t need to be,” he added with a little snort. “That boy’s a handful.”
Joe looked away. He didn’t want to hear about Finn and Drew having sex. It made him unhappy to think about. “I don’t want to know,” he snapped and then slammed back the rest of his drink.
“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to poke at a sore spot,” Drew said. “I wanted to reassure you that I’m not going to do anything that could hurt you or Finn, that’s all.”
“That’s all you needed to say.” Joe rose to his feet, suddenly needing to escape. He’d let his guard down too much, apparently. “I have no interest in what you and Finn do together, do you understand me? I never wanted to know with his hookups, and I sure as hell don’t want to know with you. I may have to accept that it happens, but don’t expect me to want to listen to your exploits. It’s enough that I have to see marks on him that you put there. It’s enough that I have to put up with you being a part of his life. I sure as fuck don’t have to listen to what you like to do with him.”
Drew watched him for a long moment and then released a long sigh. “Understood. If you’d rather I didn’t leave any marks for you to see, I won’t. I’m not trying to edge you out or make you miserable, and I don’t want to make this harder on you than it already is.”
Joe ran a hand through his hair. He was suddenly agitated, and he wasn’t even entirely certain why. He really didn’t want to hear about Finn and Drew’s sex life, but it wasn’t entirely jealousy, either. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he was too tired and stressed to really think about it deeply. Maybe it was just the long trip and lack of sleep getting to him, or the fact that he’d let Drew in more than he’d intended.
“It is what it is,” he replied dully. “Look, I’m tired, and you struck a nerve, okay? Do whatever you want with Finn, it’s not my business. Don’t make him unhappy, and I’ll put up with whatever I have to put up with.”
“Noted.” Drew set aside his glass and stood up. “We’re both tired. I think the best thing either of us can do right now is get some rest. We can figure out a plan when we wake up.”
“Yeah.” Joe turned away, heading toward the nearest bedroom. He had the feeling he wasn’t going to get much sleep, despite his tiredness and the alcohol. Sleeping pills were out of the question, of course, but maybe he could try to meditate, try to find some tiny amount of inner peace. If he couldn’t, he wasn’t going to be of much use to anyone. Not even himself.
21
Drew woke up groggy and disoriented, and he didn’t open his eyes at first. He thought he was home, and he stretched out his arm to see if Finn was there, but the other side of the bed was cold. The pillow didn’t smell like the lavender fabric softener he’d picked up by mistake, either.
Finally he opened his eyes, and reality came flooding back. He was in Pakistan, and Finn was in a hospital room on the other side of the world. With a grumbling sigh, he pushed back the covers and rolled out of bed. He needed to see if Joe was up so they could make a plan for going after Abassi—and see what frame of mind Joe was in. He’d thought they were making some progress. Joe had seemed to relax a little in response to Drew opening up. Or, maybe it was the bourbon. Either way, things had been going well until Drew made the mistake of bringing up Finn.
Finn trusted him to look after Joe, and he wanted to. The fragility he sensed behind all of Joe’s bluster was mashing all of his protective hot buttons, but sometimes he couldn’t tell if he was doing more harm than good.
Scrubbing his fingers through his short hair, he made his way out of the bedroom and into the spacious living area of their suite, which was more like an apartment than a hotel room. Everything was quiet, and the door of Joe’s bedroom stood open. Drew approached and knocked as he peeked inside.
“Joe?”
The room was empty, and Drew didn’t hear any sounds coming from the adjoining bathroom. A flare of panic shot through him, and he entered the bedroom and looked around as if that would somehow make Joe materialize out of thin air.
“Joe!”
But there wasn’t an answer, and the stillness in the suite let him know he was, indeed, alone.
“Motherfucker….” Drew blew out a sharp breath, his mind racing. Had Joe gone after Abassi alone? Of course he had. What other reason would he have for sneaking out while Drew was asleep? It wasn’t like he had family and friends in the area to pay a friendly visit.
He strode back into his bedroom to grab his phone and call Herc. Maybe there was a way Pixel could track down Joe before he got in over his head with Abassi.
While he was dialing, he heard the door to the suite open and then close, followed by Joe’s voice. “Hey, are you up? I got breakfast.”
Drew canceled the call and hurried out of the bedroom, a mix of relief and irritation washing over him when he saw Joe. “Where were you? I thought you’d gone off and left me.”
Joe looked up from where he’d been unloading the contents of a tray onto the table. He frowned and then shrugged. “Why would you think that? I left you a note next to the coffee pot. Go check if you don’t believe me.”
Drew glanced over at the coffee maker on the little kitchenette counter, and sure enough, he spotted a piece of paper propped up against it.
“Sorry,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I didn’t think to look for a note.”
Joe gave a grunt, continuing to offload the tray. There were two covered plates, as well as a cloth-covered basket and a bowl of fruit, along with two glasses of orange juice. “Of course you didn’t.” He glanced up at Joe, his expression wary. “I know you don’t trust me, but if you don’t mind, I’m hungry. Can we at least eat before arguing again?”
“I was worried about you, that’s all.” Drew released a long breath. Last night had definitely been the product of alcohol, not progress.
Joe sighed, dropping into one of the chairs. He scrubbed his face with his hands and then looked at Drew again.
“You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to do anything stupid.” He picked up a fork, toying with it for a moment. “Thanks for giving a damn. I didn’t sleep much last night, so I did a lot of thinking. I’m tired of being at odds with you. I accept you and Finn are together, okay? I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, and I’m willing to try to be friends. It’s just going to take time. You seem to be a decent guy, and maybe if we’d met before you got involved with Finn, I’d’ve been better about it. But I couldn’t help feeling like you were taking away what bit of Finn I actually had. You don’t know what it’s like to love someone for years and know that they’ll never be yours. Not really. Not fully.”
Drew sat down across from Joe and leaned forward on his elbows. “No, I don’t,” he said. “I can only guess how difficult it is. How much it hurts. But I don’t want to be at odds with you, either.” He paused and then decided to take a risk. He stretched his hand across the table and touched Joe’s arm lightly. “I want to help. In whatever ways you’ll let me.”
Joe didn’t flinch, but he wouldn’t meet Drew’s eyes, either. “I don’t know what you can do to help. I just have to learn to be more accepting, I guess.”
“Take your time,” Drew said, keeping his hand in place. “This is a big change, and you’ve had a lot to deal with lately on top of your relationship with Finn. I’ve got your back with Abassi, and I’m willing to listen if there’s anything you want to talk about. No judgment.”
“Sure. Thanks.” Joe drew in a deep breath and then lifted the lid off his plate. “Let’s eat, and we can discuss what to do about Abassi. I didn’t know how you liked your eggs, or if, so I went for scrambled. Plus bacon and sausage. Do you want coffee?”
“Scrambled eggs are fine, and bacon’s even better.” Drew squeezed Joe’s arm lightly, and then he pushed back his chair and stood up. “You got breakfast, so I’ll make the coffee. I hope you like it strong.”
“Strong is good with me,” Joe replied. He glanced up, and for the first time he offered Drew a slight smile—small and rather sad, but a smile nonetheless.
Heartened by the sight, Drew grinned. “You got it,” he said as he headed over to the coffeemaker. “So did you have any ideas about how to get to Abassi?” he asked, deciding it might be easier if they focused on less emotionally fraught topics for now.
“First we have to find the right one. There are at least seven of them here in Islamabad. What makes it harder is that Abassi wasn’t one of the names on the list of targets from my previous mission, but he would have to be pretty high up to have the authority to order the kind of attack we faced—especially stateside. There are another ten men with that name in Karachi, but Pixel had tracked Emani back to Islamabad, so we’re probably safe starting here. If we rule out men under thirty, who wouldn’t be old enough to have an eighteen-year-old son, that leaves five men we need to find. Two of them run family-owned markets, one is a retired businessman, one is a taxi driver, and the last works for a tech firm. My bet is on the retired businessman or the tech, but we can’t rule any of them out immediately.”
“So step one is gathering information.” Drew retrieved two coffee cups from the cabinet and started looking around for sugar. “Can we get Pixel to help with that?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at Joe.
“He’s done all the preliminary legwork. He’s even looked on the dark web for information.” Joe grimaced. “These guys are tricky. We thought we’d gotten to the upper levels and eliminated them, but apparently there are more layers than we knew about. They’re like roaches—hard to kill, always coming out of the woodwork, and they reproduce so fast it’s hard to be sure you’ve gotten them all. At this point, I think we just need to see each of these guys, see which one of them lost a son recently, and go from there.”
“Works for me.” Once the coffee finished brewing, he poured two cups. “Any particular one you’d like to start with?” he asked as he handed Joe a cup.
“Thanks.” Joe said. “I think maybe the retired guy. From what Pixel said, he’s pretty well-off. Sounds like he’d have the time to be a criminal mastermind.”
“Okay, we’ll start with him.” Drew watched Joe over the rim of his cup, debating whether to ask the question that was poised on his tongue. He risked alienating or pissing off Joe by asking, but he suspected the answer factored into what was bothering Joe above and beyond his relationship issues. “Do you remember shooting the son?” he asked in as gentle a tone as he could muster.
He deliberately avoiding using language that alluded to the son’s age. Abassi’s son might have been only eighteen, but that was old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. He was no seven-year-old loaded down with C-4 and ordered to walk into a mercenary camp.
“Yeah.” Joe put down the coffee cup, his lips twisting into a pained grimace. His face seemed to go paler, too, as though the memory was deeply disturbing. “I didn’t know he was barely more than a kid himself. I came upon him beating the shit out of a little girl who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, and I have my suspicions he’d been raping her, too, because she was naked and covered in blood. I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t even think. I just shot him, one burst right through the head. I don’t know if he was armed, and he probably never even saw me coming. I didn’t give him a chance to surrender. I just saw that he was about to kill the little girl, and I shot him.”
“Jesus….” Drew had assumed the son had been with a group of men who’d fired on Joe’s squad, and Joe had doubts about whether he’d done the right thing because maybe the son had been at the wrong place, at the wrong time. But no, the situation seemed pretty clear-cut to Drew. “I’d have done the same thing. Is the girl okay?”
“She’s alive, last I heard.” Joe scrubbed his face with his hands again. “As far as okay, who the fuck can say if she’ll e
ver be okay? Or any of the other victims, for that matter. And there are always more victims, because there are always more of the monsters who prey on the weak and innocent just because they can. And this is only one country, you know. This goes on all over the world. All we can do is fight it—we’ll just never be able to stop it, no matter what we do.”
“Yeah, but fighting it is better than just letting it happen,” Drew said. “You saved those people—those kids—from a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. That’s not pointless or useless. I’m pretty sure they’d agree.”
“Yeah. But it’ll break your heart. It almost broke me.” Joe shuddered. “You can only fight shit like that for so long before you start to lose yourself. I was in the thick of it for a month, in the filth and slime, and I sometimes I feel like I’ll never be clean again.”
Every caretaker instinct Drew possessed was screaming, and he wanted to do nothing more than hold Joe close and offer comfort, but he doubted Joe would accept it. Joe had probably come home in need of that comfort from Finn, only to experience another nasty shock. No wonder Joe had been wound up so tightly. He’d been denied a release valve when he needed it most.
“You don’t have any reason to feel dirty or stained,” Drew said, leaning forward. “You’re a good man, and you did the right thing. He was beating a child. Do you think he would’ve surrendered peacefully if you’d given him the chance? Do you think he would’ve felt an ounce of remorse? Hell, no. He was old enough to know what he was doing and how fucked up it was.”
“I know that, and that’s not what bothers me most.” Joe glanced at Drew. “He should have known better, but what was he taught, growing up in an environment like that? If you think about it, he was abused, being taught that he had the right and the power to victimize people. Did he ever have a chance to know right from wrong, when he was brought up to believe that the most heinous of wrongs was right and normal?”
