by Stacy Gail
“That picture Rude sent everyone is nothing but a joke. I already explained to you why he stopped by my place this morning. He was just checking up on me, no doubt so he could give a full report once Mama Coco and Papa Bolo get back from California.”
Frankie pulled a pouty face. “I still can’t believe you didn’t call me, little girl.”
“Or me,” Tonya chimed in, and her expression added new definition to the term cranky. “And don’t give me that bullshit about me being sick and you didn’t want to bother anyone or whatever the hell you said. Some cocksucking asshole tries to fucking kill you, you damn well better drag your skinny little ass over to the nearest phone and call me.”
“I’d almost forgotten what that sweet potty mouth of yours sounds like.” Frankie grinned over at her, brightening. “You’re no fun when you’ve got Sabrina with you and you get all G-rated.”
Tonya gave Frankie a withering side-eye. “My little girl’s going to be two years old in just a handful of months and she’s already talking up a storm. I don’t want her perfect mouth dropping F-bombs before the age of twenty.”
Frankie toasted her with her mug of coffee. “Good luck with that, babe. My youngest, Giovanni called his sister a bitch last week. I mean, Michaela was totally being one by refusing to let Vonnie into the bathroom when he seriously had to pee, but he’s frigging five.”
“That’s why Rude didn’t want us as foster sisters.” The words were out of Sass’s mouth before she knew she was going to speak. Stuck, she tried to look casual by lifting a shoulder when their gazes swung back to her. “That’s what his big crisis was. With us there, he had to wait in line again for bathroom privileges. Apparently you and Izzi traumatized him.”
“Traumatized? If that’s what that boy calls traumatized, then he should be on his knees thanking a higher power that he’s been given such a happy-go-lucky life,” Tonya announced, while Frankie scoffed in indignation. “He would’ve been crushed like a fucking bug if he’d had to live a damn week in the system. Traumatized, my ass.”
“He didn’t actually use that word,” Sass hastened to add, not wanting Tonya to think badly of him. Then she shook her head. Why the hell she cared about how Tonya thought of Rude Panuzzi was beyond her. “And I’m sure Rude now knows how nice he had it while growing up. Just think of all the horrible places he’s been deployed and all the things he’s probably seen. I’m sure he now knows the true meaning of trauma.”
“That’d be a safe bet,” Frankie offered while Tonya absorbed this. “About a year and a half ago, Rudy broke off all contact with everyone in the family after going through some seriously traumatic shit.”
Sass’s heart gave an uncomfortable lurch, and her attention snapped around to Frankie. “What’s this?”
“Loss of contact with him would happen from time to time—secret deployments of his unit, or whatever. But when his silence lasted for the better part of a year, Dad and Anthony went searching for answers.”
Tonya’s thin brows pulled together. “This is the first I’ve heard about this.”
“I only heard about it six months ago myself, when Rudy resigned his commission and went into the private sector. Mom and Pop wanted to keep from worrying everyone, but they finally contacted Anthony for help.”
“Why Anthony?”
“I guess because he’s the first-born son, and closer to Rudy than Gino is. Who knows, really?” Frankie lifted a shoulder, shaking her head. “Pop and Anthony found out that Rudy had been in a real bad fight in one of those awful places—Ramadi or Fallujah, or something like that. His people had gotten bad intel, and Rudy and his patrol wound up walking right into an ambush.”
“Holy crap.” Sass didn’t even realize she’d clutched a hand to her heart. It was just suddenly there, fisting on her sweater until her fingers went numb.
Frankie nodded. “His patrol was totally wiped out. I know that Rudy tried carrying another wounded guy out, but something must’ve happened, since Rudy wound up being the only one left alive. He had to hide out for a week without provisions before he somehow made it back.” She shuddered. “I still don’t know the details of how he got out alive.”
Sass’s skin iced over, trying not to picture an alone and desperate Rude stuck behind enemy lines a world away, thinking every second was going to be his last. “I can’t believe this is the first I’m hearing about it.”
“You’ve never been his greatest fan. None of the strays are, with good reason.” Frankie grimaced, and it was the half-embarrassed, half-apologetic look she got every time she spoke of her brother and the fosters in the same breath. She even wrinkled her nose over the word stray, when she knew that, after Scout had been called a stray as a teen, that word had been adopted as their personal badge of honor. It meant they were all survivors, and they were proud to be labeled as the Panuzzi strays. “I think that… no. Never mind.”
Sass leaned forward. “What?”
“Well…I don’t know this for a fact, but I think that the hardest part for Mom was that Rudy had actually been back stateside for six months after this horrible incident occurred, but he’d never bothered to pick up the phone to let someone know he was alive. It was like he’d turned his back on us, and we didn’t know what we’d done to deserve that.”
“Please don’t do that, Frankie. His shutting down probably had nothing to do with you.” Though Sass tried her best to fight it, a tide of horror and pain and sick devastation rose up inside to swamp her with old, old memories. Memories of being helpless and hyperventilating with fear, of sharpening her nails and meticulously hiding sandwich bags under her mattress to seal her hands up if she survived, and trying to open a window that had been nailed shut… “Sometimes there are things that happen that are so bad, there aren’t words awful enough to describe it. So, when you can’t find those words, all the rest of your words pale in comparison until they disappear altogether. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking his silence has anything to do with you. It doesn’t. Getting upset or allowing your feelings to be hurt over something that has nothing to do with you—and certainly over something that can’t be helped—it only makes things worse for Rude, and for you.”
Frankie looked at her with concerned eyes, and Sass saw the question appear there even as she opened her mouth. But before she could utter a word, Tonya, bless her, cut in.
“What was Rude like when Papa Bolo and Anthony finally tracked him down? Was he ready to talk? Was he ready to even be a part of the family again?”
Frankie’s attention swerved back to her. “Pop wasn’t all that forthcoming. He just said Rudy needed his space. But Anthony told Gino about it, and then Gino told Izzi and me that Rudy treated Pop like a stranger—really polite and asking after everyone, including the strays, but otherwise he didn’t say anything. Later on, after Rudy came home, I asked him why he didn’t let us know he was back.”
“What’d he say?” Tonya asked, sitting up straighter in her chaise.
“He said he didn’t know how to reconnect with us. It’s like we were out of reach and in a different world that had nothing to do with him.”
Tonya frowned. “I don’t get it.”
Frankie sighed, and it was a sad sound. “There’s like this huge chasm in how he looks at it—like there’s the life he had before that mission, and there’s the life he now has after that mission. He told me that when he first got back to the States, he felt so completely disjointed from life here that it seemed like it belonged to another person.”
“Wow,” Tonya murmured, and her expression was both concerned and caring, proof in Sass’s eyes that the Panuzzi strays cared more for Rude than even they probably realized. “Is he suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, or something?”
Frankie nodded. “I think all combat soldiers have a little bit of that, and I know he was treated for it in the time that he was away. And I suspect it went fairly well, since it was his decision to come back to Chicago and reconnect with us six months ago.
Dad didn’t force his hand or anything. Rudy came back all on his own, and he’s been reaching out to make those connections with everyone ever since.”
“I knew he seemed different when he first got back,” Tonya said, and her voice was filled with a new understanding. “Whatever he went through… it really changed him. Or at least I thought it did, until he started harping on Sass when we went out to eat with him.”
“Yeah, I really didn’t see that much change in him when he came back.” But that wasn’t true, and Sass cursed her contrary habit for saying the opposite of what she thought. There had been a change in Rude, though she hadn’t been able to put her finger on what it was. She still couldn’t. All she knew was that there was a watchfulness in him now whenever they were together, whereas before he’d simply acted like she was an invader he hadn’t wanted around and didn’t know how to get rid of.
Even now, she couldn’t decide which behavior was more unsettling.
“Whatever he went through,” Frankie sighed, shifting in her chair, “it was enough to make him walk away from the military after twelve years, and enough to make him isolate himself from the family that loves him. I know he’s back now and I’m thrilled beyond words about it. But I can still see something in my little brother that keeps him separated from us, and it breaks my heart.”
Sass stared into her now-empty mug and wondered if Rude’s eyes showed that chasm that cut his life to two parts, the before-and-after sections of his existence. But to go in search of that chasm would mean looking deep into his eyes and potentially opening herself up to have him do the same. She wasn’t about to do that, so it would never happen.
No matter how much she was tempted to look.
“You’ve been disgustingly chipper all day, and I wanna know why.”
At his open locker, Rude raised a brow at his friend and coworker at Private Security International, Dorian Havlik. The other man was fresh from the gym, if his T-shirt and dark sweatpants were any indication, along with the sweat dampening his short high-and-tight blonde hair. Considering the way Havlik settled a forearm on the lockers, he was clearly in the mood to chitchat. Rude wasn’t, so he snatched his jacket off a hook and closed his locker with a snap. “What are you talking about?”
“This morning you came in whistling. That was disgusting enough, because I fucking hate morning people.”
“Havlik, you hate everybody. It’s part of your charm.”
“Yeah, but people chipper enough to whistle in the morning go to the top of my hate list.”
“People who use the word chipper in a sentence go to the top of mine.”
“And if the whistling wasn’t bad enough,” Havlik went on after pausing just long enough to flip him the one-finger salute, “you then laughed at Weitzler’s stupid-ass story about how birds find a way to take a shit on his car no matter where he parks it.”
Rude waited a beat. “And?”
“That was when I came this close to killing you.”
“What the fuck, dude.”
“You don’t laugh at Weitzler’s stories. Shit, no one laughs at Weitzler’s stories. You know why? Because he’s not funny. In fact, he’s the most unfunny human being who ever ponderously droned his boring ass across God’s green earth. Not even he was laughing, but you were.”
“Birds shitting on cars is my brand of funny. So what?”
“Okay. But what about right now?”
Rude stared at him, starting to get pissed. “What about right now, you dumbass?”
“Just now, you were grinning into your locker like you were watching internet porn. You got a tablet in there or something?”
“It’s scary to think you’re in charge of securing peoples’ lives.” Rude pulled on his jacket and aimed toward the exit, not at all surprised when Havlik followed. “Don’t you have anything better to do than get your tighty-whities in a bunch over everything I do? Keep going like this and I’m going to tell your wife you’re thinking of leaving her for me.”
“My wife is the reason I have to live vicariously through you for now,” came the put-upon reply as they headed toward the parking lot. “Nesting behavior has reached full-tilt madness. Anna’s reorganized all the closets in the house, ironed every teeny little piece of baby clothes she got last week in that baby shower to end all baby showers, and she’s given me a list of things that need to get done around the house before Junior arrives. Apparently our child’s life will be in mortal danger if I don’t get the clutter cleared out of the garage before he arrives. Is it any wonder I’m looking to you for some distraction?”
“Just as long as you don’t take her crazy and spread it around to me.”
“I’m trying to avoid the crazy by focusing on your disgusting chipperness.”
“That’s not a word.”
“And that’s not the issue.” Havlik waited while Rude took his ID card out at the door leading to the lobby, swiped it and typed in the passcode. “You got laid, right? Was it awesome?”
“No.”
“C’mon, man, even shitty lays are awesome.”
“I mean, no, I didn’t get laid.” A sad state of affairs if there ever was one, but he had hope.
Havlik’s scoff of disgust seemed to agree with him as they headed out to the lobby, an open, lofty area that retained the industrial feel of the building, while still offering a welcoming atmosphere with cream-colored chairs and sofas set at right angles from each other in the waiting area. Long pendant lights hung from the high ceiling, highlighting the reception desk manned by Mary Jane Fogelmann-Case, daughter of their employer, James “Cap” Fogelmann, retired US Marine Corps colonel and Rude’s former XO.
When Rude made the decision to return to civilian life six months earlier, he hadn’t been in Chicago a day before Cap had reached out to offer him a place in his new private security company. It was a full-service operation, from private contracts overseas to corporate security, cyber security, and even bodyguard detail. Everything a Marine was trained for was exactly what Cap needed, so it didn’t take Rude long to decide that PSI would be a good fit for him.
“As your friend, I feel it’s my duty to tell you straight-up that you don’t know how to bachelor.”
“God help me.” Rude waved a hand at Mary Jane before pushing out the front door and into the waning sunlight. “Do you have an off button?”
“See, before I settled down,” Havlik went on, blithely ignoring him, “I knew how to bachelor.”
“You don’t say.” Out of habit, Rude scanned the street up and down… then up one more time.
Hello.
“I stayed out all night. I knew every bartender on a first-name basis at all the cool clubs in the city, and they knew me. I had a woman waiting for me at each of those clubs and they never knew about each other. That is how you bachelor.”
“No, that’s how you get every STD known to man and a rep for being a douche.”
“Yeah, well, fuck you.”
“Apparently I’m the only thing you haven’t fucked.” Idly pulling his keys out, he turned to face Havlik. “Keep smiling and look natural, okay?”
Like a switch being thrown, Havlik’s easygoing eyes turned into a killer’s. “What’ve you got?”
“Dark blue Caddy, ten o’clock, single occupant.”
Havlik’s glance over Rude’s left shoulder was barely discernible. “Got it.”
“What cases are hot right now?”
“Nothing, really. Cap and Luke are in negotiations for a security contract for the G-7 summit. Echo, Nix and crew are in Venezuela protecting one of the world’s most epic assholes until the end of the week, and Xander, Steele, you and I are wrapping up the details for the Science Expo in Canada. And Weitzler is just… Weitzler.”
“So, there’s nothing that would warrant a personal visit, at least as far as I know. You?”
“Nope.” Havlik slid his hands in his pockets and made a production of looking up at the sky before glancing back down. “Can’t get the features of
the driver—car’s facing away. All I’m getting from the side view mirror reflection is a Caucasian male with aviator sunglasses. Dark hair, late-twenties to mid-thirties.”
“Got the license plate?”
Havlik nearly choked. “What the fuck am I, an amateur? But even if I forget it from here to Mary Jane—which I won’t—our CCTV should have it, as well as the time when our friend arrived.”
“Could be nothing.” But the hair on the back of his neck told him otherwise.
“Yeah, this is just your way of dodging the question of why you were such a fucking ray of sunshine today.” Despite the lightness of his tone, Havlik’s body language communicated alert readiness and violence held in check. Even though his back was to the car, Rude knew he was communicating the same, because the sudden start of an engine reached his ears.
Fuck it.
With nothing left to do, Rude turned fully, hiding nothing as he stared hard at the man behind the wheel. He was mildly surprised that the driver, instead of pretending they weren’t there, stared right back.
And smiled.
And waved.
Chapter Five
So, you and Rude eating together didn’t start World War III? You’re sure?
Sass sighed as she stared at her phone’s screen. It was official. News that she and Rude had managed to have a civil meal together had now made it around the world. Scout hadn’t seen the picture immediately, no doubt doing much more interesting things on her honeymoon than checking her text messages.
But now apparently her new husband had let her come up for air, and despite the fact that it had to be in the wee hours of the morning in the south of France, Scout had finally answered.
“Unless the peace reigning outside my window is a mirage, I’d have to say no to WWIII.”
