The SEAL carefully helped Ryder out of the back of the van. Ryder shook uncontrollably. Another guy whom Ryder recognized as a West Coast SEAL came around and helped carry him to a helicopter that was grounded behind the van.
These were guys he knew. Guys he trusted.
And trust was fucking hard to come by these days, he recalled painfully.
Olivia.
As they situated his broken body in the helicopter stretcher, Ryder saw the guys paying off the locals. It was a business deal. Everyone wanted to make a dollar. Otherwise, god knows what ditch he’d be facedown in.
As the helicopter lifted them up into the air and a medic began an emergency procedure on his many lacerations, Ryder closed his eyes and drifted.
At first he saw a meadow of green. The type of field he grew up playing soccer in, tightly trimmed and fresh. He was kicking the ball to his dad, just like how they used to. He kicked the ball again, and it was his mom. And again, it was Olivia. People who mattered to him. People he trusted.
People he loved.
Olivia started running with the ball, teasing him. He was slow. No matter how fast he tried to go, she was always faster. But before she could leave him altogether, he reached out. His arm became super long, like an elastic, and he grasped her. He grasped her so tight that she squeaked like she always did. As his long elastic arm curled inwards, he brought her to him. Her face was sparkling and alive, all pink cheeks and cheerfulness. She was beautiful.
He clutched her closer and brought her mouth to his. Before their lips touched, everything went black again, and all he felt was agony.
31
Ryder woke up again as his stretcher was being loaded in the back of a Hercules plane. He’d recognize that sound anywhere. He had no idea where he was, or when it was. He wasn’t even sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
Medical staff hovered around him. A medic talked to a doctor while holding a clipboard and analyzing his monitor. “He’s not going to make the trip. It’s too long. He’s lost too much blood.”
“We need a transfusion.”
“His blood type is too rare. There’s nothing we can do.”
“He’s not fucking Kryptonian. God damn it, man. Find me someone who’s a universal donor, for fuck’s sake!” the doctor yelled at the medics.
Tensions were high.
Ryder’s eyes rolled back. He was losing the battle. He’d never been in such rough shape before. He felt like he was going to die. He couldn’t look at anything. It was making him nauseous. He kept his eyes closed.
But something told him not to pass out again. If he passed out again, he was going to slip into a coma. He wasn’t trying to self-diagnose. He wasn’t a doctor, but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once, and there was a medical conference there. So he knew that passing out would be a bad idea.
He kept himself awake while he was loaded onto the plane and it took off. He just thought about her. The memory was painful enough to keep him alert.
Why did she say she loved him? Why did she take it back?
Why did she go behind his back—and betray him?
A nurse inserted a needle in his arm, and his wary eyes opened again. He saw her set up the IV and began pumping in drugs. Fluid. Whatever. The nurse’s eyes connected with his, and he saw worry. Things weren’t getting better.
“Am I going to die?” he said slowly, slurring his words.
She smoothed back the hair that was plastered to his forehead with blood and grime. “I’ve seen the worst cases—way worse than you.” She spoke with conviction. “Not one patient has died under my watch, and I’m not going to let you be the first.”
The words comforted him like his mother’s, and he wished his mom were still alive.
He really missed her.
Opening his eyes again, the nurse became his mom. She was an angel. Of course she was—she never missed church. Not like him and Dad. The women in his family were saints. He needed to be more like them. His mom caressed his forehead again, leaving behind warmth and love.
It had been a long time since Ryder felt loved. Felt like someone was taking care of him. Felt like he could lean on someone. It had been a long time since he had let himself love.
He loved Olivia. And she had tried to take care of him.
But Ryder never forgave anyone, and he sure as hell never forgot. He held a lot of anger close to his heart after his mom’s death.
Anger at work when he had to do everything alone.
Anger toward Fuller and Blackshot because they’d fucked him over.
Anger when Olivia went behind his back, putting herself and everything he was working for at risk.
Anger when she said she loved him and then took it away. Anger when he found himself alone again.
Anger when he lost her, just like he’d lost his mom, and he was left carrying the burden alone.
Ryder’s eyes finally rolled back. Blackness and fuzziness circled in on his mind, and he couldn’t do anything about it any longer. The turbulence of the Hercules didn’t even register.
His day of reckoning had finally come.
32
“So, here I am,” Olivia said quickly as Jacqueline walked into the big boardroom at In Context’s downtown Washington office. “I’m back.”
Jacqueline, dressed in a full cream business suit, ran up to her and gave her a hug. “Olivia.” Her voice was harried and distraught. “What happened? I got a call from the Navy that you came home early, and then I saw your message.”
“It’s been a busy month,” Olivia explained carefully, unsure how she was going to play it.
Jacqueline looked her up and down. “Have you even been home?”
Olivia shook her head, recognizing how disheveled she looked after the seventeen-hour travel day and flight change in France. “It’s really bad.” Her voice betrayed her and began to tremble.
Jacqueline pulled her in for a hug again. “Tell me everything.” The two women sat at the board table, and water was brought in for them. “The rear admiral’s office gave us very little information.” Jacqueline’s eyes were wide with surprise. “Did something… bad happen with the client?”
“No one told you anything?” Olivia probed. She found Jacqueline’s line of questioning very interesting. There she was, back early from a horrendous contract gone wrong. And all the partner could ask was whether or not the relationship with the client was compromised.
“The only thing I was told was that you didn’t need to be there to finish your job. They agreed you could finish it here.”
Interesting. Fuller hadn’t said anything bad about her. There was only one reason why he wouldn’t take the opportunity to sink her reputation.
He was sending her a message. Just like Aidan King had predicted. It’s your move.
Olivia had to make a choice. What was her play? What would Ryder want?
“What happened, Olivia?” Jacqueline pressed, reaching out and touching her hand. “Do we need to do some damage control on this relationship?”
Olivia looked up at photos of partners and directors hung on the wall. After all she’d been through, she felt no interest in being a part of that cadre anymore. She was sick of doing whatever the client wanted. Especially if it meant ignoring what she felt was right.
Jacqueline and the firm clearly cared more about winning contracts than exposing the raw, cold truth. Never again would she place her trust in an organization to do what’s right.
She cleared her throat and let her instincts guide her. “It was a hard trip. The personalities are not easy to get along with. I found a lot of good information to help us with our cultural assessment…”
Jacqueline leaned in as she listened to Olivia detail issues and ideas, all well within the scope of the contract. The story remained administrative. HR related. As Olivia had been instructed.
Olivia felt hollow as she described it. She did not talk about violations against the laws of armed conflict. She did not talk about threats to her life
or what had happened to the man she had fallen in love with.
She did not talk about the part of herself that she’d left behind in Mali.
It was hard to even keep a straight face when all she could think about was Ryder and her promise to him.
“I can finish this for you,” Jacqueline offered, pleased that all wasn’t lost. “I think you need… a break.”
The message was clear—and Olivia was glad to be removed from the project. She nodded in response, feeling tears welling to the surface.
“I think you need to get home and get some rest. Thanks for all of your work, Olivia.” Jacqueline stood up, shaking her hand with a tone of finality. “Take some time off.”
Olivia nodded politely, hoping her demeanor could be attributed to exhaustion. It was that but so much more. She didn’t want to be there anymore. She didn’t ever want to go back. She was done with that line of work.
Back at her townhouse, she made a plan to start putting the pieces of her life back together. She needed a long shower. She would force herself to try and sleep. Ryder wouldn’t want her to be run ragged. He would want her to be strong.
She refreshed her email obsessively, but there was nothing from Bruce. She couldn’t believe no one knew anything yet. It had been three days.
It didn’t feel right.
But there was nothing she could do.
Her only hope was that there was something Aidan King could do.
33
Ryder woke up to the murmur of a busy hospital. A beeping sound near him was growing louder and louder. He realized it was coming from his bedside.
It was fucking annoying as shit.
Instinctively, he raised his arm to crush the noise, but the motion sent pain up his lateral muscle. He yelled out in agony.
Someone rushed in. Through barely open eyes, Ryder watched a man in scrubs attend to the machine next to him, pressing buttons hurriedly.
“Fuck.” The man slammed a keypad in distress.
An alarm went off at his bedside.
“Am I dying?” Ryder’s voice cracked.
The man looked over. “No, you are awake,” he said without enthusiasm. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”
The man uncoiled a long cord attached to a machine that was pumping something into his IV, and plugged it into the wall. The beeping stopped.
Thank god.
“Shit, thanks, doc,” Ryder said appreciatively. His voice was hoarse and dry.
The man grabbed his stethoscope and hovered over Ryder, assessing him. “I’m not a doctor,” he said in a snobby tone. “My name is Phil.”
Ryder stirred as Phil put the cold stethoscope on his chest. He didn’t even try to heat it up, but Ryder wasn’t one to complain.
“What?” Ryder asked.
“Shhh.” Phil frowned and stepped away, making a note on his handheld device.
“So what do you do… here?” Ryder couldn’t help but ask.
Phil looked up, unimpressed. “I’m your nurse. Welcome to Glenwood Hospital, just outside of Washington. Do you need anything?” His tone was less than amused.
“Do I get a phone call?” Ryder asked, serious and suspicious.
Phil laughed, shaking his head, and walked out to speak with someone in the hall, gently closing the door behind him.
Ryder looked around. There was a small window, and it looked dark outside. The clock on the wall read 7:00 p.m. The private hospital room wasn’t big. There was just enough space for his bed, a couple chairs, a bathroom, and the medical station.
One thing was for sure: he was not in a military hospital. Glenwood? He’d never heard of it, unless he truly had lost his mind and memory.
He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there, or what had happened. He just remembered an explosion. And leaving Olivia behind.
He wasn’t in Mali anymore. Snowflakes stuck to the small hospital window. He could see the moon clearly. The moon always looked different back home.
As much as it hurt to remember what Olivia did, it hurt more to know he wasn’t there to protect her. He could only guess what the snake would do to her in his absence, and the thought made his blood boil.
Fiddling with the IV, tempted to rip it out, Ryder felt an urge to find his way back and make sure she was safe—but he couldn’t even move without sheer agony.
Phil, his man nurse, came back in, this time with two hulking men in tow. The sight of his two closest friends should have put him in better spirits, but miserable was the only description for how he felt.
“These gentlemen say they know you,” Phil said in a bored tone.
Ryder coughed. “Shit. Jake Wilder and Mason Ajax. Together? Wow. Do I have to end up in the hospital in order to see you two?”
A tall man with dark-brown hair long enough to touch the back of his neck, and another tall man with messy blond hair, stepped forward. Jake and Mason.
“Ryder. Brother. How are you doing?” Jake asked at his bedside. Mason stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes as big as saucers as he looked at the state Ryder was in. It obviously wasn’t good.
“I’m alive,” Ryder replied. “I guess.”
Jake and Mason looked a lot healthier than they had the last time he’d seen them, well before his third rotation to Mali. He could only attribute it to their time away from the SEALs.
Mason flipped off his California-style baseball hat. Even in the dead of a Washington winter, blue-eyed Mason had a way of emanating the surfing lifestyle.
“What happened to you?” Mason asked, his blond locks falling on his forehead.
“I don’t know. I thought you guys would know,” Ryder said.
Phil entered the room again. “Visiting hours are over at eight, and you are only allowed two visitors at a time.”
Ryder noticed a third man standing behind Phil. “Easy enough. I don’t know that guy.” Ryder pointed to the stranger.
The third man, with dark hair and dark reading glasses, stepped forward and gave Ryder an easy, familiar smile. Ryder did not reciprocate. He was not in the mood for niceties.
“Send him back. We don’t want any,” Jake said flippantly.
The man stepped forward, adjusting his glasses and ignoring Jake. Not many people ignored a man Jake’s size. Ryder wondered who the hell this guy was.
The third man nodded to Phil politely. “I’ll be quick, if an exception could be made?”
“Fine.” Phil relented easily, seeming to defer to the handsome, charming man. “Just keep the volume down and the door closed.”
The nurse left, letting the door close behind him.
Jake and Mason spun around, facing the new man in the room, who shot Ryder another easy smile as he approached the bed.
Jake put out his arm before he got too close. “Easy, tiger,” Jake warned, guarding his friend.
The man reached into his jacket, and Jake shifted uncomfortably, ready to pounce. Ryder also felt his muscles involuntarily snap with the potential threat, reminding him why he couldn’t fucking move around.
“I told you. He’s good,” Mason reassured them, holding his hands out.
Jake relaxed slightly but remained on edge. It wasn’t that they didn’t value Mason’s opinion, it was that they struggled to trust anyone at all.
The man pulled out a black leather wallet from his jacket and made to hand it over to Ryder, but Jake snapped it up first.
“What’s the fucking deal?” Ryder demanded, breathing in rhythmically to ease the pain. “I don’t have time for any more bullshit.”
Jake opened the wallet further, exposing the badge of a CIA intelligence officer. He continued to analyze it, probably checking its validity.
“Aidan King.” The man with the glasses nodded. “I’m with the CIA, and I’m the reason Ryder is here and not in a burning pile of shit in Mali.”
Ryder and Jake exchanged glances.
What the actual fuck?
Ryder coughed. “You’d better start talking quick.”
“Master
Chief Special Warfare Operator Ryder Luciano,” Aidan said, joining his bedside. “Development Group. I know about you. I’ve met your friend here before.”
Mason jumped in. “Dude, this is the guy who brought me my leave papers after you signed them.”
Memories of Mason’s story flashed through Ryder’s mind, and he hazily recalled the mysterious operative who had loyalty-tested the young SEAL.
“Where’s Olivia? Do you know?” Ryder nearly choked as he asked.
“She’s home. Here in Washington. She’s okay,” Aidan explained.
“How do you know?” Ryder demanded, coughing. He felt awareness rising, just knowing she was home. He missed her. He hated it, but he did.
“I drove her home from the airport myself.”
Ryder exhaled as deeply as he could, which wasn’t deep. Was it relief? He didn’t know. He needed more. What had happened to her? Why was she home already?
“These assholes will stop at nothing. I need to get out of here. I need to know she’s safe.”
“She is.” Aidan looked down on the master chief. “And you need to lie low. There was an operation. You were hurt. Do you remember?”
Aidan had a response for everything. Ryder didn’t trust him, but he couldn’t afford to kick him out—yet. He needed to find out what Aidan knew. Turning his head to the window, the vision of the op gone wrong flashed across his eyes.
“I remember the tower. The van. The Hercules. My mom…” His voice drifted absently as he watched snowflakes accumulate on the dark hospital window. It was late. It was cold. He was tired.
“Your mom?” Jake asked, knowing full well Ryder’s mother had died.
Ryder shook his head quickly, unable to handle the memory of the women he’d loved and lost. “He tried to fucking kill me.” Ryder grasped the edge of the bed and tried to sit up. “And now they are going after Olivia. I have to get to her.”
“No.” Aidan put his hand out. “No. Listen, I’ve got her covered…”
As he said the words, Ryder felt a flash of jealousy, and he growled. Aidan recoiled slightly.
Desert Exposure Page 20
