H.A.L.O. Undone (Broken HALO Book 1): A Broken HALO Novel (Broken H.A.L.O.)

by Jillian Neal

  “I’ll bet.” My brother’s voice jerked me out of my own personal keynote address at the conference of How Hannah Hagen Can Un-fuck Her Own Life that had been going on in my mind for the last two weeks. I heard a few more mouse clicks and wondered what he was up to. “Ah geez. Cosmo. Really? Palindrome Design’s own Hannah Hagen designs sexiest suites in Sin City. Has Dad seen this?” Disgust flooded his tone.

  “I have no idea, but I doubt Dad reads Cosmo too often.” I needed to get him off the phone. “I have a silk supplier in Vietnam. She owns an organization that supports educating women about their reproductive rights so I worked out a deal where we used silk from there for the blind folds and tie-ups in the rooms. I was able to make a huge contribution to the organization, and it will be ongoing since those will need to be refreshed every time a new guest stays in the suites.” Take that, bro. Smith didn’t even try to disguise his gagging noise. Checkmate.

  “How the fuck do you know about tie-ups and blindfolds? No wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t have time to kill anyone today. I’ll pencil it in for this weekend. I’ll need a name and address by then.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Very funny.” I didn’t actually have any experience with being tied up or blindfolded but maybe that was all about to change. It was probably a good thing Griff was just as well-trained as my big brother. There was a decent chance he’d need those hand-to-hand combat skills when I announced to my family that they could all go suck a lemon because I would be busy sucking Griff.

  Smith had taken it on himself to protect me for my entire life. Dad wasn’t around so he stepped in. That all had to change. I did not need to be protected forever.

  “Wait a second, Mom just sent me another picture.” I heard Smith’s mouse click, and I drew a measured breath. “Holy fuck, have you seen this pack?”

  Thank you, Mom. I would listen to her tell me all about the hot springs or whatever else she wanted just for the gift she’d given me by providing a distraction. “I told you,” I supplied.

  “Does Dad know she has his Leatherman duct taped to one of my old rucksacks?”

  My mouth dropped open. Our father’s Leatherman tool was his prized possession. Mom had given it to him when he’d made Colonel. His name was engraved on it. Dammit, I needed Dad to be in a good mood. “Are you serious? I didn’t notice that. I only saw the rolls of toilet paper she taped to the pack. Don’t tell Dad.”

  “He’s going to shit an entire latrine.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “I gotta go, Hannah. I’ll take one for the team and call her. I’ll try to talk her out of this insanity.”

  “Thank you.”

  When he ended the call, I sank down on the settee letting the relief soak through me. Now, if only I could keep him from calling and interrupting me next week while I was in Vegas all would be well. The key was going to be to remind Griff that we were made for one another while getting him to temporarily forget whose little sister and whose daughter I was. I was under no delusion this was going to be easy.

  3

  Griff

  I slung my tactical duffle on my bed still furious but still going. I couldn’t even figure out my own insanity at this point. Despite my best interrogation techniques, T had given up nothing more than the insistence that I needed to go.

  “Bro, you’re seriously going to pack for a week in Vegas in your army duffle?” Voodoo, yet another army brother, asked like that was the dumbest decision in the world. He was lounged on my bed throwing my popcorn in his mouth while he and Smith watched the showdown at Wrigley where my Cubbies were going to mop up the field with the Sox.

  “You know we have a big screen in the living room. Why are you two parked in here?” I grumbled.

  Smith, who also happened to be my roommate and therefore did have more right to my room than Voodoo, was pacing. The Sox had loaded the bases at the top of the eighth but Rogers was up. “Would you stop wearing out my carpeting? His shoulder’s still jacked. He can’t hit. My boy Johnny isn’t gonna let me down now.”

  “Yeah, well, he let them load ’em up. And we’re in here because T said to make sure you actually packed. Also, it’s my house. I can pace wherever the hell I want,” Smith reminded me. He’d been making comments like that more and more. In his defense, it was true. He’d bought the house. He’d put down roots or whatever the hell people like him did. He asked me to move in because at the time I could hardly walk and he couldn’t lift his arms over his own head. We’d figured if we bunked up we could help each other out and put more money into the security firm.

  I hadn’t really intended to stay this long. The idea of getting my own place had its appeal. For one, I wouldn’t have them crawling up my ass about this trip I was being forced to go on. For another, our own personal vagrant, Vince “Voodoo” Grimaldi, wouldn’t be over here eating my groceries all the damn time. I just hadn’t pulled the trigger. Something about a permanent address irked me. I hated the finality of it. I’d been a motherfucking Green Beret for the best years of my life. I was never in the same place more than a few months. Go in. Get the job done. Get out. Stability just wasn’t something I required.

  “Strike three!” The much welcomed guttural cry sounded from the speakers beside my television.

  “See.” I pointed to the Sox players pouting on their way back to their dugout. “Johnny likes to fuck with ’em. Let them think they’ve got a chance in hell and then snuff it out.”

  Smith grunted what was likely a half-agreement and settled back on my bed. As a commercial for jock itch cream came on, we all cringed.

  “Hey, that reminds me I got you something for your trip.” Voodoo stood, stretched out his bum knee, and then headed for the door.

  “Jock itch cream reminded you of something you got for me? I think it’s gonna require crayons for me to explain how seriously fucked up that is.”

  Voodoo rolled his eyes. “Jesus, I hope you use every damned one of the things I got you because you are seriously in a mood lately. Should’a got you some Midol, asswipe.” He made a quick trip to the living room and hurled a massive box of condoms at me when he returned. I caught it with one hand and narrowed my eyes. “I got you the industrial sized box at Costco. As your former medic, I figured it’s my job to keep your package crab free.”

  Smith smirked. “When the hell did you start shopping at Costco? You get married and have five kids in the last two weeks or something?”

  “Nah, remember a few months ago when they hired us to come in and figure out which of their employees was taking shit out of the stockroom? They offered me a membership when I caught the girls doing it. And, dude, have you seen how cheap the liquor is there? Now, I helped our boy Griff get his grumpy-ass rocks off. Win. Win.”

  Smith laughed outright. “Have you even tried out your new equipment since you got it?” he asked me.

  The new equipment he was referring to would be the rod that was fused to what was left of my femur along with the metal hip joint the good army docs had installed. There was also the matter of the reconstruction that had to be done on my cock. That was just as awful as it sounds like it would be.

  “I’m not saying I hate both of you, but I’d definitely unplug your life support to recharge my phone before my battery was even really gone.” I shoved the condoms in my bag along with a wad of Ranger rolled T-shirts. Being an ass was a preferable option to answering his question. I’d made sure my new equipment worked just fine on his little sister, more than a few times in the last few years. “I’m not getting laid. I’m getting purchased because when Sergeant What’s-His-Name yanked me outta line and said, ‘Haywood, we think you’re the man for the Q,’ instead of saying, get ready, get set, go fuck yourself, I said ‘sure, why the hell not. I’m just as much a macho masochist as the rest of you losers.’”

  Both of my friends shook their heads.

  Voodoo tried again to soften the blow. “Man, come on, some beautiful woman is going to pay for the opportunity to spend t
he week with you. In Vegas. Probably be kinky, too. ’Cause you know what happens in Vegas and all that shit. Wish T’d signed me up.”

  “You want to go instead. Be my guest,” I offered. The words kinky and beautiful rushed another image of Hannah to the forefront of my dumbass brain. Her brother was less than five feet away from me. My next tat should just be the word douchebag on my own forehead.

  “Can’t. Heading to Austin this weekend. The Grimaldi reunion is at Mom and Dad’s this year. I told you this. I even invited you.”

  “You tell me a lot of stuff, Voodoo. Doesn’t mean I listen.” I shoved three pairs of dress pants in the bag, grimaced, and took them back out. Damned army training. I smoothed them and located my uniform hanging bag. My blues were concealed inside. I swallowed the bile that rocketed to my throat. The last time I’d worn them, hell the last time I’d looked at them, had been to attend funeral after funeral after funeral. Seven in all. And I’d had to go in my damned wheelchair. If I never had to wear them again, it would be too soon. Oh wait, apparently I was wearing them for some fucked up ceremony where my pride was being auctioned off to the highest bidder. I could meet women on my own thank you very much. Just because I hadn’t didn’t mean I couldn’t. I’d had the best. No one else would ever even come close.

  “Hey, Griff, maybe you oughta use some of those rubbers to fuck yourself…sideways,” Voodoo snarled.

  “You are pretty much being an awful human being right now,” Smith confirmed. Okay, that last remark was clearly over the line.

  “Sorry. I have the very same feeling I always had just before we stumbled into a shit pile about this whole thing, just so you know. V, sincerely, I’m sorry. Give the family all my love.” Family wasn’t something I necessarily got but the Grimaldis had always welcomed all of us into theirs anytime any of us wanted to make the trip. V’s mama had birthed nine children of her own and lived in her kitchen. I’d even fled to their expansive home in Austin when I’d pushed too hard too fast and had to have yet another surgery six months after the first three. Mama G had taken me in, fed me pasta and sauce until my eyeballs were floating in garlic-infused olive oil from their motherland, and she’d put me to bed where I’d stayed for days.

  “I will, but I’m not bringing you any of Nana’s cannoli.”

  Smith smirked. “That’s rough, V. But not unwarranted.” He morphed his smirk into a scolding glance and shot it directly at me.

  If Voodoo was holding out on his Nana’s cannoli maybe I did need a vacation. I started to offer up another apology, but he waved me off. “Just fix whatever the hell has your panties in a wad.”

  “Yeah. I’ll work on it.” How fucked up was it that the only thought I had at that moment was that the light pink G-string I’d stripped off Hannah four years ago, the night I’d lost my fucking mind and had driven to Denver, was still hidden in my bedside table drawer.

  If T-Byrd had ordered me to spend a week in Vegas drinking, gambling, and sleeping, I wouldn’t have minded as much. It was the whole ridiculous bachelor auction that galled me. Being forced to spend an entire week with some woman who’d want, at the very least, some decent soldier to entertain her wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t decent. I was damaged. And there wasn’t a single person who could do a damned thing about it. I had nothing to offer anyone at all.

  I had to get out of that room. The men who’d stood by me through it all didn’t deserve my shit. “I’m gonna get in a run,” I informed them.

  Rushing into the exercise and weight room Smith and I had set up, I switched on the treadmill and ordered myself to stop being a prick.

  Pain speared from my hip all the way down to my left knee as the treadmill whirred to life. It always did. It always would. Clenching my jaw, I took the first step. Walk before climb. Climb before run. My physical therapist’s instructions pounded in my head to the tune of my Nikes on the belt.

  Rhythmic beeps from the treadmill, as I increased the speed, assaulted the background noise of the game in the other room. The searing pain intensified as I forced my legs to move faster. Hannah’s bright blue eyes and the most perfect smile on this planet or any other formed in my head. The vision of her arching into me in the back of my Jeep had kept me fighting for years.

  I had to walk, so when I stole chances to see her I’d be able to lift her up into my arms. I had to be able to rotate my hips just the way she preferred when I had her under me. And most importantly, I had to be able to protect her, even if she’d never really be mine. My goals would never change.

  4

  Hannah

  Slinging both of my large, pink-striped bags from Victoria’s Secret into the empty chair on the opposite side of the table, I grinned at the nuthatches as they dive bombed a spilled cone of butter pecan ice cream. The universe was clearly on my side that afternoon. Not only had Victoria and whatever her secret might be had the lace camis I’d been lusting after, they also had the most perfect see-thru babydoll nightie in purple and in my size. On top of that, I’d also just snagged a coveted outdoor seat at my favorite downtown ice creamery. When a girl voluntarily has all the hairs ripped out of her va-jay-jay, she totally deserves strawberries and cream in a purple cone for supper. I don’t care what anyone else says.

  Besides, I’d taken the whole afternoon off to do just this: prepare. It was the first afternoon I’d taken off since the last time Griff had shown up at my apartment. I’d lied through my teeth to my entire staff about why I couldn’t come in that Monday morning and what to do with all of my appointments and phone calls. Hell, I would’ve diagnosed myself with the plague if it meant having him at my place longer.

  “Had a feeling I’d find my little girl here.”

  I gasped and manage to dip my head into my scoop shoving it up my nostrils as my father helped himself to the seat previously occupied with more satin and lace than I’d be able to get through in the next week, even if Griff and I never left my suite. A few dribbles of ice cream splattered on my favorite jeans.

  “Daddy!” I coughed out. Running the back of my hand over my face, I searched for napkins I’d clearly forgotten to pick up again. Dammit. “What are you doing here?”

  My father glared at the bags he’d set on the ground. I watched him mentally count backward from ten. I knew that look. I’d been on the receiving end of it since I was six.

  “Had a doctor’s appointment up here. I went by your office afterwards. Your secretary said you were out running errands.”

  “She’s not my secretary, Dad. She’s my assistant.”

  As usual, he ignored my edit. “I put two and two together and assumed I could probably locate you at one of your usual haunts. If you don’t want to be found, Hannah, change your patterns. That’s basic cordon and search training.”

  I bit into the side of my mouth to keep from rolling my eyes, but my jaw unhinged anyway. “Except that I’m not an insurgent and my usual haunts don’t need to be cordoned nor do I have anything worthy of searching. This is Denver. It’s a beautiful evening. I’m having ice cream. You should get some. It’s amazing.”

  “Yes. Your mother dragged me out here for something called a pear wine something or another. I still don’t understand the purpose of an ice cream shop speakeasy. Seems ridiculous. United States government outlawed them. That should’ve been that.”

  “It’s not a real speakeasy, Dad. It’s just for fun.” I shook my head. “Never mind.” Fun was not necessarily something my father understood.

  “Please tell me that isn’t your dinner.” He gestured to my cone which I was squeezing slightly harder than was really advisable.

  “I…uh…” Okay, telling my father what I’d done to earn an ice cream dinner was not happening. Besides, no amount of torture would warrant dessert before veggies for General Hagen. “It’s just a snack. You’ve been walking all over the city. What did you need?”

  “I hiked less than two miles according to my Fitbit. Would’ve been handy to have had this in the desert. Your brother’s sugge
stion that I get one was spot on.” Of course it was. Everything Smith did was spot on. “But I did have a question. What is this nonsense your mother is carrying on about? Some kind of trail hike?”

  “It’s not nonsense to her. She wants to go hiking. What’s wrong with that?”

  “She never liked to hike when I was in the army.”

  “Well, people do occasionally acquire new hobbies.”

  “When your brother was in Cub Scouts and you were a baby, I took the family to some waterfall near that post we were stationed at in Georgia. You slipped on a rock and got your sandals wet. Your mother got mad at me. I assumed she didn’t care for hiking.”

  I glanced skyward, squinting into the setting sun. Universe, come on, you were doing so good there for a minute. The cool metal grate of my chair was suddenly irritating my ass. Centering my gaze back on my father, I prayed patience would travel in on the deep breath I took. “Dad, she got mad at you because my panties were soaked and they were rubbing me raw, and I loved those sandals. You didn’t understand why I was crying. You also didn’t want to turn around and go back. It had nothing to do with Mom and hiking.” I honestly didn’t remember the incident, but I’d heard the story numerous times from my mother.

  “Never surrender. You know that.”

  “Yes, but I was four and miserable so surrendering might’ve been the way to go in that scenario.”

  “I don’t understand you when you say things like that, Hannah.”