MILITARY ROMANCE: The War Within Himself (Alpha Bad Boy Marine Army Seal) (Contemporary Military Suspense & Thriller Romance)

by Claire Branson

  As the knots began to slowly form in her stomach, Kendal nodded silently in agreement. “I know it’s stupid.”

  “It’s not. You went through so much. It’s completely normal to have fears from it.”

  Kendal blinked hard to try to erase the memories that threatened to flood her weak mind. She was so tired of letting her past control her, but she couldn’t seem to help it. No matter what she tried, no matter what she did, the emotions from the past couple of years would affect the way she handled the situation.

  Anytime someone around her raised their hand she still found herself flinching with the assumption that it would be soon coming down on her. Anytime someone raised their voice she feared the consequences. Anytime she saw a leather vest she instantly associated it with him.

  Regardless of knowing how ridiculous that all was, she could never shake it. The girls talked for nearly an hour and drank two glasses of wine before they decided to head to bed, slightly tipsy. Kendal lay in bed and hoped that the alcohol in her system would allow her to finally fall into a deep sleep. She prayed the alcohol would finally numb her always fearful mind.

  *

  One Year Earlier

  “You fucking kidding me?” The anger in his voice woke her up with a start. “Kendal, where the hell are you?” She swallowed down the fear that began to rise inside her and slid her feet over the side of the bed. Looking at the clock, she was confused to see that it was 2:36 a.m.

  “Is everything okay?” She squinted into the light in the front room as her eyes tried to adjust.

  “What the hell have you been doing?” His words slurred as they slid from his drunken tongue. “Or should I say who have you been doing?”

  “What?”

  “I heard about you calling James the other night.”

  “Oh.” Kendal laughed at the confusion of the situation.

  “It’s not funny!” Trae yelled as he took a large step toward her. “You think it’s funny to make me look stupid by screwing around with one of my friends?!”

  “What? We weren’t screwing around. I called him to—” Before she could finish speaking, Trae reached back and slapped her hard across the face, causing her to fall into the wall. She looked at him with wide, fearful eyes as she tried to absorb what had just happened. They hadn’t had a perfect relationship, and Trae often came home from drinking upset with her, but she hadn’t ever seen him this angry.

  Lately something had been slowly changing in him. Each day he came home a little bit angrier and a little more aggressive with her. Although he had laid his hands on her several times before, she always made an excuse or ignored it entirely. In this moment she wished that she had not lied to herself about how bad things had been getting over the past few months. Maybe if she had let herself believe the warning signs, she wouldn’t be fearful of the man she loved when he came home at night.

  His eyes were wild with anger, and she could smell the whiskey that hung on every word he spat. She had never seen him like this before. “You little bitch! I have given you everything, and this is how you repay me?” As he took an unsteady step toward her, she stepped away from him until her back was pressed against the wall. With glazed over eyes that seemed to stare right through her, he put his hand around her neck and pressed with all of his might, leaving Kendal gasping for air.

  Terrified for her life, Kendal kicked him as hard as she could between the legs in hopes that it would release her from his grasp. As Trae doubled over in pain, she took off running down the hall toward their room, but she could hear his footsteps close behind. Fumbling to close the door, she was met with significant force pushing against her.

  “Trae!” she yelled. “Stop!” Although she had her entire body weight pushed against the door, Trae shoved it open and threw her to the ground. “Please let me explain. You don’t understand.”

  Trae kicked her hard in the gut as she tried to explain that she had been calling James to plan a birthday party for him. Without thinking, Kendal pulled her arm back and hit him in the nose as hard as she could. “You bitch!” With him momentarily distracted, she rolled onto her hands and knees and began to crawl away, frantically trying to make it to the bathroom on the other side of the room. “You’re not getting off that easy!”

  Grabbing her foot, he dragged her back forcefully and crawled on top of her, pinning her to the ground with his body weight. “Trae, stop it! You’re drunk! This isn’t you.” Looking into his bloodshot eyes, she realized that it wasn’t just alcohol that was affecting his judgement. “Are you high?”

  “Shut the hell up!”

  “You’re being crazy! Get off me!” Wiggling underneath him, she tried her best to get away, but he tightened his grip on her shoulders and brought a fist down hard on her face. The force of the blow caught her off guard and left her staring up at him in bewilderment. Before she knew it, another fist was flying at her and she was raising her hands instinctively to cover her face.

  She looked up through her fingers to see his angry face glaring down at her. His leather vest with that awful skull embroidered on it was the last thing she remembered seeing before everything went dark.

  *

  Sitting upright, Kendal blinked hard to try to gather her surroundings. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw Lexy sitting in her bed in front of her, her brow furrowed with concern. “Are you okay? Was it another nightmare?” Slowly Kendal nodded. Tears began streaming down her cheeks before she even realized she was upset. “Oh my God. You’re, like, shaking.”

  Lexy wrapped her tightly in a hug and rubbed her back comfortingly. “You’re okay. He can’t hurt you now.” She repeated it soothingly until Kendal’s sobs subsided. “I wish that asshole would have gotten arrested like he deserves.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it. I’m okay.” Pulling back to look at her best friend, Kendal was yet again filled with gratitude for being so blessed to have her in her life. “Thank you.” Kendal let out a forced laugh as she tried to break the tension in the room. “I promise at some point I will stop waking you in the middle of the night with my own issues.”

  “To be fair, it is early morning this time,” Lexy teased. “I’m totally kidding. You know I don’t care. You know I’ll be here whenever you need me.”

  “Well, I feel bad making you deal with all my baggage.”

  “Oh, stop it!” Lexy punched her lightly in the shoulder and jumped to her feet as if lighting had struck her. “I have an awesome idea! Why don’t we have a girls’ day out?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not really feeling up to it.”

  “Of course you are! We’ll grab breakfast, do a little shopping, and grab a few drinks. A new outfit is exactly what you need!” Seeing how excited Lexy was, Kendal couldn’t bring herself to tell her no.

  “It would be nice to get some fresh air.”

  “Yay! Wear that dress you’ve been wanting to wear! That one that looks, like, perfect on you. It’s finally warm enough for it.” Once ready, the girls jumped in Lexy’s Jeep and took off down the interstate toward their favorite shopping district.

  “Lexy?” Kendal asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think that we’re only supposed to love once in our lives? Like do you think there is only one person for everybody?”

  “No, I don’t.” Lexy looked at her friend from the corner of her eye and gave her a reassuring smile. “I think this world has billions of people in it and you can love as many of them as you would like to.”

  Kendal smiled back at her but couldn’t shake the pit that resided in her stomach. “I just feel like I have wasted a lot of chances. I put so much into people in my past that I feel dried up now, like I don’t have much left to give.”

  “Kendal, you are an amazing person. Someone will be extremely lucky to have you, and when you find that perfect someone, you won’t need to put in all the extra effort. It will come easily and naturally.”

  “Do you really think that, or are you just trying
to make me feel better?”

  “Both.” Lexy laughed. “Don’t you remember when I ‘fell in love’ with Trent in high school?”

  “Not really, but I do remember how many gallons of ice cream we ate to try to get you over him,” Kendal said with a sly smile. “And how many romantic comedies we watched.”

  “Exactly! And how many guys have I ‘fallen in love with’ since then?”

  “Probably close to a thousand by now.”

  Lexy smacked her arm playfully. “It has not been a thousand! But there have been others. That was my entire point.”

  “Sometimes I just worry that I’m so damaged that no one will ever love me.” Kendal didn’t often open up about her feelings, but lately she’d felt like she couldn’t help it. It seemed like everything reminded her that she was alone.

  Lexy looked over at her with tears in her eyes and said, “Oh, honey. Don’t you dare think that way. I know you’ve been hurt, but that doesn’t mean that you are damaged. The only one damaged is the man who did all those awful things, not you.” When Kendal didn’t respond, she continued. “You were the victim in all of that. I think sometimes you forget that and blame yourself, but you can’t do that. You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve anything that happened to you.”

  “Thank you.” Kendal wiped a tear from her cheek and let out a laugh. “Now let’s enjoy our day! I didn’t mean to put a damper on things.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not possible to put a damper on shopping.” Shooting Kendal a wink, Lexy pulled into a parking spot right in front of their favorite store. The girls ate and shopped for several hours before they decided to head back home. Each girl stumbled back into their apartment with several shopping bags full of goodies.

  “Let’s go grab a drink!” Lexy squealed with excitement.

  “Right now? It’s not even seven. It’s way too early to go out.”

  “Perfect! Then we’ll beat the crowd.” Lexy shot her a wink and pranced off to change before Kendal could protest. Laughing in defeat, Kendal shuffled off to her room and began thumbing through her shopping bags for that perfect red dress she had bought earlier today. Normally she would have never purchased something so low cut, but Lexy had kept insisting that it looked amazing on her. On a high from how great their day had been, she decided tonight would be the perfect night to wear it. She unzipped herself and wiggled off her previous dress, leaving her standing in her undergarments.

  As she turned to pick up her new red dress from the bed, something caught her eye on the street below her apartment. She could have sworn she saw someone watching her before slipping into the dark alley across the street. Surely she was imagining it. Confidently, she convinced herself that she was being paranoid, but still a little voice in the back of her mind kept her on edge.

  She shook off the uneasy feeling and sat on the edge of her bed to fasten her heels. Reaching for her earrings on the nightstand, she saw him again. This time she knew for sure. An unfamiliar face stared back at her, looking startled. He was bald and almost fully covered in tattoos. Although she couldn’t place him, she knew she had seen him before.

  He noticed that she had seen him, and he turned quickly to take refuge in the alley. When he turned his back to her, she realized where she knew him from. A notorious white skull stared back at her from his leather vest. “The Death Disciples,” she whispered.

  “Are you ready to go?” Lexy asked as she burst through the door, causing Kendal to nearly jump out of her skin.

  “Lexy, there is a man…” She pointed toward the window, but once she turned back, the man was no longer there.

  “What?”

  “A man.” Kendal frantically searched the street bellow for any sign of him. “There was a man right across the street, watching me change.”

  “Well, good Lord! What are you doing changing in front of an open window? Do you know how many perverts there are out there?” Lexy hastily shut the blinds and looked at her friend with concern.

  “It was a member of the Death Disciples.” The words fell numbly from Kendal’s tongue with fear.

  “Are you sure? Maybe you just—”

  Kendal cut her off before she could finish her thought. “I’m positive. He had the white skull on his vest just like Trae’s.” Lexy took her hand in her own and pulled her down to sit on the bed beside her. Looking at Kendal with pity in her eyes, Lexy let out a long sigh.

  “You’ve been through a lot. It would be perfectly normal to be paranoid or to imagine things. I don’t blame you one bit.”

  Kendal sat silently for a moment, deep in thought. Quickly she began to second-guess herself. Maybe she truly was allowing her past to affect her imagination. So often in the past year since that night she had allowed herself to get caught up in paranoia.

  The thought that she was going crazy scared her to her core. After everything had happened, she had made a vow that she wouldn’t allow it to unravel the person that she was, and she wasn’t going to change that now. So she made a conscious decision to not think about it anymore, to put her past from her mind and enjoy a normal night out with her best friend.

  “You’re probably right,” Kendal said. “I probably just imagined it.” She gave her best friend’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Nothing a few drinks can’t fix.”

  “Exactly!” Excited, Lexy jumped from the bed and pulled Kendal up behind her and toward the front door. As they opened the door to the street, the beautiful summer breeze greeted them with a warm hello. Kendal took a deep breath and smiled into the sunshine.

  Although she knew she had imagined it, Kendal couldn’t help but get an uneasy feeling as they approached the alley that she had seen from her bedroom window. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding as she saw that besides a dumpster the alley was completely empty. Happily, they made their way down the three short blocks that separated them from their favorite dive bar, Henry’s.

  The girls took a seat at their usual table and signaled for the bartender. “I’ll have a vodka soda, please,” Kendal said as he approached the table.

  “Just the usual for me.” The bartender lingered a moment too long and held eye contact with Lexy flirtatiously.

  “Has he called you yet?” Kendal asked as they both watched him walk off.

  “No, but he texted me last night. He asked if I was going to be here tonight. He said he hoped to get a chance to talk to me.”

  Kendal raised her eyebrows. “That sounds promising.”

  “I hope so.” Lexy couldn’t peel her eyes off him. “His name is Alex, by the way.”

  “Ah, finally the mystery man has a name.”

  “Shhhh.” Lexy hastily tried to silence Kendal as he returned with their drinks. “Thanks, Alex.” She looked like a young schoolgirl making googly eyes at a boy on the playground.

  “It’s my pleasure.” Alex gave her a smooth wink as he went to leave. Kendal couldn’t help but laugh at the tension between them.

  “Alex?” Kendal called after him. “Why don’t you sit and have a drink with us?” Lexy looked like she might kill Kendal, which made it all the more fun.

  “Well, I’m working…”

  “Oh come on! We’re the only two in here.” He looked around for a moment before looking back at them with a smile.

  “Okay, but just for a few minutes.”

  “Of course.” Kendal laughed at the daggers Lexy was trying to throw at her with her eyes. “So I know that you know Lexy, but I’m Kendal.”

  “I’m Alex.” He held out his hand and Kendal took it firmly in her own.

  “So, Alex, how long have you worked here?”

  “Um…around a year, I guess.” Alex shifted nervously in his chair and shot an uncomfortable smile toward Lexy. “I’m glad you decided to come out tonight.”

  “Me too. It’s great to see you.”

  “Oh,” Kendal said, pointing between the two of them. “So this is why you insisted on us coming out so early?” She thought Lexy might fal
l out of her chair with embarrassment, but she couldn’t help it. It was too much fun.

  “Well, we were going to come out anyway. Like, we just came out a little bit earlier,” Lexy explained. The door alarm went off as customers came in. They all turned in unison to see who it was.

  “Excuse me. Duty calls,” Alex said nervously as he made his way back to the bar were an older couple was now sitting.

  “Really, Kendal?” Lexy squealed.

  “What? It was funny.”

  “I hate you!” She laughed, punching her arm. “You owe me a drink.”

  Kendal rose, took both of their empty glasses up to the bar, and had Alex fill them again. “This round’s on me,” he said as he slid them to her.

  “Are you sure? That’s so nice.”

  “Just put a good word for me in with Lexy.”

  “I can do that.” Walking back over to their table, Kendal slid Lexy a drink and a sly smile.

  “Oh God. What now?”

  “He gave me free drinks if I would put in a good word with you.” Lexy’s cheeks lit up pink with embarrassment. She looked over her shoulder and caught Alex staring at her. They exchanged an awkward wave and both returned to what they were doing.

  “In all seriousness, he seems really sweet, Lexy.”

  “He does, doesn’t he?” An involuntary smile spread across her face. It truly made Kendal happy to see her so giddy over a guy. It had been such a long time since either of them had tried to put themselves out there.

  The girls swallowed down their first drink and then a second and then a third before they had realized it. Nearly two hours full of laughter and happiness had passed in what seemed like an instant.

  Kendal heard the door open and turned casually to look through the smoky air at who was entering. Instantly her stomach dropped, and she thought she might be sick. She watched a fully tattooed arm reach out for a barstool. As he sat with his back to her, the ever-so-familiar white skull stared back at her.

  “What’s wrong?” Seeing Kendal’s face go pure white, Lexy followed her gaze to see what had upset her.

  “That’s the guy,” Kendal whispered. “The guy from the street.”