The gates open to my property, and I grip the steering wheel tight in my hand to the point my palm gets pinched against the leather, and it twinges from friction.
I didn’t want to leave her, but of course, I had to take a phone call regarding the current mission from the Admiral.
I’ll continue to be the villain in her books if it means she stays protected. I won’t let her in on the gruesome details that have been my life lately. It all began when I started work again after my leave of absence.
It’s like I live two very different lives.
I tried to hide it from Ari. It was for a good reason. She doesn’t need to worry about this, but alas, Kane can’t keep his fucking mouth shut.
He keeps overstepping, and I’ve been a very, very patient man.
Ari has made me a more patient and forgiving man.
But this?
I didn’t feel the need to act out and confront him because I knew once I did…it wouldn’t be pretty. We have more serious matters in front of us. But I might have to show him what happens when someone crosses me regarding my girl.
The gates close behind my truck, and I loosen my grip on the wheel.
Ari’s words stabbed me deep with no remorse.
A night that should’ve ended with her bent over, my cock deep inside of her while she screamed my name repeatedly, turned sour.
I wanted to fuck her mouth, cunt, and ass all in one night.
But instead, it ended with us…estranged in separate beds.
I park my truck in the driveway and pull out my cigarettes. The rain stopped pouring, and I could sense the old me poking at me, my favorite pick of poison sitting on my shelves in my kitchen, calling my name.
I step onto my front porch and reach for the pack of cigarettes in my pocket. My thumb brushes against the lighter two times before it lights up, and I inhale the cigarette.
The flavor burns onto my tongue, and I stare at the stars.
She loves me. She said it. She fucking said it.
But instead of pushing her away when she said it like I would have a few months ago, I wanted to carry her into her house and kiss her until her world only revolved around me. Fuck her over and over again in different positions, on her bed, tangled up in bed sheets until the sun came up.
I blow out the smoke and watch the bright reddish-orange fire crackle at the end of my cigarette.
She wanted me gone? I’m poison to her?
It pains her to love me?
I’ve been stabbed, sliced, beaten, blown up, but her words were worse than all of that combined when she said it.
Fuck.
It was cruel, but a part of me understands her.
It isn’t fair to her after everything she’s been through.
It feels like it’s over.
She said it was over.
But even if she doesn’t want me, she has me.
She has me wrapped around her pretty little soul, even if that means I don’t get to kiss or hold her again.
I won’t ever love another woman because she has me…she fucking has me.
A familiar darkness I’ve learned to push away twists violently in my chest, scratching at my sanity once again, and I crack.
I throw the cigarette to the floor, putting it out underneath my boot, and swing the door to my house open after unlocking it.
Swinging the door open frantically, pissed off even, and I’m met with silence.
It’s dark, quiet and eerie.
I was born and molded by silence and cold-hearted parents from birth to adulthood. I thrive in quiet loneliness because of them…until Paul’s death.
Until Ari.
After that, it’s just been noise that I like to drown out with whiskey.
I haven’t slept alone at home in a while. I’ve been with her every night, holding her, consumed by her scent, in her bed.
But now, I’m alone in my house like I used to be. Like the old me. Before I crossed paths with Ari, and I don’t like it.
I walk toward my kitchen, not bothering to turn on any light.
I don’t need to be guided towards a place I know too well. A place that used to be my favorite escape.
Throwing my keys on the counter without a care in the world, I grab a bottle of Jack Daniels off the bar. It’s in my hand, and I turn it until I read “Tennessee Whiskey”. I stare at it long, getting lost in my thoughts. It feels like forever that I stand in my bar area.
I debate with myself.
Just one drink. One drink to take the edge off, the anger, the pain.
I twist the cap open, but this time, I take a couple of gulps from the top, not bothering with a whiskey glass. The familiar smooth, burning amber alcohol welcomes me back with open arms, and I sigh deeply, licking my lips after swallowing a reasonable amount.
I tighten my jaw over and over again, looking at it.
I have a few days back home, and now I’m going to spend them like this?
Fuck.
I slam the bottle back down on the counter and think long and hard before I make my next move.
I’m tempted to drive back to Ari’s place, throw her over my lap and spank her until her ass is red and flaring raw.
I want to punish her for thinking such delusional ideas, like leaving me is an actual option.
Her soul is mine forever.
I’m almost entertained enough to crack a smile.
I already started to drink—shit.
I can’t drive anywhere now, but I need to be alone, too, even though I want to be anywhere else but here.
I’ll spend the night with the one thing I can always count on to make me forget things I don’t want to remember.
Whiskey.
So why the fuck not? If she wants to leave me, one night of taking the edge off won’t make a fucking difference.
I’m upstairs in my bedroom, throwing off my soaked shirt and pants, pulling off my belt, and kicking off my boots fast.
I change into my workout clothes, slipping into a dark navy blue shirt and shorts, and head to my basement. But I grab the bottle I left on the counter before I do.
Meanwhile, I try not to let my demons come back to me full circle.
I will work out until my body begs me to stop, and even then…I’ll push more.
I will drink until I can only feel serenity.
I will forget that my life has hit this bottomless pit tonight…just tonight.
Push-up after push-up. Squat after squat. Bench press after bench press.
It’s been three fucking hours, and I can’t stop.
I’m breathing hard with each rep. My heart thunders against my rib cage as I push my body past incredible limits.
It’s well into the night, around three in the morning, and I keep grinding hard until I can push the thoughts of Ari…our baby…and Paul’s death out of my head.
Sweat profusely falls all over my skin, drenching through my clothes, and I still can’t stop.
I’m still trying to digest everything Ari confessed. It hurts…this hurts more than I ever thought it would. She’s stronger than she gives herself credit for. I know her well enough to know that she can get through this. Even if she shuts me out, I know my little angel will continue to thrive. But the selfish part of me wants to cheer her on every step of the way.
I’ve avoided taking another swallow of Jack for now. Instead, I’ve gotten lost in my workout, listening to Avenged Sevenfold and System of a Down blasting, the mirrors on my wall shaking from how loud the volume is.
My gym has about everything a regular one would have.
A treadmill and weights galore.
After my last rep of deadlifts, I drop the bar of weights, passing my personal best, and I grunt hard as I max them out.
The oversized plates on each side of the bar collide with the floor, bouncing, and the metal reverberates riotously.
Almost every single vein in my arms makes its dramatic presence known. I open and close my hands when I realize I’ve added more calloused texture.
No matter what I do, how much I try to forget our fight…
Ari is still in my head, along with her sweet scent.
I close my eyes, trying to catch my breath.
But I still see her.
Her smile glimmers in my mind. The same smile she gave me when I surprised her for her birthday. It dazzles in my head. Then I see her wide-eyed brown irises looking up at me, tears rolling down her face when she had my cock down her throat. Blood rushes down to my core when I remember how I had her against the hospital room wall, her beautiful tits bouncing each time I drove into her.
Her hard nipples should be in my mouth right now.
Fuck this.
I grab the whiskey bottle and take another drink, downing it quickly like water.
She should be in my arms right now, taking slow, peaceful breaths while she sleeps.
And if she has another night of terror, I should be there to promise her, assure her that she’s okay.
We’ll be okay.
I thought I was making the right choice by not informing her about the bounty I’m the center of.
Still, I don’t regret not sharing it. I’m solid in my decision.
She’s right, though. The evil won’t stop.
She lost Paul and our son in one year. I don’t want her to imagine me in a casket, too.
Something pulls at my heart, and the need to check on Ari consumes me. Breathing hard, sweaty palms, I check the cameras on my phone, ensuring she’s safe and okay.
After a few swipes, I find my little angel. I can’t see her face, but she’s cuddled underneath the blankets in her room; on her side, the tulips I left her are on the nightstand.
I knew Kane stayed behind when I ordered them out of the building. He told me he needed to piss, and I told him to make it quick, but the asshole lied.
Our friendship ended the day he first overstepped. When he first aimed blame at me for Paul’s death in Iraq. And then he asked Ari on a date right before.
It ended right then and there that day…and I don’t feel shit about it.
The fact that he thinks he’ll have Ari underneath him one day makes me laugh.
Over my dead body.
No one will ever touch her the way I do.
I stopped by her mother’s early in the morning while Ari was at work. I wanted her and her mother to spend some time without me there, so I waited for her at her place after I showered and went to the store for her favorite flowers. I waited while they had dinner.
I shared a long, personal, one-on-one conversation with Mrs. Alvarez. We talked about Paul, and I asked her what Ari was like as a child. She told me she had always been intelligent, caring, and giving. Never selfish. Never disloyal.
But now, that same girl wants nothing to do with me or this military lifestyle.
I look at myself in the mirrors I have installed on the walls of my gym. I run my hand through my beard, my chest heaving.
Then I fidget and have both hands on my waist, pacing back and forth. My abdomen constricts as I breathe.
I’m tempted to finish the rest of the bottle of Jack, so I can pass out asleep without thinking of what Ari said.
But then a flash of red catches my eye.
I can feel something wet that’s not my sweat, and I wipe the bottom of my nose to find blood smeared across my fingers.
I look at my reflection in the mirror, confused, narrowing my brows, and see more blood fall, and I swear my heart sinks with dread.
Because the last time I saw blood fall from someone’s nose, it was the worst night of my life.
I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand, cold breathing down on it, and it all feels too fucking painfully familiar.
The reaper laughs low and condescending into my head, and I tighten my jaw, watching the blood fall into my hands.
Drip, drip, drip.
It’s demonic. My well-acquainted friend’s voice sends me into nostalgia, and I’m transported back to the time I first met Death.
“Chop Suey” by System Of A Down begins to fade slowly from my ears, as if the volume is being lowered to silence, and I’m back in Iraq.
Adrenaline courses through my veins, and I’m burning despite the brutal cold conditions.
My molars grind against each other. My brows narrow in with aggression.
This is the stress I’ve been trained to handle. What I will handle.
Both teams are at each other’s throats, arguing and going back and forth with each other, and I’m growing fucking tired of it, but I’ll listen while I decide the next course of movement.
“Paul, if we go east, it gives us more cover! More time to retreat once Kane pulls the trigger,” someone on his team hisses just loud enough we can hear him.
I’m sitting on a rock, bouncing my knee up and down while everyone stands, Paul’s team and mine facing each other.
“If we go west, it’ll make the best shot. We don’t have anyone on this team that’s made a shot that far before from the east. We can’t risk it. We’ll be letting Omar go if we choose your spot. A mission fucking failed, Aitu!” Paul snarls back.
Normally, I’d be the one taking the shot, but I’ve taken Kane underneath my wing, pressuring him to adapt under pressure so he’ll be one to eliminate the threat.
This isn’t going to be a topic of discussion. I’m in charge, and I know what I have to do. And it stops right now.
“Everyone, shut the fuck up,” I snarl. All eyes are on me. Everyone has their masks on, covered in black. Nothing but wide, frustrated eyes looking back at me.
“Executioners.” I look at my team, pointing to the other side of the woods. “Re-group,” I order them away from Paul’s team. Rooker, Kane, and Lopez retreat with nods. All whispers come to a complete silence. Kane spits and chewing tobacco lands on the ground.
Paul stalks toward me as I clutch my rifle tighter. Even through the obsidian night, I can see the conflict brew in the air. Every single operator strained with apprehension.
Friction looms between the teams, and this needs to end.
“Grim, you know I’m right,” Paul says, his breath leaving a white puff, his boots breaking more twigs on the ground with each step.
I look at him, my eyes narrowed, my mind running a thousand miles.
He is right, but his teammate is right, too.
“Just trust me, Grim. I know I’m making the right call,” Paul pleads, standing next to me. “And if I’m wrong… Well, you can kill me yourself. But I think my little sister and Mom will be slightly disappointed.”
I smirk underneath my mask, looking away from him and instead at my rifle.
I’m itching to grab a cigarette, but I decide against it.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask sternly, but my tone isn’t friendly or brotherly. It comes out authoritative and stern. I’m not talking to him like he’s my best friend, even though the decision I’m about to make says otherwise.
I need to get through his thick skull that this decision could not only mean a mission failed…it could mean our lives.
Killed in action.
“Yes.” He doesn’t stutter, he doesn’t hesitate. He’s confident, and my chest tightens. I inhale the cold, frozen air to ease the pressure, but it only returns with frost, making me feel worse.
I look at him, tormenting his brown eyes to see if he’ll break or change his mind, testing him.
He doesn’t break.
I look away and at every other SEAL in front of me.
“We’re going west,” I finalize.
Even when I say it, something tugs at my clarity. I am sure. I am always confident, but uncertainty tingles in the back of my mind for the first time.
We discussed a plan to execute the mission. We grouped up after I told them we were headed west and to follow Paul’s orders.
So here we go, following my brother’s plan, walking on the edge of a mountain, headed west with tension thick, and our minds set to kill.
We walked a couple more feet closer to Omar and his crew of followers.
I’m quiet as always, observing every little detail I can see through my night vision, and the aura rises with ominous anticipation.
We walk tactically, each step well accounted for. Paul and I lead our teams in the front. Every other operator trail behind us, and we’re so close to our destination.
But then I catch something moving to my left, and I stop in my tracks on the side of the mountain, but Paul keeps walking in front of me.
It moved as fast as it came, and I glare at a tall tree where I last saw this dark shadow move like a figure.
Another deer?
Then I feel something touch my neck.
It couldn’t be wind because nothing else moves when I study the landscape. No trees or leaves sway with it, but I feel something airy and wintry…like a breath, on my throat.
That’s when I hear a familiar snap that echoes deep, the devastating sound bouncing off the mountains when it rang, howling like a ghost, and then it stops.
A shot was fired.
And then another shot rings out, sending Paul spinning, and then another one.
My soul shatters when I realize what the fuck just happened.
But the shooting doesn’t stop, and everyone takes cover.
I drop to the ground, my chest hitting the floor to make sense of what’s happening.
“They saw us coming! They have us pinned!” Lopez informs me before he starts radioing air support.
“Grim, get the fuck back, you’re going to get shot!” It’s Rooker.
“Is Alvarez okay? Where the fuck is he?” Kane shouts into the mic, panicking.
I want to cover my ears when every single man on this mission tonight screams into my ears with worried, shaky tones, demanding me to give them an answer.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut the fuck up, and let me think!
I dare to look forward, tilting my head off the dirt, and I see Paul on his back, wide-eyed to the sky, gasping for air.
“Don’t do it, Grim. Don’t you fucking do it,” Rooker barks at me. He knows me too well. They are all a couple of feet away from us with cover. A luxury Paul and I don’t have.
I jump off the floor, sprinting as bullets spray in our direction. Dirt and rocks explode into the air all around us. I pull him away from where he is lying. I drag him back behind a rock that sits nearby. He weighs nothing to me, when adrenaline lights me up and our lives on the line.
The boulder gives both him and I just enough cover.
I expect him to groan as I drag him to cover, but no…it’s choking, I hear.
Another bullet is ricocheting off the floor by my foot but barely misses me, leaving my toes intact.
I make it to the only shield we have.
I sit behind the rock and kneel over Paul’s body as my best friend’s life gets drained away. I remove his mask so he can breathe better, and I do the same.
He’s pale, his eyes watering, blood coming out of his neck, nose, chest, and mouth.
It’s everywhere with no end in sight.
Bullets continue to spray all around me, but I focus on my brother. Then I hear the sounds of an Apache and a Black Hawk approaching in the distance. The blades whip the air, vibrating in a continuous loop.
“You better fucking hold on,” I growl at him. “We have to do another fishing trip in Florida. You owe me a fishing pole, remember?” I joke with a smile, forcing it out through my jaw that threatens to lock up. I’m going into shock, disbelief possessing my body. Paul’s team and mine fire back, gun shots from both sides vibrating our bones while I spew empty promises to my brother.
And I know…there’s nothing I can do.
I’m in hell.
I do my best to stop the bleeding, but it’s like trying to put tape on a leaking dam.
Nothing is going to stop this.
He trembles, and his bloody lips curve into a small smile because he knows his fate has been sealed, but I refuse to accept it.
“T-tell m-my s-sister—” he gurgles, his life draining to nothing, and there’s nothing I can do but watch. “Tell m-my m-mom—” He swallows the blood again and again, continuing to try to croak out the words through it all, clawing at his wounds over my hands.
I shake my head.
“You’ll tell them yourself, brother. Don’t worry, just hang on. Air support is here already,” I lie, repeatedly.
I lie, forcing him to believe he will return to his girls alive.
I need his last thoughts to be hopeful. He needs to know he’s not alone and that I’m right fucking here.
“It’s been one hell of a ride, brother.” He trembles out.
Then he spits more blood to the side, the blood splattering across the dirt one last time before his eyes go flat, dull, and unsaturated.
His chest stops moving, and he goes motionless. He looks frozen in time, and I feel like my whole body is decimated. A sinking harsh sensation through my bones, and even through the night, I can see a black shadow swallowing us. The light from the moon goes away, and it’s dark.
My eyes widen when I realize that my best friend has been KIA.
Paul Alvarez, Operator Slayer, gone.
No, no, no, no.
What the fuck.
Motherfuckers will pay.
But I don’t cry, I don’t move, I don’t wail.
I’m composed while I continue to watch his body drain empty. My body grows numb. Paul is fucking gone, and it’s my fault. For the first time in my career, I made the wrong decision that got my best friend killed.
I set his stone-cold body down on the mountain terrain as blood continues to leak out from his wounds, even after his last breath. Even though I know there’s no other way Paul would have wanted to go out, it still feels like a curse.
I clutch my rifle again, forcing myself to overcome the shock that threatens to possess me. My fingers grip my weapon tight, and I’m about to spiral deeper into my thoughts.
“Grim!” Kane shouts at me as his fingers touch the trigger repeatedly and his shoulder ricochets from the kickback each time.
I’m still in the fight. We all are.
I relax my shoulders, look into my crosshairs, and return fire.
I don’t know when it happened, while I was lost in thought, but I found myself with the whiskey bottle in my hands again. Staring at it while heavy metal music continues to play in my gym.
And then I see the future that I want for myself. The future I refuse to let slip away from me. The future I want with the one woman that consumes me every day just by existing. She has saved me in more ways than she’ll ever fucking know. She makes me better.
I grit my teeth and smash the bottle on the floor, breaking the glass and little bits and pieces spread everywhere, and I walk away from the last bottle of whiskey I’ll ever own.
