he needed a few minutes to process everything that had happened that night. Whatever the team wanted could wait until he cleaned up-or they could catch him up when he joined them.
The coffee pot was gurgling, filling the house with the rich scent of freshly brewed coffee. The dogs had returned and were happily chowing down their breakfast. Though dawn was only a faint hint on the eastern horizon, Mandy was already starting breakfast prep. He stood there, watching the woman he loved.
A strange sense of being beside himself, observing his life instead of living it, came over him. His present and his past had collided a few hours ago, and he wasn’t sure what remained of himself. Believing his son still lived was the only thing that kept him alive in the months following the explosion in Kadisha’s village. And now that he knew the truth, he realized he’d lived beyond that terrible event long enough to begin again, to heal, to start a new life.
A life he had no right to live.
He headed down the hallway before Mandy caught him watching her. He wasn’t ready to talk to her or anyone yet. Christ. He’d remembered what happened. All of it. And the freshness of it was like losing his family all over again.
In the shower, he bowed his head in the streams of the hot water. Revisiting the memories the night had unlocked, he forced himself to walk through the minutes before the explosion had destroyed Kadisha’s village. He saw again the panic that had women and town elders fleeing about, gathering their loved ones. Kadisha was helping them to hurry, bombs still strapped to her waist.
He thought of how much C-4 she wore, realizing it wouldn’t have been enough to wreak the destruction the explosion had caused. She’d said there were more bombs placed about the village. Whoever had set them wanted it to look as if an airstrike had hit the remote mountain town.
Rocco scrubbed his face, his hair, every inch of his body. The salt of his tears stung the cuts on his face as he thought about his son. Beautiful. Precocious. A child full of laughter and light. As a grandson of the region’s most powerful warlord, he’d been the darling of the village. He’d made a vow to himself that the taint of war would never darken his son’s spirit. His boy was born to stand in two worlds. Rocco had intended he would know and love not only his mother’s people, but his father’s as well.
Instead, he’d let the war snuff his boy’s life out.
Rocco shut off the water. He grabbed a towel and mopped his face, trying to compose himself. Now wasn’t the time to break down. His son was gone-he couldn’t undo the past. Terrorists were loose, Blade was missing, and Mandy and the team were still in danger. He had to stay present and on task. He could compartmentalize it, as he had all his feelings and desires and dreams for ten long fucking years. It was what he’d done when he’d let himself forget the truth of that day. But no matter what he told himself, that wound was raw and gaping, exposed as it was to the air and the light of day.
Stepping to the sink, Rocco made the mistake of catching his reflection in the mirror. He swiped at the steam and looked at the visage of a man he didn’t know. Tall, lean, gaunt, eyes filled with shadows, chin covered with a few weeks’ growth of beard-a beard he no longer needed now that he knew his son was dead.
That realization was heartbreaking. Paralyzing. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. What was there left to him?
Nothing. Not a goddamned thing.
He reached into a cabinet and retrieved his shaving kit. His movements were angry and jerky as he slapped shaving cream on his face, sending white foam everywhere. He reached into his kit for his razor, but it caught in a bit of netting and wouldn’t come free. He yanked at the razor’s thin handle, knowing logically that wasn’t the way to free it but unable to stop himself. He yanked and yanked, flapping the kit around, emptying its contents in a noisy clatter across the counter, but still not freeing his razor.
Rage built within him, a fire in his bones, his being, his empty, empty soul. He wanted to pound the walls, rip the medicine cabinet off its mounting.
Catching himself before his fury spooled out of control, he felt the ugly wash of emotion slam back into him. His legs crumpled beneath his weight, and he slumped on the floor by the cabinet, wracked by soundless sobs.
His son was dead. His wife was dead. Their second child, still in the safety of his mother’s womb, was dead. Two beautiful, innocent children given to a pair of monsters. Gone.
He rested his arms on his knees and bowed his head, sucking in air as he tried to calm himself. He should have died with them. He was their father. Kadisha’s husband. Though he hadn’t loved his wife, he had loved his children. He should not have lived when they didn’t.
In every way that meant anything about being a man, he had failed his children, his wife. Himself.
Rocco didn’t know how long he sat there. Gradually, noise of the men gathering in the living room drifted to the back of the house where he sat. He got to his feet and faced his reflection. The shaving cream had thinned and dried on his face. He rinsed it off, then wiped the counter down, and tried again.
And when he looked at his eyes next, he saw banked anguish and determination that was raw and unbounded.
Amir, who was one of Abdul Baseer al Jahni’s lieutenants, as Kadisha’s father had been, was here. In America. Threatening Mandy and men he’d come to think of as brothers. The bastard would die a hard and bloody death if Rocco had anything to do with it.
He straightened the bathroom, then dressed. When he opened the door to the hallway, he stood unmoving as he looked at his future. He was hollow inside, a shell of a man. He had a choice to make. Live or die. Fight or quit. Be or stop.
He heard Mandy laugh in the kitchen. In the middle of the hell that had become her life, she could still laugh. The guys were gathering in the living room, hungry for breakfast. They’d been up all night. Like him, they were anxious to find Blade.
It seemed, whether he was done with life or not, it wasn’t done with him. It beckoned at the end of the hall. He knew if he accepted what it offered, he would be starting over. He would have to put the past behind him. Become a man reborn, a man who looked forward rather than backward.
He stepped across the threshold and made the long walk down the hallway and into the kitchen. Mandy took one look at him and hurried to his side. “Rocco, what is it?”
He ached to hold her. She didn’t resist as he pulled her against himself. She leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him, holding him as tightly as he held her. His arms moved across her back, one folding around her tiny waist, the other circling up to wrap around her head, pinning her to him.
“I love you, Mandy,” he whispered against her hair. He stroked her hair. “It’s important for you to know that.”
She pulled back and looked up at him, searching his face, his eyes. Her hands lifted to his cheeks. “I love you, Rocco.” A frown wrinkled her brow. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. He felt the cool track of tears on his cheeks. Zavi. His boy was dead. “No. I’m not.” He sighed. “But I think I will be.” Blade had been right-what he felt was the ghost connection of a father and his son. “I remembered, Emmy. I remembered everything.”
Mandy studied his eyes. “I’m so sorry.” She touched the smooth skin of his jaw. “Your beard-”
He shrugged. “I don’t need it anymore. I’m not going back after all.” He pulled her close again, then kissed her temple. “Blade’s been kidnapped.”
She tensed in his arms. “I heard. What happened?”
“Someone took him from his house. We have to go after him fast. I want you to be careful. This Abdul Baseer al Jahni is a bad guy-he’s rich, connected, and determined to make examples of Kit, Blade and me. If you must go outside, I will go with you. If I’m not here, take a couple of the men. You are not to be alone outside of this house, ever. They used a tranquilizer on Blade, so even if you don’t see anyone nearby, you still may not be safe. I don’t know how long it’ll take us. For Blade’s sake, I hope not long.”
He pulled back and looked at her. “I need to know you’ll do as I ask. I hate how indefensible this property is.” He frowned down at her as he considered other options. “Maybe I should take you down to Warren or Fort Carson.”
“I’m not leaving here. I’ll do as you ask, but I won’t be going to any safe house on a base somewhere. I don’t want to be away from you during this.”
He leaned down and touched his lips to hers in a gentle kiss, breathing her scent, feeling the soft curves of her body. She was everything he was not: kind, gentle, strong, soft, warm. The ugliness of his life had invaded her existence, and he regretted that. She deserved be sheltered, protected, not warned and guarded, afraid to even to
