The bowl flew across the room before crashing against the log wall. Law was out of his seat, the chair on the floor, as he grabbed the hot pan off the stove and threw that against the opposite wall, a green spray of pea soup following in its wake.
“Why?” he bellowed. “Goddamn you, Xave. I still needed you!”
Asher felt his heart breaking. It was an actual physical pain in his chest.
Unshed tears glittered in Law’s eyes as he turned to Ash. “Why didn’t he come to us? What could have been so bad that he couldn’t have come to us?”
The pain in his chest tripled in size. It was the same question Asher had been asking himself since the day he’d heard about Xavier’s suicide. How could he have failed his big brother so badly?
“How could he have done this to Maman?” Law cried out. He stood there, his chest heaving, his arms stretched out from his body, his hands fisted. “How is she surviving this?”
“She doesn’t know,” Ash whispered as he cautiously walked over to stand in front of his large brother.
“You didn’t tell her that Xavier killed himself?” Law whispered.
Asher shook his head. “Since she’s over in Belgium, and you were on a mission, they notified me first. I told her. I said he died during a training exercise.”
Law gripped his shoulder. “Thank God you did that. I talked to her, but she was so broken up, we never discussed how he died.” Law’s fingers clenched tighter. “We just talked about Xavier, ya’ know? Hell, half the time she was talking French so fast I couldn’t understand her.”
Ash had understood every word she’d said. He’d talked to her in French for hours. First, she’d lost dad, and now Xavier. He had to get her to the States.
“I don’t get it, Ash. I don’t understand how his life could have come to that. I just don’t get why he couldn’t have reached out to us. I spoke to him three days before. He kept asking about me. Wanted to know if I was all right. He picked at me to open up. I should have known to turn it around.” Law’s voice was thick with tears. He collapsed on the sagging piece of furniture trying to pass as a sofa, his head in his hands. Ash sat down next to him so he could hear his next whispered words. “It’s a gut punch knowing I failed him.”
He looked up at Asher with a tortured expression.
Asher couldn’t take it a moment longer. He pulled his kid brother into his arms, trying to think of the right words. Words that would exonerate Law. Give him solace. Something that would never be possible for himself.
“Law, you know Xavier. He was strong. He would never have admitted something was wrong. Our brother never knew how to bend, so the winds just kept coming at him until that day he shattered. I don’t think he ever saw it coming.”
It took a moment for Ash to understand what Law was saying into his shoulder. Finally, he understood him.
“Yes, Brother, I promise to come to you if the winds ever get too strong. I promise.”
Chapter 1
Asher had made sure to buckle into the jump seat next to Ezio when they’d boarded the plane. The man had just transferred in from the Omega Sky team, and even though there was a lot of hype surrounding him, it still remained to be seen if he could cut it on their Night Storm SEAL team.
Leo Perez was on Asher’s other side. He was reading a worn paperback by Steinbeck. The man would read and re-read a book until the pages fell out during each stint abroad. This time it was Cannery Row, the last mission it had been The Great Santini by Pat Conroy. Asher thought that maybe he should read something; it sure would be better than having all the “what ifs” swirl through his head.
“What do you think of that, Ash?” Cullen Lyons called out from the jump seat directly across from him.
It took a beat for him to respond. Luckily, it was Cullen, so he knew what he needed to say. “Sounds like a pile of lies to me,” Asher replied. He had no idea what Cullen had said, but that answer was usually a safe bet.
Raiden Sato raised his eyebrow, “There you have it, Nic. Thorne agrees with me—there’s no way that Cullen took the first place trophy in a karaoke contest in the middle of a swamp.”
“I said it was a wet t-shirt karaoke contest. Get the story straight, Raiden.” Cullen griped. “Over two-thirds of the audience were women and they liked what they saw.” Cullen flexed his biceps. “That, along with my superb singing voice, guaranteed me a win.”
“I’m with Asher; there’s no such thing as a wet t-shirt karaoke contest,” Kane McNamara said, never looking up from his computer tablet.
“Florida,” Cullen said to Kane. “You need to go down to the bars in Florida. They have everything. I had an option to sing with an alligator on a leash. I would have, except the girl who had just gone before me had dibs on him. She decided to take him home. Apparently, her mama and auntie had an alligator breeding program going on at their place and that bull would make fine babies.”
Everybody felt the landing gear lower, which stopped the conversation. That was fine by Asher. He was absolutely goddamn sure that Cullen would soon be telling them that there had been sparklers shooting out of
