The thought was horrifying. But…
I saw Scott’s point.
“Unless he has a hostage that somehow imperils national security, maybe he grabs the president’s daughter or something, Snake is the target. He may use his victims as baits figuring we will go after him, but as of now, Snake becomes the primary mission. Rescuing the hostages is secondary. Understand?”
We all knew this meant the next hostage could die. We’d have to live with that in our conscience from here to the grave. We’d always done what we felt like was the right thing, but we had our limits.
There was no telling if Snake would suddenly start killing his victims anyway. And there was no telling how much longer we in DOM would be willing to keep up this game. Physically, we felt great and could go for ages. But mentally, I knew Liam and Scott were getting exhausted. And the fact that Emily kept popping to mind for me probably said I was getting tired of this particular lifestyle as well.
“For now, we go back to our homes and tell our loved ones we care about them,” Scott said. “Because when you go for a snake, you’re probably going to get bit. And we know this Snake has some venom to him.”
Liam and I both nodded. He had Kelly to get back to.
I may not have technically had Emily at the moment, but one thing was for damn sure. I was going to get her back. I’d thought about her too much on this mission for me to ignore it.
“Acknowledged,” I said.
“Let’s head back to our bunker. I’ll arrange the plane en route to take us back to Miami when we get there. From there, Liam and I will go to our own homes.”
Miami wasn’t where I lived. But even Scott understood I couldn’t leave there without seeing Emily.
The Next Monday
Heading back to base was uneventful. The flight went normal. For what felt like the longest time, I weighed my options for how I should brooch this who issue with Emily.
My attraction to her is next level. I agreed to let her use my sperm to impregnant her. Then I bailed on her and had a fucked up broken conversation with her on the phone. I am sure she has all but written me off but this last mission has me second guessing what I want in life. And so, when today rolled around, I knew where I’d find her—at work.
I would take what I knew was mine however I had to.
I took a walk to her office, knowing full well where she worked. I went to the receptionist and told her I was Emily Lorne’s brother and needed to see her.
“She actually is on vacation right now. Can I take a message?”
I bit my lip. This wasn’t…
“Just tell her Brodie asked for her,” I said, figuring she’d make the connection soon enough if the receptionist was somehow covering her ass.
But as I thought about it, it made sense Emily wouldn’t be at work. Perhaps it was a stretch to say that I knew she wouldn’t be at work, since I’d come there first, but knowing how much weight she’d put into this whole having kids thing, she’d probably taken some time off.
I decided to do what I’d done the first time. I’d head to her place.
Once more, without much of a concern for security, I blended myself in by pretending to be part of a circle of friends with some other residents. I went up to her floor, knocked on her door, and waited. This time, I wound up waiting much longer than I had expected. Perhaps Emily would not delight me by appearing almost naked as she had before.
And sure enough, when she opened the door, she had clothes on. But it wasn’t the clothing I was paying attention to. It was her face.
It started out stoic, gave a flicker of a smile, and then went back to angry. It was like she couldn’t help but be happy, but also wanted to look annoyed.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to explain what the hell happened on that phone call,” I said, “since surely, you’re aware it ended bad?”
Emily pursed her lips as if debating whether she wanted to fight back or not.
“Go ahead and explain.”
“Can I come in?”
She sighed.
“You’re lucky I don’t have anything else going on right now.”
I stepped inside, plopped myself down on the same couch I’d sat at last time.
“Do us both a favor first and just pretend that phone call didn’t happen,” I said. “Whatever got said clearly wasn’t received in full, and it’s not going to be good if you pretend like it was.”
“Fine, but now there’s no excuses.”
“When I am out in the field,” I began, “I’m good at turning everything off. I just focus on killing whoever I need to kill and rescuing whoever I need to. The reason Liam and Scott say I’m a DOM’s dom is because of just that. Focus. But before I went out on my runs, I realized that something was distracting me like never before. And that something is actually someone. You.”
“I’m here because I want more than what we agreed to, Emily. I know I didn’t sign shit. I know I ran off fast. But this DOM shit will be over soon. Our target will fall, and—”
“Burke.”
She needed to only say my name for me to know there was something brewing. Her look, as I spoke, had gone from anger to surprise to fear. None of it was good.
“There’s something you need to know.”
“What?”
Another man? She decided against it? I can handle whatever.
“I decided to
