I could do with a little bit of cold right about now, I thought grimly. The sun was yet to come up, although I could feel the heat that was threatening already.
Fuck, I hate the desert almost as much as the jungle. Almost.
Running to the waiting chopper, I waved at my brother, who was sitting in the pilot seat, motioning for us to hurry up.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I muttered, leaping onto the deck, then turned around to help with the gurney carrying Deke.
“Hey. big brother,” Dane shouted over his shoulder at me, “finally, I get to save your arse.”
“Still can’t kick it, though, can you, Bubba?” I retorted, using the name our mother had bestowed on him.
“Fucking prick,” Dane grumbled, giving me a one-fingered salute.
Laughing, I grabbed a headset from the rack behind the pilot seat and put it on.
“Patch me through to the FOB, Dane, I need to get word to the boys I got Deke.”
Giving me a thumbs up, Dane radioed in doing as I asked.
Looking down at Deke, who was now being hooked up to an IV line, the medics tearing off his camos so they could assess his injuries. In the dim red light of the chopper, I saw what was hiding under Deke’s shirt and fuck, if I didn’t nearly vomit. His entire torso was a myriad of black, blue and red. Welts from fuck knows what kind of weapon marred his rib area, slashes from a knife, at least ten, oozed blood.
Fear choked me, my belly filling with dread as I looked up towards my brother.
“Hurry, Dane, he doesn’t have much time.”
CHAPTER TWO
COLE
The bird flew through the early morning, the wind chilly but welcome.
After months of recon missions and raids, I was ready to get back home. Usually, I didn’t ache for home like Gabe, Bastian, Grill and Rafe did. They were eager to get back to their women and Ammo and Grill to their kids as well.
Don’t get me wrong, I missed my family when I was away. My brothers and sister and I were close, and to our parents too. Seeing Dane again after months away, despite the circumstances, was a bloody relief, to be honest. His rotation was different to mine, and when we were away at the same time, it was very rare we crossed paths, with Dane flying mainly medic flights with the occasional night drops.
“Did you hear Wren is expecting again?” Dane’s voice came through the radio set on my ears.
“Like Ammo needs another reason to brag about his super sperm,” I muttered, but with no heat. I was happy for my cousin and fellow Sons member and for his beautiful wife, whom I loved like a sister.
“Apparently, it has Shiloh all clucky again. Zander threatened to keep his cock in his pants until Shiloh comes to her senses. Our brother is having nightmares about Jewel growing up and being a carbon copy of her mother,” Dane shared, chuckling.
Poor Zander, not only did my oldest brother have his hands full with his wife, but also his little girl—my niece—was six going on twenty-six.
“Zander knew what he was getting into,” I threw back, “his obsession with Shy-Shy has had him by the balls since he was ten.”
“Good times, hey, Ghost?” Dane said, looking over his shoulder at me.
“The best,” I agreed with a hint of a smile. Those days I didn’t close my eyes and see men dying in front of me, didn’t hear the screams of women and children being slaughtered by their own people. Back then, I wasn’t haunted by the images of men dying by my hand, their eyes rolling back in their heads as their life spilled from them. Lives I took because that was my job.
Now, I was exactly what the army trained me to be.
A cold-hearted killer.
By my hand or someone else’s, I had seen far too much death—in war and at home, there had to be a limit a man could reach before the taste of death became the only meal he ate? Just recently, the death of my own cousin, Justin, came to mind. Crazed and deranged, Justin took it upon himself to take on the Wounded Souls; his vendetta against what he thought was favouritism by Booth nearly took the life of Rafe’s woman, Peyton. My own father had been the one to point his weapon at Justin, the first time in many years he was forced to pick it up. Not to kill, but as it turned out, fate took charge and Justin died by his own hand. My heart broke for his parents, my uncle and aunt, not by blood but just as important.
Sighing, I rubbed my palms against my eyes as if the harsh rubbing would take away the memory of seeing all that I have witnessed.
Maybe this time, when I go home, I might spend time
