Page 19 of Delta (Alpha #12)

He just grins. "I know, love. Don't forget it.

" He waves a hand. "So, Afghanistan. Chasin' an' H-V-T—high value target.

Taliban bigwig, a right nasty cunt. My unit lit'rally stumbled on a fuckin' hornet's nest of tangos.

Hell broke loose, we offed a bunch of 'em, lost a couple blokes of our own—not a nice situation.

Details don't really matter, but due to no error on my part, I got separated from my mates.

Got captured, stuck with a big fuckin' needle, and ended up with a smelly sack over my head in the back of a cave in the mountains. "

"Oh. That doesn't sound fun."

He looks at his fingernails. "Nah, it wasn't. Learned a few valuable lessons, though. Like, it takes a good four months for fingernails to grow all the way back. Didn't much like that. Rather get my head done in.”

"What did they want?"

A shrug. “Usual. Information, on the face of it, but really, just to fuck with me. Sleep deprivation, sound assault, the odd beatin' here and there, hot needles under my toenails, um…what else? Electrocution via jump leads an' a car battery."

"Jesus, Rush."

"Jesus wasn't much part of it, I don't think." He laughs. "Nah, I'm just jokin'. I'm alright. You get the odd nightmare now and again, but that's why God invented drinkin' problems, innit?"

"You're very casual about torture."

"Well, I ain't gonna stand around havin' a cry about it, am I?"

"How'd you get away?"

"Mates came for me. Tell you what, though, love, you'll never in your life be as happy as when your mates kick the door in and take you home. Don't mind admittin' I cried when I saw Freddie, Reg, and Beaners bash in the door to my cell."

"Beaners?" I ask. "How does someone end up with a nickname like Beaners?"

"No point tryin' to understand military nicknames.

Even if I told you the whole story, you'd still not understand it, mainly cause it's fuckin stupid.

" He glances at me, then at the two men who are now only some thirty feet away and closing.

"Fine, fine. I'll just be done with it, then.

Take all the fun out of things, why don't ya? "

His hand vanishes behind his back under his leather jacket, which is when I realize he intends to just whip out his pistol and shoot them right here and now, on the sidewalk, surrounded by people.

"Holy shit, Rush, you can't just shoot them right here! Jesus!"

He frowns at me, hand still on his gun butt. "What? Why not? Not like I'm gonna miss. I can shoot the wings off a mosquito from the far side of a pitch."

"Um?” I gesture at the crowded sidewalk. "Witnesses? Bystanders? What if someone does something unexpected? What if the bullets go through and ricochet?"

He rolls his eyes again but drops his hand. “Fuck me. Why you gotta bother me with silly shit like logic? Fine. C'mon, then. I'll find a more private spot to do in the clumsy fuckwits."

He hauls me into motion without another glance at the two men.

We reach an intersection and cut right, away from the larger thoroughfare to a smaller side street.

Here, the buildings are 8- or 10-storey apartment blocks built in a square to comprise a full city block.

There's graffiti on the walls in places, compact sedans and hatchbacks parked on the left side of the one-way street.

We round the corner, and Rush pulls me into a run—we sprint flat-out until we reach a closed garage door leading down into an underground parking garage.

Rush pushes me into the corner, wedged between the garage door and the wall.

He presses his back to me, his gun held in both hands, arms extended, barrel angled at the ground at his feet. He waits, motionless, listening.

I hear heavy footsteps, voices grumbling in either Russian or a related language; I've always felt a little self-conscious about my lack of linguistic skills, seeing as pretty much everyone in my life except Rinna, Killy, and Cal are fluent in at least three languages.

Even Mom, who claims to hate learning new languages, is passable in Spanish and Russian, with a smattering of Greek.

A foot, wearing a sparkling-white ADIDAS trainer, appears first, followed by a meaty, tracksuit-clad leg.

Rush waits until the men, walking side by side in near-perfect unison, are parallel with him.

The one closest to Rush must sense movement out of the corner of his eye, because he reacts faster than I'd have expected, lurching into his partner and stumbling backward as he fumbles for his gun.

Rush is faster, though, by several orders of magnitude.

The other two may as well be moving in slow motion, compared to the brutal efficiency with which Rush moves.

He slams into the nearest attacker, pinning his gun-hand between them, and jams the barrel of his pistol into the underside of the attacker's chin.

BAM ! The report is deafening, and a chunky pink mist sprays upward.

A split second later— BAM ! The other tango didn't even have time to reach for his piece before Rush's bullet enters one temple and exits the other at an oblique, downward angle, ricocheting off the road and smacking into the rear bumper of a nearby car.

Rush makes an "oops" face at me. "Good call, I guess."

I roll my eyes. "Men are so impatient."

He grins, shrugs. "C'mon. Best keep moving."

The whole process, from the appearance of the sneaker to both men dead, took less than thirty seconds, total. But there are people looking—faces in windows, a couple on a corner at the end of the block.

Vanishing his pistol, Rush takes my hand and we step over the bodies, avoid the pools of spreading blood, and carry on down the sidewalk.

The couple on the corner sees us coming and scurry away, furiously texting on their phones.

"How did they know where we were?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Dunno for sure. Most likely, they've got some pencil-neck nerd at a computer in a basement tracking ya with cameras or the like. Not that hard, if you’ve a bit of trainin'. Probably saw us buying tickets." Saw us sounds like saw'r'us .

It sounds true—and I know from spending time with Uncle Lear that it really is that easy if you have the right software and skills.

But yet, it's too easy of an answer. I don't know.

Something about it sticks in the back of my mind.

I can't figure out what about Rush's answer doesn't sit right, though, so I let the question simmer in my subconscious.

We take a circuitous, winding path away from the scene of the killings, taking a left here, a right there, but always heading in the same general direction.

Rush glances at me after a few minutes of walking. "You're not bothered by that?"

"By what?" I ask.

"Me killing those blokes. You don't seem bothered a bit."

"I guess I'm not. I dunno. I threw up when I killed those guys on the train, if that makes you feel any better."

What I'm not sharing is that part of the training Killian and I both received when we expressed interest in being part of the family business was watching bodycam footage of various A1S operations—both real, live missions and training exercises.

Which included seeing bad guys get offed.

The idea behind making us watch the videos was two-fold: to see the tactics and practices we'd learn in action, spot mistakes, and see how it all works in real time when real lives are on the line, and to desensitize us to the sight of death—if the first time you see someone's head explode is on your first mission and you have a bad reaction, you could compromise the whole team.

And it worked. I only threw up because no amount of video-watching or training can truly prepare you for the feeling of stabbing some asshole in the eyeball with a Ticonderoga #2 pencil.

I'm not gonna say any of this to Rush, though.

He doesn't need to know who I really am.

Once I'm sure this shit isn't going to spill over to the rest of my family, I'll get ahold of them and come home, but for now, he's right.

I brought this on myself with my stupid decision to sneak out. It's on me to clean up my own mess.

I know if I called Mom and Dad, they'd be here faster than I can blink, cleaning up my mess for me. But I'm an adult. I can take care of my own mistakes.

Mostly. I didn't ask Rush to help me, but he is, and I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"So, your friend." I look around us—we're in a more affluent area, now. "Who is he? How can he help me with these sex traffickers who keep showing up wherever I go?"

"He's an executive officer for Interpol," Rush answers. "He's got resources most blokes can't even dream of. A few phone calls and you're in the clear."

"You met him when you were in the military?" I ask.

"Somethin' like that, yeah."

He's on edge, for some reason. His attention is elsewhere—not on me, and barely on our surroundings.

I'd expected him to haul me to the nearest hotel to make good on his promise, which I admit I was looking forward to.

I enjoy giving head—maybe I'm weird, I dunno.

It's fun. Men get so gooey and stupid when you've got their cock in your mouth.

You can convince a man to do just about anything while you're sucking him off.

I like the power. But also…it's just hot.

His reactions, his powerful body helpless under my hands.

I just like the way it feels. That said, it doesn't satisfy my deeper need for sex. and if Rush is that hot while I’m blowing him, fucking him would be on a whole other level.

But I can tell his mind is a thousand miles away from banging me.

"Where'd you go, Rush?" I ask.

He frowns at me, blinking as if coming back from being lost in his thoughts. "Oh. What? Sorry."

I laugh. "You're somewhere else, all of a sudden."

He shrugs. "Nah. Just…thinkin'."

"About?"