Page 27 of Erik

“I know it’s only been a few weeks, and so much has happened, but I’m not with you to fix you. I’m with you tosupportyou. You’re messed up, you know it, and you’re trying to help yourself in your own way. Not everyone can go to the hospital for help. Sometimes, that’s not the kind of help they need— not sitting in a room, naked, waiting for a doctor to swing around when you know he doesn’t care about you or anything you have to say. There’s other ways to get help. We can go to anonymous survivor’s meetings, or we can just have a good time, because God only knows, you don’t have many good days.” Tears welled in my eyes, and Erik brushed his thumb along my eyelashes with a tenderness that stole my breath. He was such a good man, and I had done such terrible things. Gulping harshly, I jerked my head in a nod, and his lips quirked beneath his goatee when I reached a trembling hand to tug on it. The bristly, coarse hairs sent goosebumps surging up my arm, and my heart beat furiously.

“O-okay, yeah.” A bare sigh deflated my fiery lungs, and I pursed my lips thinly, as Erik retreated and stood up. Sitting in the chair, he seemed so tall and broad, larger than life, almost monstrous. Before I could stop myself, I grabbed his waist, and his tense, toned muscles flexed against my cheek. His six-pack rippled with power when he put a hand on my head, and my throbbing lids fluttered closed as I leaned heavily against him.

28

Erik

“Yeah, Dad, I’m on the highway right now. We’re about to pass into Pennsylvania.” The line crackled loudly against the seats of my car, and I glanced into the back seat while Natasha stared out the window. She really knew how to ignore what she thought didn’t involve her, which was as nice as it was infuriating.Not to mention the whole conversation this morning.

“I just wanted to call and make sure. Cathy’s here. She wants to talk to you.” Biting back a groan, I frowned as I flexed my fingers around the wheel, and my dad chuckled knowingly. “She’s not so bad.”

“I don’t know whether or not to dispute that.” My sister’s voice started a far-away muffle but grew in clarity, and I clenched my jaw shut when she obviously took the phone from my dad. “Hey, Erik! Long time no talk. You didn’t send me any letters during my deployment. I had to find out through Dad on the way home from the airport that you flunked being a cop.”

“Believe it or not, Cathy, but my life doesn’t revolve around your deployments. How long are you here for?”So I can plan a party when you fucking leave. My sister, man, she was a piece of work, and not a good one. She was average at everything, but she succeeded at most things and thought she was awesome. Christ.

“Six weeks. I’ve been meaning to talk to you, actually. You know, while I was overseas, I met this girl, Maya, and she lives in the same town as you in New York. I invited her to this thing this weekend so you could meet her.” My brows shot up, a disgusted, sharp bark of laughter bursting from my throat, and my sister’s frown rippled in her voice. “What? I thought you’d like her, and she liked you, or the idea of you, anyway.”

“You’re a terrible judge of character, Cathy. Just because Jason and Mary met in Afghanistan when she was a war reporter doesn’t mean that’s the only place to meet women.” Rubbing my jaw roughly, I shook my head, and I could practically see Cathy pouting when I blinked. Flicking on my blinker to merge into the cruise lane, I inhaled deeply before Natasha’s eyes bristled the hairs on the back of my neck. “Anyway, are you staying with Mom and Dad, or at your boyfriend’s place? He’s not back yet, right?”

“Nope. He comes back in two weeks, though. Ben’s only staying for two weeks before getting reassigned. Speaking of Jason, he’s not happy that Uncle Mike is gonna be at the party tomorrow. It’s gonna be awkward again.” Snorting roughly at that, I exhaled a gruff breath as I gripped the wheel tightly. “He’s a creep. I know he gets invited to be polite, but it’s not like his kids would know why he didn’t go one time. Mom says he has to come because she doesn’t want to listen to it.”

“Yeah, fuck him, though. Seriously. I gotta go, though. We’re about to hit the exchange on I-95.” Even if my sister was average, she stuck to her guns— literally— and I smirked when she scoffed loudly. “I’ll see you when we get there.”

I hung up before she could even take a breath to protest, and I settled into my seat to clear my throat roughly. The music we’d been listening to filtered through the speakers, and I flexed my fingers to get rid of the stiffness. We were going to be on the highway almost the entire way down, and my brows furrowed sharply as I tried— and failed— to calculate how far my three-quarter tank of gas would get me.

“They have kids?” Speaking up from the back seat, Natasha turned her body to me, and I nodded as I licked my teeth. “Is that why they got married?”

“Uh, no. They’re happy together, I guess. My aunt doesn’t care about us kids’ opinions, so anyway, yeah, they have two kids. A set of twins and then a third who was part of a trio that didn’t make it.” Catching Natasha’s eye in the rearview mirror, I frowned at the disturbed expression on her face.Oh, shit, her mom miscarried. Fuck. “Ah, I’m sorry. They got together about fourteen years ago, and they’re happy, so I guess that’s all that really matters.”

“It’s okay. Your sister doesn’t know you very well, does she?” That surprised me, and Natasha’s pretty face lightened a little as she smiled knowingly. “That you’d hook up with another soldier.”

“Oh, yeah. She’s fucking stupid sometimes.” The flippant dismissal earned me a little giggle, and I scratched my jaw and tugged my goatee as I inhaled deeply to get rid of the muck coating my ribs. “They’re all the worst. I stay really far away from that shit.”

I didn’t really know what else to say about the subject— fucking another service member was a no-no, and it was too much work anyway. Plus, there was a high chance shit would go sideways, being around each other, and it was a huge-ass mess.

Natasha laid down on the back seat, and I twisted to watch her stare at the passenger seat with longing in her eyes. She fingered the lip of the pouch on the back, and her lip disappeared between her teeth as we fell into silence. Focusing on the road, I silently debated pulling over so she could climb up front if that was what she wanted.

But if I put her on the spot, she’d feel pressured, and I wanted to avoid that.

“You know, Natasha . . .” Speaking up, my voice cut through the soft music, and Natasha rustled a little behind me as I trained my eyes on the road. “You got fired, right. What are you doing for money? You never seem worried about it.”

“Carlyle found out who was responsible for the bomb a couple days after it happened.” My brows rose, and my throat tightened as dread flooded the pit in my stomach. I wasn’t going to like hearing this. “He works fast. He brought the guy in, the big boss, and was all like, ‘why do you have all these houses you don’t even use, and they’re homeless because of you’ so the guy got bullied into giving up all his nice properties. Valerie didn’t want any of them, so I took them and do Airbnb. It’s all pretty remote, though. I only schedule the cleaners to come in, make sure things don’t overlap, and the website does most of the work.”

“What the fuck?” My slur bounced off the front windshield, and Natasha giggled a little. She’d laughed twice now, and we were only two hours into our fourteen-hour journey. Warmth in my chest combatted the cold in my gut, and she inhaled deeply, loudly, before sitting up in the center of the back seat. For the first time, she wasn’t hanging on the door, ready to jump out, and accomplishment tightened around my heart.

“It’s a weird story. Basically, the guys that were after us got this other guy to build the bomb who really worked for thisotherguy, and Carlyle’s really scary when he wants to be. No one wants to get on his bad side, so . . . I guess when you’re that rich and powerful, you know some, um, less than savory characters.” Pursing my lips thinly, I only nodded. The more I learned about Carlyle, the more Remmy seemed to be onto something. Maybe Remmy was spot-fucking-on about Carlyle, and no one believed him because they didn’t want the hassle.

Of course, I wasn’t gonna think too hard on it. Carlyle seemed to truly worry about Natasha despite what he’d said so long ago when he ambushed me at the precinct. Everything she told me may have raised my suspicions, but she never alluded to anything outright illegal.

Well, unless I counted that shit about her mom and the beasts who abused her,which I didn’t.

“Carlyle’s involved in the hunt for Baron Ninety-Nine members in Dallas, isn’t he?” The question slipped out and Natasha tensed, confirming with just her pause that my suspicion was true. I never had enough pieces before, but now? “He did it for you two, or it was just part of his crusade?”

“He did it for himself, yeah.” Flexing my hands on the wheel, I nodded curtly, and she slumped back to twiddle her thumbs out of the corner of my eye. Her sour frown took over the whole reflection in the mirror, and my heart beat a little harder. “Okay, I mean, Valerie is an adult. I made us go to separate colleges because I needed to learn not to be her mom, and she needed to learn some independence. I don’t think he has a right to come in and take over just because he’s a little pissed. Carlyle didn’t right those wrongs on our behalf. Valerie doesn’t even know those guys are dead. He did it all for himself, and that’s why I can’t stand him. You know he legitimately dug up my dad and asked me about him? Like, what the fuck?”

“Wasn’t your dad in Witness Protection?” My probe earned me a huff, and I frowned as I tried to think of a way to change the subject. “It doesn’t matter, I guess. The point is that you don’t need anyone in your life that’s going to make your past about themselves. At least you got something out of it that helps ease the stress.”

“I don’t consider changing my lifestyle to fit how much money I make. It just makes problems. When I was a teenager, I learned the money is only based on what you deem valuable. Money only makes practical problems go away— it can’t fix what’s wrong with my head, even if it does help other parts of my life. I lived expense-free, basically, for months. I saved a lot. I don’t really buy much.”