CHAPTER 15
RHIANNON
I’ve never been this eager for a battle to begin before.
Prepared? Determined? Cautiously optimistic? Yes to all three. But during my days in the Army, I never felt this sort of anticipation, like I was itching for the action to start.
But this time is different from all the rest.
This time, I can’t wait to come face to face with the person who’s turned my life upside down.
It’s the weirdest sort of incongruity.
There’s a big part of me that’s absolutely furious. This man nearly killed me. Twice. Not just that, he’s put the people I care about in danger.
But.
There’s another part that almost feels grateful all of this happened.
Okay. Not almost. I am.
If not for the incident in the parking garage, Hawk might have gone back to Alaska right after the job, and we never would have come back together again. We might have let months, years pass us by without really talking. Without clearing the air.
And I wouldn’t be here with Hawk right now.
He wouldn’t be only feet away, at my six, like he always used to be.
We wouldn’t have plans for this summer—a trip to see the team in Sleepy Hollow and our friends in Vermont, followed by a romantic weekend in the Adirondack Mountains for just the two of us.
I wouldn’t be looking forward to a future I once thought impossible.
Hawk in Texas. Near me. Not thousands of miles away, risking his life on a fishing boat while he punishes himself for his perceived guilt.
So, yeah, I’m ready to face the man who just entered the house and finally put an end to this. I’m ready to move forward and see where the future with Hawk leads.
We’re both in position, with Hawk hiding in the en-suite bathroom while I lurk in the closet. The lights are out, save for the dim flicker of the TV, set to some dull infomercial with the volume on mute. The only sound I can hear is that of my own breathing.
Last I checked—less than thirty seconds ago—the man was sneaking through the door connecting the garage to the kitchen. All in dark clothes, a bit of metal gleaming dully in his hand, he moved slowly, stopping every few feet to scan his surroundings.
I slip my phone from my pocket to check on him again, shielding the light from the screen with my hand.
Now he’s creeping down the hallway, caught on another one of the security cameras Hawk installed. He’s being careful about it, his head on a swivel and using the same sort of steps we were trained to take in the Army.
He has to know, even believing that I’m alone in here, that I’m a formidable adversary.
But he thinks I’m asleep. Or, at least, that’s what we’re hoping. It’s a reasonable assumption given that it’s well past eleven and all the lights in the house are off.
If this goes according to plan, he’ll come into the bedroom with his gun drawn, his focus on the bed where we arranged pillows to make it look like I’m sleeping. And when he approaches the bed, that’s when Hawk and I will make our move.
I would be confident about taking this man on by myself, but with Hawk at my back, I have no doubt we’ll come out victorious. It doesn’t matter how well-trained this intruder might be; not when he’s up against two former Green Berets who have a personal stake in taking him down.
On the video feed on my phone, I watch the dark figure slip further down the hallway, no more than thirty seconds from reaching the bedroom. While I’d like to keep watching him, I don’t want to risk being given away by the glow of the screen.
Anyway, I’ll know when he gets in here. We have a motion sensor set up in the doorway, and it’ll notify me by way of a silent vibration on my phone when it’s triggered. Then it won’t matter what the video feed shows me. It’ll be go-time.
Just as I’m about to slip my phone back into my pocket, a text blinks onto the screen. Unsurprisingly, it’s from Hawk.
Almost time. Are you ready?
I tap out a quick response.
Yes. More than .
A moment later, his reply appears.
Of course you are. I know you will be, but please be careful. I love you.
Oh. Even in a text, I don’t ever think it’ll get old hearing those words.
Before I put the phone away, I send back a brief message.
I love you to infinity.
Then, just as the weight of my phone hits my pocket, it vibrates.
He’s here.
It’s time.
Through the crack between the closet door and the jamb, I hold my breath as I watch the man enter the bedroom. His gun is held at low-ready, which is the second clue that he has some measure of training. But the tiny tremor of his hand gives away his insecurity.
Maybe former military, as the team discussed, but not Special Forces. Not with his apparent lack of confidence.
I can’t really see his face from here, just hints of shadows and angles.
While my rabid curiosity demands I rush out of the closet immediately, disarm the man and discover his identity, that’s not part of the plan.
I wanted to. But Hawk insisted on being the one to confront him first. “I know why you want to be the first to confront him,” Hawk told me while we talked the plan over last night. “But if I go first, I think the surprise of seeing me there will distract him.” After a brief pause, he quietly added, “It’s not that I doubt you, Rhi. It’s me. I can’t just stand back and watch you put yourself in danger like that. Will you please let me be the one to face him first?”
How could I say no to him? Especially when I know I’d feel the same way if Hawk was the one targeted?
Although. Now that this man is here and we’re seconds from jumping into action, I’m having some serious second thoughts. Now I’m realizing Hawk will be the one with the gun pointed at him. And if something goes wrong and he’s shot…
I’ll never forgive myself.
Crap. I need to get my head on straight and not think about what-ifs and all the ways things could go sideways. This is the time for singular focus and commitment to the plan. The time when I rely on my skills and push my emotions aside to unpack later.
As I’m watching, the intruder moves further into the bedroom, just past the closet door and only feet from the four-poster bed. I can’t see Hawk in the bathroom, obviously, but I know he’s there, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
The man glances first at the bed, then the TV, and back again.
His hand rises, the gun—it looks like a Walther from here, but I can’t be sure—slightly shaking. He points it at the bed and takes a deep breath, the sound noticeable in the quiet of the room.
My pulse quickens.
Here we go.
In a tone so low it’s almost inaudible, the man says, “Finally. You’re getting what you deserve.”
Amid the flare of angry bursting to life inside me, I can’t help but wonder, Why? Why me? What did I do to this man?
Then.
He fires.
There’s a loud crack.
The bullet slams into the bed, its sound muffled by the comforter and pillows piled under it.
The man takes a step forward, the gun still aimed at the mattress.
But before he can fire again, Hawk steps out from the bathroom. His Sig is drawn, held firmly in a steady hand. His posture is strong and sure, but from the set of his shoulders, I can tell he’s only just containing his rage.
“Don’t fucking move,” Hawk growls. “Drop your fucking gun on the floor and put your hands in the air. Now .”
The man lets out a startled yelp as he spins to face Hawk, but he doesn’t follow instructions. Instead, he snaps, “You’re supposed to be gone .”
“Well, I’m not.” It’s low. Rough. Dangerous. “And trust me, if you don’t do what I say, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
The Walther is aimed at the floor, not an immediate risk, but it wouldn’t take more than a second for things to change.
Although. In a shoot-off, I know who would win.
As I’m about to step into the bedroom, the man adds in a darkly satisfied voice, “I don’t care what you do. Now that she’s been punished, nothing else matters anymore.”
Punished for what? Could this have to do with Allen, like I feared in the beginning? But Allen is still in Kentucky. Erik confirmed it not three hours ago. And from my recollection—little doubt of forgetting—Allen was taller. Thicker. His voice was different. Not to mention, he wouldn’t hold his gun like that.
Does it matter; when the result is the same? We have the culprit. And now I finally get to find out who he is.
I step out of the closet with my own Sig drawn, and I smile grimly as I say, “But you’re wrong. And now you’re the one who’ll be punished.”
“What?” His head jerks towards me, his eyes wide and white in the dark of the room. “No. You’re?—”
“Not dead. Not even close.”
My jaw clenches as I advance on him. “Your screwed up plan didn’t work. You failed. And now you’ll answer for what you did. What you put my friends through.” I pause, eyeing his gun. “Now do what you’re told. Put the damn gun down.”
“Now,” Hawk adds menacingly. “Don’t make me tell you again.”
The man—I still don’t recognize him, even with less than ten feet between us—looks back and forth between Hawk and me, panic rising in his expression. “No!” he shouts. “This isn’t how it was supposed to be!”
“But it is.” Hawk takes another step closer to him. “Now drop it. Or I’ll shoot you. And trust me—” His eyes narrow. “I’d really prefer to kill you after what you did. So don’t fucking test me .”
For a second, it seems like the man’s about to do what he’s told. His arm dips. His shoulders droop. Defeat etches into his features.
Then.
He moves.
Not just moves. Leaps.
Despite having two guns aimed at him, he lunges at me, his lips bared back in a snarl. “You bitch! You fucking bitch!”
I duck instinctively, and a moment later, the Walther fires.
The bullet whiffs past me, close enough to feel the burn of fire against my shoulder.
Hawk howls, “You fucking bastard!”
Then everything seems to shift into slow motion.
Every detail is like a freeze-frame; noticed and cataloged.
Hawk’s finger tightening on the trigger, a hairsbreadth from firing.
The desperate look on the intruder’s face, like he’ll stop at nothing to complete his mission.
The bite of pain in my shoulder.
The silver sheen of the Walther aiming once again.
I know I only have milliseconds to ensure this goes the way I want.
If I do nothing, Hawk will kill him. The threat will be over. But I’ll never know why.
Or I can ask Hawk to trust me, and solve this my own way.
So I catch Hawk’s eye and give my head a little shake. Though I don’t say a word, he knows what I mean.
His expression pinches, his displeasure clear. Not just that, but his fear.
I hate having to ask him to do this. But I have to know.
“It’s all your fault!” the man shrieks. “You need to be punished!”
But not today. Not from him.
A beat later, once he’s close enough, I fly into action.
All the training I’ve kept up with—jiu jitsu and Krav Maga and a hybrid I learned in the Army—allows my body to move instinctively.
Before the man can react, I dispense a flurry of attacks. Arm chop, hard enough to send the Walther flying to the ground. Palm thrust to his face, stunning him. And finally, a leg sweep, knocking his legs out from under him.
Once he’s on the floor, the gun still spinning several feet away, Hawk jumps in.
Within seconds, the intruder is restrained, his hands and feet zip tied behind him.
Then Hawk looks at me, his gaze hot with fury and fear. “Rhi,” he says, his voice almost shaking. “Shit. Ah, shit?—”
Then he leaps up and drags me into his arms, hugging me to his chest tightly. His body shudders as he holds me. His lips press against the top of my head. “Shit, Rhi,” he grits out. “I know why you asked, but you scared the shit out of me.”
My heart is racing in time with his, our heartbeats thundering against each other. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into his neck. “But I have to know why .”
“You bitch!” The man is flopping around on the floor like an upended turtle. His mouth and chin are all bloody from what appears to be a broken nose. “You’re supposed to be dead! It’s the only way!”
Hawk steps away from me and delivers a sharp kick to the man’s leg. “Shut the fuck up,” he growls. “I’m still not convinced I shouldn’t kill you. Especially—” He stops to look at me, and his gaze stops at my shoulder. “You fucking shot her? Again?”
“I’m okay,” I interrupt quickly, before Hawk can make good on his promise. “It just clipped me. I’m fine.”
“You were shot ,” Hawk replies. “That’s not okay.”
“Why?” I direct this at the man on the ground. “Why me? We’ve never even met. Did someone pay you?”
His eyes meet mine, so filled with hate it makes my stomach twist. “No. No one paid me. This is justice. A life for a life.”
“A life?” I frown at him. Hawk walks to the nightstand and flips on the lamp, flooding the room with light. With better visibility, I’m certain I’ve never met this man. So I can’t imagine why he’d be so determined to kill me. “Whose life?”
“Tim’s!” he shouts. “Tim is dead, and it’s all your fault!”
Tim?
I glance at Hawk with my eyebrows raised.
His own brow creases in concentration. “I’m not sure.”
“You don’t even remember the man you killed?” The intruder spits a wad of blood at me, though it doesn’t even get close. “He was my son! And he’s dead because of you. And you don’t even fucking remember him!”
Like a storm surge crashing into me, I realize who this is.
Who his son was.
Tim. Or Thunder, as we used to call him, because his snoring was so loud it kept everyone awake.
Tim wasn’t on my team, but he was in our battalion, and we worked together on some ops in the Middle East. He was a good guy; kind-hearted but quiet. We all liked him.
I liked him.
Until that terrible day when I couldn’t save him.
He was the medic for his team, so when he was critically injured, I was the one called in to help. And I tried, but the damage was simply too great. Out in the field like we were, there just wasn’t a chance.
Five years later, and it still stings. Tim wasn’t the first man I lost, but his death hurt the most.
I sent condolences to his parents. Donated money to a scholarship fund in his name. The whole time, I never imagined his family blamed me.
But seeing the pain in his father’s eyes, the hatred directed at me…
“His son was Thunder,” I say quietly to Hawk. “And this is Martin. His dad.”
Hawk sucks in a sharp breath. “Shit.”
“So you do remember,” Martin snaps. “That’s a small comfort. That you remember the man you killed.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I reply. “He was badly injured. I did as much as I could. But there just wasn’t?—”
“Bullshit!” Martin’s face turns bright red. “If it had been a man there, a real soldier, Tim would still be alive. But no! You had to insert yourself into a man’s job. Insist on equal treatment when you had no right to be there!”
Oh.
His words are a heavy boot slamming into my chest.
After all this time. All I’ve done. It still doesn’t matter.
But this is worse than hearing it from the others.
The harassment. The discrimination. The derision.
It hurts.
I tried so hard to save Thunder. I had nightmares for months after, reliving those terrible moments when I realized there was nothing I could do for him.
“It should have been you!” Martin howls. “You should be dead! I blew up your car! Shot at you! Why aren’t you dead?”
“Shut up!” Hawk’s features are dark and thunderous. He crouches over Martin, his eyes spitting fire. “I was there. Rhiannon did everything she could. She risked her own life to try to save him. It had nothing to do with her being a woman.” He pauses. “There was nothing anyone could do. Tim was too badly hurt.”
“NO! It’s her fault! Her fault!”
In the distance, sirens approach, and I realize distractedly that Hawk must have called them just before confronting Martin.
It should be a relief, knowing this is all over. We have a confession. He broke in here and tried to kill me. There’s no way he’s not going to prison.
But the cold ache in my chest says differently.
Tears sting my eyes, and I have to turn away from Martin so he doesn’t see them fall.
“He’d be so disappointed in you,” Hawk says to Martin. “This isn’t how you honor his memory. By trying to kill the woman who did everything in her power to save him.” He shakes his head. “Tim would be so disappointed.”
Martin stares at Hawk for several long seconds before his face collapses. “I want my son back. I just want him back.”
The tears I’ve been fighting burst free, hot and stinging.
Hawk turns away from Martin and looks at me. “Ah, Rhi. Babe.” Then he crosses the few feet between us and pulls me into his embrace again. “Don’t cry. It’s not your fault.” His hand strokes down my hair. “It’s not your fault. I promise.”
Logic agrees.
But my heart doesn’t.
As I burrow into Hawk’s arms, exhaustion sweeps through me.
I’m tired of being the strong one. Of pretending nothing bothers me. Of always pretending I’m fine so no one worries.
“I’ve got you,” Hawk murmurs against my hair. “You don’t have to be strong all the time. It’s okay to let me carry some of the weight.”
And though it feels strange to hand over control to Hawk, there’s no one I trust more to do it with.
So I sag into his arms, letting him support me. “It hurts,” I whisper. “So much.”
“I know, babe.” He kisses the top of my head again, so tenderly it brings a fresh flood of tears. “I know it does. But I’ve got you. For as long as you need.”