Page 56 of Mariposa (Queens Command #1)

VIOLET

M orning comes after a heavy night of tears and disbelief. This time, when I wake, Adam stands at the corner of the room. I take him in, noticing how he still wears the same outfit from last night. How long has he been here?

“I told your mom and sister to go home and shower. So, it’s just me here.

” Adam strolls toward me. His voice is the gentlest I’ve ever heard him speak.

This is a side of him he’s never shown me.

He’s usually a selfish, non-empathetic ass, but right now, he’s someone who has lost his father.

I know that feeling all too well. His life has changed forever because he lost someone he constantly pushed away. I’m sure it’s eating him alive.

“May I sit next to you?” He points to the chair my mother slept in.

I nod.

We sit in tense silence. The sound of nurses and doctors walking back and forth, the ICU phone ringing, and my heartbeat monitor becomes our white noise. We watch each other silently, like we’re both trying to find our words while battling our grief.

“I’m happy you’re back home and you’re okay.

The doctor already performed surgery on your foot when you were in Germany.

They were going to amputate, but your mother and Slater pushed them into saving it.

” He glances at my ankle and trails the pad of his finger on the bedsheets. “Are you in any pain?”

“Yes…” The familiar knife in my heart twists in my chest. “But not physically.” I can’t hide the numbness in my tone. I swallow hard and massage my sore temples as he closes the distance. Sighing heavily, he clears his throat. Red covers the whites in his eyes.

“What happened out there? If you’re not ready to share, I understand. I just want to know, h-how…h-he…” Adam chokes up. He brings his fist to his mouth as though ashamed to break. Guilt is riddled between each syllable. He doesn’t need to say it. I cut him off.

I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to share this story with need-to-know personnel, but Adam deserves to know.

“Intelligence found a high-value target’s location.

Everyone has been searching for him—multiple countries are after him, not only the United States.

Our team took on the mission led by your father.

We’ve been preparing for this moment for months, getting closer and closer.

Everything we’d been working for led to this moment.

We loaded up in the bird in minutes. As we were a few minutes out from our destination, we came under fire from insurgents.

They were throwing everything they had to take us down, so the pilots did what they had to do.

They tried to get us to safety, dodging the missiles and bullets, but one wrong turn had us crashing in the mountains. ”

“Shit,” he hisses angrily.

With a dry tongue, I continue to recount the worst day of my life.

“Kade, Shane Booker, and I were the only ones to survive the crash. I thought we were lucky…” I whine, a grimace contorting my cold features. “But I was wrong.” Warmth leaks out of my closed lids.

“Hey, Violet. You don’t have to finish if you’re not ready.” Adam gives me a pained smile. His palm runs in circles on my back, and I jerk away.

No, I must get this out. I need to say it out loud and honor my duty.

“My foot was almost torn off from the crash. Kade had a dislocated shoulder, while Shane came out with less serious injuries. They did their best to recover as much of our fallen brothers as they could before we were forced out of the area by the insurgents.” I point to the bandage on my face.

“I took a shot to the face, but it was a graze. I couldn’t walk, so Master Sergeant carried me most of the time as we hiked away.

Eventually, they caught up to us hours later.

A storm rolled in, making everything more dangerous.

As soon as one shouted in our direction, most likely alerting his army that he had found us, Shane got shot in the head, which killed him instantly.

Kade and I scrambled to fight them all off, but it was hundreds—an army versus two. ”

My front teeth sink into my bottom lip, recounting the situation. With my hands and fingers trembling, I take a deep breath and scuttle the following words.

“We were out of ammo.” I shake my head, the same hopelessness I felt that day, returning.

“It was raining down hard and…Kade had to make a choice. He was doing what every leader would have done in that situation. I tried to fight him, but we both knew if he hadn’t pushed me down that hill and distracted them, we would’ve both been dead in seconds.

He had to adapt quickly. Our enemies were unforgiving and relentless.

” I flick my gaze to meet his broken expression.

I slug down the rock in my throat and become steel.

I’ll skip over the part where he said his final goodbye.

“When I came to after tumbling down the mountain, I looked up one last time to see the enemy unleash everything on him. He was shot in the chest, followed by an explosion. I didn’t see him again after that. His plan worked, but it was his life he laid down so I could live.”

The next thing I know, Adam is on top of me, holding me tight and crying into my neck. His nose pokes into my skin, while his arms encase me. I rub his back, tucking my emotions away while Adam feels his.

“Thank you for telling me,” he sobs.

I nod and hold him back tighter.

We sit like this for minutes, consoling each other with actions and no words—a silence of grief and understanding.

When he pulls back, his tortured expression takes a tone of acceptance. He stabs into his pocket while his other hand scrapes his face, erasing the shed of tears. Red paints his nose, eyes, and cheeks as he gazes outside the hospital window.

“You kept calling out for Kade,” he says plainly, still not looking at me but staring at the busy road just outside my hospital room. His fingers push down the blinds like he’s searching for someone.

My heart sinks.

“If you’re trying to hide that you’re in love with him, you’ve done a terrible job. You kept saying his name repeatedly. Over and over again, with a cry I’ve never heard anyone make. But it hurt me to see you like that. It killed me to hear you break. It’s clear he owned your heart.”

A bombardment of shame and guilt assaults me when I look into his brown eyes.

I didn’t think this day would come, and neither did I think this was how our secret would rise to the surface to be judged and scrutinized.

I mentally prepare for a slur of insults—an abundance of curse words—slut and whore—but he stays stoic.

He slowly strides closer to me until his hand grips the bedrail.

When I woke up in Germany and Slater confirmed we’d lost Booker and Kade, I didn’t care if everyone watched me bomb myself into an empty human who had lost her reason.

Those reasons are locked inside Kade now, and I’ll never get those pieces of me back.

I wasn’t careful hiding my feelings that day, but I will not repent. I don’t think it matters anymore.

There’s no use in denying it. So, I come clean.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m sorry because that would be a lie. I’m in love with Kade. I’m deeply and crazily insatiable for that man. He loved you and every single soldier he worked with, and you should remember that about him because he’s never given you any reason not to.”

He tears his softened gaze away from me. His jaw flitches repeatedly as his nostrils flare. He spears his hand slowly into his front pocket and grabs a half-eaten bag of pistachios. He takes one into his mouth and chews.

Again, I sit there, grinding my teeth and fiddling with my fingers…trying not to explode. I want to shout until I can’t breathe anymore. I want to cry until I’m exhausted and have no other choice but to dream so I can see him again. I want to die, too.

I turn toward Adam again and expect him to transition into attack mode. Just when I think he’s going to change his mind, get angry, and rip into me, he continues to chew and breathe slowly.

“Look, it’s easy for me to judge and tear into this weird situation, but the truth is, I’ve never been close to him, and honestly, I don’t think I ever would have been, but it’s clear that you love him in a way that the world will never understand.

I just need you to be happy and take care of yourself, and if my father were still alive, I’d tell him the same thing. ”

What?

“You’re not mad or angry?”

“I’m feeling a lot of things right now,” he quips sharply.

A slight edge to his tone, but he remains calm.

“My father never remarried after my mother. It’s no secret he doesn’t let himself be happy, and he used work to fill the void he embraced.

I’ve never been able to understand him…until now.

And it’s too late. I should have appreciated him more… I should have?—”

I shake my head.

“Someone once told me that we should never play the ‘I should—what if’ game because there’s no winning,” I scorn, attempting to lighten his mood and take that guilt off his shoulders.

Sometimes, when it comes to divorced parents, the children are collateral damage. That’s a pain I didn’t experience but am aware of. He grew up a military child, and even though Penny and Kade have their sides of the story, Adam does, too.

He smirks.

“You know that saying that you only value something once you’ve lost it? I didn’t just come to the realization that I love him when he died. I’ve always valued every part of him since I first saw him . I will hold onto everything he’s taught me for the rest of my life.”

“I see,” he says with a smile.

His phone chimes. He grabs it, glancing at the screen thoughtfully before he taps away.

“Your mother and sister are back, so I’m going to get going,” he says, thumbing it back into his pocket.

I watch him gather his things silently, unsure of how to bid him goodbye.

I’m sure the next time I’ll see him, it’ll be at Kade’s funeral.

That thought makes my throat thicken and wrath simmer in my veins.

“Thank you for coming,” I tell him numbly, already feeling the need to break down.

He stiffens when he reaches the door, confusing me. Just when I think he’s going to exit, Adam pivots back around until he faces me with pursed lips. I know that look. He’s nervous.

“I’ve been seeing Olivia behind your back.” The words are forced out hastily and with shame. It comes out so fast that it takes me a moment to digest.

My jaw drops.

“We started seeing each other after you left for Basic Training. I’m such a piece of shit, but I can’t walk out that door, knowing you’ve given me your naked confession and I hid mine. I’m in love with Olivia… I just didn’t want to lose you in the process.”

Olivia?

Our mutual friend?

He cheated on me?

I feel like I’ve been hit in the chest. The betrayal stings, my thoughts and questions running rampant in my mind.

I should be angry. I should shout at him for lying and making me feel guilty for moving on, but under these circumstances…

I decide to swallow the lump in my throat and deal later.

After almost losing my life, everything seems so insignificant.

This is one of those things that truly doesn’t matter anymore.

I breathe in heavily until my shoulders and chest are relaxed.

“Okay,” I say, linking my fingers together.

His eyes light up with hope.

I’m not sure we’ll be in each other’s life moving forward.

“Oh, before I go.” He beelines toward a black, thick bag that sits on the couch. He hooks it and hands it to me gently. “Here’s your things. These are all the clothes and equipment you had on when those Army Rangers found you.”

My heart skips a beat as I open it. The scent of that tragic battle in the mountains is tattooed into my shredded clothes. I sift through it as Adam watches me silently. I push my shoes to the side when I see a silver chain. The golden sunray from behind me illuminates the chain, making it glint.

It’s not my dog tags…

I gasp. My heart pounds so hard that I hear my blood pumping until my wrist twitches. A wave of exhilaration powers me.

It’s what Kade pushed into my hand.

I pull it out of the bag slowly, holding my breath as a monsoon of tears falls down my cheeks, crossing my trembling lips and dropping off my chin.

A pained laugh torpedoes out of me when I realize what Kade made.

A bittersweet emotion tethers into my soul, taking yet another blow, adding to my agony.

My whole body shudders, and goosebumps cover my skin.

It’s a handmade, wooden butterfly attached to a silver chain so I can wear it like a necklace. I turn it over to admire the details he carved into each wing, and my heart flutters as my soul disintegrates further. On the back, in carved lettering, it says,

Mariposa.