Page 60 of Severed Heart (The Ravenhood Legacy #2)

“Being hunted is a compliment, boys,” I declare, “they don’t like that we silenced their boss and shorted their paychecks. When the first ping flies, fucking peel it and get to high ground if you can. We’ll send messengers with goodie bags wherever you land.”

Our odds are jacked, but I press past any threatening panic and spend precious seconds deep breathing to clear my headspace instead.

Pulse steady in my ears, I hear her speaking to me as if she were standing beside me in the dirt, whispering into my ear.

Once armed with an idea, I push off the rock wall we were camping against and glance over to Armstrong, who gives me a lift of his chin.

“I know that look,” Armstong says, his grin amping, “and I love it.”

“Shall we make them think twice about paying us compliments?” I ask.

“Fuck yeah,” Armstrong counters before I address everyone over the wire.

“Home, hold off, but leave the lights on. I have an idea.”

BLINK. BLACK.

* * *

SPRING 2012 NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Six months later

BLINK.

“Jennings,” Phillip barks, summoning me from the black plastic bucket chair I’ve been waiting in while watching the goings-on of the shipping warehouse.

Rolling my neck, I stand and stretch a little before following him into a shoebox-sized office.

Though fatigued, I don’t bother taking a seat as he opens a file I’m intimately familiar with.

Phillip, who I gauge is somewhere in his mid-forties, wipes his nose with a fresh Kleenex—one he always seems to keep on hand.

Some of his ruddy complexion no doubt due to his raging allergies.

An affliction I suspect, along with his sickly, fragile build, that has kept him from being an active participant in any field work.

A prime example of those that can’t do— teaching , or in Phillip’s case, doling out missions.

Orders already passed and carried out as he sifts through the details of a dozen or more in the file on his desk.

All of which I completed after I was unlisted as a Marine and joined the Global Response Staff, AKA the GRS.

A thankless job with high pay but zero credit, which I give fuck all about.

A job that includes missions unlikely to earn an explanation letter postmarked to my family if one goes awry.

High-risk orders that are tasked to a select few by the CIA, which include diplomatic tape blind expeditions.

Expeditions carried out by the world’s most finely tuned and experienced vets for the best interest of our country.

By joining the GRS, I gained the ability to decipher and validate the nature of such missions, furthering my investigation of the military to the next level.

All the while honing my skills in the field.

It’s the deal I made in the parking lot after serving my listed four years, which led me to the handler sitting at the desk opposite me.

“Phillip,” no last name ever mentioned, had recruited me for himself and, for the most part, has been my task master in doling out said missions.

Over the last nineteen months, our rapport has mostly been filled with mutual respect along with a brewing friendship.

“What you’ve accomplished at this point,” Phillip utters, glancing up from my file, “is beyond my comprehension.”

I muster a nod because exhaustion is finally taking hold. The last of my adrenaline was spent getting out of a sticky situation in the African desert that we were extracted from eighteen hours ago before being flown back to the States.

In the last nineteen months, I’ve come close to depleting myself and my reserves, taking successive missions in lieu of going back to Triple Falls.

My reasoning for that is entirely selfish.

No home, no future. No reason other than the club, and it’s thriving without me.

With the army that I put together during my listed time and Dom in school, things have run smoothly since.

It’s as if I planted roots, and they’re sprouting deep and wide on their own.

Phillip scrutinizes me carefully from where he sits, seeming to have aged some since our last face-to-face—a little grayer at his temples.

Judging from our last few phone calls, he’s grown a lot less patient.

Though, he always seems to muster some for me during our conversations, making it clear that I’ve earned his respect.

“There’s no fucking way you should have survived two of these. I’m thinking you’re aware of which?”

I bite my lip and nod.

“You’re cutting it close, Jennings. Any particular reason why you haven’t sipped an umbrella drink or taken any leave since you started?”

“I’m ambitious.”

“Or suicidal ,” he counters, scouring my person.

“Frankly, sir, if I wanted that fate, we wouldn’t be talking.”

He opens the file and points to a mission name that I glance at—Adobe. “How in the fuck did you get out of this?”

“You want a play-by-play?” I ask with zero condescension in my tone.

“Actually, I would,” he replies, brows drawing further into a V, which I consider a compliment, knowing the intrinsic, highly complicated nature of the orders he doles out to the others in the GRS. “Have a seat.”

I toss my ball cap on the edge of his desk and take the offered chair as I scan our surroundings.

Though my interest is becoming piqued, I know better than to question why he’s chosen a temporary office in a shipping warehouse in downtown New York.

Much like my own club, theirs is just as tight-lipped in providing answers.

“The long and the short of it is,” I start, and damn near laugh at my explanation, “have you ever heard of Anvil and Hammer?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” he says, scrutinizing the paper in front of him.

“With twenty-four coming in arrogant and overconfident, I already had our teams split into right and left flank positions to crowd them. So, we let them gain some ground before cutting their number in half and rushing them before we dropped it.”

“Jesus Christ, Jennings.” He gapes at me. “Are you fucking telling me you used a tactic from before Christ to survive this?”

I shrug. “Worked for Alexander the Great.”

“How in the fuck did you think of that?”

A French mastermind. One I’m getting more desperate to thank personally after each completed mission.

It takes me a few seconds to answer, but I manage to get through his extensive questions while leaving said mastermind out of it.

I want to tell her myself. Some day. Maybe a day in the near future because the more missions I carry out, the more it becomes obvious that she’s owed, at the very least, a thank you.

“Look,” he finally says, “as helpful as you’ve been, we’re starting to close shops all over due to the increasing risk. At this point, we have a growing need to utilize minds just like yours in station.”

I blink at his suggestion. “You mean re-enlist?”

“Reserves, but with a specific job in mind. I can guarantee your time card will be punched for the stint you’ve put in with me, and”—he pauses for emphasis—“it will count, Jennings. You’ll go in high on the scoreboard as gunnery sergeant with the deserved pay increase.”

Home. He wants to send me home. Or at least, back to—“North Carolina?” I ask.

“Greensboro. Any objections to that? You will work with outside intelligence via satellite while attending to your responsibilities on base. In addition, your reserve contract will be drawn up on your terms.”

Home. Or closer to home, and after months of minimum contact, I have no idea what’s happening there.

Even between jobs, I’ve rarely checked in with Mom.

Mostly to keep hard-wired in my missions in lieu of what’s happening, which would only distract me.

Now I have that chance. The thought of seeing it through—of going home—has my pulse pounding.

For one reason alone—to thank her and selfishly lay eyes on her.

It’s as I stare back at Phillip, his offer lingering in the air, I realize I’ve done all I need to.

I’ve been postponing the inevitable. I’ve done my service and beyond.

I can quit now, walk away, and consider my time well spent, or take him up on his offer and again exceed my own expectations with a higher clearance to finish my investigation. It’s too good to pass up.

“Before you make your decision,” Phillip interjects with caution, “I’m going to add the caveat of a favor. One of a more personal nature.”

“Of course you are.” I blow out a long breath.

“You’ll get to cherry-pick your team. But if you carry this out for me—successfully—I will owe you.”

“Owe me what?”

“A significant favor. No questions asked. If it’s within my power, I will get it done, and as you’re aware, there’s very little I can deny you.”

“Make it two favors,” I say, “no questions asked. And I need a little desk help on something I’ve been working on that has nothing to do with either significant favor you’ll owe me.”

I give him a pointed look. In return, I’m granted his unimpressed stare. “Quite the barterer.”

“That’s what my father tells me.”

“Done,” he says.

“I’ve got my own caveat,” I add.

“Of course you do,” he replies, his smirk growing.

I nod toward his desk. “You destroy that file, and anything else with my name attached, the second I complete this last mission.”

“That’s not even necessary,” he states, “you know we protect our—”

“Sure you do, but it’s necessary for me . Not a trace, Phillip.”

Gazes locked because our relationship just shifted, a pregnant pause ensues before he finally speaks.

“Understood.”

I nod. “Where am I going?”

His dimming expression tells me all I need to know.

BLINK.

Armstrong’s eyes start to glaze over from where he lays propped in my lap as the medics’ glove-covered, splayed palms hover over him for a few weighted seconds.

Shoulders inching down in defeat, he finally withdraws, sitting back and giving me a grim nod, the verdict clear in his eyes.

I subtly nod back just as the chopper shifts direction, putting more safe space between us and our extraction point.

“Tell me something ... Jennings,” Armstrong rasps out as dawn begins to light the skies, the steady thwomp, thwomp, thwomp of the hawk’s blades muting his words before I lean in to catch every last one. The truth of that has the sting increasing in my chest.

“What’s that?”

“Where do you go?” he asks as I stretch my upper half a little further to fully meet his eyes.

“This is what you want to talk about right now?” I ask, our hands fisted together atop his chest, several safe inches above the mortal shot he took to the gut.

“Yeah ... seven missions together, and I never could bring myself to ask, but I want to know.” He coughs. Hearing the telling rattle inside it, I curse the fact that I couldn’t get to him while guilt starts to set in.

“Eight,” I correct. “Stop talking, save your strength. You’ve got a lot of recovery ahead of you.”

“The only place I’m go-ing today, brother, is h-heaven,” he wheezes, and I hesitate briefly before nodding in resignation.

Armstrong’s always been an unapologetic man of faith, kissing his dog tags and praying before our boots touch the ground.

We’ve spent many idle hours in wait perched together in varying terrain, at times talking about all things religion, philosophy, and the world.

Sharing beers after hellish days and endless close calls.

The truth of how close we’ve become hits hard, along with a painful wave of awareness that I’m the reason he’s speaking his last words—taking his last breaths.

Because I’m the one who summoned him for this mission.

“Do you have any messages for me?” I ask.

“When you love the people in your life the way you’re supposed to, no messages are necessary.”

“As if you’re such a saint.” I wink. “Smug bastard.”

“Smug bastard I may be, but I rest easy knowing I did right by them. They know,” he wheezes again. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry, man.” I grip his hand tightly. “Please try to hold on.”

“Hell no, I’m running to that better place. You all can have this one,” he coughs again, and I can tell he’s fading. He has a minute at most. “Tell me, brother,” he prompts, “where do you go?”

I stare down at him as he gives me his ‘no bullshit’ return stare and says as much. “You know what the hell I’m asking. You look, move, and dole out orders like you , but you aren’t really there. It’s in your eyes . They’re like a wall of metal when you check out.”

I furrow my brows, uncomfortable with the question, as he squeezes my hand, a sign that he’s running out of time and wants the answer. Staring down at him, I try to muster a way to describe my mentality when I blink to black.

“It’s more like checking in while detaching from all emotional decision-making.

” I concentrate hard on what sticks out most. “Keeping the notion of right or wrong while dialing in on the most basic survival instincts to complete the mission by any means necessary.” It’s a state of clarity that’s nearly impossible to describe, but for my friend, I try.

“I become hyperaware of sight and sound. All of my senses magnify tenfold, as well as my adrenaline.”

“You moved like fucking lightning to try and get to me... I saw it.”

“Not fast enough,” I grit out, the apology evident in my voice.

“Don’t take this on yourself,” he orders adamantly, his blood-coated lips lifting, his whispers becoming forced and less audible. “I know you have a crush on me.”

“Fuck, and I tried so hard to hide it,” I reply, as a burn starts to take hold in place of the sting.

“Every man . . .” he struggles, “in this fucking bird knows you just saved them. Whether they thank you or not.” Feeling their eyes on me, I shake my head as Armstrong grips my hand harder, commanding my attention. “I’m glad it’s you with me,” he whispers as the hellfire sets in.

“Me too,” I reply, the selfish urge to blink out the moment coming on strong, but I bat it away because he deserves my presence, and I need to feel it.

“... See you, brother,” he utters brokenly, his arms seizing involuntarily for a few seconds at his sides before his body relaxes. I keep my grip tight as the sun invades the chopper’s interior, lighting up his face.

“See you,” I utter, gripping his hand harder just as he releases mine.