Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (47 page)

“Hudson, you’ve pulled some stupid shit, but this is beyond the fucking pale.” I can practically feel the venom leaking through the phone from his voice before he barks into the receiver again; “You fucking
idiot!
”

“Logan!” I yell, reaching for the pack of emergency cigarettes I keep behind the spoons in my silverware drawer and tapping one out; "Look, it was stupid, I know. I-"

"Did you
fuck
her?" Logan spits out, his voice
ice cold
; that tone he only takes when he’s about to fuck something up - like, in this instance, my face, the next time he sees me.

"Wha- No! Come on man!” I stick the God-knows how old cigarette in my mouth and light it, coughing on the dry, ancient smoke that fills my lungs like burning sand.

"Oh, and smoking; nice. Good fucking job, Hudson; hell of a night you're having."

"Will you calm the fuck down!" I spit out, making a face. The cigarette tastes like a horse’s asshole; well, at least what I imagine the butt of a horse tastes like at least. “Of course I didn't, what’s wrong with you man? She’s not that kind-“

"That
wasn't
meant as a dis on her, idiot. That's 'cause I know
you
."

I suck at the horrible cigarette, feeling the bile rise in my burning throat; "The hell is that supposed to mea-"

"The guy who slept his way through half of Italy and Turkey? The guy that almost got us shipped over to the fucking U.S. State Department in Cairo because he couldn't keep his fucking dick in his goddamn pan-“

"That was a long time ago, bud.” My voice is beyond frosty. And it was. I’m a different guy now, and I’ve worked
damn
hard to get here.

Logan is quiet on the other end of the line for a moment, his breathing coming in regular, controlled measures. Finally, he sighs; "I know; I know man." His voice is calmer, and he’s back to speaking to me like a normal person; "Look, I'm sorry, brother."

"It's cool" I mutter out. That’s one thing about the three us; we might fight like the devil amongst ourselves sometime, but we’re always quick to tamp that fire out. I guess that’s what going through what we went through does to you.

"You can't
date
her; you know that, right?"

I stamp out the cigarette in my kitchen sink and turn on the viking range to clear the smell of smoke out of the place; "Yeah, I know that."

"We're supposed to
watch
them, Hudson; that was the promise. To protect and help them, and make sure they're safe." Logan pauses; “That's
it
, brother. There are other fish in-"

"Ok! I know!
Fuck
-“ I trail off as I walk back into the massive library off the kitchen where I’ve set up my boxing bag and stare out through the tinted floor-to-ceiling windows at the New York City skyline. The old me would have
loved
to show off this view to any and every girl I could charm up here, but I’ve stopped all that now; because of the promise.

Well, and of course, because of her.

Except I can’t let that happen; not what I
want
to let happen. I toss the phone onto the couch behind me after I hang up with Logan and turn to stare back out through the window at New York. All of this - the money, the penthouse with the view, the cars, the girls, the power - all of this means nothing, really. And I don’t need Logan telling me how I can’t bring her into all of my baggage; I already
know
that. I already know that I can’t let her in; it’s why I pushed her away before as much as it’s killed me for five fucking years thinking about it.

I’m broken, and a girl like Reagan Archer is the
last
person on earth I need to sift through the pieces. 

Chapter Five

P A S T

“I can’t go back, man.” Bryce’s eyes have a wild look in them, and even though he’s
technically
looking at me, it’s more like he’s looking through me. He’s rocking on the balls of his feet; “Fuck, man;
fuck
.”

Logan looks up from where he’s pulling the bits of shrapnel fragments out of my arm and meets my eyes, quietly shaking his head; “It’s not like we haven’t discussed this before, Hud.”

I nod grimly, wincing as he squirts disinfectant over the gash in my bicep he’s just pulled the piece of Humvee fender out of. Sure, we’d all thought it before, even
talked
about it when it was just the three of us. Any guy out here in this fucking hell on Earth is a liar if they tell you they’ve never even
thought
about the idea of just lighting out of there. Following orders and saying yes is the
one thing
they drill into your head more than anything else in training. Fuck; saying yes is the glue that hold the entire chain of command together. You say yes, you shut your damn mouth, and you follow your fucking orders;
that’s
the job. You don’t debate yourself, you don’t weigh anything against whatever moral compass you’ve got spinning inside, you just
do it
. If the call was bad, then it was bad, but you move on.

Except what if you can’t? What if you hit that one wall of your spirit inside they never got through; the wall to the part inside that keeps you being human when you’re faced with the horrifically
in
humane every single day? 

It’s just the three of us left now from the nine of us that found ourselves in the Taliban ambush. I swallow heavily and choke back the rage as I glance back at the first of the two Humvees we rolled in with; the one that hit the IED and lit up like the fucking Hindenburg before they even knew what happened. I look around us at the burning wreckage of the village. In war, bullets don’t discriminate between Taliban psychos trying to murder you and innocent villagers just trying to get the fuck out of the way, as much as you try to do so. I look at the bodies strewn across charred and cratered streets and in the smoldering ruins of what were homes, businesses…

…Or a school, like the one that burns quietly like a funeral pyre behind us. 

Logan catches my glance and shakes his head fiercely; “That isn’t what we signed up for, man.” He follows my eyes to the burning school; neither of knowing but both of us hoping to God it was empty; “I’m here to fight for my country, not watch bombs drop out of the sky onto fucking
schools
.” He spits, his face shaking.

“Drop out of the sky; right out of the sky.” Bryce is staring at the dirt in front of him and just rocking back and forth.

“So, what, we just walk away? Here in the middle of the fucking desert?”

Logan catches my eye and nods quietly; “The radio went out with that second IED hit; as far as they know back at base, the whole damn convoy got taken out.” He gives me a hard look; “This isn’t going to
stop
, Hudson.
Every
mission is going to be like this;
every mission
is going to be bad guys hiding behind
kids
and the guys back home hammering them with bombs anyways.”

“You’re talking about desertion of duties during wartime, Logan.” I say my words slowly; “They shoot you for that.”

“I’m going to shoot
myself
if I have to be part of something like
that!
“ Logan jabs his finger at the burning school across the shelled street at us, the flames still licking the burning Afghan air.

“And it’s only
desertion
if they think you
deserted
. If you’re dead, well…” He trails of and looks up at the mountains on the horizon. 

“Where the fuck would we go, man? What do we do, fucking
walk
back to the States?”

“I don’t think we
do
go back, Hud; ever.”

I swallow heavily as I let his words sink in; we’d
never
go home. I mean it’s not like there’s anything left for me back there
anyways.
It’s not like my job at the garage before I enlisted was my dream career, and the only family that still even remembers who I am is my drunk asshole Dad, and if he remembers who I am between sips from that bottle, I’d be fucking shocked. Really, at this point the only family I’ve got are these two guys right here; my de facto brothers. I don’t know much about either of their lives before the Marines either, but I’ve heard enough to know they’re not much different than me. 

“So, where?”

Logan’s face is grim; “Haul ass to the Chinese border, skip across and try and hook up with some of the Blackriver guys there.” He shrugs; “We’re not the first guys to do this, Hud, and the mercenary groups are always picking up guys with skills and a spotty background checks.”

I grimace; “You want to be
mercenaries
? Out of the frying pan into the fire?”

Logan’s laugh is hollow, and it ricochets sharply off the empty streets of the village; “Look around you, man; we’re already
in
the fucking fire!” 

Bryce looks up at Logan’s outburst, his eyes looking more focused for a moment as he nods; “We can’t go back, Hudson.”

Yeah yeah,
you can never go back
, as they say. Except this time, I know they’re right. I’m already a
completely
different man than I was before, but I’ll be damned if I let them take the rest of me; “So, that’s our only option?”

“We’re in hostile territory in an active war-zone, surrounded by countries that
hate
the United States and people that would kill each other to be the first to string us up or cut our fucking heads off,” Logan looks at me and his eyes soften for a second; “I don’t really see what other option we’ve got, man.”

Fuck it
; he’s right and we all know it. It’s go forward or go back, and we all know we can’t go back. I turn to Bryce and nod at his twisted ankle; “You ok to walk?”

He shrugs, yanks the morphine pen out of his med-pack and stabs himself in the thigh with it; “Now I am.” He grins.

Logan nods towards the pickup  parked next to burning sheep hut that looks relatively untouched; I’ll drive if you can navigate, Hud.”

Fuck, we’re really doing this.
“Any fucking idea where China is?”

“East?” He chuckles, winking at me; “Out of the frying pan, Hud, and out of the fire.”

*****

Months later though, it still feels like we’re very much in the fire. When we’re scraping by, making a living selling ourselves and our services and parts of our souls to whatever awful piece of shit will pay us the most, I know we all still feel the burn. When Logan goes a little crazy, and Bryce goes to the needle, and I decided to be just like my father and find peace in the bottom of a bottle, it sure as shit still feels like we’re in the fire. Maybe we can never go back, but we’ve also got no place left to go.

We feel those flames for more than a year like that; the hurt and the pain searing itself into us every single day. That is, until the day we meet William Archer, and
everything
changes.

P R E S E N T

I wake up to the sound of my apartment door slamming shut, and sit bolt upright.

I live alone. 

I’m out of bed before my head is even fully awake, and I grab the first deadly weapon I can find, which happens to be one of the heels I wore last night. With the fiercest face I can muster with my heart hammering in my chest, I fling open my bedroom door and scream bloody murder as I brandish the stiletto at the figure standing in my hallway shrugging of a winter jacket.