Staking Her Claim...: Book 1 in the Patricks' Brothers series (11 page)

“Sorry,” I mutter. Followed by, “How do you want me to handle this, Brookes? Do I arrange a meeting with him at his offices, or have you already discussed how we’re going to play this?”

“I’ve only had the preliminary meeting with and a few phone calls back and forth, but I think it’s best if we keep this between us. No one outside of the three of us needs to know the details of what you’re working on for now. I’ll tell the guys you’re on assignment and uncontactable for the foreseeable future. That should keep them off our back for a while at least.” Scrubbing his jaw, he adds, “Aside from the basics in that file,” Brookes says, gesturing to the six-page file in front of me, “I don’t have a whole hell of a lot more info for you. It’s probably best you meet with him in person ASAP and get the low-down from him before we decided the best course of action.”

In complete agreement, I pick up the discarded file and stand to leave.

“I’ll go and call him now. I’ll keep you updated every step of the way, Brookes, but I want you to consider letting, Harper know what’s going on. She can’t watch her back if she doesn’t know she needs to, and I don’t want her blindsided if this goes to shit and she’s caught in the middle.”

“I won’t let that happen, Cupcake. You know I’d never leave her unprotected, focus of a crazy motherfucker or not.” I didn’t think he would, but I hoped he would consider the possibility that it was time for him to step up where she was concerned too.

He might not know it yet, but Brookes has been in love with my best friend for years. This might just be the thing to push him to realize it. Not that I wouldn’t prefer them to come to the conclusion without the psychotic stalker, and crazy paranoid entrepreneur complications, but I’m never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. And this one hell of a gift horse.

“I trust you, Brookes. Don’t let me down.”

Making a move to follow, Alysia, I push out of my seat but don’t get further than a half crouch before Brookes growls,

“Stay behind for a second would you?”

Without any recourse other than to comply, I retake my seat.

“Sure,” I mutter, in frustration.

Brookes isn’t usually the kind of man I’d challenge, but after today’s scene, I’d like nothing more than to kick his ass for throwing Alysia head-first into this clusterfuck. At almost six-foot-six, nearly two inches taller than myself, Brookes is built like a tank. Solid muscle, honed by hours in the gym, but developed through years of service to our fine country’s Military as an Army Ranger.

Enlisting at the age of eighteen, Brookes was accepted into the elite Ranger school at Fort Benning, Georgia, and from there was deployed five times to fight the ‘War on Terror.' I had been around when he was initially inducted into the ranks of the Army Rangers, Fifth Battalion, but I was long gone by the time he was sent overseas for the first time to take part in ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.

Everything I’d learned about his time as a Ranger I’ve heard in the last two months on returning to, Texas. I’m ashamed to say it, but I wished I stuck around, Lancaster after I aged out of the system. I’d missed so much of my friend’s lives and achievements. I missed out on time I’d never get back.

“If I didn’t respect the hell out of you I’d have put you on your ass for interfering just now. You know that don’t you, Rob?”

I knew he was more than capable of doing what he threatened, but I couldn’t worry about that right now. My worry about Alysia’s well-being overshadowed everything else.

“You could try, but I’m not the same guy I was when I left, Brother. I’d give you a run for your money if push came to shove.” It’s true. I’d give it my all, but I have no doubt he’d lay me flat on my ass in less than a minute if he put even the slightest effort into it.

Chuckling, Brookes shakes his head.

“I’d like to see that one of these days. Maybe when we’re not in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation that involves my sister, though.” Sighing, he states, “I don’t know if you’re aware or not, but Alysia knows about your past. Has done for years.”

Giving me a moment to digest what he’s said, he launches into an explanation.

“I don’t know how she found out, and I didn’t ask. All I know is she left town while she was on leave about ten years back, was gone for a few days, and came back a different woman. Regardless of how many times we demanded she let us in and tell us why she’d gone from a healthy, vibrant woman to a shell of her former self, she refused to spill it. If it wasn’t for an offhanded comment she made to Liam in passing a year or so back, we still wouldn’t know a fucking thing. That woman has the ability to lock herself down tighter than a steel trap if the need arises.”

“How much do you know?” I rasp.

A feeling of foreboding washes over me as I distractedly anticipate the worst. This man, a man I’ve looked up to for years knowing the atrocities I’ve faced is almost too much for me to bear.

What’s worse is the knowledge that whatever he knows is only a fraction of what Alysia is privy to. The one person I never wanted touched by my past is now the one person who I’m pretty confident knows every single fucking thing about me.

“Calm down, Brother,” he mutters. “I don’t have details and I don’t want them. That’s your business, and not one of us would disrespect you by going behind your back, using unauthorized channels to pry into your private life. All Liam said was that Alysia mentioned something about being able to understand why you left and why were so closed off before you did. She said everything made complete sense now, and she was just sad that you hadn’t had anyone to confide in about the shit you’d gone through.”

Taking a deep breath in through his nose, clasping his hands under his chin, Brookes finishes by stating.

“I just wanted you to know that a woman like my sister doesn’t get sad often, and definitely not about someone that means nothing to her. It might have been light years ago that you were part of her life, but that doesn’t mean you don’t know her anymore. In the time you’ve been absent, Alysia’s gone through her own version of hell, but you’ve gotta know that if she were genuinely opposed to you being here permanently, she would have made it so you’d have tucked tail and run the second she laid eyes on you.”

That earns a chuckle from me.

“Don’t I know it.”

Alysia has always been a headstrong, determined, independent woman even when she was a teenager. Anything her older brothers could do, she believed she could do if not better.

She gave everything she tried her all and didn’t give up until she’d mastered it. That was one of the many things I loved about her; her dogged determination. It was also the thing that broke through my self-imposed exile during our first year of junior high.

I didn’t want to like her. In the beginning, I did everything shy of physically removing her from my presence, but without fail, day after day she was back and watching me intently from the sidelines. When I finally gave in and accepted she wouldn’t be going anywhere unless she decided I was too much hard work, I set about proving just that. Much to my dismay, she never brought my act.

For months, Alysia followed me around before, during, and after school going as far as to trail me home one day. Where A
'
lysia told me the turning point in our non-friendship was, was that day in the corridor when I asked her why she thought she was fit to judge whether I needed a friend or not. The truth was, her following me home is what changed my mind.

The last thing I needed was for her to be there, outside my house of horrors, at the exact time Phillipe or Raquel got home. They’d befriend her, invite her to dinner, or some such ruse to get her inside and hen God only knows what the fuck would happen to her. And I couldn’t let her become their prey like that. I just couldn’t. It was bad enough they were always on my case about bringing friends home, something I was finding harder and harder to make excuses for, but luring Alysia in, not gonna happen.

“Something else to keep in the back of your mind,” Brookes says, interrupting my disturbing train of thought. “Alysia isn’t the same girl you knew in high school. She’s not only older, but world-wearier now, but she’s not the undamaged innocent you were once drawn to.”

I knew that too. I could see the shadows of her past lurking in her eyes when I really looked at her. Her time in the Army had undoubtedly taken its toll on the girl I adored.

“I know it’s not my business, but what the fuck happened to her over there. I mean, I know she was in a pretty severe accident but not much else.”

“I don’t see any harm in telling you, Rob. It’s not like the crash isn’t a matter of public record anyway. For fuck’s sake, it was reported on by every major media outlet in the country when it happened. I’m actually surprised you didn’t hear about it then,” he says with a shrug.

Racking my brain, I search for clues that I’d heard about a female Army Officer injured in a helicopter accident and come up drawing blanks. Sighing, I reply,

“To be honest, I don’t even remember where I was or what the fuck I was doing around that time. I could’ve been neck deep in a bottle for all I know, man.”

Laughing, Brookes nods.

“We’ve all been there, Brother, but I can tell you now if you don’t already know, that shit solves nothing. If anything, it makes it worse. All you get for your troubles is a nasty hangover if you’re lucky. And if you’re not, you end up in some woman’s bed you can’t remember taking home and fucking, or if you were even capable of getting it up to begin with.”

Reclining, I settle in and listen to Brookes recount the story of Alysia’s time in the Army. I didn’t think it was possible before he started for my long dead heart to skip a beat, but when he got into the details about why she was discharged, I swear the shriveled organ all but gave up stuttered to a dead stop.

Not one to be left out, Alysia followed her two eldest brothers into the Military. At first, every one of her siblings tried to convince her to do anything else, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

Alysia enlisted at eighteen, almost giving her Mom a stroke, and worked her ass off to rise within the ranks, becoming a covert counter intelligence specialist within her first four years of active duty.

Like everything else she set her mind to, Alysia gave this her all too. She trained, studied, and busted her ass as hard, if not harder than all the men in her unit. Truth be told, probably every man in the Army. Her hard work paid off, landing her the highly sought after position of second in charge of a twelve-man unit at the age of twenty-three. Not to mention, that in turn made her the highest ranking female Officer in active duty. Ever.

When she was discharged, honorably, after the accident, Alysia was officially the commanding officer to thirty men, all of which were highly trained Spec Ops soldiers who respected the hell out of her and would lay their lives on the line, or take a bullet for her without giving it a second’s hesitation.

Not one of the men under her command were bigoted toward women in positions of power in the Military. If anything, they appreciated what it took for her to make it that far even more than if she’d been a man.

Hour upon hour, year after year, Alysia adhered to a rigorous training schedule so that she could hone her body into a virtual machine like state. Couple that with months of specialized training, learning seven languages secondary to her native tongue, English, and endless briefings to keep her at the top of her game all accumulated to make her the best leader she could be. 

According to Brookes, the only information they could gather before Alysia herself was in a position to talk came from Liam. And he was more than a little hesitant to discuss what he’d been told in confidence as to why Alysia declined to re-enlist when her contract came up for renewal.

Listed as her emergency contact, Liam was the first phone call the Army made when Alysia was airlifted from Afghanistan to Germany. Sworn to secrecy by not only Alysia but the Officer in charge of three platoons, one of which was Alysia’s, Liam was given the basics and nothing more. To his limited knowledge, Alysia had been deployed on a mission that went from bad to worse, ending in a colossal clusterfuck before anyone could say ‘fuck me.'

The Blackhawk crash in which nine of her twelve team members perished was bad enough, but the injuries that the remaining three men and Alysia suffered were astronomically worse.

Her 2IC, Sergeant First Class Warwick, was left a double amputee, losing both his legs when one of the rotor blades of the Blackhawk splintered on hitting the ground at full speed. According to all accounts, if it weren't for Alysia’s quick thinking he would have bled out within minutes of sustaining his injuries if she hadn’t used sections of severed seatbelt harnesses to stem the bleeding.

Staff Sergeant, Donovan, was luckier but not uninjured. A major concussion resulting in a subdural brain bleed saw him hospitalized alongside Alysia for weeks when he was eventually airlifted on a second transport from the crash site. Other than a concussion, a brain bleed requiring a permanent shunt to be placed behind his right ear, and multiple contusions and lacerations he made it out of the accident relatively unscathed.

Staff Sergeant Luder wasn’t so fortunate, however. His injuries landed him in the hospital beside his teammates and Commanding Officer, but where they would be discharged stateside to various rehabilitation facilities or their families, Staff Sergeant Luder would be remanded to the U.S Military run hospital in Landstuhl, Germany for more than six months.

He suffered from multiple facial fractures, one of which required his jaw to be wired shut. His left arm was amputated just above his elbow, he received a deep laceration requiring over three hundred stitches to his neck, and a brain hemorrhage that led to two large clots hematoma’s forming in his frontal cortex. Due to his long list of injuries, Staff Sergeant Luder wasn’t declared fit to travel for six months, one week, and three day’s post-accident.

Doctors assured Liam that, Alysia was by far and away the luckiest of the four to survive the crash. If you consider suffering horrific burns covering the vast majority of her left thigh and part of her torso lucky that is.