“So your solution is to marry her while keeping her at arm’s length?”Tommy’s tone is incredulous.“That’s not protection.That’s self-delusion.”
Is it?I don’t know anymore.The lines between my past failures and my present situation get tangled up.
A memory surfaces, unbidden and unwelcome.Sand and smoke and the deafening crack of an explosion that comes too soon, too fast.A woman’s scream is cut short.A small hand reaching through rubble, fingers still moving until they’re not.
Abeera.
I close my eyes, but that only makes the memory sharper.
“Syria,” I hear myself say.“2014.We were running an extraction for a Kurdish informant and his family.His wife’s name was Abeera.”
Tommy goes still beside me.I’ve never told anyone this story.Not Dave.Not our father.Not the Marine psychiatrist who cleared me for duty after the mission went sideways.
“The intel was compromised,” I continue, my voice mechanical.“We got there too early.The building came down during extraction.IED that I’d assumed my best man had swept for.He didn’t because we were operating on a compressed timeline.”
I can still smell it.Burning concrete and copper and something sweet-sour that I later learned was death in its most immediate form.
“She reached for me,” I whisper.“This small hand, covered in dust, reaching out from under the rubble.I tried to pull her free, but the weight was too much, and the structure was unstable, and my team was screaming at me to fall back because secondary explosions were imminent.”
“Shelby—“
“I let go of her hand.”The confession tears through me like the bullet in Russia, creating a wound that never heals.“I fell back.And three seconds later, the secondary explosion buried what was left of her.”
The silence that follows is absolute.Tommy doesn’t offer empty comfort or meaningless reassurances.He knows me too well for that.
“That’s why you froze in Russia,” he says finally.Not a question.An understanding.
I nod.“I looked at those kids, and all I could see was Abeera’s hand.All I could feel was the moment I chose to let go.So I froze.Two children died because I couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t think clearly enough, couldn’t be what I was trained to be.”
“That’s not on you.”
“Isn’t it?”I finally look at him, showing him the raw edges I usually keep hidden.“I’ve spent twelve years in situations where split-second decisions meant life or death.Syria, Afghanistan, all those places where the government pretends we were never operating.I should be better than this.I should be able to execute missions without letting ghosts derail me.”
“You’re human,” Tommy says quietly, while his warm fingers squeeze my shoulder.“Not a machine.”
“In our world, being human gets people killed.”I drain the rest of my whiskey, welcoming the burn.“This marriage is a convenient move.That’s all it is.Serena’s Joe’s sister, which means she’s practically family.That’s where this ends.”
“Does it?”
“It has to,” I state more to myself than to my brother.I must remember it all the time.“There’s no real involvement.No real feelings.We show up as a couple at Syndicate functions, and we don’t let it become more than that.Because if it becomes more, I fail her like I failed Abeera.Like I failed those kids in Russia.And I won’t survive that again.”
Tommy studies me for a long moment, the way only a twin can.We’ve spent thirty years learning each other’s tells, understanding the silences between words.
“You’re building walls,” he observes.“Same ones you built after Syria.Same ones you reinforced after Russia.But those walls are not protecting you.They’re keeping everyone out.They’re just making you a prisoner in your own head.”
“Better that than watching someone else die because I cared too much to think clearly.”
“That’s not how it works.We’ve been in countless situations before when you didn’t freeze.”
“Tell me something honestly.If you were in that warehouse in Russia, if you had to watch kids die because you froze for five seconds, would you be eager to let someone close?Would you risk caring about them enough that their safety could compromise your judgment?”
He doesn’t answer immediately, which is answer enough.When he finally does, it’s barely above a whisper: “I get it.You got close to Abeera and were concerned about those kids.But I promise you that caring about another person is what saved me from my own demons.”
“Your story with Maeve is totally different.And I’m happy you’ve found one another.”I truly am, so I pause to hold my brother’s stare and let him read my real feelings.
He nods and smiles.“I know.I am too.”
“My marriage is happening,” I say, my tone brooking no argument.“In forty-eight hours, Serena and I will be legally bound.We’ll play the part of a devoted couple for however long it takes to neutralize the threat from Cesare Dellamare.And when it’s done, we’ll divorce quietly and return to our respective lives.That’s the plan.”
