A chill stole up her spine, but she made sure to keep her features schooled into impassivity. “You were down there on a mission sanctioned by Madam President herself. The man you took out had been leaving a path of death and destruction behind him for months. And the guards who worked for him? They were as crooked and culpable as he was. Hell, they were the ones who’d been helping him do all his dirty work.”
“But I’m not talkin’ about Miguel Blanco or his men. I’m talkin’ about a local law enforcement officer. One of the policemen who went on the raid with us.” The words poured out of his mouth like poison from a vial and burned when they hit her ears.
She nearly recoiled but stopped herself by biting the inside of her cheek. In all the time she’d worked with Fisher, she’d never known him to be anything less than honorable.
He’s even up-front with the women he dates. He tells them point-blank he’s not relationship material and is only in it for the fun.
Making sure to keep her expression open and encouraging, she walked over and gently placed a hand on his arm. His skin was warm. The muscles beneath were hard and flexed at her touch.
“It’s okay, Fish. You can tell me what happened.”
7
What the fuck are ya doin’, man?
It was a question Fisher had asked himself more than once since following Eliza into the kitchen. Now he finally knew the answer.
It was there in her soft, dark eyes. There in her beautiful, compassionate expression. There in the tenderness of her hand on his arm.
He wanted to unburden himself. To absolve himself. To be told the horror he’d allowed to happen down in Colombia was right and just and not simply his childhood trauma coming back to bite him in the ass.
“Ya know what a shitshow it was down there.” His voice was harsh with emotion. “By the time we breached the compound, we were tired, low on ammo, and runnin’ on steam.”
“And you were shot.” Her gaze tracked down to his hip. The path the bullet left behind still smarted like a sonofabitch if he moved the wrong way.
“I wasgrazed,” he corrected. “But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, I was angry and probably not thinkin’ straight when we split up to search the grounds for stragglers. Because when I went to clear the kitchen and saw that Colombian bastard—” His voice hitched.
Her palm, so soft and warm, rubbed up and down his arm.
How many nights had he lain awakefantasizingabout her touching him? How many times had he imagined all the different scenarios that ended with her running those long, lithe fingers over his arm not out of annoyance, like she did after he’d said something particularly obnoxious, but with affection and care?
Too many to count.
And here she was doing exactly that. And here he was about to ruin it all by confessing the truth of what’d happened on his last mission.
Even still…he couldn’t stop himself.
He had to know if he’d become the monster he’d always feared. Or was it possible therewasjustice in the choice he’d made?
No matter how many times he’d turned it over in his mind, he’d been unable to sort through the static to see things clearly. He had too many emotional scars. Was incapable of separating the sins of his father from his own motivations.
He needed a second opinion. A second set of eyes to look at what he’d done and tell him the truth about himself.
He could’ve asked his teammates. They were all decent, noble men. But they were also soldiers, hardened by life and the atrocities they’d seen. They had little compassion left for anyone who stepped over the lines of decency and honor. And that Colombian police officer had certainly done that by a good country mile.
So that left…Eliza.
Eliza with her clear head and open heart. Eliza, who’d grown up gently andgenteellyand therefore hadn’t been callused by the world. Eliza, whom he could always count on to tell him exactly what she thought of him, no holds barred.
“When I walked into that cartel leader’s kitchen, I saw one of the Colombian officers rapin’ a girl,” he admitted lowly, the words feeling like they came with poison tipped barbs that scoured his throat as he spoke them. “I think she was one of Blanco’s cooks or housekeepers or somethin’. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. Lord”—he ran a hand through his hair—“she looked like a baby.”
Eliza’s pretty face paled as she dropped her hand from his arm. The kitchen air felt cold against his skin compared to the warmth of her touch.
He wondered if that was the first and last time he’d ever feel her fingers on him and chastised himself for not hesitating a bit longer before starting his tale. For not allowing himself a few more seconds to revel in the softness of her skin and the comfort of her touch.
“That sonofabitch had the girl pinned down on the floor. She was strugglin’ and screamin’ like—” He stopped himself as the awful scene replayed in his mind’s eye.
He saw the policeman’s naked, hairy ass pumping away between the girl’s skinny legs as her feet scrabbled uselessly against the tile. Saw the blood streaming from her nose and the bruises blooming to Technicolor life on her jaw because the brute had punched her to gain her submission. Saw the look of horror and humility and…brokennessthat’d come into her eyes.
