Jayson kept his Beretta out until both men had disappeared down the gravel road that led to the main part of the DCO complex. He knew he’d just made enemies of the two men, who wouldn’t hesitate to sucker punch him—or worse—when he wasn’t looking, but so be it. Feeling the anger that was now so much a part of his life engulf him, he turned and put all fifteen rounds in his weapon through the center of the twenty-five-meter target. When that burst of violence wasn’t enough to calm him, he dropped the empty clip, smoothly yanked another from the pouch at his side, and reloaded, then blazed through another fifteen rounds.
That seemed to do the trick. At least he wasn’t seeing red anymore. He reached down to pick up the empty 9mm clip and jerked nearly rigid in his boots as a lightning bolt of pain raced down his spine to the twisted nerves that currently called his lower back home.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly straightened up and breathed through the pain. When it had receded to a dull throb, he holstered his Beretta. Picking up Powell’s and Moore’s guns and unused ammo, he forced his tingling legs to respond to orders and slowly walked back to the building where the weapons were kept. The discomfort was yet another reminder of the fact that no matter how hard he worked on his physical therapy or how many muscle relaxants and pain pills he took, he was always going to have a screwed-up back.
Dwelling on it wasn’t going to do anything but put him in a bad mood again, so when he got inside, he instead focused on the tasks he needed to do, like cleaning his Beretta and the weapons Powell and Moore had been firing, as well as a few others that had been used earlier that day in a training exercise.
Ignoring the stool, Jayson stood beside the table instead and broke down the 9mm by habit. Maintenance was usually the part most people hated about target shooting, but he didn’t mind. It was cathartic in a way. And outside of pricks like Powell and Moore, he got to spend a good deal of his time working with field agents who actually cared about being able to shoot straight and hit what they were aiming at. It was damn tough training people to go out on missions when he’d never get a chance to go himself, but it was better than not being involved in anything important at all.
At least that’s what he kept telling himself.
The continuous throbbing in Jayson’s back as he stood at the worktable cleaning the Beretta reminded him that he’d pushed himself too hard today—again. The little railroad spike of pain when he’d bent over before was just the frosting on the cake. He was going to pay for all of it tonight. Usually, if the muscles in his back tightened up this much by noon, it almost guaranteed they’d be spasming uncontrollably by the time he went to bed that night. He wouldn’t be sleeping much, that was for sure. No matter what he did, he was in some kind of pain. It was like a shadow that followed him wherever he went.
Fucking great.
He had no one to blame but himself. Even though he was walking better now, his doctors warned him to use his cane as much as possible, but he hated leaning on the damn thing when anyone was around. He didn’t want to look weak in front of people, especially assholes like Powell and Moore. Of course, he rarely used his cane at home either, at least not when Layla was there. Of all the people he hated looking broken in front of, she topped the list. Unfortunately, when he pushed himself too hard, he ended up limping a lot, which made him look weak anyway.
Jayson set down the slide he’d just cleaned and ran his hand through his short, dark-blond hair with a sigh. He still did all the physical therapy as well as the breathing and visualization techniques he’d learned, but those things didn’t mix well with a full-time job. Truthfully, it was getting harder and harder to find the motivation to keep doing them anyway. On good days, he wondered if he was going to be living with the pain for the rest of his life. On bad days, he wondered if what he had could even be called a life—and why he even bothered getting out of bed.
It was during those dark times that he was glad the doctors had pulled him off the heavy-duty narcotics. He didn’t want to think about where his head would be if he had access to bottles of the mind-numbing crap he’d been living on before he’d met Layla. Right now, he was making do with over-the-counter painkillers and prescription muscle relaxants.
And Layla’s constant support.
He wasn’t sure how much longer that was going to last since he seemed to be blowing the only chance he had with her. When she walked out of his life… Well, something told him he wasn’t going to last too long.
Jayson swallowed hard and picked up the barrel of the Beretta, practically attacking it with the cleaning cloth. He could see himself pushing her away even while he was shouting at himself to stop messing up the only good thing he had going in his life. Yet he couldn’t seem to stop.
He didn’t understand what the hell was wrong with him. He was in love with Layla, had been since the moment they’d met. He loved every inch of her, from her feline grace and beauty to her quiet strength and patience. But every time he opened his mouth to tell her that, the dumbest shit possible came rolling out. And when he wasn’t saying something provoking and hurtful, he was ignoring her.
A few months ago, when Layla had first confessed she was a shifter and worked for a secret organization called the DCO, they’d been on the verge of sleeping together. These days they barely talked, much less touched. He hadn’t kissed her like a man was supposed to kiss his girlfriend in weeks.
He knew she was just about at the end of her rope with him. He was surprised she’d put up with his childish crap this long. On good days, he was an angry, broken man without much of a future. On bad days, he was barely tolerable, even to himself. Why the hell a woman like Layla hung around with him in the first place was a mystery to him. Sooner or later, she was going to wise up and figure out he was a lost cause, then leave his ass.
The mere thought of the one bright spot in his life not being there was depressing as shit. Having Landon and John Loughlin, the director of the DCO, help him land this gig had given some purpose to his life lately, but there were days having a job involving open access to loaded weapons didn’t seem like the best thing for a guy like him. All he had to do was pick one up and put it to his head…
He determinedly pushed those thoughts aside, refusing to let his mind even go down that path. He knew from experience—in his first few months after coming back from Afghanistan—that depression was a self-fulfilling prophesy. The more you thought about how shitty things were, the bleaker things looked.
He finished cleaning the Beretta and moved on to the other weapons that had been used this morning. He kept everything carefully segregated as he pulled off the slides and took out the various parts, checking each piece for damage and unusual wear marks as he did so. He was so lost in the rhythm of it that he didn’t even realize someone had come into the building until he heard the sound of footsteps on rough concrete. He looked up and saw Dick Coleman, the DCO’s deputy director, standing there.
“Thought I’d find you here.” Dick smiled, nodding at the disassembled weapons on the table. “You want some help with these?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he took off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of a nearby stool, then rolled up his sleeves and began cleaning one of the Colts. Jayson wasn’t surprised. While Dick might be the second most powerful man in the organization, he was easy to talk to and always willing to lend a hand as well as an ear. The guy was a good thirty years older than Jayson and had the gray in his hair to prove it, but they never had a problem finding something to talk about.
Dick held one of the .45 barrels up to the light to inspect the chamber area, his gray eyes narrowing as he checked it for wear. “I didn’t notice you in the cafeteria for lunch, so I thought I’d come down and see how you’re doing.”
“I wanted to get these cleaned up first,” Jayson said. “I was planning to go up later to get something.”
One look at Dick’s expression told Jayson his boss knew he was full of crap, but the older man didn’t call him on it.
“You spend too much time down here by yourself,” Dick said. “I appreciate all the work you do for us, but no one expects you to work your fingers to the bone, you know.”
How could he tell his boss that he didn’t like going to the cafeteria during the normal rush because he hated the idea of everyone watching him slowly shamble across the room with his tray?
Dick picked up another barrel and ran a bore brush through it. “I see the lessons you’re giving Layla on that SIG Sauer she’s partial to are really paying off. She looks great on the training exercises.”
Jayson grimaced. Layla’s training was a love/hate issue for him. He wanted her to succeed, but it also reminded him that she was moving toward a life he could never be part of. Knowing she was doing things he used to be able to do and couldn’t do now was hard as hell. He knew it was shallow and petty, but knowing that didn’t change the way he felt.
