Home. As Ryker half-carries me down the mountain and a series of explosions shakes the ground under our feet, I start to sob. We might be going home, but I’ll never see Boston again.
1
Dax
“Call from: Ryker. Call from: Ryker,” my phone’s calm, female British voice announces. Well, shit. The jerk actually kept his promise.
So why can’t I pick up the damn phone? Pushing to my feet, I stalk over to the window and press my hands to the glass. Sun warms my palms, brightens the perpetual thick haze surrounding me, and I try to remember what the Boston skyline looked like. But…with every passing day, my memories fade.
I can call up colors. The blue of the sky. Of denim. Of my mother’s eyes. Of those stupid slushies Mark, my childhood best friend, and I used to save up for once a month. Red’s easier. Blood. Lots and lots of blood. Red is the last color I remember. But the skyline? For all I know, it doesn’t look anything like it did the last time I saw it—more than eight years ago. Before my last tour. Before Hell. Before a Taliban asshole decided pouring drain cleaner into my eyes was fitting retribution for Ry killing four of his men.
The phone falls silent, and I blow out a relieved breath. Except…now I’m the asshole.
Ten days ago, Ryker McCabe walked into my office. After more than six years, I’d written him off. My best friend. The only other person in the world who knows what fifteen months in Hell will do to a person.
And now…he wants to reconnect. I don’t know how to do this. After he rescued me, he abandoned me at the hospital. Blind, in constant agony, malnourished, with dysentery, broken bones, and a fever of over 103, I didn’t know how to function.
I asked about him every day. Hell, probably four or five times a day. Called him when I could finally hold a phone—and get a number for him. Message after message went unanswered.
And I had to heal alone. Had to learn how to brush my hair without being able to see it. How to shave. How to fucking walk. Even harder…how to sleep in a bed. Not panic every time a door opened. Or someone touched me. How to be…human again.
And then he strides back in here six years later thinking one conversation can fix everything. If Wren hadn’t needed help, if Ry hadn’t been so fucking stubborn, if I’d just refused to talk to him that day, I wouldn’t feel like shit now.
But he stepped up for Wren when I failed. One of my best employees. A brilliant hacker. A friend. And I refused to help when she needed it most. Ry protected her. Then the fucker went and fell in love with her. Almost died for her.
“Maybe…” I take off my glasses and rub my eyes. Raising my head, I can almost make out the dark blur in front of me as a person. Almost. “Maybe you could give me a call sometime. To…uh…catch up.”
“I’ll call. You’re…family, Dax. And family keeps their promises.”
Family. We were family. Brothers in every way that counted. Now…I don’t know what we are. Or what I want us to be. When he and Wren almost died, when no one could reach them that last terrible night in Russia, a wound I thought I’d buried years ago started to bleed. And it hasn’t stopped since.
Talking to him brought up all the shit I buried after Hell. The terror of waking up blind that first, terrible day. Spending weeks in the hospital in Germany unable to walk. The fights with Lucy. The distance. The rough scratch of the pen as I signed my name on the divorce papers.
But I survived. All of it. Learned how to navigate my apartment. Then my neighborhood. Found a boxing gym with a patient trainer who helped me learn how to use what little vision I have left to see my opponent’s tells. Met Ford there not long after, and we started Second Sight.
In four years, we turned this two-man operation into a thriving private investigation and security firm that’s saved or helped hundreds. Including, just a couple of weeks ago, a kidnapped teen whose father was about to sell her to a human trafficking ring. We do good work, and the seven men and women who’ve joined us are the best in the business.
But I haven’t slept more than three hours a night since Ryker showed up, even less now that he and Wren are across the country in Seattle, and when I’m huddled on my floor, shaking from the nightmares, everything I’ve accomplished? Doesn’t mean shit. I thought…I thought I’d beaten my demons. And one visit from Ry brought them all back again.
Three raps on my door draw me out of my memories. Every member of my team has their own signal. Wren used to knock twice. Trevor uses that stupid “Shave and a Haircut” pattern. Vasquez? Five times.
“You coming?” Ford asks. “The car’s downstairs.”
“Go without me.” The words escape almost on a grunt. “You don’t need me there.”
“The hell I don’t. You’re the owner of the company, dipshit.” He grabs my arm, spinning me around and shoving me against the glass. “You have the best instincts of anyone I’ve ever met, Dax. Better than me. Hell, better than Trevor, and he trained with the CIA.”
“No one wants to hire a blind man to oversee their security, Ford. I only go because you drag me along.”
My phone buzzes on the desk, and I shake him off. “Voice message from Ryker.”
Ford turns and takes two steps towards the door. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass after the shit with Wren and Ryker, but I’m getting sick of it. The car’s leaving in five minutes. With or without you.”
His clipped footsteps fade as he heads to the elevator, and I fumble for my desk chair. My team doesn’t deserve a boss who can’t get his shit together.
After I tuck my Bluetooth into my ear, I grab my jacket off the back of the door, unfold my cane, and head for the elevator. The client’s expecting both of us, and my pity party could jeopardize the contract. But somehow, I have to get my head on straight.
Once I’m on the elevator, I tap my phone. “Play voice message.”
