“Do not hang up!”
Is he for real?A cold hand rubbed down his spine from the back of his neck to the top of his ass. This wasn’t the same sensation he’d felt earlier today when the blindfold had been ripped off his eyes in the Givens compound; no, the sound of an explosion, while it made him grit his teeth at the memory of his now destroyed workshop, didn’t worry him for himself.
But it scared him shitless for Castello on the other end of the phone.
“Cuff that fucker, Two, and throw his ass in the truck.”
“Copy that, Boss. Come on, asshole, Uncle Sam has invited you tostay at Leavenworth for a while.”
That was Zack’s voice, right? Axel scooted up until he was sitting with his back against the deck railing, phone pressed tight to his ear in case he missed anything that he might hear over the noise in the background.
“Axel?”Disbelief tinged Castello’s voice.
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”Okay, so maybe not disbelief, maybe that was confusion. Shit, maybe he should have called Grif. Except he didn’t know if he was still in Mexico or not.You knew Castello was working, more or lessdeployed, but you still called him,his internal voice reminded him. Okay, he could sort this. He would just take her to Texas. There was no way he was going to put Cas and his team in jeopardy by asking for help that he probably couldn’t give right now.
“Yeah,” Axel pressed each finger on his left hand in turn making them crack, trying to relieve some of the tension that had been building since his
‘meeting’ earlier. “I—um—”
“I’m sorry I left without telling you.”Castello cut across him, cutting off his attempt at saying he shouldn’t have called.
Over the phone Axel heard what sounded like the slamming of a truck door. The other noises in the background becoming muted. All he could here were the soft sounds of Castello breathing on the other side of the phone.
“It’s okay.”
“Um—good.”Castello huffed out a small laugh,“Well this isn’tawkward at all.”
“Right?” Axel agreed. It was awkward, he didn’t use the phone much unless it was for work, and then most of his communications were done via email if at all possible. “You are all okay?”
“Other than pissed and tired,”Through the phone the sounds of
scratching as if Castello had shifted in the truck seat could be heard,“Acouple of scratches, but we are good. Promise.”Through the phone the muted sounds of yelling and more gunfire made Axel jump,“I gotta go, I’llcall you soon, k.”Castello said.
“Okay, be safe.” The phone was already dead in his ear by the time he had finished speaking. Disappointment that Castello was too busy to talk to him tried to overshadow the worry he felt at knowing Cas was in danger. But it didn’t work. He was worried, no matter what he said or told himself. It was what it was. He would deal. How the hell had life come down to this? Why the hell was everyone he loved in danger? Argh. Axel’s emotions, a jumbled mix of annoyance, anger, fear, and worry, prevented him from registering the one thing he should have, that he loved Castello.
Scrolling through the contact list again until he found the number, he hit call. And waited for this call to connect.
“Go.”
For a second, the similar method of answering the phone made him look at the screen, had he called Castello again? Nope, that was a different number. “Hey, G, it’s Axel Shaw…”
Chapter 18
Moran home, California – 3 months later.
In his dreams, Castello crouched behind a broken wall, a silent observer in the movie that was playing out in his head. Unable to press the stop button on his nightmares, broken from the relentless stabbing of his fingers as he tried to pull himself back to reality. In his dreams, the whizz and flops of bullets flying past his ear and hitting Kevlar made his stomach churn. It was a sound he knew too well. The sound that ripped families apart. A sound that even from a couple of thousand miles away destroyed families, left significant others devastated, and children to grow to adulthood without the guiding influence that was their family member, who now lay bleeding out under the harsh reality that was war. Behind his lashes, his eyes twitched and flickered from side to side as he followed the action in that long-ago battle.
The outcome rarely changed. The blood, gore, and brain splatter hitting his cheek still burned like acid, even after five years.
The phone on the nightstand next to the bed vibrated and moved across the oak surface. Its screen lit up, flashing green, signaling an incoming call.
In his nightmares the sounds of the exploding RPG’s were just enough different this time to achieve what Castello had been unable to. It kicked his brain hard enough to wake him. Waking from a nightmare, or flash back or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, those sucked. Especially ones where you relived every freaking second of one of the few times you fucked up so badly that you got almost everyone on your team killed.
Castello’s chest hurt as he struggled to draw air into his lungs. It took a couple of seconds to catch his breath and for reality to sink in. He released the hammer on the SIG he had cocked and ready to fire, his body having reached for it as he jerked awake. The phone buzzed and jumped along the nightstand again. He looked at it out of the corner of his eye, stretching across to bed to grab it. He glanced at the screen, didn’t dare to hope. Would Axel call him? He’d left a message on Axel’s phone to tell him he was home.
He frowned at the number, nope, wrong area code, damn it, there was only one way to find out who it was. He shrugged and pressed answer, “Moran.”
