And then I was entirely alone.
The formal military inquiry later confirmed what my soul already knew.
Charlie had been shot shortly after his last transmission to headquarters, his body cam catching the exact, brutal moment the round hit. I can still hear the sharp grunt he made whenthe bullet tore into him; that single, quiet sound was the exact moment he was taken from me. He never told me or Deck that he had been hit.
Typical Charlie. He just held on anyway, enduring the agony long enough to ensure we got out alive.
We received commendations for the mission, while he got a hero’s funeral, a three-gun salute, and all the rigid ceremony they used to dress grief up in a uniform. I stood there shoulder to shoulder with Deck, my muscles locked tight, watching his mother clutch the folded flag to her chest as they lowered him into the cold ground.
Me.
While standing there at full attention forcing, my body not to move, I fell apart completely on the inside.
The funeral ended. The world kept moving. I didn’t. I went home to a bed that never felt warm again.
* * *
And this morning, I forced myself out of it, my head spinning in a violent, dizzying circle.
Nausea hit again instantly, my stomach rolling with the stubborn hangover that refused to leave me alone. A toxic, pulsing ache. I didn’t know why the fuck I did this to myself.
Stumbling into the bathroom, I gripped the edge of the sink until my knuckles turned white, staring at my reflection. The jagged scar running down my cheek glared back at me, a permanent reminder of a past that wouldn’t stay buried. I washed my hands, scrubbed my teeth until the mint burned my raw throat, and headed to the kitchen.
I made a coffee so strong that the spoon almost stood upright in the mug. Thick. Black. Lethal. The absolute nectar of the gods.I took a mouthful, and with the heat scorching my tongue, I walked out to the glass doors overlooking the bay.
Campbell River is quiet. Soft. The kind of place where the world stops shouting long enough for a man to breathe. It’s the perfect place to disappear, and some days, that’s all I want.
Deck and I became inseparable after Charlie died. Neither of us wanted to keep going the way we were, our souls entirely hollowed out by the service to our country, so we took voluntary release. I just couldn’t do it anymore. The ghosts followed me everywhere.
We had stumbled across Campbell River on one of our Harley trips back in the day, riding our Fat Boys until our muscles ached. A week away from the madness. Delicious salmon. Quaint streets. An illusion of peace.
What I didn’t expect was how brutal civilian life would be. We both struggled. We both came back fractured, bleeding from scars you can see and the dark ones you can’t.
So, we built something else out of the wreckage.
PalMerc Security.
Campbell River became its foundation, its base. It started as two broken veterans trying to find a single shred of direction, and it mutated into an empire with eight offices around the world, staffed entirely with former special forces, intelligence officers, and lethal government operatives. Men and women who knew how to survive in the pitch-black corners of the earth where most couldn’t. It gave us a purpose. A reason to draw breath.
I finished my coffee, the bitter taste lingering on my tongue as I rinsed the cup and set it on the counter with a soft click. Nothing at work needed my immediate attention yet, so that meant I had a choice. Go in and deal with the looming headache of Finn and Deck, or avoid the office altogether.
Finn was… well, Finn. A chaotic hurricane.
He and Deck were… Hell, I couldn’t tell you what they were. A dangerous, unspoken tension simmered between them, something heavy and electric that neither of them wanted to acknowledge out loud. Finn called Deck hisLumberjack, constantly claiming he wanted to climb him like a tree. A vivid, graphic image none of us needed to hear more than once. Deck just needed to take the goddamn plunge. Finn already had; he was completely gone for Deck the second their eyes met. I just wanted Deck to be happy. And Finn, in all his unhinged chaos, might be the only one capable of breaking through Deck’s walls.
I shook my head, a sharp wince shooting through my temples. Too early for thoughts about Finn. I love him like a brother, but my hangover didn’t possess the patience for his brand of madness today.
My body wasn’t up for negotiation, so the gym it is.
Silence.
Sweat.
Maybe if I bleed the whiskey out of my system, I’ll be able to face the day, or at least survive it.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d be ready to face the world.
2
