16. daegan

16

DAEGAN

"Have you been praying, Hannibal?" Dario Marchetti, my step-brother, asks me. We're walking through a village in Iraq, patrolling, sweat on our foreheads, sand all over our uniforms, dragging our feet.

Dario became my best friend when our parents married. We've been inseparable. Always up to no good. Daring and pushing each other to do stupid shit to get us in trouble.

When my mother passed away, my father remarried a woman he met in church years later when I was in high school. He felt guilty for moving on until finally, I pushed him to. I hated seeing my father alone all those years.

He went into a deep depression when my mother killed herself. He carried her death on his shoulders…and probably still does. He blames himself for her suicide because instead of pushing her to get help from doctors, he encouraged faith over medicine.

A part of me holds that against him now as an adult. As a child, it was harder for me to grasp the magnitude of my parent's choices.

"Of course." I spit out the tobacco I've been chewing onto the floor next to me. I tower over Dario as always, our shadows reflecting the drastic height difference. He's lean, while I am not so much.

It's hot and dry, and the heat is scorching upon us with no mercy. My beard is fully grown out, and my long hair is tucked behind my ears, covered in sweat. My uniform and gear make it harder to breathe, but we keep pushing forward like we've been trained to do.

"Is Mrs. Marchetti finally taking your calls?" I ask. His mom didn't take my father's last name even after her first husband passed away and she remarried my father.

His mother hasn't spoken to either of us since we joined the Navy together. He was on a different path. He was going to be a doctor. But instead, he dropped out of medical school, followed in my footsteps, and joined the SEALS. It's a miracle we graduated together.

It's rare.

He went on to become a SEAL with a focus on medicine, and I went on to sniper school.

"Nope, Mom is still not taking my calls. But your Dad says she'll come around. I'm going to see her when we come back from deployment."

"She doesn't talk to me either. She blames me for your decision to follow me into the Navy. So thanks a lot for that, asshole." I nudge his shoulder with my hand; he stumbles a foot or two and spits out his tobacco in front of us. Barely missing my boot by an inch.

He laughs dryly. He and his mother have a very close relationship. He's a mama's boy, I guess you could say. His brown curly hair is cut short, hidden underneath his cap. He is his mother's twin. They share the same features, but his face is the opposite.

She tells him all the time that she sees his father every time she looks at him.

When my father looks at me, he sees my mother's eyes. He can't look me in the eyes since my mother passed away…ever.

"She'll come around for both of us soon, I hope." He grunts while readjusting his rifle and takes in a sharpened breath.

Dario's mother and I have a cordial, respectful relationship. She's always treated my older brother, little sister, and me well and respected the boundaries my father set in place.

He's told me time and time again that his new wife will not substitute my mother's shoes.

We've reached another building we need to clear, and our teammate is about to knock down the door. He positions himself, ready to breach, but our mics go off. Chaos from the teams shout into our ears manically, their voices colored with urgency.

Fuck.

I know we've made one wrong move, and my heart anchors down into the pit of my stomach. In the blink of an eye, our lives have changed forever. It all happened too fast, almost to the point it wasn't registerable. We don't get a fucking chance to change paths, to change into a defensive position. Our fate has been stamped permanently without our say-so.

A loud explosion follows. The beginning of the worst time of my life hits me. Everything goes black, and the only thing that makes sense…is the pain.

Everything was black until I found myself in color again. I'm pinning the Admiral's stepdaughter to the floor, my knife to her throat, and my other hand cuts off her airway, choking her. The color of her skin turns reddish purple.

Her hair is wet, and her face is completely natural without any makeup. The smell of my shampoo wafts into my nose, but it isn't enough for me to snap out of my haunted thoughts. I'm scanning her head to toe like she's a threat. Watching her every move like my life depends on it because for a second there…I thought I was in Iraq. I thought she was one of my captors trying to kill me, and I was merely a centimeter from cutting into her throat and taking her life.

I look around, doing a quick evaluation of my surroundings like I'm expecting The Surgeon to slice my face again. The lamp has been turned off, sending me further into ominous terror. The day I was kidnapped, the same dream I dream of every night haunting me, and tonight is no different. The torture that lasted days still hazing my mind with no end in sight.

I glance back down to a scared, confused Alessia. I'm pinning her down, my knife grazing her neck, and the blade is now painted with crimson. She's bleeding. I've cut her good, but not deep enough to concern me.

Shit.

I should remove the blade from her neck, but something about the way she's bleeding so majestically beautiful in front of me has me wanting to see more of it.

Her brown eyes widen with obvious fear for her life. Her wet lashes flutter open and closed rapidly as she tries to find her words. I can't find any of my own. Blood rushes down, and I can't move.

"Mr. Hannibal, it's—" she struggles to suck in a breath, a vein presently bulging on her forehead. "It's just me, let me go." Tears fall down the side of her face.

I huff out a frustrated breath and let her neck go, granting her the air that was forced out of her.

Chokes follow suit, and she whimpers.

"Why? Why did you do that to me?" She coughs out hoarsely, turning her head to the side.

"It doesn't matter," I scold her.

"I came here to tell you I'd be taking the couch, and you can go back to your bedroom!" She shouts, attempting to turn on her side like she's trying to escape me, but my waist still pins her down, my blade resting on the side of her face against the wooden floors.

"Don't you ever wake me up like that," I snarl, getting into her face. My mask is still on. Our body heat becomes one, and I swallow the lust that wants to spill over.

Fuck I'm so hard.

Seeing her bleed little tears for me, my hands around her neck, and she's in nothing but a towel. I want to rip it off her. Tempting…so tempting.

"I'm sorry! I didn't know," she bites out, her lips shaking.

My cock is hardening the more she cries, I know she can feel it.

We stare at each other, holding each other's gaze, getting lost in the moment. She doesn't try to fight or shove me off her anymore.

I took two shots of tequila before I went to bed. I needed to do something to stop myself from taking her. Some type of outlet that stopped me before I lost control and went into that shower, and let my desires take over with no mercy. I wanted to avoid a moment like this, but here she is, wiggling underneath me, trying to get away, and it only makes me crave the screams I want to force out of her throat.

"Why aren't you in bed? Is that the only reason why you're waking me up?" I groan in frustration.

Why are you making yourself that more tempting, Alessia?

"Because I…" she stutters, blush creeps into her full cheeks, and she arches her back, one of her legs going in between mine. I'm harder than a fucking rock, and she's making it worse.

"Spit it out, Valentine."

"No, Mr. Hannibal, I…I never thanked you for standing up for me," she says slowly like she's afraid someone will hear us. It's almost like she's ashamed….but why?

My eyebrows raise.

"Something happened to me when I saw you stab Frankie. Something that scares me." She confesses calmly. Her tone is the opposite of fear.

"What happened?" I ask.

"It turned me on…" She reaches for my knife slowly, and I let her. She takes it from my hand, looks at the blade that's covered in her blood, and does something that has me questioning my sanity. Or what's left of it anyway.

Her pink tongue licks her blood off the Damascus blade clean.

Fuck.

Is she drunk?

"Is it wrong, Daegan?" She breathes out like she's enchanted. This is another side of her I've been dying to see. And now I'm aching to experience more now that I have her right where I want her. "Is it wrong to find what you did for me has me wanting to show you just how thankful I am?" She bites her lip, daring me.

Fucking hell. She's not as shy as I thought she was.

My obsession needs to stay a secret. The toxic addiction needs to stay in the dark. If I fuck her, I'm tainting my career…and her soul.

"Is it wrong that I want to pretend a little longer tonight?"

"Stop it, Alessia. You're just angry." I whisper, my breath swishing through the curls on the side of her face as I bare my teeth underneath my mask. My voice is pained with impenetrable lust and slight anger. "You're upset, and you think fucking me will make you feel better? This is not the way. You're just doing this to get back at your ex." I snarl.

I'm giving her an out. I'm giving her one chance to escape me before I unleash what I've been holding on to since the day the Admiral assigned her to me.

"You're not my bodyguard…not yet anyways." She taunts, and I'm about to take the bait like a starved shark.