Page 28 of Guarded By the SEAL

The words fall apart on my lips as something icy cold presses up against my throat. I don’t need to glance downward to know that it’s a knife. The blade isn’t piercing me yet, but the threat is real.

“Oh, you really are a little slut, aren’t you, Petra?” Jake snarls. “How dare you fall in love with another man while you’re still married to me? How dare you let another man be inside you? Of course, I’ve been fucking other people the entire time because being with you was so boring, I couldn’t possibly be satisfied, but that is the right of a man. A woman needs to be faithful to her husband the entire time.”

“But our marriage wasn’t real,” I whisper back, now too scared of being sliced to be loud. “So it means nothing.” The blade forces harder against my skin. “Jake, please, you don’t need to do this.”

“Oh, I do need to do this, and I am going to as well,” he sneers. “You have brought this on yourself. The life that I had planned for you wouldn’t have been that bad. You are so judgmental.”

“Fuck you.” I can’t let him think that this is normal. No one does this sort of shit to their wife. “Fuck you.”

A brand-new sound fills the air and silences everyone. Sirens. I don’t want to feel hope because I’m scared shitless, but the wayeveryone stops and freezes in place make me wonder… is this real?

“The cops don’t know about this place,” Jake yells. “How the fuck have they found us?”

No one speaks. No one dares answer. At least not until Harry staggers upward. He’s clearly been beaten badly, nearly as badly as my father, yet he’s surviving it easily. That man is amazing in a lot of ways.

“I have a chip in my arm,” he tells Jake coolly. “My boss knows where I am at all times. This is the end for you. You might as well give it up now. In seconds, the cops will be all over this place. It’s too late for you to even run. I suggest that you step away from Petra before you make it worse than it already is.”

Much to my surprise, Harry’s words work. Jake drops the blade and me as well. I can breathe a little easier knowing that I’m free from his grip now and I’m going to be safe. I guess my body accepts that everything will be okay as well, which is why it succumbs to the exhaustion and lets the blackness claim it.

The world pinholes, it vanishes, leaving me with the knowledge that Harry has done it again. He has saved me. He really is my hero.

22

HARRY

“Harry?” Benji asks me warily. He has basically been tiptoeing around me ever since I turned up at his door a week or so ago and told him that I needed to stay because everything has fallen apart. I don’t think he really knows what the hell to do with me. “Do you need anything? Food, drink, a bandage change?”

I shake my head in response. It’s far too difficult for me to bother forming words these days. I don’t even know if my voice box works. It kinda shut down the moment I learned that I shot Petra’s father and killed him all because of that asshole, Jake. I can’t believe I got fooled like that. It’s horrible.

I have wrecked everything, ruined my life and hers. There’s no going back. Not from this. Every single time I close my eyes, I see that moment occurring over and over again, and it’s honestly killing me. I can’t stand it. To know that my emotions got the better of me in such a way is terrible.

That’s why I left the hospital way before they told me to and why I came here. The theory was that being with a friend wouldbe better than being alone… but now, I’m not so sure. I want to wallow in peace.

“Max wants to come and see you again, Harry,” Benji continues. “He’s worried about you and wants to talk to you about the job. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to put him off.”

“I’m not going back.” This couch of Benji’s has become my fucking sanctuary. I can’t move off it, and certainly not to go back to a job which caused all of that to happen. “I can’t. I’m leaving.”

“Leaving? What do you mean, leaving?” Benji sits in the chair opposite me. I’m well aware that I might be making him uncomfortable in his own home, but moving myself from this position has become an impossible task. I can’t do it however much I want to. “Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t live here anymore. Not knowing what I have done. It’s too much.”

I turn my head away from Benji. I don’t like the idea of him or anyone else seeing me like this. It definitely isn’t me, but I don’t know how to drag myself out of this pit. I’m stuck in it. The shock of that whole event has me cornered. I know now that I shouldn’t have gone into it alone, especially with so many emotions involved. It really did make me act irrationally. None of that should have happened.

Petra’s father should be alive, she shouldn’t be harmed, and all of this is because of me. I will blame myself forever and never be able to forgive myself for what happened. I honestly don’t know if I will ever be the same man again. The Harry who picked Petra up to go to the safehouse is no more.

“We should talk about it, Harry,” Benji pleads. “That way, it might make you feel better.” I give him nothing. I honestly don’t know what else he was expecting. “At least talk about you and Petra. Please.”

“I can’t,” I admit. “I can’t talk about her because it’s too much, Benji. I fucked up really badly.”

All of this has made me realize one very important thing. Love is not for me. The first time I thought that I had found it, but it was nothing. All a lie. My wife never really belonged to me, nor did my child. The second time, which might not have been love—I suppose we weren’t in one another’s lives long enough for that, but it was sure as hell intense… well, I shot her father. I put her life in danger and killed her dad.

Not much could be more of a feelings killer than that. So, seriously, I’m done.

“Have you even spoken to her, Harry? Because I know you’ve been ignoring her calls.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone. I can’t. Why don’t you understand that, Benji?” I hate myself. I’m horrified at what happened because of me. “I just want to sleep this shit off. I don’t want to feel it anymore.”

“Mate, we have all made mistakes. We have all done things that we aren’t proud of, but that doesn’t mean you give up. No one blames you for what happened. Everyone would have done the same in your position. The whole thing was fucked up. That Jake guy… well, let’s just say that it’s a good thing he and his asshole cronies are all locked up because everyone would be gunning for them for what they did.”

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