Page 99 of The Vigilant

My eyes bugged wide. “So, you all…”

“Yeah.”

“Helluva dare.”

“He was good at that,” Tynan said, sadness deepening his tone. “He was always good at making us—daring us to live life to the fullest. And to dream about what life could be when duty was all said and done.”

He had the same look he got the few times he’d talked about my dad, and I realized that he wasn’t the only one searching for secrets in vulnerability. I wanted to know his, too.

“Was that your last mission? The one where Ryan…” I trailed off as we turned onto the street where the townhouse was.

“No, but it should’ve been.” He entered the code and pulled into the garage below the house.

“Why?”

He put the SUV in park, his finger hesitating over the engine button.

“Because maybe then your father would still be alive.”

Tynan made sure he was the first one to enter the house. Right hand resting on his weapon, he strode through the hallway and cleared each of the rooms quickly.

Meanwhile, my mind kept turning over the last thing he’d said in the car.

Because maybe then your father would still be alive.

Exactly what kind of guilt did he carry for my father’s death?

My boots clunked through the hall to the bedroom to get my things. I didn’t know why I was surprised when the room looked like nothing had happened to it. Gone were the bodies. The bloodstains. The damage to the sliding door.

If I didn’t know better—if there wasn’t a gaping hole in Tynan’s side to prove it—I would’ve wondered if the fight a few days ago really happened. Everything looked exactly like it had before.

Well, not exactly.

On a second pass, I noticed that the sliding door to the patio had been replaced with a fixed window. No more going in or out on the side of the house.

I turned and slid open the closet, not even realizing Tynan had joined me in the room until I heard his voice.

“All your things are still in that bag?”

My breath caught, his words finding another hole in my armor. Maybe they were easier to spot now that I’d let him past all my defenses.

I didn’t unpack. I never unpacked. There was no point. I’d learned long ago that the only thing permanent in my life—the only thing I could count on was the ink stitched to my skin.

“Yeah.” I tried to brush off the question, but when I zipped the duffel shut and turned, he blocked the doorway.

“Why didn’t you unpack?” he demanded, his voice a notch lower.

“Because there’s no point in unpacking when you know you won’t be staying.” And I certainly hadn’t planned on staying here, but of course, Tynan read between the lines. Knowing my past, he knew my answer wasn’t just for this case but for always.

With how frequently we moved because of Dad and then the vagrancy of Mom’s emotions, the idea of home, of stability, was a stranger to me. One that I would walk right by if I saw him on a street.

“Sutton…”

“I’m ready,” I offered because it was all I was willing to offer in this conversation, afraid anything else would only be more ammunition for the guilt I now couldn’t help but see everywhere on his face.

Tynan’s jaw flexed, and he stepped back, allowing me to pass and lead the way back to the car.

I held on to the silence until we were out of the garage before I lost my hold on it and demanded, “What did you mean before when you said the mission with Ryan should’ve been your last?”

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