Page 27 of Delta: Retribution

“Complicated?” She groaned into the phone and would’ve hit her head on the steering wheel, if it hadn’t meant she’d run off the road and die in a fiery crash.

“Alright, complicated is wrong. How about… complex?”

“Um—”

“Okay, wrong again. Maybe that doesn’t sound any better. Shit. I want to know about you. You don’t make sense, and I’m dying to find out why.”

“Okay.” She exited the highway. “I’d been told a million times that I’d get myself into trouble. That the security clearances didn’t do crap to protect me, and that they were using me for cheap, smart labor. My job scares me, school’s overwhelming me because I can’t catch up, and my dad makes me… uneasy.”

“Clarifyuneasy, Cinderella.” His voice growled low.

She pushed her head back into the headrest as she moved into a turning lane for her neighborhood. “He’s a dick. His name is Brian. He hates that I was smart. My mom died in a car crash, and he blamed me. I don’t know why. But somewhere along the line he started telling me everything I did was wrong, and somewhere along the line, I started believing him.”

“Brian sounds like a fuck.”

She smiled. “He is.”

“You know that whatever he says is bullshit, right? Weak people need others to take down so they don’t feel so low and lonely at the bottom of their shit pile.”

“I’m a broken person to begin with. Not as strong as I want to be.”

“Nothing I’ve seen about you is broken. I promise you, Mar.”

She laughed sadly. “I don’t think you’ve seen the real me.”

“Wrong. I think I’m the only person who has seen the real you.”

God, he was right. It hurt to admit it. And he wasn’t going to be around. He had promised her that. But each passing second, she was more sucked into feelings she couldn’t run from. Marlena pulled into her driveway. “Trace?”

“Yeah, babe?”

Even the casualness in his voice hurt her. “We can’t do this. I can’t show up unannounced, and you can’t drive me to scream your name.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. Fake confidence, self-preservation? Who knew what this was? But it was needed. “I can’t do it, and I’m sorry.”

“What?” Anger poured through the phone.

“I’m falling for you. Like seriously can’t breathe for wanting you to kiss me. Hold me.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud. “And neither of us needs that burden. I’m sorry, Trace.”

She hung up and let the tears pour.

***

What the fuck? Was there anything more irritating than Marlena McCloud? She was falling for him? No way. First, how could anyone fall for a man who refused to live a normal life? Second, what the fuck did she just do? Break off their little… partnership, after running off on himagain?

The walls closed in on him just as they did before she arrived. Delta thought he was one round of bad news away from cracking up, and maybe they were right. He’d been booted from his SEAL team. The way his head spun at that moment, Delta would be next, and then he’d have no way or resources to find Michael’s tag.

No. Screw that. Trace wanted blood. He needed it. That was what would get him over Michael, over the ache of losing his SEAL team and over the discomfort that put a pang in his chest, knowing that Marlena wouldn’t be around while he was home.

No, not home.Grounded. Because as soon as he had the green light, he’d be gone, and he wasn’t looking back. No way. Sugar-scented sheets couldn’t pull him back.

Except they could.Damn it. He scrubbed his face.Dog tags. Focus on the tags.His twin was dead, and he was alive. They’d had a funeral. The symbolism and the honor had all been there. But those tags were still overseas, still in the hands of terrorists, and that disrespect made him rage.

Retribution. Retaliation. Those were the only possible courses of action.

But alone, in the claustrophobic confines of his temporary house, he knew the truth. As long as he was stuck in a house, there was no way those tags were ever coming home. And until he got them, he would be in a perpetual state of panic. The tags were symbolic, and if he found them, the deep-rooted guilt would lessen.

Would Michael have joined up if Trace hadn’t? Maybe they shouldn’t have gone after Special Forces. But he’d known his brother would be a great soldier. Probably a better one than Trace.

Now he held his cell phone in his hand, just hung up on by a crazy woman, and he had a gnawing, gut-churning burn that he couldn’t explain. It curled through him as profoundly as the knowledge that Michael should’ve done something else to pay homage to the country they both loved more than their own lives.

But he had no knowledge that would help explain Marlena. The only thing he knew was that the third time wasn’t the charm. She’d ditched him, walked out on him, and then hung up. He was done.

Except his thumb hit redial. It went to voicemail.

Hell no. That wasn’t going to happen. Two more times, she let him go to voicemail again. That was just enough time for him to get the keys to his car and pull out onto the road. If she wanted to say some BS likeshe was falling for him, she could say it to his face, and he could explain every reason why that was a bad idea. Miles passed as he floored it on the highway. Less than five minutes later, he arrived at her place, and he still hadn’t come up with a reason she should stay away from him.Damn it.

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