Page 101 of Black
CHAPTER 17
Future
Gabriel
From the moment Bruce warned me that getting together with Cia would be a commitment for life, and not something I could just test out and pull out of if it didn’t work, my mind had been spinning.
After she scared me half to dead by not being home last Saturday night, I had tried to keep my distance.
But it was impossible.
I missed her when I wasn’t with her. I thought about her nonstop, and sleeping was almost impossible, knowing she was in my living room.
Hearing her talk about Daniel had made me jealous and possessive, and it was hard to ignore that whenever Cia was around me the biggest butterflies known to mankind were flapping around in my belly.
So yeah, the signs were all there, telling me that I was madly in love with Cia. Despite a whole orchestra of internal voices telling me it was risky and crazy, and kind of perverted with the family relation too, I had to pursue the idea of a future with her.
Making love to Cia was emotionally loaded, and when I saw her virgin blood on my flesh, it reminded me of Bruce’s warning not to cross that line, unless I was serious.
I was very serious.
In the aftermath of our lovemaking Cia was caressing my hair and playing with my earlobe when I turned my head and looked up at her.
“I want to marry you out in the middle of nature,” I said.
She gaped at me as if I had just told her I was really an alien.
“What is it? Do you prefer a church?”
“Did you fall and hit your head or something?” she asked me.
Ignoring her comment, I propped myself up on my elbow and let my finger slide down her torso. No, I hadn’t bloody fallen on my head. Marriage wasn’t a new thought to me; I had always known I wanted to get married someday, and now I knew I wanted to marry her.
“I never told you why I got the Silver Cross, did I?” I asked.
“No.”
“Do you want me to tell you?”
She nodded, so I began telling her.
“It happened about four weeks before I came home. The Afghan National Army got a tip from the locals that ISIS warriors were hiding in a building, and tried to clear it. Four of them were shot in the first try.
“Then they came to us requesting assistance, and I was in the team of fourteen US and Afghan soldiers that went to get the job done.
“We expected to meet a handful of men occupying the building, but we walked into a death trap. Our platoon leader, medic, and two Afghan soldiers were killed within the first half hour of battle.
Her face fell into deep frown lines as she listened without interrupting me.
“I was the next in command so I took over, and we cleared the first two levels of the building. There was only one staircase leading up to the third floor, and I told my team to stay back.
“Instead of storming up the stairs, like the ISIS fighters expected us to, I stationed four of my men to make sure no one escaped down those stairs, while the rest of us went quietly to another part of the building where I engineered a breaching device that got us through the ceiling to the third floor.
“They never saw us coming before we opened fire, and within ten minutes the building was cleared.
“How many died?” she asked.
“Almost twenty from their side and we lost five in total, but we would have lost more if we had gone up the staircase.”
