Dahlia's Kiss

“I was born in the Third Ward with the name Hunter Brand. You won’t find anyone around with that last name now. My kin are all gone now, either dead or misplaced after hurricanes and whatnot. The last to leave was my mother. She kept on looking for me after I ran away until she finally passed away.

“I had a sister named Corrine and a brother named Danny. Danny joined the Agency as an enforcer a year before I did, and I followed in his footsteps as soon as I was old enough. I was proud of my job, and I took it very seriously. When orders came down that my brother-in-law was involved in some petty crimes involving humans, they sent me to apprehend him.” Sterling looked around to see if everyone was tracking. When he was satisfied, he continued. “It shouldn’t have been me they sent. That was a conflict of interest, and it ruined my life.”

“Did you kill your sister?” Cole asked. Damian elbowed him in the ribs without taking his eyes off Sterling.

“Hell no, I didn’t kill Corrine!” Sterling smashed his fist against the table. “It was that good for nothing husband of hers. When I came for him, he tried to use her as a shield. They were bonded, and if I'd thought it through, I would have known that he wouldn’t have hurt her, but he wanted me to believe he would. If I fell for it, I would let him go to save her. But he underestimated me. When he grabbed her and held her in front of him with the knife pressed so close to her throat, I saw red. I took the shot without a second thought, and I put a bullet directly through his skull.” Sterling swallowed hard as his eyes filled with tears he’d held back for years.

I reached across the table to take his hand, but he pulled back, placing them both in his lap. I could understand his need to not be touched, but I wanted to comfort him so badly.

“The agency immediately put out a reward on my head. You can’t be an enforcer and take matters into your own hands like that. I was told to bring him in alive, and I failed to do so. I became a wanted man over the course of an hour. Everything I’d ever worked for was gone. My future was gone. My family shunned me. And my little sister, the one whose mate I’d decimated while he stood directly behind her, she cursed my name. She said I was dead to her. So, I died. I reinvented myself before the Agency could track me down. I knew how they operated and how to evade them. Twice members came across me after that, and twice they pretended not to see me because of our previous friendship. I owe those guys my life.”

“What happened to you after that?” Cole asked, sincerely interested in the whole story.

“I ran away. I looked like I was barely twenty years old, and I was built like a tank. The logical solution for me was to join the human’s military and take on a new persona. That’s when Russell Sterling was born. I walked into a recruiter's office with a fake ID, and they didn’t bat an eyelash at it. Next thing I knew, I was on a bus with a bunch of scrawny, pimply faced youths going to a place called Parris Island, and I was told I was going to be made a Marine.”

“That’s why you wear the dog tags,” I said.

His hand reached and pulled the shiny plated metal out of his shirt and he grasped them for a second before letting them fall free. “I found a brotherhood with the Marine Corps that I never could have imagined with the Enforcers. But I couldn’t stay in forever. They would have noticed my lack of aging sooner rather than later. After four years, I moved on, coming back here and joining the police force. Not long after that, I stepped into the role of a detective. I watched all my relatives fall one by one. When my mother was dying, I fought with myself to go see her, but I knew the Enforcers would expect my return for that, and I wasn’t going to let them take me. I said goodbye to her from afar and accepted that I would be alone forever.”

Sterling’s eyes found mine.

“And then I found you, Dahlia.”

My heart raced with the need to crawl into his arms. I desperately wanted to hold him, comfort him, and let him know he would never be alone again. Cole broke through my bubble of love and shattered the warmth that was building between us.

“Does anyone else think this is total horse shit?” Cole pushed back from the table and reclined in his seat. “If your story really happened the way you said it happened, they wouldn’t have judged you too harshly. That was your sister, and you felt the need to protect her. Anyone could understand that. Hell, if put in the same situation, I would have done the same damn thing. Something else must have happened that you’re not telling us for them to still be pursuing you to this day.”

Sterling's face went from near tears to abject anger. “This is why I’ve never told anyone what I’ve been through. Because assholes like you will try to tear it apart and find the holes.” He stood and paced to the front door, turned and spewed his anger. “I’m fucking leaving. You can either believe what I had to say, or don’t. But I will tell you this, if either of you ever hurt so much as a hair on Dahlia’s head, it’ll be the last thing you ever do. I’ve started over before. I’m good at it, and for a worthy cause, I won’t hesitate to do it again.”

He slammed the door hard as he exited the apartment, rattling the dishes in the cabinets.