The Problem with Peace (Greenstone Security 3)

“We’ll kill him then we’ll find Polly. In one piece. Because she’s Polly. And you know she’s one of the strongest people you know. In a way that’s different than anyone around us. If anyone can survive a monster, it’s Polly.” He laid his lips to my temple. “But right now, I want you to control what you can control. And that’s taking care of our baby. Because you know how much Polly loves it already. You know how protective of it she is. And when we find her, you know she’ll be more worried about you and that baby than she will be about herself.”

A tear ran down my cheek. “You’ll find her? In one piece?”

He kissed my tear away. “I promise,” he said, even though we both knew it was a promise he couldn’t keep.

“You’ll kill that fucker, Craig?” I prompted, knowing there was no way he’d let me do it myself.

“Yes, babe,” he all but hissed.

And that was a promise he could keep.

I just prayed to every single god out there that they found him before he killed that beautiful innocence that was inside of Polly.

Heath

Three Hours Missing

The elastic on his wrist snapped at a steady rhythm that was designed to calm him. Or more accurately, the demons inside him.

It was some shit that the military shrink had suggested to him. All of the other stuff she spouted was bullshit, but this one thing seemed to work for him when he was about to go dark side.

The elastic snapped.

It was safe to say it wasn’t working for him now.

“We got anything?” he demanded the second Keltan closed the door.

He didn’t school his tone. It was savage, rough and aggressive. Just like his fuckin’ soul.

He should’ve taken the effort, taking in Keltan as he sat at his desk. The fucker was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Considering his woman was his world and her sister was a big part of hers, it was a load. Especially considering what he’d gone through to make her his wife. Especially since they’d rushed into Polly’s apartment to find his pregnant fucking wife unconscious on the floor next to a pool of blood.

What they’d found out later was Polly’s blood.

He saw it on his friend’s face as he dropped to his knees, cradled his pregnant and unconscious wife in his arms, murmuring to her about breathing, about staying still. It was remnant of when he almost lost her on a sidewalk two years ago.

And now there was this shit.

Keltan was one of his closest friends.

They’d gone through shit together.

Shit you never talked about once you got home, once you stood on soil that wasn’t stained with the blood of your brothers, of those you’d killed. Because if you talked about it, you had to really question the reasons your brothers in arms were killed, why their wives were widowed and the children fatherless. Then you had to question those people you’d killed, someone else’s brothers, fathers, husbands. Then you might have to face the terrifying fucking reality that they were all savages, killing each other for no reason other then the orders of the men above them.

So they didn’t talk about it.

And it was in their silence that they found solidarity. As much peace as they could.

Which was why Heath had jumped at the chance to work in his security firm. He was doing shit he wasn’t proud of before. Chasing violence because that’s all his soul knew. All his soul craved.

No, that was a lie.

His soul craved a blonde haired, peace-loving, chaos-bringing girl who’d turned into a woman with his dick inside her.

Yeah, he fucking craved her.

If he was honest with himself, it was her words that managed to roar over the gunshots coming from his piece when he was ending the lives of other human beings. It was her face he held onto when he was presented with the charred remains of one of the first men he’d met upon arriving in the fucking desert.

It was her touch he remembered when a bullet tore through his side, when he had to continue even though his side was on fire, blood was pouring from the wound, as he was certain he’d fucking die if he kept running. Kept fighting.

But there was a starker truth that he’d die when he stopped running. Stopped fighting. So he held onto the image of the woman who told him she fought for peace when he fought for war.

And it was that woman’s face he held onto to stop him from ripping the skin from his fucking arms, because he had to hold onto that smile, that peace that she told him she lived by. He had to fucking kid himself thinking it wouldn’t be that penchant for peace that would kill her.