The Problem with Peace (Greenstone Security 3)

He almost fucking threw up his breakfast on that thought. Would’ve if his breakfast was anything more than black coffee. As it was, it came up enough to burn the back of his throat.

Because he’d been planning on having breakfast with her. Even eating that healthy shit. He’d been planning on having her pussy for breakfast first. He’d been planning on having her all fucking day.

And the day after.

He could still smell her on his fucking skin she was that close.

But he also couldn’t get the vision of the small pool of her blood on the floor out of his mind. Best case scenario, that was all the blood that was spilled. But it was hers. Even in the best case, she was hurt. She bled.

Worst case…Heath didn’t even have the strength to think about.

So he focused on Keltan and Keltan’s answer on what the fuck they were doing to find Craig since he’d disappeared into thin fucking air. With Polly. He’d left the ride they had the tracker in the parking lot. Left it like he left that little puddle of blood and a bruised, unconscious, pregnant Lucy.

Fucker was taunting them.

“Got the Sons on it too,” Keltan said, his very words a sigh, but every inch of him was held tight. Taut.

Heath was one of the few who knew just how dangerous, how fucking ruthless this fucker was. Of course, you had to look at him to know that. His muscles weren’t for the gym. Weren’t pumped up with fucking chemicals.

No, they were for a purpose.

To hurt and end human beings.

But it was something beyond that.

Especially after he’d lost his best friend. Heath hadn’t been there when it happened, but he had been there when Keltan had to be forcibly removed from Ian’s body.

Keltan broke that day. When you see your brother in everything but blood, mangled flesh, and bone for a war that meant fucking nothing but money and power, your view of the world gets warped. Or maybe you see everything for how fucking ugly it is.

And it fucks you up. In a way that most men come back to their families and a life that’s not about surviving by killing and they can’t handle that. Because no one gets it. That’s why so many eat a bullet. Yell at their kids and their wives until they scare them enough to leave. Then they find a bottle, if only to forget how fucked up everything is.

The great fucking system.

Keltan was lucky.

He had a woman that showed him the world wasn’t all pain and ugliness. Or maybe it still was, but he didn’t give a fuck because he had her. Lucy had saved him, and Keltan was man enough to admit it.

Polly had saved Heath.

And he had not been man enough to admit it.

Because he had been angry.

Still too angry at the fucking world, and that meant he didn’t understand her. Because she wasn’t angry. She found joy in the world.

And because he couldn’t fucking understand that, he’d fucked it up. He’d hurt her. Because she’d hurt him. And he was trained to hurt people that hurt him. He was trained to destroy him.

He hadn’t even had a chance to truly show her that he was going to put her back together if it took the rest of his life.

The rest of both their lives.

His hands fisted atop the table.

“They get shit?” Duke asked, glancing to Heath, knowing he was holding it together by a thread.

Duke hadn’t been with them, he was deep Special Ops. He didn’t say shit about what he’d done. Uncle Sam probably made sure he’d rot in a cell for the rest of eternity if he did so. But he didn’t need to say shit.

He was an intelligent motherfucker, as well as deadly. His smile was a front for something much darker.

“Their hacker has something,” Keltan said, glancing to Heath too. They didn’t know the full story with Polly.

They didn’t even know half of the fucking story.

But they knew enough.

Keltan had known enough to let him go when Polly had got married. Respected him enough to give him nothing but a clap on the back and not a single question when he returned.

They knew that Polly was his.

And now she was gone.

Keltan knew what that was like better than anyone else.

So did Luke, who was silent across the table.

He was fighting shit too. Because his woman was like a sister to Polly. And his woman took shit hard. Because she’d seen and done shit that made her worthy of a place at the table with these men.

She was battle worn in a lot of the ways they were. And a lot of the ways they weren’t. Heath didn’t scare easily, but that woman could be downright terrifying. And just as dangerous as every single man at that table.