Dominik (Arizona Vengeance 6)

“Syria,” Dax grits out. “You fucking drove her to one of the most dangerous places on this earth. You did this… and all because you couldn’t spare five fucking minutes to talk to her.”

Goddamn it.

He’s fucking right. I have no clue if we would have been able to work things out, but I don’t doubt for a minute that my ignoring her attempts to communicate with me is what caused her to go. It’s typical Willow, determined to live her life as she sees fit, and I know her well enough to realize this is clearly a display to everyone to prove she doesn’t need me and is moving on. The fact she took the job in Syria doesn’t necessarily mean she did it to spite me. I don’t believe she’s the type who would do that to get back at me personally, but I know damn well she wouldn’t be scared off by a particularly scary destination, so she wasn’t going to be held back by it.

At this moment, Tacker sort of muscles his way in between Dax and me. He must have been watching us and while we weren’t loud enough to hear, Dax’s body language is menacing enough.

“Is there a problem here?” he asks pleasantly, but the expression on his face says he’s ready to get physical if he needs to.

I take a step backward only in deference to Dax, who has a right to be pissed. “We’re good here.”

“We’re not good,” Dax snarls. “If something happens to her, I’m holding you responsible.”

He spins away and strides right out of the lobby doors, presumably to cool off.

“You good?” Tacker asks, his tone now filled with worry. It’s obvious he feels like he owes me something because of the help and support I’ve given him over the months while he figured out his own path, but he doesn’t owe me a fucking thing. Was glad to do it.

“I’m good,” I say with a smile I know doesn’t quite reach my eyes. I clap him on his upper arm. “Thanks, though.”

I head toward the elevator, once again thinking I’ve got a lot of work that needs to be knocked out.

But now all I can think about is Willow in Syria, doing God knows what kind of assignment, and my gut is churning with guilt that I put her there.CHAPTER 27WillowIf I have any regrets about taking this job, they are occurring in this moment.

“Willow, Mark, John… I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to stay back here, no matter how curious you might get,” Malik Fournier tells us as he packs his gear. “We can’t be worrying about your safety.”

“Understood,” I say.

We’ve been embedded with this civilian team of hired soldiers who work with a U.S. based company called Jameson Force Security for the past two days. They’re working in conjunction with a small group of Special Forces soldiers from the United Kingdom and Australia to rescue some refugee workers who were taken hostage last week.

This wasn’t my original assignment when I arrived in Syria. I’d been hired by the Washington Post to pair up with reporters who were doing a special piece on a refugee safe zone that had been set up on the border of Syria and Turkey. The bloody eight-year war that has displaced millions of Syrian civilians seems never ending, and awareness of the plight is always worth a news article.

The risk was always there, but it was as low as it could possibly be given such circumstances. We were in a fairly stable region at the time. I know that probably didn’t give my parents or Dax much comfort when I told them I was leaving, but they didn’t fight me too much.

My parents didn’t understand the real reason I was leaving, and that was because I needed to put as much distance between myself and Dominik as I could. My heart was too shredded to continue on in his proximity. The way he wouldn’t see me, talk to me, or even acknowledge one of the many texts I’d sent him had been too crushing. Plain and simple, it was clear we were over, and this was my desperate attempt to move on with my life.

I had sat and talked to Dax about it face to face, because I was experiencing some guilt over leaving while the Vengeance was on the verge of realizing their dream of a Cup championship. The day after they pulled off a victory over the Cold Fury in game one—the same game where Dominik didn’t even go into his owner’s box just so he could avoid me—I’d sat with Dax at the kitchen table and told him I was leaving for Syria the next day.

He ranted and railed for a good five minutes about the dangers and how much it worried the family. I counter-argued about the necessity of living my life in a way that brought me career fulfillment.