But she knew, from both Luca and me, what he meant to her brother.

Luca had become fast friends with Malachi in bootcamp.

From there, they’d gone into BUD/S training together, and further moved into the same space.

They’d gotten along famously, and before long, you couldn’t think about one man without also thinking about the other.

Which was why it’d gutted me seeing him yesterday.

Because for Malachi to be here, that meant that Luca was gone.

Because Malachi wouldn’t have left Luca behind. Not unless he was well and truly gone.

I hadn’t gotten the specifics of the rescue.

But, from what I’d been able to gather from other people, the conditions in which Malachi were found were dismal at best.

My dad had some knowledge of how he’d been found, and he’d informed me that knowing wouldn’t be a good thing for me.

So, I’d let it go.

Because if my dad said it wouldn’t be a good thing for me to know, I was willing to trust him.

And since he knew that I had a very vivid imagination, and would assume the worst? Well, then it had to be truly worse than anything that I could ever imagine.

“He’s back.” I paused, feeling something inside my throat thicken to the point that I could barely breathe. “Cora… he looks so bad.”

Bad wasn’t even the right word.

Terrible.

Awful.

Horrifying.

Horrific.

Think the worst, then multiply it times ten.

“I heard that, too,” she said softly. “What did he look like?”

I swallowed hard at how Malachi had looked last night.

“Truly he looks terrible. It’s hard to even look at him,” I admitted. “And that was only what I could see.”

She waited patiently.

“He used to have a tattoo on his forearm,” I whispered. “It’s gone now. There’s nothing left but scarring. Horrible, awful scarring.”

The scarring.

Holy shit, was it bad.

So bad, in fact, that it had to be painful.

It was all still red, as if it was still healing, even after six months.

There was no way in hell that he wasn’t in pain.

“He still has his black silky hair,” I found myself saying. “But that’s about the only identifying feature he has left. Even his eyes have changed colors.”

“What?” That caught Cora’s attention. “His eyes have changed colors?”

“Definitely depigmentation of the eye,” I said. “I learned in medical school that trauma can cause it. They’re not the same color anymore. They’re mostly this whitish-gray color. It’s super disconcerting. And a big change from his old eye color of hazel.”

Cora blew out a breath.

“I heard his face is the worst,” she said. “That he has a lot of scarring there.”

It was.

He’d been hiding mostly in the shadows yesterday at the police station, but I’d seen enough.

“Structurally, his face is fine,” I admitted. “But as for the skin of his face? It’s all puckered and misshapen. As if it was broken and healed. Broken and healed. I don’t… I can’t even explain it.”

She made a sad sound in the back of her throat.

“I’m sorry, Frankie,” she said. “That’s just awful.”

I was sorry, too.

“You doing okay?” I asked my almost-would’ve-been-sister-in-law/stepmom.

Not anymore.

The word was Luca was officially dead.

Luca was officially categorized as a prisoner of war missing in action.

Or whatever way Gabe and my father had put it.

But, not wanting to hear either of them say that Luca wasn’t ever coming back, I chose to always change the subject before they could say it aloud.

As if once they said it, put voice to the words, that it was forever going to be reality.

I preferred to think that one day he would come back to me.

Tomorrow. Ten years from now. Twenty.

I didn’t care.

I was going to wait for him.

He’d never give up on me, and I wasn’t going to do the same for him.

“I’m doing okay,” Cora said softly. “I’m just… sad.”

I was, too.

At least Cora had my dad, though.

Me? I didn’t have anybody.

I was an hour and a half away from my parents. It physically hurt to see Gabe and Ember. And the only friend I had was a fellow resident that was just as busy as I was.

Meaning we never saw each other unless we happened to be on shift at the same time, which almost never happened because my boss, Cromwell was a dick and didn’t like more than one female working with him at a time.

Apparently, we were high-maintenance.

Though, he’d never come out and said specifically that. He might as well have, though.

“Are you going to hang out with him?” Cora wondered.

Was I?

I didn’t know.

Probably not.

But, as I said those words in my head, I immediately regretted them.

Luca would’ve wanted me to.

“Yes,” I finally settled on. “Luca… he loved Malachi. He would’ve wanted me to spend some time with him for sure. Especially now that he’s so… broken.”

Cora made a non-committal sound.

“Do you want to talk to Mackie?”

I grinned.

“Of course, I do,” I said instantly.

“Jackie is asleep.” Cora sighed as if she was thankful for that.

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