AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He will be. We’ll fix this.” Justin sighed. “I think I’m done. We’re getting too old for this shit anyway. Now, we’ve broken a promise to Violet within a day of making it. I’m done traveling.”
I pressed my palms into my eyes. “If we want a chance, we have to be done. We have to make sure the structure is in place so we’re free of this. I’ll never feel bad about saving someone, but not at the risk of losing our family.”
When we landed at the small airstrip behind the office, it didn’t take us any time to shove off and get to Mason’s truck. Normally we would’ve gone in and done a debrief with the team, but we had more important things to worry about.
The closer we got to our house, the deeper the pit in the bottom of my stomach grew. I knew something wasn’t right. I’d learned to hone and trust my gut after so many years in the field, but I was praying it was wrong. It seemed like we were each feeling that bad feeling by the time Mason parked in the driveway because we all charged upstairs to the house above the garage.
I knocked hard and waited to hear the sound of life inside, but there was only silence and then rolling thunder in the sky behind us. I tapped in the code to unlock the door and stepped in to find nothing. My mind couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. There was no sign that Violet and Forrest had ever existed in the space. Scrubbed clean, none of the personality remained.
I went from room to room and by the time I checked the bathroom, I knew it. She was gone.
“There’s a note!” Mason called us into the kitchen where there was an envelope with our name on it sitting on the counter. Mason held the paper from inside the envelope in his hand. “She left.”
Justin grabbed the paper and read the words out loud. “I couldn’t stay here, not knowing. Before you come find us, maybe think about whether you’re ready to be fathers, or not.”
“That’s all it says?” Anger burned its way from the bottom of my stomach, all the way through me. “Two fucking lines for her Dear John letter?”
“We had to save someone’s fucking kid across the world. It’s not like we were off partying. Why would she question if we’re ready to be fathers? We were here. We were trying.” Mason shook his head. “Fuck this. We’re going to find her and she’s going to hear us out before she tries to leave us with a two-sentence letter.”
I dialed Margaret and the second she picked up, I knew she knew where Violet was. “Where is she?”
“I do everything to help you boys out and you go and shit the bed like this? If I didn’t know your hearts, I’d tell you to fuck yourself.” She hesitated. “Since I’ve been watching the poor thing struggle for the last month, maybe I’ll still tell you to fuck yourself.”
“Tell me to fuck myself and then give me her address, Margaret. We need to see her.”
“God, you men. All of you are drama queens.” She huffed. “She’s living in the apartment over the pharmacy. If you’re going, you’d better be back for good.”
CHAPTER 39
Violet
The last month had been hell. I’d tried my best to just keep moving forward, but things were crumbling. Forrest hated me. He believed I took his friends away. He was still getting in trouble at school, Mom and Dad were at their wit’s end with him, and just getting him to school was torture for both of us. All my years of trying so hard to be a calm and kind parent had been shattered. It was impossible to be calm and kind to a kid who acted like you were the devil. He hated everything. The new apartment, Mom and Dad’s new house, literally everything.
I felt like I’d gone through a month of the most intense emotional bootcamp but I hadn’t come out the other side stronger. I just felt broken. I was lonely and I spent most of my time going back and forth between missing the guys, hating them, and thinking the worst until I was physically ill. I barely got any sleep and I felt like I was crashing.
Hearing they were home and safe had been a relief. On the other hand, I was terrified of running into them. Was I supposed to see them around town and not shatter? I didn’t know if I could stand under their intense gazes and not fall apart. Even seeing their names on my phone had gutted me. I’d locked myself in the bathroom and sobbed, thankful they were okay, but after that, I didn’t know what to feel.
Forrest was in the bedroom, throwing stuffed animals from one side of the room to the other. He wasn’t speaking to me. It would’ve been a nice reprieve from him telling me he hated me but the constant sound of stuffed animals hitting the walls was starting to wear on me.
Jenny was supposed to stop by with a few books she suggested might help Forrest, so when there was a knock at the door, I assumed it was her and pulled it open. It wasn’t Jenny. It was the guys.
They weren’t fully themselves, though. They were covered in bruises and cuts and their clothes were stained brown with what had to be dried blood. They had thick beards and smelled like sweat and fuel. Seeing them look so rough scared me and when I heard Forrest coming out of the bedroom, I panicked. He couldn’t see them like this. I slipped out of the apartment and shut the door behind me.
Tears burned my eyes and escaped down my cheeks. I couldn’t help it. They looked like they’d been through hell. “You can’t be here.”
Ben reacted like I’d slapped him. A flash of pain crossed his face before it hardened into anger. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I wiped my eyes and catalogued their injuries. “Forrest can’t see you like this.”
“We’re not going until you talk to us. You don’t get to leave us with a ‘Dear John’ letter, Violet.” Ben stepped closer and braced his hand on the door next to my head. “I’m sorry it happened like it did. Shit went bad and we couldn’t get back. We did the job and now we’re home. We’re not leaving again.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “I don’t believe you. How can I?”
“Violet, please. Just sit down and talk this out with us. We care about you and we know you care about us.” Justin blew out a deep breath. “We messed up, but it was to save a kid’s life. We weren’t out partying.”
“This is just making the pain last longer.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter if I care about you. Keeping you in my life isn’t good for me. I can’t be the woman who stays at home while you put your life at risk in another country. I don’t want to be that woman. This month was the hardest month of my life. Harder even than having Forrest on my own, and being the unwed pregnant woman in a town full of judgmental people. Not knowing if you guys were alive… Not knowing if I was going to have to tell my son the men he cares about aren’t coming back. You guys don’t understand what it’s like to have to look at your child and tell him you don’t know when the people he loves are coming back. You didn’t even say goodbye.”
“I’m going to need you to be stronger.” Ben lowered his face so we were eye to eye. “If you care about us at all, you have to be.”
