Davidson, my lead assaulter on the team who loved the thrill of it all, shot me a silent bird as he put his hand up. We called on him when we needed a room cleared or when it was go time and he went in guns blazing into battle.
Just before they knocked at the door, I got an uneasy feeling in my chest. Something was off and I was missing it.
“Give me five,” I said now, asking them to hold back for a second. I gazed around once more and saw movement coming from the right and my crew was on the left. I squinted harderand noticed it was two kids who couldn’t be no more than ten. They were tossing a ball back and forth. This was the part of my job that made me queasy. In my line, women and children weren’t off the table, and no lie, I hated it. My finger teased the trigger, waiting for another move from them that didn’t look right. When they stopped briefly, then went back in the direction that they’d come from, I eased back a bit, putting my attention back on my team.
“Chief, you cool?” Davidson’s low pitched voice rang out in my ear.
“Yeah.”
But I lied. In all of my years as a SEAL, I had never felt this way. But fear had no place here; it was a weakness.
“Aight. Let’s go,” I said, regrouping for them to continue. It was like everything happened in slow motion but fast at the same damn time. The second my team made it inside, I noticed a blinking red dot on the side of the building where those damn kids were.
Is that a bomb?
I reacted a second too late, counting the times that red dot appeared before I warned my team.
“It’s a trap, E and E! Jackson, Gene, and Davidson, get the fuck out of there.”
I hopped up quickly, trying to climb down the ladder on the opposite side of the building to get to them.
The mission was clean, in and out.
That was all I kept thinking as my heart pounded so fast. It felt like my chest was caving in as I ran toward my team. Suddenly, my feet were heavy and I couldn’t call out to them because my voice wouldn’t work.
Boom!
The blaze from the fire hit my face as the impact from the bomb sent me flying back and temporarily blinded me as I shut my eyes. The ringing pierced my ears.
I jumped up out of my sleep, drenched in sweat and breathing hard as hell. The same dream had been holding me hostage since the day I got the call that Davidson had fallen off on his recovery bad. For the last couple of years, his sobriety had been an issue, with me feeling to blame for it. I’d lost Jackson and Gene in the bombing while Davidson was severely injured with permanent wounds both inside and out that changed his life forever. I dealt with the inside ones I knew were invisible to the world.
I dragged my hand down my face, groaning because I knew it was early as hell and I wouldn’t be making it back to sleep tonight. So I got up, not even wanting to look at the alarm clock on my nightstand.
I made my way to my bathroom to get my day started. I was officially taking over some bodyguard clients for my boss, Boss Davidson, the one who’d survived but carried his physical pain with him. Along with his leg that got worse on bad weather days, his back suffered seventy percent of burn scars that now caused chronic pain.
I turned on the shower before relieving my bladder. Once I did that, I made my way over to the sink to wash my hands so I could take my meds. Like most of us who didn’t come back from serving the same, I self-medicated. I popped the weed gummy into my mouth as I looked at myself in the mirror.
“Nigga, you gon’ have to do something about this lack of sleep for real because this shit ain’t working.” I sighed, shaking my head before turning to jump in the shower.
I held up my phone,dialing Boss yet again. I was supposed to be on a new assignment, but he had given me the wrong address. On a typical day, I mostly handled basic security details at the hospital, private therapists, and gated communities here and on the island. But lately, with Boss being off his game, I had to step up and take over some of his clients on the bodyguard side of the business.
I didn’t mind the switch up, because the money was better, but also because I was trained to handle both sets of clients Boss took on.
Even though Boss’d Up Arms LLC was Boss’s company, I had been here from the start, immediately coming on as his second in command. When he told me he was starting the business, it only made sense to join him. Shit, it came easy with our background and I didn’t mind the rush from working with certain clients. Boss mostly took on the entertainment industry, while I handled the government side. Things were flowing good until my family became my priority.
When my brother Highland, or Lando, lost his first wife Leslie, I pulled back on the high risk, and high demand clients, leaving those for other bodyguards, and taking on the security jobs to make sure my schedule was more stable and flexible to be there when my brother and my dad needed me the most.
This new client I was supposed to be taking on was an actress who I knew for damn sure didn’t live at Ace of Diamonds.
“Shit, Boss, where the fuck is you at?” I said once I heard the voicemail come on, letting me know yet again my call had gone unanswered. I huffed out my frustration as I double checked theclient’s information, seeing that I didn’t even have a number, only a name.
“Yeah, this nigga is slipping. I ain’t got shit I need.”
I blew out a heavy sigh as I pulled away from the curb to head to the office and see if he had the original contract with all the correct information. After the weekend I had with Lourdè at the club, I should be relaxed and in a good ass mood, not stressing over shit the way she’d drained me dry with her good ass fucking pussy and her Ph.D.-level head game.
I briefly closed my eyes and smiled as silly as the Cheshire Cat.
Yeah, I can still feel her warm ass pussy suffocating my dick.
