Five A.M.
After finding out that the woman he loved was never going to talk to him again, or smile at him, Caspian had needed time to just mourn what he’d lost. A part of him hadn’t been shocked, since he’d felt it when he couldn’t reach her, but still…
His heart hurt, and he knew that his life would never be the same again.
He’d fallen in love with Rayna the second he’d met her. There was no doubt that she had been the love of his life.
Before her, he’d never been able to connect with a woman, let alone trust one to all of his pain and secrets. One of the best things about her had been how they’d make love and then lie there talking for hours.
She had been his safe space.
Even though they’d only known each other for weeks, it felt like lifetimes.
Now, it was all gone.
His heart was decimated.
As he lay there on the couch in the renovated security office, Raphael was not far away.
He was on Caspian watch, just in case the man opted to do something bad like eat his gun.
And he wasn’t the only one thinking about it, clearly.
“I’m not going to do anything crazy,” he finally said. “I’m not suicidal.”
Uh-huh.
As a Marine, who knew that soldiers had a very high suicide rate, that wasn’t exactly going to reassure him. People said shit to hide the truth all of the time.
So, it was watch duty for him.
Besides, Raphael didn’t mind babysitting the man. When you had a family, you took care of it, and both the Blackhawks and the Marines who protected them had become very important to him.
They gave him a family of his own.
So, he’d give back.
Watching Elizabeth love each one of them had taught the rough Marines what it meant to be gentle when need be, and stern when there were no other options.
As for his comment, clearly, the man had a death wish.
“Clearly, you are,” he stated. “You shoved a woman, Caspian, and of all the fucking women on the planet to shove around, not once, but twice, you picked Elizabeth to be your whipping boy.”
Yeah, it wasn’t time to be gentle. Someone needed to snap out of it. While Raphael sympathized, Caspian had been with Rayna less than he’d been with his family.
It wasn’t like Elizabeth killed Rayna. They’d all tried to get her into protective custody. The woman’s stubbornness, and her inability to think that maybe, just maybe, she was in danger was what caused this.
Oh, and a homicidal lunatic who was targeting all of them.
“That was quite possibly the shittiest thing I’ve seen you do,” he added.
That hung there.
And he said nothing.
Oh, he knew what he did, and as he’d been lost in that grief, he’d made some bad choices. Putting his hands onANYONEwas not his style.
Yeah, he’d fight, but he’d never be the aggressor.
