Page 1 of Crimson Love

CHAPTER ONE

A FINICKY BITCH

Jett

D eath is a finicky bitch. She’s always waiting in the wings, nipping at your heels, niggling in the back of your mind like an irritating gnat you just can’t swat away. No one ever knows when she’ll strike.

It could be decades. Could be next month. Or it could be tomorrow.

Hell, maybe it’s today.

I knew when I signed on the dotted line with Uncle Sam, I’d probably look that bitch in the eyes a time or two. Spoiler—it was more than five but less than I can count on my fingers.

And, yeah, I still have all ten of them.

I thought that’s how I’d meet my maker—in combat, on a secret mission, or at least on patrol. That’s how heroes die. “Here lies a great, brave man who took his last breath too soon, but he did it for the greater good and was a badass right up until the ugly, bitter end.”

What I did not think would happen is me in a blinking contest with death because I failed my physical due to high blood pressure.

I’m six-four, two-ten, and have seven percent body fat. I lift and workout like I need it to breathe.

Or I did. That was before the diagnosis. That’s how I measure everything in life these days.

Before diagnosis.

After diagnosis.

I had some kidney stones off and on in the years prior, but so does eleven percent of the population. I looked that shit up when I was convinced my doctors had lost their damn minds.

That was the day the Army said, “You, Cross, are unfit for duty. We will not be liable when you fall over and croak, so enjoy the rest of your career sitting your ass at a desk.”

I was forced to say goodbye to the squad I’d led for two years and push paper around. It was mind numbing in a way that made my skin crawl. I survived years of action on the front lines only to bang my head against the wall while checking email.

It was not for me.

As soon as they offered the medical discharge, I took it. If I was going to be sidelined, I’d work by my own rules, not Uncle Sam bossing my sickly ass around.

That diagnosis changed everything.

Polycystic kidney disease.

PK-fucking-D.

It’s mostly passed through genes, and since my mom died a tragic death before I slept through the night, and it turns out it wasn’t given to me by my sperm donor, I had no other family to give me a history. Just to make shit even more fun, the sperm donor didn’t know about me all these years.

I’d question that in any other Lifetime movie. But for some reason, I believe the man who’s been, without one shred of doubt, proven to be my father through DNA tests.

If I ran into the guy on the street before all this shit went down, I don’t think I’d look at him, have some ray of light from the heavens shine down on us, and we’d realize we were related. But now that we’ve met, even I can see it. And it’s creepy as hell when you realize you look like a complete stranger.

I never would have known him if it weren’t for the damn PKD diagnosis. I had no choice but to kick over every rock from the day I was born until now. I didn’t do it out of blatant curiosity.

Nope.

I did it because the day the Army docs told me that bitch would be taking me down sooner rather than later, it was a game of life and death. Even though I lead an extremely boring existence since Uncle Sam benched me, I’m dead set on kicking the bitch in the ass.

That’s how I found the Madisons. I thought I had no one after Grandma died, but I have a father and a sister. Patrick and Harlow.

Leave it to me to be broke and broken only to find out my father is a billionaire, and my sister is the princess philanthropist who graces the covers of tabloids and walks red carpets giving away our father’s money.