Page 50 of Nightstalker

“Everyone, what’s your twenty? I have no eyes, too much smoke. I repeat no eyes.”

“Panther here, cover at the bottom of the mountain, over.”

“Blue here, sniper top of the mountain, over.”

“Wolf here, we are on our way back to the mountain. Viper and Breeze are five by five, I repeat they are square. No sign of Ghost.”

FUCK! I felt a tear slip past my lashes as I tried to blink back more from falling. I needed to fix this shit, not break down.

“Drew, is that Garrett?”

He gave me a nod of his head and put Garrett on speaker. I muted my COMS before I spoke, I did not want the rest of the team to hear me, “Garrett, Benele Yost was talking to someone before the explosion, see if you can pull records. Also I heard Yost say, ‘they are coming tonight, it was confirmed by the spook himself’ for the love of Christ, please tell me what sell out in the God damn CIA is responsible for this shit show.”

I unmuted my COMS. “Ghost, come in.” I yelled again.

“Negative Nightstalker,” that was Zane, his voice sounded defeated, broken. “No chance. There is a hole in the ground.”

“NO! Fuck no!” I ripped my headphones off my head and threw them on the desk.

I needed some air. I was going to vomit any minute; I could feel it making its way up my throat. Jesus Christ, what just happened? How in the hell did that just happen? I found myself locked in a bathroom on the floor wiping vomit off my lips and tears off my cheeks. My chest burned like someone had just carved my heart out with a freaking butter knife.

There was a knock at the door. I ignored it. It came again I could not speak a word it was physically impossible for me to utter a word through this pain. Then I heard my aunt’s voice. “Jasmin, darlin’, I am going to ask security to unlock this door. I need to hold you sweet girl.”

My entire body was wracked with sobs. He was gone. I had truly lost my husband forever.

***

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

I looked up at Lincoln. He looked so damn sexy in his suit, his eyes were sparkling and so full of love.

“I love you, Mrs. Parker.”

I sat up in bed, sweat dripping down my forehead into my eyes. The sweat quickly mixed with my tears as I used the balled up sheet next to me to wipe my face.

In the five days since Linc had been gone I had started to remember the seven months I had with him in Russia. It was both a blessing and a curse. I was now in a state of constant torture, willing myself to remember every last detail so I could have something to hold onto, then hating myself for remembering it.

I threw the snot covered ball of sheet off me and stood up, hurrying to the bathroom. This was my new nightly routine. Dream about Linc, then cry myself to the point of throwing up. It was so fucking gross I could barely stand myself. I was in my own personal hell. Falling apart, I no longer cared who saw me, I could not bring myself to care about much of anything.

I was going crazy. There was something in the back of my mind that was nagging me. I felt like I was missing something. I had watched the footage of the explosion so many times the team finally banned me from reviewing it again. Fuck them. Did they really think I needed to watch the video on a screen to see the replay? It was burned into my memory forever. Someone would die for this.

Zane and the team were no better off than I was. Linc’s death fucked with all of them. Each of them blaming themselves for not saving him, not knowing it was a set up. I told them what I heard over Linc’s COMS. There was indeed someone to blame for my husband’s death and I would hunt the slimy mother fucker down and slice his throat if it was the last thing I ever did on this planet.

I screwed my eyes shut and remembered the last conversation I had with Zane. He was fucked up, in some ways worse off than I was. The man was in a dangerous place.

“Zane it is not your fault.”

Wrong thing to say on my part, way wrong! He detonated.

“How can you say that? I do not need your bullshit words, Jasmin. I sent him around that corner. I should have known better. I am the God damn boss, I should have known,” he yelled as he damn near knocked over the conference room table. “It should have been me. I should have died, not him.”

His head was hanging. His hands scrubbed over his face and when he finally looked up at me I was scared shitless.

“I will exact painful retribution for my brother’s death. I do not care if I have to tear the God damn CIA apart to do it. You hear me, Jasmin, it will be me. Lincoln would want you to breathe clean and easy. This will not touch you. No one will touch you. I owe him that. Mark my words, Jasmin; I will gut the mother fucker responsible for your husband’s murder.”

I had to fix this before I lost Zane too. He was not thinking straight. Lincoln would not want Zane on a suicide mission, and that is exactly where Zane was headed.

I washed my face and went down the stairs in search of something to drink. A quick check of the large clock on the sterile kitchen wall told me it was just after five AM. One of the private White House chefs came around the corner and startled when he saw me sitting at the stainless steel island.