Page 3 of Thaddeus

Almost there.

“Emerson, dear, why don’t you go clean up and rest. I have some business to attend to.” I was being dismissed. Jefferson often formed his demands in a form of a question, but he wasn’t asking.

“That sounds wonderful. Thank you.”

My heels clacked on the marble floor as I made my way to the master suite. The villa was huge, more than what two people would need, however, Jefferson didn’t believe in economy. Everything he did was over the top and grandiose. On my way, I passed two bedrooms that would go unused, both with views of the sea, and walked into the master, closing the door behind me.

Relieved to be alone I kicked off the stupid forty-five-hundred-dollar pair of Blixa alligator Manolo Blahnik pumps Jefferson had insisted I wear. He always had to keep up the pretense of wealthy businessman even while on his private jet.

In the last eight months, I’d accumulated a shoe collection worth the cost of a modest home. After I was done with Jefferson most of them would be sold to finance my crusade. Some I would keep because I had to play the part of well-to-do, innocent socialite.

I stripped out of the silk pants and blouse and uncaringly tossed the expensive material on the bathroom floor. I didn’t need to worry about the clothing getting dirty. There wasn’t a speck of dust or dirt to be found and it would be laundered and pressed before I could miss it.

The gluttony was sickening. No one needed to be pampered the way Jefferson demanded. His lifestyle was so far from my modest upbringing it was laughable. Growing up I hadn’t owned a fifty-dollar pair of shoes, let alone a pair that cost more than my first car did.

I stepped under the warm spray of the shower and in a moment of weakness, something I didn’t allow myself very often, I cried. I mourned the life I was supposed to have, the life I’d never get back. All that I’d lost and willingly given up.

Once upon a time, I’d been happy—blissfully happy—then a single act of brutality tore him from my life but not from my heart. I had nothing, but the sweetest memories—that most of the time felt like torture.

I wear him on my skin, the only man I’ll ever love. The one man I never thought I’d see again. But I had, in a cantina in Mexico. He looked better than I’d remembered. And when he looked over at me with so much hatred in his stare it pulverized what was left of my heart.

Thaddeus Bench.

My one and only.

I finished my shower watching the water swirl around the drain before it disappeared, taking the last of my hopes and dreams of ever being normal with it.

Thad

We’d wasted damn near a week in Mexico on the hunt for a man who had information on Leon Brown. The intel was good, the man had been there, but we missed him. Zane Lewis, my boss, was pissed, Tex was annoyed, and Brooks was furious.

There were too many unanswered questions about our last operation in Saudi Arabia, a mission that had left Tatiana Miller close to death and the rest of the team in a gun battle fighting for our lives. Our location had been outed. Zane wanted answers.

Hell, we all did.

We believed Leon Brown, Tatiana’s old boss, had those answers. The man had recruited Tatiana into an unknown organization. She’d thought she’d been working with the CIA, but after some digging no one, not even Garrett, none of Zane’s powerful connections, nor the famous Tex could find a black-op team within the CIA that had been running the jobs Tatiana had worked on. Black-ops or not there were always some breadcrumbs if you knew where to look.

Now we were back in San Diego to regroup.

A city that I’d once loved. A place I’d spent a decade trying to avoid.

“How many times during surf evo did you look over at the red roof of the Del and wish you were sitting where we are now?” Max asked.

I glanced around the oceanfront cottage. The luxury was undeniable. Mustard-colored walls, mahogany tables, marble fireplace hearth, thick throw rugs over the wide-plank wood floors, an over-stuffed couch that looked like a man could stretch out, watch a game, then sleep like the dead on it was strategically placed in the center of the room. You could sit and relax and watch your favorite show on the huge TV mounted above the fireplace, or look out one of the large windows that ate up the front of the villa giving you a view of the beach.

“Never,” I answered Max.

“Bullshit. Don’t know anyone who wasn’t lying out there with sand in their ass cracks, waves pounding them while they gulped saltwater, who wasn’t thinking about how great it would be to be sitting at the Del with a beer in hand,” he returned.

Maybe Max was right, but sitting at the Del was the last thing I’d been thinking about while I was at BUD/s. All that was on my mind was survival. Day to day, minute to minute, second to second. I didn’t have a single thought cross my mind other than winning. If I didn’t win, I failed. And failure wasn’t an option. I had nothing but the Navy and if I washed out of BUD/s I knew my life would be misery being stuck as an aviation mechanic.

So, no, I wasn’t one of the men who glanced over at the Hotel Del Coronado while I was getting my ass handed to me on the daily. I wasn’t one of my classmates who allowed their mind to wander so they could make it through and not concentrate on the pain. I embraced the suck, used the pain, and was comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I had to be, I had nowhere else to go.

“Maybe if your head was in the surf, you wouldn’t have almost choked to death,” Brooks razzed.

“Fuck you. I didn’t choke,” Max volleyed.