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My heart lodged in my throat. Was he really saying what I thought he was saying? "You slept with him?" I asked. I didn't want to know the answer, but I also kind of had to at the same time.
"I made it clear it was just a one-time thing. Normally, I never messed around with guys I worked with, but options are pretty limited when you're in the middle of a desert surrounded by combatants who are trying to kill you."
"Did you care about him?" I asked. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to call them back. Truth was, I didn't really want to know if he’d cared about him.
"No," Matias said without hesitation. "It was purely physical, and it was just the one time. Shortly after, I was promoted to sergeant which made me his boss. It made things even more awkward between us, but he insisted he was fine with it."
"But he wasn't?" I suggested.
Matias shook his head. He began rubbing his fingers more erratically along the coffee mug. "He was a competitive son of a bitch. He’d been vying for the position for a long time, long before I'd joined the team. He was a charming guy when he wanted to be, and he was good at using people's weaknesses against them. He began pitting my subordinates against me one by one. I was a hard-ass when it came to my leadership style, but Bishop was smart enough to not come at me directly."
"What happened?" I asked.
"The missions we went on were tough. They were physically and mentally demanding. Sometimes we lost some of our guys. That, combined with day after day of wondering if you're going to be the next one who loses his life, can be damaging to some people. Bishop stoked those fires and built up resentment among our teammates. He directed the blame at our enemies, which obviously wasn't unusual. But then he began to redefine who the enemy was."
Matias began fisting and flexing his fingers. It was proof of how agitated he was becoming. If I'd been sitting next to him, I probably would've done something stupid like put my hand over his to try and calm him. I had to remind myself that I wasn't here to calm him. Not anymore. But it was painful to watch him struggling, so I said, "What happened, Matias?"
"Bishop and half a dozen of the guys on the team attacked several women and girls in one of the villages we’d been reconning." Matias drew in a breath. "The youngest girl was just twelve. The fuckers justified raping her and the other women and girls because some were supposedly related to an insurgent. I wouldn't have even known about it except that one of the guys started bragging about what they’d done after getting drunk one night. I went back to the village to confirm it was true. It was. That girl…" Matias shook his head slowly back and forth. I'd never seen him look so haunted.
"What happened to her?" I asked gently.
"She killed herself. Twelve fucking years old."
"I'm sorry, Matias."
Matias kicked back the chair and stood. He moved over to the window and took up the familiar position where his hands were clasped behind his back. "I began the process of having the men court-martialed for their crimes. The plan was to arrest them when we returned to the States. We had a stopover in Germany before we were set to return home. Bishop found out about the court-martial. He used Cruz to draw me out."
"Used him how?" I asked.
"I hadn't told Cruz about the attack on the village. I didn’t know it, but he ended up going with them to a bar the night before we were supposed to fly home. He left early but the guys followed him and jumped him behind an abandoned building. They beat him nearly to death. He was shot three times. The third shot should've killed him, but it didn't."
I felt like my throat was going to close up. I was horrified by the entire story, of course, but to know that the young man who’d become such an important part of my son's life had nearly lost his own made me sick to my stomach. "You said… you said they used him to draw you out."
"Part of it was to draw me out so they could kill me as well."
"Part of it? What was the other part?"
"Bishop is a sadistic son of a bitch. Cruz thinks that Bishop missed with the kill shot because he was drunk. The thing about Bishop, though, is he doesn't drink. He's never touched the stuff. I'm sure the other guys were bombed but not Bishop. He missed that shot on purpose. He wanted to make sure that Cruz survived so I would be reminded of it every day. Of how close I'd come to losing him. When I got to the alley, I took care of the guys who’d hurt Cruz, but Bishop got away. That first night I spent at Cruz's side in the hospital, the nurse delivered a note that had been left for me at the reception desk. All it said was, ‘See you soon.’"
