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I motioned her away from the kitchen. “Come with me? There are some things I can tell you that might help you sort through this.”
Dess cocked her head curiously and followed me over to the sofa. Talon and Garrison had gone off on a grocery store run, and Blaze was adding a few more surveillance cameras to his network in the neighborhood, so it was just the two of us. Still, my skin tightened before I spoke as if I had an audience of thousands.
The most important part had been my time in the military, but it was better to start right at the beginning, the incident that had set me on this path well before then.
“Dealing out justice was important to me from an early age,” I said as Dess settled onto the sofa across from me. “When I was fifteen, I found out that my little sister—she was in middle school—was being abused by a teacher at her school.” Even though Christy had gotten through that and no longer showed any lingering scars, just mentioning it brought a fresh wave of anger into my chest. “I didn’t trust the authorities to deal with it properly. I was furious, and all I knew was that I had to protect her, so I got rid of him pretty much the same way I would a target now, just without quite as much finesse.”
Dess’s eyes widened. “You murdered him.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Don’t look so shocked. You were carrying out assassinations when you were, what, eight? By your standards, I was a late bloomer. I’m lucky I managed not to get caught.”
She swatted my knee. “I was trained for it. You weren’t.”
“Don’t underestimate the power of protective rage,” I said with a small, wry smile. “Dealing out justice that way… It was more satisfying than I’d ever expected. So maybe I was always a little unhinged. I leaned into those impulses the best way I could, by joining the military. I figured I’d get the opportunity to defend our country through violent means, keep my appetite for brutal justice sated and do good at the same time.”
Dess studied me. “But it didn’t turn out that way,” she said.
It wouldn’t have been hard to guess that, considering she knew I’d started the crew more than ten years ago, when I still could have had an excellent military career if I’d wanted one.
I shook my head. “It didn’t. I gave it a solid shot. Rose through the ranks and was recruited into a special ops team. That’s where I met Talon. We were in the same squad, going out and working operations the regular forces couldn’t have stomached.”
“And then?”
I exhaled slowly. “And then we were sent on what was supposed to be just an information-gathering mission. We were tapped for it because it was in an area with a lot of hostile activity from unfriendlies. It was a small town, people who didn’t have much but were willing to work with us because they thought we could get them out from under the thumb of the local insurgents.”
I paused to swallow and then went on. “You have to understand that in the military, everyone’s expected to know their role and stick with it. And you don’t question anyone who ranks higher than you—you just follow orders. So I was focused on carrying out my part of the job, but I couldn’t help noticing that the commander seemed to be dropping the ball… not sending out as many sentries as I thought the situation warranted, directing us all into the same part of town instead of having us spread out…”
“So you spoke up, and he told you off?” Dess said.
I grimaced. “No. That’s what makes this story so shameful. Well, I made a couple of comments to the commander, but he brushed me off and made it clear that he knew best, and it didn’t seem worth arguing about. I thought maybe I was being overly cautious. It was my first year in special ops. He had way more experience than I did.”
“But you weren’t being too cautious.”
“Exactly.” The memories rose up, just as horrifying as they’d been fifteen years ago. “A contingent of insurgents swarmed the town. There weren’t enough sentries to send out a warning quickly enough for us to be prepared. They shot several of us before we even realized what was happening, and then we spent the rest of the day and night locked in a bloody stand-off… Talon and I barely made it out alive with several of the townspeople we managed to help escape, but it was a near thing.” I tapped my earlobe. “That was when this bullet came just a few inches from lodging in my brain.”
“Just you and Talon out of the whole squad?” Dess murmured.
I inclined my head. “Everyone else with us, including the commander, died.” A couple of cocky nineteen-year-olds who’d just started integrating into the squad. A woman who’d notified the command of her pregnancy earlier that morning. “As well as a hell of a lot of the civilians we should have been protecting.” Elderly men and little kids, sprawled bleeding in the streets. I closed my eyes against the barrage of images.
“That’s horrible,” Dess said, reaching to squeeze my hand.
“It was,” I agreed. “And it made me determined not to find myself in that position ever again. But that meant that I had to talk back when I disagreed with higher ranking officers. Thinking they knew what was right wasn’t good enough. It had to be backed up with a plan where every piece was totally solid.”
“I guess they didn’t like the criticism very much.”
I chuckled darkly. “No, they did not. I got written up a few times and then officially discharged. It wasn’t the right fit. But I still had the urge to fight those who needed to be taken down. So I started the Chaos Crew with Talon, where I’d get to operate our missions according to my principles. And one of those is to surround myself with other people I trust—other voices who can help me see different perspectives. I don’t want to ever start thinking that I always know better than everyone around me.”
“That makes sense.” Dess squeezed my hand. “I’m not sure I see how it relates to my father, though.”
I held her gaze. “When I hear about men like Damien Malik, they remind me of the commander in the field that day. You can mean well and believe you’re doing your best—and still be so caught up in doing things your way that you can’t see when you need to adjust course. It’s never wise to end up on a crusade like your father’s where there’s no room to pivot or notice the nuances of the situation. He’s got tunnel vision… and that leads to people getting hurt who don’t deserve it.”
Dess nodded, worrying at her lower lip again. For a long moment, she was silent, and I started to worry I’d laid too much on her all at once. Then she rubbed her mouth.
“Thank you,” she said, gazing back at me. “I’m sure it’s not fun thinking or talking about all that. I hadn’t looked at the situation quite that way before, though.”
“I’m happy to both listen to other voices and be one when someone else might need it,” I said, turning my hand so I could grip her fingers in return.
“You know, it’s probably good for me to keep that idea in mind for myself too,” Dess went on. “I need to keep an open mind and listen to everything people around me are saying if I’m going to piece together the evidence about my past and my family into a coherent picture. I can’t get too stuck on assuming that one thing or another I haven’t actually proven is true.”
My smile came back. “That’s very wise indeed. I’ll give you full credit for that part.”
She laughed, and her phone pinged with an incoming text. She fished it out of her pocket casually, but the second she glanced at the screen, her brow furrowed.
“What?” I asked.
Dess drew in a breath. “It looks like it’s time to get some more of that evidence. Anthea just sent along the results of her soil analysis.”
