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He knew, at some time over the years, he’d been irritated by every single member of his close and extended family. Because that’s what happened in normal families, big or small. It didn’t mean they didn’t love each other fiercely, because they did. It was perhaps because they did that they were able to scrap and argue without any lasting feelings of resentment on either side.
But Mia hadn’t had loving parents or grown up with five annoying brothers and a just as annoying cousin. There had only ever been her, and the staff at the orphanage or teachers at school, who either left altogether or at least went home for the night to their own family without giving another thought for that lonely little girl left behind in the orphanage, until they returned to work the following day.
His chest hurt at that realization. “Mia, I’m not someone you should care about or allow to—to care about you.”
“That I shouldallowto care about me?” she choked. “What does that even mean?”
Darius helped her to stand, straightening the T-shirt before gently turning her so that she was sitting on his thighs. He inwardly berated himself when she drew in a hissing breath as her tender bottom made contact with the rough material of his jeans.
His hands gently cupped either side of her face as he looked deep into her eyes. “I have more deaths blackening my soul than I care to think about.”
“You were a soldier!”
Darius didn’t bother asking how she knew that when the information was out there in the public domain. Although he did feel a certain warmth in his chest at knowing Mia must have specifically looked him up online in the same way he had her after they first met.
“I was a sniper, to be exact. But just because I mainly killed from a distance doesn’t mean I don’t have as many internal scars as I have external ones. The internal ones speak for themselves. The external ones are on my legs and thighs from a bomb explosion ten years ago,” he explained when she looked at him questioningly. “I’ve never told anyone exactly what happened that day. My family only know I was injured in a bomb blast, because I was sent home on medical leave and resigned from active service once I’d recovered.”
“I won’t share with anyone else anything you want to tell me. I promise,” she added earnestly.
“I know that.” And he did. Mia was honest and true. She was too damned good for a damaged bastard like him.
He released a ragged breath. “A bomb went off in the mess tent that day. I was caught on the edge of the blast, but the people around and in front of me weren’t so lucky. Some of the dead were—well, they were blown into so many pieces, there was no way to put enough of them back together to send back to their families.” The nightmare of that carnage was part of what still haunted him day and night.
It had seemed like just another bleak and soulless day in the hell that was Afghanistan. No better, but no worse than the last. And yet minutes, seconds later, the world had been thrown into a maelstrom of noise, blood, and flying body parts.
“Some of our interpreters had been allowed to have their families living with them inside the camp,” he continued flatly. “It was the safest place for them, when the Taliban considered them all traitors to the cause. This one guy, Ebrahim, had his wife and two-year-old daughter with him. Afhak was young and beautiful, and Anoushah was the cutest little thing I’d ever seen.” He smiled at the memory. “She had dark curly hair and eyes the color of warm honey. She was only two, but she ran everywhere, always with the widest smile on her face. I was living day-to-day in a hell on earth, but every time I looked at her, I was reminded of what we were fighting for.”
Mia’s hands moved up to grasp his forearms. “Please don’t tell me she was killed when the bomb went off.”
Darius released a shaky breath. “Shewasthe bomb.”
Mia gasped. “What?”
Darius understood her shock because he still felt it to the depth of his soul every waking moment. “None of us knew it, but Afhak was working for the Taliban. Ebrahim had no idea she’d deliberately targeted and married him so that she was eventually able to live in a camp of enemy soldiers, as the wife of an interpreter, without arousing suspicion. Her instructions, when the time was right, were to set off a bomb that would kill as many soldiers as possible. That opportunity came on the day thirty or so of us were enjoying downtime eating, talking, and laughing together as we lounged in the mess tent.”
“How many died…?”
“Twenty soldiers and one civilian died in the bomb blast that day.”
“Anoushah was the civilian?”
“Yes.” He closed his eyes. “I can still see it now, as clear as if it happened yesterday and not ten years ago. It was a sunny day. We’d all just come back from three days out on patrol and were enjoying some much-needed R and R. Afhak appeared in the tent doorway holding Anoushah. The moment Anoushah saw me on the far side of the tent she struggled to be put down.”
“Oh God…”
Darius nodded. “She left her mother standing in the doorway, was running toward me, shouting ‘Darry, Darry’ when there was a deafening bang. I could only watch in horror as she slowly disintegrated, her body literally fragmenting, in front of my eyes.”
Mia moved back to look at him in horror. “Anoushah really was literally the bomb?”
He nodded. “It was in her diaper. I’d heard of women doing that in other countries. It just never occurred to any of us that Afhak would ever do something like that to the daughter she seemed to adore.”
“Ebrahim must have been devastated.”
“There were two other fatalities that day,” Darius revealed evenly. “Once Ebrahim learned what Afhak had done, he hunted her down and shot her dead before turning the gun on himself.”
* * *
Mia had no idea how it was possible to survive after witnessing such horror. But, the truth was, Darius hadn’t survived. Not completely. Oh, he breathed and gave the appearance of interacting with others. But he wasn’t actuallyliving.
