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Her eyes flickered up to mine. She hesitated, but I could already see the answer in them.
“Tillie…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, and tears blinked into her eyes. “Please don’t make me talk about it.”
“Oh, baby.” I couldn’t help it. I reached over and picked her up, shifting her into my lap. “Don’t worry. None of them will ever touch you again.”
And just like that, her tears started flowing in earnest.
It was the first time I could recall feeling this furious. As she cried in my arms, I wanted nothing more than to go back and end that motherfucker. And then I wanted to find anyone else who had hurt her and make them pay in blood. I tried to keep my mind off the murderous thoughts and murmur comforting words instead, but somehow, all my comforting abilities were disappearing under the rage.
So I stayed still and said nothing. I reminded myself that I let the bastard live, not for him but for her. She was the one who’d just been traumatized, and at the end of the day, it didn’t matter what I felt like. It wasn’t about me and my fury. What mattered was ending her misery.
I could feel her calm slowly returning as I silently rubbed her back. I watched the police rush into the place, and I wondered if they’d found Brick yet. Meanwhile, Tillie shifted in my lap, getting more comfortable and tucking herself right in as she sniffled and sobbed. I had no idea how many minutes passed like that with her in my arms, and truly, I didn’t care. If it were up to me, I would hold her forever.
And the thought should have bothered me more than it did. Because I couldn’t recall being affected by someone like this before. I had seen a fuckton of injustice, and it always made me mad, but not to the point where I lost my mind. I’d never felt this violent rage, this pitiless urge to destroy anything that came near them. No one had also made me want to hold them until we both took our last breath.
And feeling all these things for Tillie was wrong. But it was difficult to remember why while holding her in my arms.
She’s Max’s daughter. I reminded myself.Not to mention how young she is. Doing this, feeling how you feel, it’s fucked up.
But then, I’d always been fucked up. And I guessed I was tired of fighting it too.
Eventually, Tillie’s tears subsided. She continued staying in my arms, not detaching herself immediately as I expected. She was quiet for a few minutes, and then she asked a very unexpected question: “You said my father was one of your men.” She glanced back up at me with teary eyes. “What does that mean?”
I rubbed my hand over her hair and decided to finally be honest with her once and for all.
“I was the commander of SEAL Team Alpha. Your father—” I felt her stiffen slightly at the mention of her father. “Your father was one of my men. He served under me in a secret government agency that eliminated terrorists.”
She was quiet for a long second, then she asked, “Like…killed them?”
“Most of the time. Our missions were undercover, and very few people knew we existed. We targeted individuals and organizations that were designated as terrorist threats to the United States government, but due to one reason or another, they couldn’t be attacked straightforwardly. So we would assassinate them covertly.” I continued rubbing her back, watching her expression become thoughtful. “We worked on the scene and traveled to all sorts of underground places around the world. We would go in there and extract any hostages and eliminate the target. Their death would be covered up with something else.”
I kept my voice cold or factual, leaving her to make her judgments. I knew she would be able to see the truth behind the words, and I wouldn’t blame her if she felt extreme disgust at what I did. I felt disgusted sometimes too. Because Lance was right. As much as I tried to sugarcoat it, the truth was that we were hired killers.
But she didn’t look scared or even disgusted. She looked at me and cocked her head to the side like she was curious and amazed.
“Wow.”
Just that one word made me cringe.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice quiet. “That must have been horrible.”
I swallowed and nodded. Aspects of it were horrible, but I always tried as much as possible to focus on the positives, on the fact that we’d saved hostages and liberated countless innocents. It was the only way to keep my sanity.
“It was,” I said with a nod. “But it was even worse for the men who served under me. Men like your father. He was the negotiator a lot of the time, and during an operation, he was captured and tortured for days. When we got him back, he wasn’t the same again. He had an honorable discharge soon after, and I swore I would take care of him since.”
She was quiet again, not saying anything, her eyes staring into the distance. She didn’t say anything, so I continued talking.
“The whole time, he only spoke about getting back home to his wife and daughter. He said that was what kept him going—the fact that you both were out there waiting for him. He used to show us pictures of you and your mother every time. You were so little that he was worried you wouldn’t remember him. That was why, when I found out he’d died, I made it my mission to find you and make sure you both never wanted for anything.”
Once again, she was quiet, staring off into space, her hand absently playing with one of the buttons on my shirt. She almost looked like a little girl doing that, unsure and seeking comfort.
“My dad used to hit me.”
The words dropped like a bomb in the silence, and for a second, I thought I had heard them wrongly.
But she looked up at me, and the pure emotion and pain in her eyes told me that I hadn’t imagined it. She said what I thought she said.
