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“Hello?”
“Boss?” It was Kuzo. “I hate to call you in the middle of the night like this, boss, but we have an issue. Lance just tried to kill himself.”
TWENTY-THREE
TILLIE
I was drawn awake when Ezra shifted to get out of bed. I knew he was trying his hardest not to wake me, contorting himself so he wouldn’t move my body much, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t sleeping too deeply in the first place, my mind too occupied with everything we’d spoken about.
I felt emotionally drained, but it was also an odd feeling. It was almost peaceful, but I didn’t understand why. Typically, talking about my father triggered some nightmares or even more insomnia, but that wasn’t what happened this time. Perhaps it was the “blanket effect” Ezra had on me and the way that he could make the whole world seem to disappear.
But when I heard the bedroom door open, I came fully awake with no problem, awareness rushing back. I lay there for a few seconds before getting out of bed, too, and heading to the door to see what was going on.
I could hear voices through the crack of the door.
“What do you mean he tried to kill himself?” Ezra asked, and the shock reverberated through his harsh whisper. He paced as whoever was on the other end of the call spoke, and then he shook his head.
Then he heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed his hand over his face. “What the fuck is going on here, Kuzo?”
The other man said something short, but Ezra immediately responded with, “No. I can’t leave yet. My business here isn’t finished, and I don’t know when it will be. Just…hold things down at the office, will you? Don’t let this get out. And stick by him, alright?”
The man must have responded with an affirmative because Ezra followed up with, “I’ll talk to you later,” and hung up.
Then, for the next few seconds, he paced and rubbed his temples, a look of frustrated indecision plaguing him.
“You have to leave, don’t you?” I spoke up, opening the door fully as his head swung back to me. He frowned.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“No,” I said, walking out toward him. I laid my hand on his chest and watched the way his eyes darkened before his larger palm closed over it. My heart thundered in my chest, but I pushed through and said the words anyway.
“You need to go back.”
The regret in his eyes told me I was right.
“One of my men, Lance,” he said. “He tried to end his own life tonight.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Do you know why?”
“Not entirely. He was one of the men in Team Alpha with me, and he still has some trauma from that. They all do.” He shook his head, and I could see the guilt in his expression, the regret.
“You care about them a lot, don’t you?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. Those fuckers are the closest thing I have to family. And I took so much from them. The least I could do is at least try to fix some of it.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. I could see he was still blaming himself for everything that happened, and I wasn’t going to lie and say I could understand or relate to the pressure of leading such a team and killing people. But I didn’t want him to carry such a weight around anymore. He was strong enough, but even the strong needed a break.
“You’ve been taking care of everyone this whole time.” I finally realized the responsibility he carried. I caressed his face, feeling sadness for what he’d lost too. “Who takes care of you?”
The teeniest of smiles touched the corner of his mouth, but it disappeared into bitterness. “I got paid a shit ton for what I did. Millions. Killing for the government is very lucrative, I guess. I managed to invest most of it and start my company with the rest and somehow became even richer while the men I served with suffered the consequences of what we’d done.”
“Didn’t they get paid too?” I asked.
“Not as much as me,” he said. “I did the same things they did, but I had more experience, less heart. I was able to get out of it with my sanity intact somehow while they were destroyed and paid less for it. And in addition to that, some of them who’d joined the military young had no real-world skills to fall back on. So I hired those I could and resolved to take care of the ones I couldn’t. And those I lost in a battle…I take care of their families too.” He shrugged. “It’s selfish, really. It doesn’t solve anything, and it won’t bring them back. It just makes me more capable of living with myself and dealing with the mental turmoil of it all.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility,” I commented.
“It is. But it’s the least I could do.” He sighed. “Lance is one of my men. I have to be there for him.”
