AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then the shit storm started.
Rockets and IEDs exploded, showering the whole world with shrapnel and clumps of earth so hard they could be used to cut diamonds. Men yelled and then, inevitably, screamed. The line of vehicles splintered into those trying to speed up and escape, those swerving and crashing into others, and those disintegrating into nothing between this blink and the next.
In the middle of the chaos, too far away for Tony to reach, stood Talia. He sprinted and jumped, weaving through the destruction and ignoring men who needed his help because only she mattered.
“Talia,” he roared. “Talia.”
She reached out her arms to him. “Here.”
“Taliaaaa—”
“Come on, man,” said a male voice. “Wake up.”
“Taliaaaa!”
No one would stop him from getting to her. He flailed and kicked, connecting with a nose and what might have been a jaw. There was a loud yelp, and then concrete restraints locked down around him, and they had no give at all.
Not that he was giving up. He would never give up.
“No,” he shouted. “Talia. Talia—”
“Tony,” said that wry male voice, “I swear to God, man, if you broke my nose, I’m going to knock your teeth out. I don’t care if you are dreaming.”
Tony jerked awake, and it was over.
The restraints eased, allowing him to breathe again, and he opened his eyes with no real need to see anything, because the scene never changed.
It was dark, probably because it was a quarter past dead of night. He lay on his back, nested in the crawl space he made for himself every night, between the back of his bedroom sofa and the wall. The blankets were tangled and he was sweaty. He never bothered with a pillow because half the time he woke up facedown, and he hadn’t made it through the war only to come home and suffocate himself like a dumbass.
And speaking of dumbasses…
His fraternal twin, Sandro, sat in his usual spot, on the floor with his back against the wall at the head of Tony’s sofa, his legs bent and his feet bare. He glared, using the bottom of his white T-shirt to swipe at the blood dripping from his nostrils.
Shit.
With a harsh sigh, Tony heaved himself up into a kneeling position and started in with the apologies, which never seemed to end these days.
“Listen, man—”
Sandro waved a hand. “Forget it. I’m just glad you haven’t sliced my head off.”
That reminded him. Tony jerked around, rifling under the blankets for—
“Looking for this?” Sandro raised a sheathed boot knife, whose three-and-a-half-inch steel blade went a long way toward getting rid of Tony’s demons in the night.
“Yeah.” Tony held his hand out. “I’ll take it.”
Sandro shook his head and slipped it behind his back and into the elastic waistband of his plaid pajama bottoms. “Yeah…no. You won’t.”
Tony, who was still breathing deep to get his racing pulse under control, frowned and opened his mouth.
Whereupon Sandro emitted a low growl. “Say something,” he warned.
Tony, knowing Sandro was right and that they were, after all, on the same team, shut his mouth. There were other people rattling around in the huge house—namely Sandro’s teenage son, Nikolas; and Skylar, Tony’s former fiancée, now Sandro’s fiancée—and neither Tony nor Sandro wanted anyone to get hurt during one of Tony’s frequent nocturnal meltdowns.
Things were complicated in the Davies household in the Hamptons.
Still, backing down rankled Tony, especially when forced upon him by his marginally younger brother. “Put that thing somewhere safe,” Tony told him. “I’m going to want it back.”
“Don’t worry.” Sandro leaned his head against the wall, scrubbed a hand over his face and closed his bleary eyes. “You’ll get it back the second some insurgents show up stateside and come knocking on our door.”
“Funny,” Tony snapped.
Sandro dropped his hand and turned to look at him with pitying eyes. “You can’t go on like this, man. This is the third time this week.”
Since this was likely to lead into yet another discussion about the progress—or lack thereof—Tony was making with his shrink and weekly support group of local vets who were as screwed up as he was, he decided to head the topic off at the pass.
