Page 103 of What I Should Have Done

“And how are none of you as pissed as I am?” I glared at the rest of the team. “You’re just sitting here like we had no other options. Dom shot at Karim and Rashid later. Why not take that shot first? Or try and give me a chance to get to my rifle to take the shot? So, Rashid is dead, but so is Mikey. That trade off isn’t worth it to me.”

Dom sighed and kept his eyes trained to the table as Duncan stepped in. “Scottie, we’re all pissed and hurt too. Mikey was more than just a teammate, he was family. But if Dom thought that was the best option, then it was the best option.”

I shot out of my seat, ignoring the quick glances coming our way from surrounding soldiers. “How can you just blindly trust him like that?”

“Because he’s never led us wrong before,” Duncan said.

“Until now! He killed Mikey. How is that the right decision? How?!” I knew I was overreacting. I knew it was out of pain and grief. I knew why I was blowing up like this. I knew it all, but I couldn’t stop it.

The only way I felt Mikey was when hiding inside the ghost of his memories. Every time I wanted to experience something more than this anguish, I had to turn to thoughts in my own head. I couldn’t accept that this was how the real story ended. How his story ended. We were all supposed to have made it out alive.

Collapsing back onto the bench, I swallowed the tears brimming in my eyes. Nothing but the drowning sounds of chatter around me came as my answer. “I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I know I haven’t been with you guys as long and…” I wasn’t even sure how to end my sentence, or where it was going. I honestly didn’t quite understand what was going through my head at this moment other than a jumbled ball of anger and grief.

“We get it. I get it,” Dom quietly replied.

Picking at a cuticle, I stared at my hands. Hands that were once tangled in Mikey’s hair. Fingers that once danced across scars on his body. A touch that once made him shiver with pleasure.

Part of it was my fault. I knew that. I’d let myself get ambushed. Okay, so I didn’t let myself, but it certainly felt that way. I’d been captured. They’d been waiting for me when I’d tried to climb the side of the canyon for a good viewpoint.

So yeah, maybe I was projecting some of my guilt onto Dom, which was unfair. But I couldn’t help feeling like there was something else that could’ve happened which wouldn’t have resulted in Mikey’s death. In the death of someone I was certainly way too attached to.

But why was my heart’s desire such a crime?

And why did it have to hurt this badly?

“I kinda have to wonder, though, too,” Bernie mumbled, pulling me from deprecating thoughts, and I glanced at him. He gave Dom a tight smile. “Why didn’t you shoot Rashid al-Farouk before Mikey?”

I hadn’t wanted to cause a rift between the guys, so before Dom could reply, I quickly interjected. “I’m not trying to create problems or make anyone choose sides.”

Dom inhaled deeply and leaned back, finally looking at the rest of us. “I know, Scottie. But I did what I thought was best to save the most lives at the time.”

By shooting someone in his command?

Rage surged through my veins, and I opened my mouth, ready to argue when the silence surrounding us hit me like a grenade to the gut. How long it had been quiet was lost on me, and mirrored confusion reflected on the team’s faces as we all glanced around at one another, recognizing the unusual stillness.

Then slowly, one by one, my team followed the stares of every silent and frozen soldier over to my right.

To a ghost.

The body of someone who haunted my dreams stood a few yards away from our table.

Disbelief shattered the very marrow in my bones.

Burning with absolute uncertainty, I couldn’t look away from the bluest of blue eyes I’d ever had the pleasure of gazing upon. This wasn’t possible. Blood splattered a uniform coated in dust and sand. A helmet covered hair that I just knew would be a dirty, disheveled blond, and a balaclava covered the rest of his face. But those broad shoulders, those ocean irises I’d stared in too often, were undeniable.

My heart hammered in my chest. With quickened breaths, I slowly rose from the bench in sync with the rest of my team.

This wasn’t possible.

But as Dom strode forward and met him with an aggressive one-armed hug, there was no denying that he was a real, solid human being.

Mikey.

Chapter 35

SCOTTIE

Mikey unbuckled his helmet as he raised his other hand, offering a black briefcase to Dom. The very damn Black Box we’d been after all this time.

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