Page 14 of Knotted Laces

“I’llwalkyou out.”

Great. I barely hold back my scowl.

“I’m fine,” I mutter the moment we walk through the front door.

“Finemeans beating yourself up for last night?” he counters, closing the wooden panel behind us.

I head for my car. “It was my play. It cost us a goal. And that was the difference in the game last night.” I shrug as I bleep the locks. “You can’t explain that away with bad hockey luck, Cap.”

Rome’s quiet as I settle into the car, which I’m fucking grateful for.

I’ll get over my frustration.

I always do. Being the youngest Jackson means that I’ve had plenty of time to play comparison games and come up short of my successful older siblings.

“I’ll be grumpy about it for a few days,” I say, trying to diffuse his obvious concern. “But I’ll go back to the drawing board and come up with something better.”

Because I always do.

He catches the door before I can close it, his gaze clashing with mine.

“I’ll give you this one,” he says quietly, and I barely hold back my sigh of relief. “But the team is a family, Cam—or we’re going to make it one, anyway.” His fingers flex. “And Iknowthere’s something else going on in the big, juicy brain of yours. So, if you think I’m going to let you drown in that bullshit tearing you apart, you’ve lost your mind.”

He gives the door a shove, closing it firmly before he turns for the house and leaves me to my drive home.

But my moment of relief is just that.

A moment.

Because, unfortunately, he’s right.

Thereismore going on.

I’ve been treading water for months now.

It’s just…my arms and legs are tired and my head’s about to slip beneath the water for the final time.

CHAPTER FOUR

Athena

A coupleof days after watching Cam’s game with the rest of the Jacksons, I exhale and squeeze the Glock’s trigger, the kickback from the handgun barely registering.

Natural.

Normal.

Just…another day at the shooting range.

Another exhale and then I’m firing again, concentrating hard, making sure all of my shots are hitting the biggest target—the torso. Of course, it’s always easier to hit a paper target than a real person—and not just because a person moves. There’s something terrible about bullets hitting flesh, the blood, the devastation that comes after for everyone.

I haven’t been in many firefights, but…

The aftermath is something that clings to the quiet moments, to the darkness in the middle of the night, when sleep eludes me and the world seems like a very scary face.

I got into this line of work to find control, to conquer the horrible shit that haunted my childhood.

It both worked and didn’t.

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