Page 145 of Stealth Mission

I grimace with a new kind of pain moving through me. “How’s he doing?”

This time my sort-of-adopted sister’s tone is sad.

“Stubborn as a gator. Mean as a cottonmouth.” She blows out a shaky breath. “But you know that. He’s feeling worse and worse. The chemo is taking more out of him each round.”

I clench the wheel as my vision gets wavy. “Fuck, Lana. I’m sorry. I should have called sooner. I’m just not used to being a civilian. I promise I’ll do more to stay in touch.”

“He’d like that.” She pauses and her soft sob makes me choke. “Ev, I’m really worried about him.”

A spike of pain hits my chest. “Fuck, Lana, I’m…sorry.”

I’m also sad, which is an emotion that I’m just not wired to handle.

“He wants to see his boy. Can you come? I know it would make him so happy.”

I hit the brakes and pull the truck to the side of the road because I can’t see anymore and running into a tree is going to have a serious effect on me doing what I’m about to do.

Throat tight, I grip the phone harder. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“He’s loved you from the day he found you sleeping behind his garage.”

I close my eyes, fist my hair and try to breathe. “I don’t know how he did. I was…”

“You were lost.”

An echo of the way I used to feel resurfaces. “I was broken. I still am.”

She sighs and her fatigue is obvious. “You have always had every right to be angry.”

I use the bottom of my shirt to press into the corners of my eyes. “That's all I know.”

“Now that’s a lie, Ev.”

Silence sinks between us. Between all my anger, they did everything they could to show me another way. “You’re right. You and him gave me the only peace I knew.”

“And the Navy,” she says teasingly.

“They didn’t give me peace. They gave me purpose.”

We’re quiet for a beat.

She breaks the silence, her whisper rough. “I’m proud of you. The man you’ve become. I love knowing that my brother has been out saving the world. I’m proud to call you a badass warrior.”

“Don’t, please don’t say that.”

I look at my hands and think about what I’m going to do with them. Without regret. Without remorse. With a single driven purpose to make someone pay for hurting Marianna.

When I don’t say anything else, the woman that used to annoy me unendingly when she was a little girl, makes a concerned sound. “Are you okay?”

Fuck, no.

“I don’t know anymore.”

“Come home, Evan. Dad needs you, and from the way it sounds, you need us.”

There is no way in hell I can breathe now. So I have no idea how I speak— or why I say what I say. “I fucked up a mission for my new company when I met a woman.”

Lana’s gasp is not a surprise to me. But she regains her composure quickly. “Are you bringing her home?”

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