Page 3 of Always Salty

It should’ve been a whole lot of things, but peaceful wasn’t one of those.

I watched with a dispassionate eye as Copper beat my father to death.

He didn’t stop until my father’s aide came through the door looking for him.

Copper stopped, picked up my towel that was covered in flecks of blood, and wrapped it around me before putting himself solidly between myself and Martin Palmer’s gaze.

Martin’s gaze went from my brother to my dad—which I could see in the reflection of the mirror across the room—and then stopped on Copper. “You’re done.”

Copper’s deep voice filled the air before he announced, “Ask me if I care.”

I’ve been single for four years. Please congratulate me for my bachelor’s degree in singleness.

—Dima to Shasha

DIMA

“You’re too dangerous to be allowed back into the military.”

That wasn’t even a fucking thing.

“What?” I asked, wondering if I’d heard correctly.

“Highly trained individuals like yourself can’t just go back into the regular military. Rank and all that will be questioned, and it’s never going to work. It’ll be too frustrating having to take orders from people that you feel aren’t as qualified as you. Trust me,” he informed me.

Years ago, I’d joined the military because I wanted to fly.

I did fly, for a bit.

Then someone who knew someone who was connected to another someone found out that I was Shasha Semyonov’s brother, pakhan of the Russian Bratva. From that moment forward, my military life had changed.

Gone were my dreams of flying, though I still did it, just not nearly as often as I’d liked. In the place of my flight career had been a new, not wholly unwelcome, path in life.

Killing for the United States government.

But, like my handler had just informed me, taking orders had rankled, and I was tired of the bullshit.

I didn’t want to kill people they deemed necessary.

I questioned everything and wanted proof.

I didn’t care that I killed.

I cared who I killed.

And today’s kill order, a member of government in a country that was loyal to us, had been my last straw.

I wasn’t willing to kill a pregnant woman.

I certainly wasn’t going to kill a pregnant woman with no information as to why I was killing her.

I didn’t just kill without thought.

And my handlers were tired of me pushing back.

Today I’d pushed back, and I’d gotten the ‘do it or else.’

I’d chosen ‘or else.’

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