Page 13 of Viral Justice

She got off him and allowed him up. “You’re an adult and this isn’t the Boy Scouts. You knew you’d have to defend yourself, possibly even kill, yet you still chose the army. Why?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “And don’t give me a verbal runaround. I want to know the real reason.”

There was no hesitation as he snarled, “Defending other people, keeping them safe, stopping harm before it can happen is why I joined. I just happen to do all that without using my fists or a gun.”

He meant it. She could see it on his face, and that certainty of purpose cooled her anger into something close to respect. “Even knights in armor had to do more than just stand in the way of an adversary. They had to fight too. You have a price on your head and Akbar is gunning for you. You need to learn this.”

He closed his eyes and breathed deep for a moment. When he opened his eyes, his expression was composed. “I’m trying, I really am. Maybe I just need more time, more practice before this kind of fighting—” he gestured at the room at large “—feels more natural to me.”

“That might work,” she said slowly, reviewing their conversation in her head. Something he said niggled at her. “You saidcan’tandwon’tattack anyone. I getwon’t, the whole Hippocratic Oath thing, butwhycan’t you attack me?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

He stood there, looking at her like she’d asked him an impossible question. “Have you completed your assessment?” he asked instead of answering. “Or would you like to beat me up some more.” He was breathing harder now than when she was pounding the crap out of him, and the way he said the wordsbeat me up. Like they were razor blades slicing their way out of his mouth.

Holy shit. She should have asked himwhya long time ago.

“I’m done,” she said, managing to maintain her even tone by the skin of her teeth. Then she watched him walk away.

Could it be that his problem lay in the wordsbeat me? At some point in his life, had someone hurt this man and he’d decided it was his fault?

If she was going to get anywhere with Max, she had to find out.

The first place she went was her father’s office. He was busy and she had exactly two minutes to talk to him. She didn’t waste any of it.

“Sir, I think I may know why Colonel Maximillian has such a problem performing his combat skills.”

“Already? That didn’t take long.”

Fixing the issue was going to take a lot longer. “Was he abused as a child?”

Her father stared at her, frozen for two seconds. “Fuck.”

“Is that a yes or no?”

“It’s anI don’t know.” He sat back in his chair. “But it would explain a lot. What leads you to think he was abused?”

“I just tossed the man around the mats for an hour. He can’t make himself attack me, or anyone else for that matter. It’s not just an abhorrence of violence. Hecan’tmake himself do it. I think he’d be physically sick if he accidently did knock me down. I thought it was because I’m a woman, but now I don’t think that’s it.”

“Talk to him.”

“I plan to, but I thought I would start with you to see if you were aware of anything that might contribute to his behavior.”

Her father sat back, his expression contemplative. “His ex said he beat her. There wasn’t any evidence to support her claims, but even an accusation of that can damage a man’s reputation. I think he gave her everything she wanted just to shut her up.”

“I remember. I’ll dig a bit more into that.” Ali left her father’s office and after getting permission from base security, logged in to a computer and checked to see if Max or his ex-wife had any sort of criminal record. Both of them were clean. Except...Max had a sealed family court record with an odd flag on it. Something had happened when he was a kid.

Getting those opened was damned near impossible, but that didn’t stop her from being curious.

When she put in a call to a lawyer friend and asked about the flag, she was told they meant a major case crime, like kidnappings, armed robberies, or murders. The child was somehow involved, almost always as a victim. The files were sealed to protect the identity of the child.

Ali ended the call and headed to her quarters, picking through everything she knew about the colonel.

Protective almost to the point of paranoia.

Obsessive about safety.

A workaholic who leads his team from the front.

Unwilling and unable to hurt anyone else.

What the hell had happened to Max?

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