Page 81 of What I Should Have Felt

Cotton coated my throat as I attempted to swallow and ignore the pounding in my head. “Take the damn restaurant,” I spat. This wasn’t worth it.

O’Connor chuckled. “Doctor Brandt told me you weren’t that bright, but come on. Have you really not figured it out yet?” He tucked his hands behind his navy blue suit and walked to my left. Eyeing him, he approached a stack of boxes with a laptop opened on top, but the screen was blank.

“Private First Class Maria Santiago,” he said and tapped the keyboard.

Time froze, and the blood in my veins stilled. It’d been years since I’d heard that name spoken out loud, yet the guilt that bubbled up in my throat was as pungent and sour now as it had been then.

“Since her mother and I didn’t marry until she was sixteen, she kept her mother’s last name,” O’Connor continued as he bent over in front of the screen of the laptop and typed something.

“You really think I went through all of those men, paid off how many hit men and teams all for two fucking restaurants?” he asked with a calmness in his voice I recognized. It was the same tone I’d get right before unleashing mayhem and death.

He spun around. His face twisted, contorting with tension that pushed the veins in his neck and forehead to pop and pulse with rage. “I am going to make you feel EXACTLY what I felt. You should have answered the fucking phone and she would still be here!” He stepped out of the way of the screen.

Horror split the ice in my veins as the two people I loved most appeared in front of me. “Don’t hurt them!” I screeched as fear slid like lightning down my skin.

A hand clamped down around Colette’s hair and jerked her head back. Her eyes were wide, and tears stained her cheeks, turning two spots on her gag a dark grey. Azelie was positioned next to Colette in the same kneelingposition with hands bound behind her back. Except the muzzle of a gun pushed her head down further toward the floor.

“I won’t,” O’Connor said and strolled away from the computer. “Not yet anyway.”

I lunged forward against the chains as dirt dug into my knees through my pants. “You fucking monster,” I spat.

He grinned maliciously. “How hypocritical of you, when you’re the reason my daughter is dead.”

With a shake of my head, I leaned back against my heels. “I didn’t kill her, O’Connor. We both made it back from that tour, but not everyone with us did.”

He darted forward as the grin twisted to hate. “You just needed to answer the phone call! If you’d answered her phone call I wouldn’t have found her hanging from her fucking fan in her room after you decided to put in for an interservice transfer! YOU LEFT HER! YOU QUIT!” All calm left the building as he darted toward me and thrust the knife beneath my neck.

My Adam’s apple dipped against the cold blade. “I was—I was—”

His chin trembled as he stared at the blade in his hand. “Why couldn’t you have saved her?” he whispered, and a tear slid down his cheek.

I closed my eyes as that same burdening guilt washed over my body. “I’m sorry, O’Connor. She saved my life out on that tour, and I wasn’t there when she needed me most.”

“She was your battle buddy or whatever shit you guys call it.” The cold blade slipped away from my neck, and I cracked my eyes open.

I nodded as he pushed himself up from his squatted position. “She was home. I didn’t think…She’d received an honorary discharge and…”

“AND WHAT?” he roared, lunging toward me again. “You think just because she was home, she was safe? She needed you. She called you.” He pointed at the screen where Colette and Azelie were both hunched over and shaking with guns to the back of their heads. “I’m going to take your daughter just as you’re the reason I lost mine. Yes, I know about Azelie and who she is to you. Though I guess that’s no longer a secret, is it?” He chuckled to himself and exhaled deeply, then continued. “Then, I’m going to destroy the woman you love just as you’re the reason my wife left me.”

“I was at BUD/S when Maria called me. I didn’t have my phone, or I would’ve answered. Her voicemail nearly destroyed me. I nearly—” I stopped talking as O’Connor threw the knife into a box off to the side of the laptop with a resoundingthwunk.

“YOU THINK I FUCKING CARE WHY YOU DIDN’T ANSWER? Your friend needed your help, and because you weren’t there, she’s dead.” He stood upright and dusted off his suit coat. “You killed her. And because of what happened to Maria, my wife left me. So, I’m going to kill your daughter and the woman you love so you know exactly how I felt. How I still feel.”

“No! Please,” I begged. “They’re innocent. It’s me you want. Take me. Torture me. Kill me. Do whatever you want to me, but let them go.”

He shook his head. “I won’t kill you. That’s too easy of a way out. Torture you, though…” He paused and grinned. “That I can do without a second thought. Maria stopped you both from being blown up by that damn IED, but after that, she was never the same. Any little…sound set her off. The survivor’s guilt…”

O’Connor strutted toward the laptop and hovered a finger over a key. “I will take great pleasure in causing the same pain to you, and then killing your daughter and love. You’ll never forget Maria’s name again.”

He tapped the key, and whimpers pierced the speakers. “Colette? Azelie?” I gasped as rage boiled in my blood.

“Ford!” Colette cried out. “Don’t do it! We’ll be fine. Just—“

“Shut her up!” O’Connor inserted, and the gun bumped against the back of Colette’s head with the click of a safety flicking off.

“Thank you. Now, obviously this laptop screen isn’t that big.” O’Connor walked over to the knife he’d thrown into the box and paused in front of it. “But just know, I also have your parents and mawmaw held actually just outside this little warehouse. I wanted them to hear all of this, too.”

“You kidnapped them, too?” I asked.

---