Page 151 of Darling Wildfire
“People would go searching for the treasure and either die in anaccident,” Knight emphasized‘accident.’ “Or by a bullet. The area is off limits so there are usually some trigger-happy contractors hanging around and oh yeah—to top it all off the area is extremely treacherous.”
“Only one access road in and out,” I said.
“Why didn’t you guys go after it before?” Atlas asked.
“I had a family,” I shrugged and looked down at my whiskey and swirled it around in the glass, feeling the ache in my heart that was always there when I thought of what was and what could have been. I shook it off and looked back up at him. “Now—I want to build a fucking empire. I want to become untouchable and then I want to take down Vetticus, Albatron andAtrox. This money would expedite that process. If I have to do it the good old-fashioned way, I will. But this would give me a good jumping off point.”
I looked between Nyx and Atlas. “I understand if you both just want to move on—”
“Oh no,” Nyx said, shaking his head, his face hard with suppressed anger. “I’m in. For all of it. I want to take that fucker down.”
Atlas nodded. “Whatever it takes.”
Knight chuckled. “And count me in too—I was starting to get bored.”
“Where did you guys get the map?” Nyx asked.
“Knight and I went to Salzburg on leave one year—got drunk with some Austrians and they started talking about the local lore. One of them told us about a map their family passed down for generations that shows where the Nazis dropped the gold. Knight ended up winning the map in a bet with one of them, with the stipulation that if we ever went after it, we had to call him and include him in the job.”
“Why didn’t he ever go after it himself?” Atlas asked.
“Apparently he went looking for it a few times. Had a few close calls and gave it up. He’s already filthy rich on his own—family money—so he was doing it mostly for the thrill of it. Said he might as well let someone else have a shot. He’s an ex-Jagdkommando, Austria’s special forces, so he knows the country and he’s also just a hell of a guy to hang with.”
“Should I hit him up then? It’s morning over there right now,” Knight said.
I nodded and Knight pulled out his phone and shot off a quick text before he stood up.
“Well, I’m off to bed. Those bedrooms down the hall are all available. Help yourself to anything of course—my house is your house and all that.”
Nyx and Atlas murmured a thanks, and he nodded and walked past my chair only to put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s really good to see you, brother.”
“And you, thanks for having us,” I said genuinely. “Truly—coming here disrupting your peace—”
“Nah,” Knight shook his head. “Like I said, I was getting bored and being your friend is always an adventure.”
Once Knight went upstairs to bed, Nyx, Atlas and I all had one more drink.
“How long did you two serve together?” Atlas asked.
“We went through BUD/S and SQT together,” I said. “Then we were assigned to the same team for a bit. Got pretty close—you know how that goes.”
I’d seen gruesome and traumatizing shit with Knight and the others on my team. I was never the best at regulating my emotions. I was either running hot—buried in training and instincts that take over during a stressful raid—or compartmentalizing everything I’d seen and done after the fact. Why would I deal with any of it if I was just going to go out and do it all over again?
Overtime, my personality just let that be the standard and none of it bothered me anymore. The killing and violence were all just the dark side of human nature that I accepted and understood. It was my job. And like any job—it became my life and desensitized me to things that should have appalled and horrified me.
My feelings for the people I surrounded myself with became my weakness and caused my emotions to get the better of me. Love hurt too much and protecting what belonged to me implied a shortcoming on my part when I failed.
Both were unacceptable to me but overtime, I learned how to be the best, to execute at the highest level possible so that my chances of failure were low. Love was pushed out a long time ago because I couldn’t control love. I’d found if I threw myself into making sure I was the best and my team was the best, I could protect those I had become attached to.
It always made me think, did I really love? Maybe in my own way but love implies vulnerability and openness—two things I was not good at. Even with Whit and the twins, I’d said the words and I would do anything to protect them because they were mine, but there were times Whit would look at me and I knew she was hoping for more.
I slept for a few hours before the nightmares started.
After waking up in a sweat for the third time, I gave up on sleep. The bedroom I was in had a door leading out to the back porch and I slipped out the door and sat down in an old wooden chair looking out over the yard. The forest was alive in the early hours of the morning but it was peaceful.
“Figured I’d find at least one of you out here.”
Knight materialized by my side and took up residence in the other chair.
