Page 45 of Hellbent
Jake pours two more coffees. He hands me one with a kiss on the forehead, then crosses to the couch, nudging Damian’s leg with his knee. Damian reluctantly moves his arm and sits up just enough to accept the steaming mug. When he leans forward, I spot the tattoo on his right shoulder clearly—four snakes around a dagger, just like Jake’s and Ryder’s.
“Oh.” I squint at it. “You have that tattoo too.”
“We all do,” Jake answers, returning to the kitchen and sinking into a rickety chair. “It’s from our unit. The four of us made up a strike team. Small, specialized. Cross-branch.”
“Cross-branch?”
“Army, Navy, Marines...and me.” He grins. “We called ourselves Hellbent.”
“Why Hellbent?”
“Because once we were pointed at a target, we didn’t stop. No matter what. Kinda like you, killer.”
“All grit, no quit,” mutters Damian from the couch, groggy with sleep.
“All grit, no quit,” Jake echoes with a laugh. “That’s right. Now go back to sleep, grandma, and get some rest.”
Damian sets his coffee down on the table and flips him off without looking, rolling onto his side.
A few hours later, Wyatt’s bike pulls into the parking lot and he walks into the garage like he hasn’t just been MIA for more than twenty-four hours.
I glance up from where I’m hunched over the workbench, updating a work order, and find I’m surprised by the flicker of relief that moves through me. I missed him.
He looks rough. Still that quiet, immovable presence, but there’s an edge to him. He has circles under his eyes, the stubble on his jaw is a little thicker. He’s exhausted.
He doesn’t say where he’s been, and I don’t ask. He just nods at me before flipping through the day’s work orders. Then he moves toward the Dodge Ram I’ve been working on, running a hand over the open hood.
“You torque down the valve covers yet?”
I shake my head.
“Good. I’ll handle it.”
I glance at Damian, but he doesn’t look up, attention focused on his work. Another secret swallowed into the air between these men.
In the afternoon, Ryder shows up.
That alone is unusual. He rarely comes to the garage. Today, he walks right in like he owns the place—not that anyone would question it—his sharp brown eyes flicking over Damian and I before locking onto Wyatt.
“Good work,” Ryder says, clapping him once on the back. The two of them step into the little glass office and close the door behind them.
The hours slip by.
Damian and I fall into rhythm, the steady motions of work distracting me from my hangover.
Eventually, Wyatt and Ryder emerge. Wyatt heads straight for the Ram, waving me off again. Ryder perches on the workbench, flipping open a laptop, giant tattooed hands clacking against the keys in the relative silence.
The atmosphere is certainly different than it was yesterday. More serious and less playful. The adults have come home.
“Bring over the all-terrains,” Wyatt calls to me.
I nod, heading to the far wall where Damian has hung the tires on long, flat hooks. Reaching up to the full extent of my height, I push one up and over the hook, but the weight shifts too fast and unbalances me while the tire is over my head.
“Hey!” Ryder’s voice cuts through the garage, sharp and unexpected.
He’s already moving toward me, but I catch myself, jogging the tire in the air before swinging it forward, bringing it down with a solid thud.
“Jesus,” he hisses, eyes locked on me. “You okay?”
