“Yeah. My dad used to work here. I grew up with this level of testosterone.” I flick my fingers dismissively at the testosterone-filled room. “You know the tattoos some of them have on their forearms? They’re a reference back to their military experience. Who they served with. My dad’s was for the 5th Special Forces Group.”
He’d been a Green Beret in the late 90s and early 2000s.
It’s what sparked his career in intelligence since he performed a lot of special reconnaissance in the Middle East.
Gathering information from denied areas.
It made him an absolute badass.
A man that was hard to get things past, even if he had blinders for me.
The amount of shit he let me get away with…
It’s what made me such a brat.
Mom always said I had him wrapped around my little finger, but the man was allowed a modicum of softness when it came to me.
I swear it’s the only time he let himself shed that hard persona.
Maybe when he and Mom were alone, but I never really saw any of that.
Not with Mom’s rigidness and drive.
Dad was always a softy for me though.
He gave me everything I wanted.
It’s his fault that I have the attitude I do.
That I demand what I want and won’t let anyone else tell me I can’t have it.
That once I know what works for me, I won’t take anything less.
God, I miss him.
I miss the way I felt whole when he hugged me.
After a whole year without him, it’s the thing I miss the most.
Not the money.
Not the protection.
Not the prestige or how he made me feel like a princess.
It’s definitely his hugs and the way I could cuddle up with him on the couch and watch a movie and feel like the world was safe and calm.
A world that shattered too completely when his friends—Grant, Trent, and Oliver—showed up at the front door to tell us what happened.
Or a version that they thought my mother and I could handle.
I still believe that the sanitized version was meant to keep me from digging.
How little they knew about me.
I will never let it go.
The basics I can get past—I can accept—he died during a mission.
