Page 50 of Deadly Attraction
He shook his head. Salt had found her way into the group hug and settled with her head in his lap. He stroked her head and tried to breathe. “The Yemeni government claimed they had intel that the gangs were involved with the Taliban and were rioting. They believed the building was a hideout, so they bombed it without verifying there were no military ops going on in the area.”
She continued petting the Lab, her face clouded with a mix of emotions. He waited for her to tell him it wasn’t his fault. Instead, she asked, “Do you have these flashbacks often? The blackouts?”
Thank God, no. “Not as often anymore.”
“How long has it been since your brother died?”
A creeping relief stole over him when she didn’t offer platitudes or arguments about where the responsibility for his twin’s death lay. “Five years. Today.”
Christmas Eve. The most awful time of the year.
Emma nodded. “Pretty impressive.”
“Excuse me?”
“The twin connection runs as deep as any I’ve encountered. Five years of anger, grief, and blame and no therapy? You know how to bury things deep in order to keep functioning, Agent Holden.”
She didn’t know the half of it. “I don’t remember what happened afterward. They say I blacked out from the concussion caused by the explosion, and I ended up with some shrapnel in my chest, but I don’t think it was any of that. I felt like…” The clamp in his chest turned, cranking his heart down another inch. “I felt like I exploded along with that fucking building.”
“Your twin died in front of your eyes. You blacked out from the shock it had on your system—physical, emotional, mental. You couldn’t process it. You’re suppressing the emotions, which is what rises up and knocks you on your ass when you recall what happened. You’re caught between a rock and a hard place, Mitch. If you let yourself remember the incident, it overwhelms your system like it did on that day, and everything shuts down. Unfortunately, suppressing those emotions keeps you from processing that day and moving on with your life.”
He tried for a lighthearted tone. “Let me guess, I need therapy.”
She smiled, but it was full of pain. “Don’t we all?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Everyone told me it wasn’t my fault, that I shouldn’t blame myself, but I’m the one who devised the plan. I’m the one who calculated the risk and sent Mac and his men into that deathtrap.”
Silence descended. Was she waiting for him to continue? Was she analyzing what he’d already said?
The clock on the wall ticked quietly and Mitch felt the clamp on his heart releasing pressure. His hand was buried in Salt’s fur and her eyes were closed as she drifted to sleep, head still on his lap.
“How many times afterwards,” Emma said softly, “did you consider ending your own life?”
Good God, how did she know that?
“Four.” The word spilled out, easy and sweet on his tongue. Salt whined in her sleep. He stroked her side, watching her chest rise and fall with her breathing. “Every Christmas. All I can do is think about Mac. The flashbacks, the memories, they make me wish I’d died with him. I usually bury myself in alcohol. Last night, that shirt… Well, it made me remember how my mother has all of Mac’s shirts, and today, I realized I’m fucking jealous of my dead brother because she still worships him and ignores me.”
Emma’s lips pursed for a moment and Mitch’s gaze couldn’t help but zero in on them. So smooth, so full.
He felt warm all over. His fingers itched to reach out and touch her grounding presence.
“And this Christmas?” she asked. “Do you wish you were dead?”
Those hazel green eyes of hers were sad, but there was something else flaring in them. Hope? Yearning? He couldn’t tell, but it tugged at his gut, made his chest expand, his blood pulse thick in his veins.
For the first time in a long while, he didn’t want a drink or the sour oblivion that came from too many of them. He didn’t want to collapse in a drunken heap, hoping he never woke up.
“Not this year,” he admitted. His voice was ragged with grief, but he met her steady gaze head on. “This year, I want to live.”
