Page 62 of Unloaded
Shelby passes Axel off to his daddy before wrapping me up in her arms.
“I know you’re scared, Rachel,” Shelby whispers as she holds me together. “I get it. I’d be terrified. I’d thought I was going to die last year when Marley and I had been abducted by The Brotherhood.
“I’d been paralyzed with fear, but Bo came for me. He saved me. You have to stay positive and not lose hope. Rosco, Bo, Luke, Enos, and all of these men will move heaven and earth to bring your brothers home safely. Now please, say you will stay?”
“Okay,” I agree, reluctantly. I want to have faith. I want to believe the Robertsons and the men of Invictus are invincible, but I know better. No one is as ruthless as Reginald Vena.
The only way for me to find my brothers is by agreeing with their plan and convincing them I’m okay to let them handle it. But at the first opportunity, I’ll slip away, even knowing it’s probably foolhardy. I have to do something. I can’t just sit here and wait.
27
ROSCO
“What the hell do you mean she isn’t here?” I bellow at Luke. He can’t be serious right now! Rachel isn’t at Luke’s when I arrive after spending countless hours answering questions at the police station. Even Det. Atwood couldn’t get me out of answering questions from not only local but state and federal investigators, too. It seems when the mob decides to shoot your house up, it gets the attention of a lot of agencies.
It’s six a.m. Monday morning. It’s been almost twenty-four hours since I let Rachel walk out of my house and evidently my life. I did the right thing. She can’t be shackled to me, but my traitorous heart has been screaming at me to find her, hold her close, and make any promise she demands of me so I can keep her.
I can’t explain the relief I’d felt when I pulled into Luke’s driveway. Just knowing I would see her for myself and know she is okay. I’d been texting Dalton. He told me he’d dressed her hands when she’d gotten to Luke’s and that she seemed to be physically fine, but he wasn’t so sure about her mental state.
There’d been an argument between her and my brothers regarding her plan to head out on her own to find the twins, butshe’d eventually caved and agreed to wait for a plan. Afterward he’d said she’d been unusually quiet. She’d gone to her room, and they hadn’t seen her the rest of the day.
I walked in the door less than a minute ago to find my angel isn’t here. She’s gone. Despite my ability to yell loud enough to wake the dead, I feel like I can’t breathe. She’s out there somewhere, unprotected, and the fucking mob wants her dead.
“Why the fuck would you let her leave?” I demand of my brother who’s glaring at me like I’m the one who did something wrong.
“Stop yelling,” Luke growls. “You’ll wake Marley and the baby, and trust me, you don’t want to do that.” He’s right. I don’t want to wake my nephew or piss off my sister-in-law because let’s face it, Marley is scary when she’s pissed, but I need to know what the fuck is going on with my woman. My brothers and friends enter the hallway where Luke and I are arguing, catching my attention.
“Then tell me where the fuck my woman is, and I’ll get out of your hair,” I growl back at him. The look he shoots my way has me bracing for an ass chewing. I know I fucked up when I let her leave like she did. I saw the disappointment in Luke’s eyes when I didn’t go after her, but he doesn’t understand my motives.
“Why didn’t you call me before she left?” It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d called. The police had confiscated my phone, and I wasn’t allowed to have it with me during interrogation.
“We only just discovered she’d left,” Luke admits with defeat in his tone. My mouth drops open with shock.How is it possible that she left without anyone knowing?
“Your woman?” Dalton questions, giving me the stink eye if ever I saw it. “You don’t have a woman. You let her walk away, as I recall.”
Now, I’m beyond pissed. They all know Rachel is mine, even if I can’t permanently claim her.
“What the fu—” Dalton’s hand in my face shuts me up. I’m half surprised he didn’t deck me from the look on his face.
“Shut it!” He growls. “You had your fucking chance, and you blew it. That woman loves you, dumbass, and you love her. You left her blowing in the wind just when she needed you most, and for what? Some fucked-up past shit that can’t be changed? If you would’ve just opened up, we could’ve worked this out and fixed it, but you decided to wallow in self-loathing instead.
“You were right when you said she deserves better,” he continues to blast me, “because if you aren’t going to man up and claim what’s yours, then she does deserve better. She should be more than just your fuck buddy until you decide you’re done.”
I stare at the man who has been my best friend for more than twenty years of my life. He’s always been straight with me, but damn if he didn’t just blow up my world with an atomic truth bomb.
Fuck!I’d known the moment she walked out of my house I had made a huge fucking mistake. My gut and my heart had been screaming at me to go after her, to tell her how I really felt, but my head said I had to let her believe I didn’t care. It made me believe she’s better off without me.
Besides I thought she’d be here when I was finished with the investigators. I’d believed I still had time to figure things out.How could I have ignored my gut, again?
“You don’t understand,” I mumble pathetically, all the while knowing I don’t have a leg to stand on.I fucked up, again,is playing on repeat in my head.
“You’re damn right, we don’t fucking understand,” Bo agrees, loudly. “You have refused to talk to us about it so wecanunderstand. You haven’t been right since you left the Navy, brother.
“We all know something happened on that mission. Something that you blame yourself for. I know you, man. Youwouldn’t make a careless mistake. What the hell happened? Did you get bad intel? Or trust the wrong person?”
The whole time I’m shaking my head, because I don’t want to have this conversation, which seems to agitate Bo even more.
“Then what the fuck happened?” he demands, placing his hands on his hips, as he glares at me. “You’d been all set to re-enlist. We’d talked about it just hours before you deployed for that mission. The next thing I know, you’re accepting a medical discharge. Why?”
