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  “Nope. He’s in Bulgaria. Remember that Bulgarian hooker, Anna? That horny son of a bitch paid her a visit as soon as he got there. He’s been there eighteen hours. We’ve instructed her to keep slipping him those little blue pills until we can get there,” Jasper explained.

  “Holy fuck, that’s hilarious. What do you think will happen first? He has a heart attack or his dick breaks?” I laughed.

  “Don’t much care as long as he’s there when we get there. We do need to hurry; Anna reported in that she only had ten pills left. The limp dick now requires a double dose to get wood.”

  “Good thing we’re wheels up in five. Lenox, glad you took your sweet ass time getting back. Get your shit sorted?” Clark asked, as the rest of the team joined us in the bay.

  Nosy bastard. He loved to poke around in my business. It wasn’t a secret what I did when I took leave, but I still didn’t want to discuss it.

  “Squared up and ready,” I answered.

  “Load up, boys,” Clark yelled.

  Today we were catching a ride with the Air Force. The Galaxy C-5 was already on the tarmac loaded up with the cargo it was taking to the Middle East.

  “Flyin’ first class today, huh, Lenox,” Lands, an Airman from the 22nd Airlift Squadron, commented as he walked by me.

  He was not wrong. The Galaxy was damn near first class as far as our normal transports went. This aircraft had the closest thing to commercial seating you could find on a long-haul troop carrier. Depending on who was taking us where, you either had to layer up so you didn’t freeze your balls off or you were sweating your ass off and the cargo hold smelled like dirty pits.

  “Lands! Long time, brother. I see you added another stripe and a star. Buck Serg, eh? Congratulations,” I noted his recent promotion to E-4 Sergeant.

  “That’s Staff Serg to you, asshole.” Lands laughed as he shook my hand. “Have a good flight, she’s all ready for you. And be safe over there.”

  Lands had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. Officially we were headed to Turkey as back up for a Ranger battalion already on the ground. Unofficially we were going to Bulgaria to assassinate an arms dealer who had just made a deal with an even bigger arms dealer from Albania. That deal could not take place. It was our mission to eliminate Bishop before he made it to Albania.

  “Copy that. Have a good one,” I replied, joining the rest of my team who’d already started boarding.

  I looked around Travis’ airfield one last time and sucked in a cleansing breath, knowing that it would be my last breath of fresh air for a while. Once we completed this mission, it was a crapshoot if we’d come straight back to the states or if I’d be stuck in the sandbox breathing in dirt and scum for months.

  I made my way into the Galaxy and took my seat next to Jasper. He’d given up just as much as I had for his country. We came up through basic, Airborne school, selection, and Ranger school together. He got pulled from selection the same time I did, and once we completed Ranger school we left the regiment and joined the 707.

  We were five teams; four men to a team who worked at the 707 research and development unit. Of course, the “research and development” was bullshit. We were twenty men with a highly-specialized skill set. We didn’t follow normal Army protocol and chain of command; our orders came directly from the President. We did the dirty work the government could deny.

  “Crash code of the day, dirt diver,” Clark said and handed each of us a red file folder.

  I quickly opened mine and scanned the mission-specific information. This should be a straightforward op; confirm the location of Bishop and call in an airstrike.

  “Well fuck me, there will be no fun on this op,” Jasper murmured.

  “Shut up and enjoy the vacation,” I laughed.

  I swear most days I thought Jasper had a death wish. He was the first to volunteer for the most dangerous missions, and once he was there, he was balls out. Not reckless, but fearless. He had nothing to lose. His parents were deceased. He was an only child, no wife, and no family. He was the perfect soldier as far as Command was concerned. His need for action and the high that came from it was unparalleled.

  “This shit isn’t a vacation, it’s boring. Man, anyone can confirm a location,” he complained.

  “Is that so? Confirm the location of a man that the government doesn’t want to acknowledge even exists?” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, yeah. Still fucking boring.”

  When the Galaxy jolted forward and began taxiing, I rested my head on the seat and closed my eyes. Reaching into my shirt, I pushed aside the beaded chain of my dog tags and found the smooth links of my necklace. Pulling it out I fingered the silver tree of life pendant, moving it back and forth on the chain. I never traveled without it. It was the only thing I had left of her.

  I knew what I was giving up when I joined the 707. I thought I fully understood the ramifications of my decision. What I hadn’t planned on was it leaving a hole in my heart so fucking big most days I couldn’t catch my breath. I guess Jasper and I were more alike than I cared to admit. I didn’t have anything to lose either - I’d already lost it all. I also needed the rush of a mission. The high that came from jumping out of planes and killing bad guys. When the high went away, all I was left with were my thoughts and memories.

  Once we were airborne, I tucked the charm back into my shirt and kept my eyes closed. We had a thirteen-hour flight, there would be plenty of time to read the mission brief. I was bone tired and needed to clear my head.

  “Do you have eyes on the package?” Clark's voice crackled in my ear.

  We had Anna’s small house surrounded. Jasper and I peered into her bedroom window to confirm Bishop was still in the house. The rest of the team took up positions as over watch, making sure that we were clear to move around the house freely.

  “Affirmative. Eyes on the prize,” I answered.

  “Christ almighty, his pasty white ass drilling Anna will forever be burned into my brain,” Jasper whispered to me.

  “Mission shift, boys. Take him out,” Clark advised.

  “Please confirm, mission shift?” Jasper asked.

  “Take him out,” Clark repeated.

  A devilish smile tugged the corners of his lips. Fucking A, there was something not right with him.

  “The hooker?” I asked.

  “Friendly,” Clark replied.

  I nodded to Jasper, inaudibly telling him to take the lead. He moved us to the side entrance of the house. Thanks to Anna, the door was unlocked allowing us to slip in undeterred. We entered the bedroom where Bishop was still on top of Anna humping her while she lay under him faking her way through what I would suspect was some really bad sex. It sounded like a bad porno set with all the loud ohs and ahs.

  Jasper didn’t waste any time pulling Bishop off Anna. With one slit to his throat, Bishop lay crumpled on the floor, blood pouring from his wound.

  Anna remained on the bed, fully nude, not even so much as flinching when she saw Jasper kill Bishop.

  “Took you assholes long enough. Do you know how many pills I had to give him to keep his dick hard?” Anna’s English was impeccable.

  “Sorry, sweetheart. We came as quickly as we could,” I laughed.

  “You’re taking him, right? I have another client this evening. I can’t have a dead man in my room. It tends to kill the mood. And you’ll help clean up the blood,” she demanded.

  I don’t know why but the word client made me chuckle. She made it sound like she was a legit executive who was about to have a very important meeting.

  “Did he already pay you?” Jasper asked, ignoring her question.

  “Not enough. Worst fuck I’ve had all year. That man doesn’t know a woman’s pussy from a goat’s ass.” She got up and walked to Bishop on the floor. “Hurry and wrap him up before more blood gets on the floor.”

  Anna walked to her closet and pulled out a tarp and a bag full of cut up rags.

  “Mission complete,” I called in.


  “Roger. Five minutes to go,” Clark returned.

  “Five to go,” I relayed to Jasper.

  He was already rolling Bishop’s body in the tarp. Anna was naked on her knees next to him mopping up the blood with a rag off the worn wood floor.

  “What a shame you don’t have longer. I can do a lot in five minutes, but I suspect a man like you would need longer than that.” She winked at Jasper.

  Anna was a beautiful woman. Her deep rich black hair was long and had a slight wave to it, a striking contrast to her pale, smooth skin. What made Anna stand out among all the other Bulgarian women I had met were her eyes. She didn’t have the normal dark brown eyes, hers were pale green.

  “I don’t know, darlin’, as hot as you are I might blow my load in two minutes,” Jasper flirted back.

  “You’re smooth. I’m sure you have all the ladies eating out of your hand back home. Too bad you don’t need me.” Anna tossed another dirty rag on top of Bishop’s body. Most of the blood had already been cleaned up.

  I checked out the window again keeping watch over Jasper as he readied Bishop for movement.

  “We’re done here.” Jasper rolled Bishop, encasing him in the tarp.

  I took one last look out the window. “We’re on the move,” I radioed Clark.

  “Copy that.”

  “Anna, always a pleasure to see you.” I handed her a wad of bills. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Nice doing business with you. Be well,” she replied, taking the money and leaving the room, not bothering to cover her naked body.

  Jasper and I carried Bishop out the front door where a beat-up cargo van met us on the small street. It would be a bloody miracle if this rust bucket could make it to the extraction point. We tossed Bishop in the back and jumped in, pulling the rear door closed behind us.

  “I swear if that woman wasn’t a hooker I would take her home and marry her,” Jasper joked.

  “She is hot. You know I think she gives 707 members a discount. You should hit her up,” Levi spoke as he maneuvered his way around the potholes in the bumpy dirt road.

  “I wouldn’t fuck that woman with your dick, which is unfortunate because she is sexy as hell,” Jasper chuckled.

  “Good job, boys. We’re gonna drop this scum bag off in Izmir and hit Kosovo. We have new intel on Roman.”

  Shit, this was going to be a long trip. Roman was another arms dealer, only he specialized in surface-to-air missiles. We’d been on the hunt for him for the better part of two years. He needed to be taken out. The worst part about Roman was he was an American. A special forces soldier trained by the 707. A few years ago, he went off the rails and went AWOL. Roman had vanished into thin air. He resurfaced a year later as an information broker. It didn’t take long for him to raise enough capital to start selling weapons.

  We had to outsmart him because we couldn’t out maneuver him. Roman was one of us, he knew our tactics. His betrayal was felt deep around Command. When one of your own turns on you, it made you question everything you thought you knew.

  Chapter 3

  I found comfort in the familiarity of the weathered stone beneath my fingertips. After all these years, even in death, Shane was the only constant in my life. The only person who I felt like the real me around.

  “Ten years. It’s hard to believe you’ve been gone ten years. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday we were hanging out, eating pizza, and complaining about what our families expected of us. But other times it feels like a lifetime ago.”

  I angrily wiped my tears away. I wondered if this day would ever get easier. Would the pain ever lessen? Each and every day over the last ten years, I had regretted never telling Shane my true feelings for him. I was always afraid that if I told him I was in love with him, I would lose the only friend I ever had.

  I was so stupid. Maybe if I had admitted my feelings things would’ve been different. Maybe we could’ve run off together and lived a normal life away from our screwed-up families.

  “I wish I would’ve told you how much I loved you. I wish I had been brave enough back then to take the leap and tell you that it was always you, that there would never be another man for me. I was such a coward.”

  Now look at me, I was thirty years old and the proud owner of divorce papers. The ink was still wet when Lucas told me that he was buying me out of the house because Stella, his new girlfriend, wanted to live in it.

  Fuck him, and fuck the house. It didn’t take long after we were married for Lucas to start cheating on me. He screwed every wannabe starlet that walked into his office. His lame excuse was he had to take other women because I refused to make him a father. How that made any sense whatsoever was beyond me. But there was a stark difference in him after he found out I had an IUD inserted to prevent pregnancy. He refused to use condoms, and I refused to get pregnant.

  After I caught him screwing the star of his latest TV show, I refused to have sex with him at all. That was one month into our marriage. I spent four long years married to a man who disrespected me every day.

  To make matters worse, my dad knew. Hell, my dad saw my husband pick up women from events they attended together. He completely condoned Lucas’ behavior, even went as far as telling me that was what men did when they were lonely and not being taken care of by their wives. Thank God my father never remarried after my mother died. He just tramped around Hollywood taking a new piece of ass whenever he wanted.

  “I bought a new townhouse in Malibu. It is right off PCH. It’s perfect, Shane, you would love it. I have a great view of the beach, and from my balcony, I can see Pepperdine. I left Lucas with all the God-awful highfalutin furniture he’d insisted on and went to Pottery Barn and furnished my new place. I finally have something that is mine.”

  I had only been out of my old house in Hidden Hills for a month, but I was already feeling worlds better than I did when I lived in that lonely mansion. Lucas was all about showing off what we had. Pompous prick. He was pissed I would never give him access to my trust fund. My father had told him that there was fifty million dollars in my trust and urged Lucas to have me invest that money in their new studio. I refused.

  I refused for many reasons, but largely because there was no longer fifty million sitting in a trust fund. Almost all of it was gone.

  A few years back, I had an epiphany sitting here talking to Shane. I took stock in my life and found I came up lacking. I had truly turned into a worthless rich brat. I was so ashamed of who I had become I decided to change my life. I wanted to be someone that Shane would be proud of.

  I took my trust fund money and used it for something good. Something I was proud of. I co-founded the McGrath Carter Center. Shane was my co-founder. After all, it was his idea. One night after we snuck out of some movie premiere after party, Shane was talking about how wasteful Hollywood was. All the parties, all the expensive dresses, the food that goes to waste.

  He was right. It was a disgrace to be so damn wasteful when there were so many people in our local communities who were struggling or had nothing. We talked in-depth about how much better this world would be if people would work together, helping each other. That if Hollywood execs would get their heads out of their asses and donate all the leftover food to homeless shelters it wouldn’t go into the trash.

  “We opened another center in Reseda. The location is perfect, right next to a bus stop. We got a sizable donation a few months back that allowed us to add a dedicated library and after-school program. The homework room is awesome. And the gym is a kid’s paradise. I remember what you told me about people being the happiest when they feel useful and like they are making a difference. We implemented that, too. There is no charge to use the center, but you must volunteer.

  The local Big Brothers Club volunteered to do all of the outside clean-up and maintenance. Shane, the center is fully staffed by all volunteers. Even the director I hired has her own family there cleaning and tutoring every day she works. I think I have found the family I was a
lways looking for. I just wish you were here to see it.”

  I looked around the cemetery. Not much had changed over the last ten years. The trees surrounding the area had grown larger, a few more shrubs and flower beds had been added, but for the most part, it was oddly reassuring that it remained the same.

  After so many years of coming to the same place, you start to recognize the people who come to visit their loved ones on the same day you do. It’s like we shared some weird cosmic connection; the people we loved were taken from this earth on the same day. This was the first year that I had not seen Mr. Vasquez since I had started coming. With a quick check to my left, I saw that there was a new headstone next to his wife’s. He died almost a year ago. I am sure he’s happy to be with his beloved wife. He missed her dearly and would tell me stories about her as we sat in the grass together.

  I glanced to my right and saw a man I had seen many times before. He now had a full beard covering his face, but the same ball cap pulled low and same black dirty work boots. I didn’t see him every year I came, but I saw him a lot. I checked the headstone he sat in front of, and it was a woman’s name. The date on the stone placed her to be around what could be his mother’s age. That was purely a guess, I had never actually seen his face to gauge his age. He was always gone when I was leaving.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you, we expanded on the food pick up. We now have contracts with all major studios to donate any leftover food. That includes parties and craft services from casting, as well. I am so proud of that contract. Do you know how many families we feed nightly with that food? It is distributed to three centers. I hope by next year I’ll have another center to tell you about. Rebecca was talking to me about possibly expanding out of state. That is really expensive, though. I don’t want to do anything that will jeopardize what we have here. Maybe in a few years when my trust fund makes some more money. I keep ten million in there to invest. The centers are fully funded for now.

  “And besides, cheating douchenozzle broke our prenup by fucking all of Hollywood and not being careful about it. He now owes me a mint. I didn’t want to accept the settlement. Only now I am, I want his money put to good use.”