Page 99 of Beautiful Killer

“You made a mistake, brother,” Van said. “Fix it.”

“I’ve blown it,” I said. “It’s too damn late.”

He stared down at his feet and shook his head.

Finally, he looked up at me. “You got on that plane home, brother, but you never came back. You just . . . didn’t. You’re still there, on that roof, watching your men lose their lives.”

I shook my head, desperate for him to stop talking, but I was paralyzed. No words would come.

“But when you were with her,” Van said. “You were coming back to us. Now we’re losing you again, and I’m afraid this time, you won’t make it back. Which is why you can’t give up on her, brother—you can’t.”

I stared at Van, a man who had become my friend when we were punk teenagers, a man who was like a brother to me, who had fought alongside me, and I had nothing. Not one fucking thing to say to him.

“I’m not letting you check out,” he said.

“Van . . .”

“No, I’m done, Zeke,” he fired at me. “You’re not even willing to fight for her? Is that it? How will you feel when you go to visit your kid and there’s some other man at her side, some other guy sharing her bed?”

Those words, Jesus, they were a direct hit. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Shit, you’re your own worst enemy.” He shook his head. “It’s time you fought those demons riding you. Because I’m telling you, you don’t fight for her, you’ll regret it the rest of your life. And I sure as hell won’t stand by and let you self-destruct.”

I started to shake my head.

“Don’t even try and tell me that’s not what you’ve been trying to do. You’ve been running headlong into shit for a while now. Well, brother, you’ve got a kid on the way and he needs his dad. A woman who needs a strong man at her side. They fucking need you, man.” A muscle in his jaw jumped and his eyes locked on mine. “What happened when you were away, you need to stop beating yourself up over it. That situation was extreme, it was messed up, you know it, deep down you know it. You’re not the only man who would have hesitated in that same situation.”

I started for the door. I couldn’t listen to this, couldn’t deal with it.

“You need to stop running, Zeke, you need to face this shit head on,” he said to my back.

I paused at the door, turned to him, forcing the next words past my lips. “I don’t know how.”

“You want Sunny, you want that family you always used to talk about having, you need to fight, that’s how.” Van moved in beside me. “You need to stop running and fucking fight.”

* * *

I still wasn’t sure how I ended up here. After Van had walked out of the gym, I’d left, gotten in my truck, and driven to the airport. I don’t know what it was, what part of what Van said that sunk in. Maybe it wasn’t what he said, but more that I was so damn weak, that I wanted Sunny so damn much, that I was actually considering trying to put aside what I’d done to have her.

I stared at the house across the street, at a house I should have come to when I got home over a year ago. Instead I’d gone to New York, diving headfirst into a new mission, one that, if I was lucky, would’ve gotten me killed as well. I knew how fucked up that was, but I didn’t know how else to deal with what I’d done. Living with it hadn’t been working. Shoving the door open, I climbed out of the car, headed across the street, and knocked on the front door.

My gut churned and sweat slid down my back at just the idea of talking about this, saying it out loud. After I told Van and my father what happened, I never spoke of it again, to anyone.

The door opened and a woman smiled up at me. “Can I help you?”

“Karen?”

“Yes.”

I took a deep breath. “I was a friend of Danny’s. We served together.”

She bit her lower lip, then stepped back, opening the door wider. “You better come in.”

A short time later, I stood in Danny’s kitchen, staring at his widow, after spilling the truth to her. How things went down that day, all of it. She deserved to know, and I had to be the one to tell her. I was waiting for her to tell me what an awful human being I was. To kick me out of her house. To rail at me, cry, scream . . .

She pushed away from the counter where she was leaning and walked up to me, put her hand on my arm, and squeezed. “God, what a choice you were forced to make. I’m so sorry you’ve had to carry that on your shoulders.”

I flinched. “It’s my fault Danny’s dead,” I said, because obviously, she wasn’t getting it. She should be angry, distraught, not . . . this. Not accepting.