Honor Reclaimed (HORNET #2)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

KEY WEST, FL

Someone was in his house.

Seth dropped his bag just inside the door and the thunk of the duffle hitting tile echoed through the room. A fresh surge of adrenaline jolted him out of the zombie-like daze he’d been functioning in since the training mission ended. The team had made it out of the swamp just as darkness fell and then it had been another hour drive to the hotel in Miami where everyone was staying. He could have gotten a room for the night instead of making the three hour drive home to Key West—but no. He’d wanted to be home, had needed the comfort of his own space.

Except someone was in his house.

How was that possible?

In deference to his constant state of paranoia, he’d bought the best home security equipment on the market. The security panel was lit up green, all systems go, showing no signs of a breach, but Seth knew better than to trust technology over his gut instinct.

He moved silently through the darkened living room, senses heightened, scanning for any sign of an intruder, picking out the familiar shapes of the dining table, couch, chairs, TV, piano…

There.

A shadow blotted out the square of pale light thrown across the floor from the patio doors. Not inside the house, then. Out by the pool.

Seth crouched and found his weapon in his bag, never taking his eyes off the shadow. The weight was familiar, grounding him as he edged across the living room toward the sliding glass doors. The shadow passed by again and he made out the silhouette of a man pacing across the patio.

He lifted his weapon and yanked open the door, setting off the alarm he’d reset upon entering the house. “Get the fuck out of here or I will shoot you.”

The man paused, then slowly lifted his hands, locked his fingers behind his head, and turned around. “I’m unarmed.”

Greer Wilde, his best friend Jude’s oldest brother, met his gaze evenly with bloodshot eyes.

“Holy fuck, Greer.” Exhaling hard, he lowered his weapon. “I thought you had more sense than to sneak into a psychotic man’s house.”

“You’re not any more psychotic than I am,” Greer said, dropping his hands to his sides.

Seth grunted and strode inside to turn off the wailing alarm.

When he returned, Greer was slumped in one of the patio chairs, his face drawn and haggard in the dim light. Seth studied him for a moment, taking in the rumpled clothes and the dark shadows under his eyes. Something was wrong. Greer was usually the picture of spit-and-polished military control, but now he looked like he’d been through hell.

Having lived with PTSD for two years, Seth had spotted the signs of it in Greer at Jude’s wedding a few weeks ago. He’d offered to be the guy’s sounding board should he need to vent—no judgment, no questions asked. Greer had since called him only once after a particularly bad nightmare, but had clammed up as soon as he’d calmed down enough to think straight. Honestly, Seth hadn’t expected to hear from the ex-Army Ranger again after that last call.

Seth motioned him inside and went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. “I doubt you came all the way to Key West to talk about a nightmare.”

“No,” Greer said. “No more nightmares. I’m good now.”

“Bullshit. You look like hell. When was the last time you slept?”

Greer release a long breath and rubbed a hand over his stubble-roughened face. “Going on forty hours now.”

“Jesus Christ.” Seth had been reaching for a set of mugs in the cupboard by the fridge, but stopped short and went for the cell phone in his pocket instead. “That’s it. I’m calling Jude and telling him what’s going on with you. Your brothers will get you the help you need since you’re too stubborn to get it yourself.”

“No. Fuck, don’t do that,” Greer said. “I swear I haven’t had any more nightmares. I’ve just been too busy to sleep.”

“Busy doing what?”

Greer said nothing more for a solid five seconds. Then, with an exhausted curse, he muttered, “You have no idea how many laws I’m breaking right now. I’m here because I need you to put me in touch with Gabe Bristow. I know he’s somewhere in Florida and I need to speak to him. Tonight.”

“Isn’t your brother friends with him? Why not just get his number from?—”

“Because Vaughn’s in the hospital and even if he wasn’t, I couldn’t talk to him about this. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this, but I need HORNET’s help. One of my men is in trouble and the government’s not doing a damn thing to help him. It was a fully deniable op.”

Fully deniable.

A black op.

Seth exhaled slowly. “Do your brothers know you’re still active duty?”

“No, they don’t and they don’t need to.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to be around when they find out.” The shit was really going to hit the fan when Greer’s brothers discovered he was still drawing paychecks from Uncle Sam and Seth sure as hell did not want to get in the middle of that brewing Wilde family feud. “I don’t get it. Why lie to them?”

Greer’s jaw tightened. “Can you put me in touch with Bristow or not?”

“Yeah, I can. Hang on.” He scrolled through his contacts until he found Gabe’s number, then passed the phone over the counter.

Greer punched the number into his own cell and without another word, he left, ghosting across the patio and vaulting over the six foot fence surrounding the backyard.

Seth stared after him.

Damn fence was too easily breached. Why hadn’t he considered that before?

Motion sensors, he decided. He’d top the fence with motion sensors at his first opportunity.

The coffee maker beeped as it finished brewing, reminding him he’d started a pot. He fixed himself a mug heavy on the sugar for that extra jolt of stay-awake. Hell, might as well pour an energy shot in there, too. He sipped, testing the concoction. It kind of tasted like super-sweet berry-flavored coffee sludge, but it worked. He’d rather be a jittery mess than risk closing his eyes.

Yeah, he’d called Greer out on not sleeping. That didn’t mean he had to take his own advice.

The house—a gift from his parents after they bought a new vacation place in the Virgin Islands—was too big. Too empty. His footsteps echoed as he grabbed his laptop from where he’d left it plugged in on the kitchen counter and carried it and his cup out to the patio. He sure as fuck wasn’t going to feel safe inside the house when he knew the backyard was open to attack. He chose one of the poolside loungers and just sat for a moment, breathing.

In the moonless night, the water in his pool was as dark and uninviting as the swamp had been. Somewhere nearby, a guitar strummed out a lively song.

Damn, he missed his cat.

The house was too silent without Uncle Sam’s demanding meows, but he’d given the animal to Jude several months before. At the time, he figured he’d be away from home too often to keep a pet, but now, knowing that his career with HORNET had crashed and burned before it was even off the ground, he wished the feline was still around.

At least then, he’d have someone to talk to.

Seth sipped his overly-sweet coffee and tried to focus on the guitar’s distant melody, but his mind kept circling back to Greer and the trouble he was in. What kind of black op had gone so wrong that Greer needed HORNET’s help? And who was the man that needed rescuing?

But it wasn’t his concern anymore, was it? Because no way would Gabe Bristow keep him around after his latest fuck up.

So he put it out of his mind and fired up his laptop, settling in for his nightly routine of taking other insomniacs to the cleaners playing poker. Countless sleepless nights had morphed the straight-laced man who’d never gambled in his life into a poker shark, and he fell easily into the rhythms of the game.

Time passed.

He lost himself in the cards on the screen until his cell phone rang, startling him into knocking his mug over. The cold dregs of coffee spilled across the table and he swore as he mopped it up with a towel left from his last swim, the closest thing handy.

But, hey, he had to give himself credit for not jumping out of his skin at the unexpected sound.

Progress.

Another ring. He tossed the now wet towel in the outdoor hamper on his way inside, then eyed the phone as it jittered across the kitchen counter. His father used to say nothing good ever came from a phone call after midnight, which was why his curfew growing up had been 11:55 p.m. and not a second later. His father never wanted to get an after-midnight call.

Dad had gotten one, though. An after-midnight call that happened to come in the middle of the day, in the form of a visit by uniformed Marines, telling him his only son was a prisoner of war.

Nope. Seth shut down that thought almost before it completely formed. Not going there. Not thinking of the fear and pain he’d caused. Not thinking of the fear and pain he’d endured. Nope. Nope. Nope. He was past all that now. Progress, remember?

Because of the whole after-midnight thing, he considered ignoring the phone. But he wasn’t his father with children to worry about, and he wasn’t a coward who hid from bad news.

A neurotic, traumatized mess? All right, he’d cop to that.

Coward? No fucking way.

The name on the caller ID sent a fresh jolt of adrenaline through his system. Gabe Bristow.

His thumb hovered over the answer button for a split second before he tapped it. “Hello?”

Shit, he really needed to start talking more often, even if it was just to himself. His voice sounded like he’d swallowed a box of nails and washed it down with a glass of sand.

“Harlan,” Gabe said—no, more like demanded. The tone reminded Seth of a drill sergeant, took him back to the good old days in basic training. Jesus, he’d been such an idealistic, cocky kid back then, with no inkling of how fucked up his life was about to become.

How he wished he could go back.

He sucked in a breath. “Yeah, I’m here.” So this was it, the axe falling on his fledgling career as a private military contractor. Except… why did Gabe wait until almost three a.m. to call? Didn’t make sense unless he was about to get chewed out for giving away Gabe’s private cell phone number.

“I’m sending a helo to you. Get on it and get your ass back to Miami A-SAP.”

Wait. What? This didn’t sound like a firing. “Sir?”

“We have an op.”

Holy shit. They weren’t sending his ass packing? “Uh, thank you, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir,” Gabe said for what had to be the thousandth time during their short acquaintance. “And if you thank anyone, it should be Quinn. He went to bat for you—again. You’re still on probation as far as I’m concerned and I still have doubts about your ability to function in combat, especially now.”

While that wasn’t a ringing endorsement, it was better than he’d expected and he swallowed the urge to thank Gabe again. “Does this have something to do with Greer Wilde?”

“Yeah.” He paused and in that heavy moment of silence, it seemed the world held its breath. Seth sure as hell did. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what was coming next. Gabe wasn’t usually the hesitating type and when he spoke again, his tone was as gentle as Seth had ever heard it. “We’re going to Afghanistan.”

Oh fuck no.

The words plowed into him like a high speed train and the phone nearly fell from his numb fingers. He shook his head even though Gabe couldn’t see him. Probably a good thing Gabe couldn’t see him, because he wasn’t holding it together. A lump the size of a tank swelled in his throat, solid and choking, as a tremble worked down his back, the icy claws of real fear digging into his spine. You can’t fucking ask this of me, he wanted to scream.

Instead, the only sound that came from his throat was a croaked, “Afghanistan?” It was the first time he’d spoken the country’s name aloud in two years and it scraped across his vocal chords.

The thought of returning there, the place that had nearly broken him, filled him with a visceral dread that threatened to swallow him whole. Images flashed through his mind— the dank cell, the searing pain, the endless days of isolation and despair. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the memories to recede back into the dark recesses of his psyche where they belonged.

“Harlan? You still with me?”

Seth closed his eyes and focused on taking one deep breath, then another. He couldn’t let the panic consume him. Not now. “Yeah,” he managed, his voice rough. “I’m here.”

“I know the enormity of what I’m asking you,” Gabe said softly. “And under any other circumstances, I’d be the first to say hell no. But these aren’t normal circumstances and this isn’t a mission I’m willing to refuse. So are you up for this?” he asked after a long stretch of silence. “Tell me right now if you’re not.”

Seth swallowed. He was not broken. He could do this. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be ready.”