The Marine (Black Hawke Security #3)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

AIDAN

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I pull into the parking garage of the corporation I’m meeting with and slide the Porsche into a visitor’s spot.

I lean back in the seat and let out a long breath.

I need a moment.

Like a whole moment. Just to think. To pull in oxygen and get my head around what’s happening.

Briar is back.

In my life. In my home. In my fucking bed.

We should’ve talked last night. I don’t know what happened to make her run into my arms—although I did cast my eyes over her body for damage and found none.

I know I’m blindly letting this continue at the risk of my heart. This time I’m not going to walk away. I’m fighting for her. There’s no way I’m letting her stay married to Kael.

I don’t trust him.

Call it instinct or years of training.

I should have fought for her ten years ago and she never would have married him. But I was young and innocent and extremely concerned about how the situation was going to impact me joining the Marine Corps.

It almost did.

But once the shitstorm had passed and her father’s autopsy came back showing he’d had a heart attack, and that there was no proof me punching him could have caused it, Briar finally agreed to see me.

“We’ve told Mrs. Sutton that the state is not pressing charges. There is no case here.” The police officially informed us.

It was enough for us to move on—in my mind—and I arranged to meet Briar at a park we often visited.

I thought I was getting her back. I wasn’t guilty. I wasn’t going to be charged. The end, thank god. I was fucking angry with Mrs. Sutton for using me as a scapegoat instead of facing her shit. And for successfully tearing Briar and me apart.

But I loved Briar. I had to put us back together again. Despite everything.

What I’d learned since that fateful night was that she’d been a victim of abuse her whole life. Her mother hadn’t tried to stop it, instead teaching Briar how to lie and cover for her father’s aggression. And that she owed her mother.

Fucking bullshit.

Every message from Briar had echoed her mother’s words. You hit my father, Aidan. He’s now dead. I’m grieving. I’m confused.

I don’t know what to think.

I just can’t see you.

She’d been told what to think, unknowingly following her mom’s instructions.

It’s hard to break through to victims of abuse who aren’t empowered to think or speak up for themselves. This is what creates that fucking endless cycle.

But they do have a choice, even if they can’t see it, and that day I’d planned to confront Briar and give her the opportunity to break the cycle, break away from her mother’s control—different from her father’s, but it’s still control—and be with me.

She’d need to make hard decisions and take action.

I knew I was going to ask her that day to defy her mother and all she’d been led to believe. To step into the unknown with me. It was going to take faith, courage, and strength.

She could have leaned on me for as long as she needed.

Briar was my priority.

Nothing worth it is ever easy in life, but if someone is abusing you—mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually—you leave that fucking place.

You step into the dark void and face the fear. Life will always guide you if you’ll listen.

Faith.

Whatever you believe in. God, the universe, fuck, even just in yourself. It is always better than the place you are being harmed.

Day by day.

Step by step.

Choice by choice.

I was going to hold her hand while she healed and found herself becoming whole.

What the hell else was I going to do? Stand back and let her mother brainwash her further?

No.

This was the woman I loved.

I couldn’t change what happened that night with her father, and I would do it again. It wasn’t in me to walk away when an innocent person was being harmed.

Especially Briar.

If I’d woken up and learned he’d taken her last breath, then yeah, I probably would have killed the fucking cunt.

Not fucking sorry.

So I headed to the park. And everything changed in an instant for me. I knew I couldn’t take another step as I watched her smiling and laughing with some guy, playing with his puppy.

It was like a damn romance setting.

She was happy.

He wasn’t me.

There was no baggage or association with her dead father. Her mother’s constant screaming accusations wouldn’t be a brick wall to their relationship.

As my heart shattered into tiny pieces, I stood in under the big oak trees and watched him take my girl.

Watched myself, like I was having an out-of-body experience, stand there and be the most unselfish version of myself I’ve ever been.

I gave her a chance.

Part of me thought we’d still end up together that day. It was just a matter of time. She’d call me or I’d call her.

But we never did.

I walked away, and every day I question whether it was the biggest mistake of my life. Or hers. When I saw the bruise on her neck last week and discovered she had married an abusive man, it confirmed to me it was.

Fuck.

The cycle fucking continued.

My lawyers’ words from that time come rushing to the front of my mind. “We know you’re innocent Aidan, but I’ve seen things turn on a dime. You don’t want her mother to find a loophole and a judge who might be looking for some limelight and to put you behind bars.”

I shiver.

Not going to lie, I was fucking worried. So, after deciding to give Briar a chance without the heaviness of me in her life, I stopped contacting her.

And I moved on with my life.

Unfortunately, that night continued to have ramifications for me.

Briar’s father had served in the military at one point and his death featured in the media. They’d run a story and my face. It wasn’t a huge story but those in the forces paid attention to their own.

I know this more than ever now.

Gareth Sutton wasn’t known for his domestic violence pattern because Briar’s mother had never let her report it. Nor had she done so herself. So he was known as a brave soldier...blah, fucking blah.

He wasn’t.

He was a weak man that hurt women.

When it was made known that no charges were to be filed, the media was silent.

Of course they fucking were. Assholes.

So fast forward a few months to my interview at the Marine Corps, and the recruitment person knew who I was.

Hardest hour of my life.

Equal only to watching the love fade from Briar’s eyes the morning I walked in and found her father dead on the floor.

It worked out okay. I am now a decorated Marine but Christ, it was scary. My dreams faded before my very eyes as the guy interrogated me, and I’d lost my girl.

Dark fucking days.

I run my hand over my face and glance in the rearview mirror. I barely slept last night despite hours of aerobic and erotic sex. My cock is throbbing from overuse, but it’s my brain that’s tired.

Am I making a mistake?

She’s broken. She’s wounded. She will need to heal and trust and learn what it feels like to be loved by a man who won’t hurt her.

It might be because of what happened between us, but I became a desktop shrink, reading up on abuse and what it does to people, in my spare time.

Victims associate pain with love.

They are not always comfortable being truly loved.

It’s like building a muscle.

You need to do it mindfully and be conscious of it every day.

I don’t even know if Briar is aware of this or wants it. For all I know, she might sabotage us if we got together.

Then there’s her fucking mother. And my parents, who were just as furious about the situation.

I’m leaping ahead.

It’s what I do.

I was ready to propose to Briar on our third damn date.

Combing my fingers through my hair, I climb out of the vehicle and head up the elevator to my meeting. For the first time in my life, I can’t wait for the workday to be over and to get home.

To have Briar back in my arms.

And work out a way to keep her there and for us to be together. Because I have a feeling she wants to run.

I’m not letting her.

I have a lot of questions, like why the fuck is her husband coming to the wedding?

Why did she run into my arms last night and not his? Not complaining, but I need to understand what the fuck is going on in her sexy little head.

I don’t want to see her and her husband together after what we shared last night. After knowing he’s hurt her.

She needs to uninvite the prick.

The elevator pings open, and I walk across the lobby to the front desk.

“Mr. Black.” The beautiful young receptionist who always flirts greets me as she stands and leads me toward the large boardroom. “Can I get you a coffee?”

“Extra large this morning, please, Karrisa.”

She winks at me, and I hesitate for a moment. I’m a good-looking man. Built, powerful, successful, and handsome.

There are a million women who would be easier to be with than Briar.

But she’s the one I want.