Before Sunrise (7 page)

“
I care for
Phil.”

“
Love, Kennedy. The word
is
love
.”

“
Yeah, I know. I love
him.”

“
So this baby?”

Kennedy stared out the
windows at the gardens. Her stomach soured at the thought of it,
even if it meant a sibling for Mac.
But
he’s my husband
. It was her mother who
pushed for them to marry. Her mother never liked Liam, but she
drooled all over Phil. The only people who had any objection to
their marriage was her kid sister Harper, and Eric Drake, who’d
been the brother Liam needed but never had. Harper and Eric were
the founding members of Liam’s fan club. Even today, Harper could
rarely be civil to Phil. She called him ‘the pretender.’

“
Kennedy?”

“
I’m thinking! I mean, Mac
came early. We almost lost her.”

“
There were circumstances
around Mac coming early. You know that. Go see your doctor, see if
it’s okay.”

“
Wow, you’ve already decided
for me, huh?” Kennedy sat back.

“
Hell, I got the twins and
one on the way. Damn right I want you to be miserable too. We got
to stick together!”

Kennedy laughed. She covered her mouth to
keep the sound under control. When she managed to reduce it to
giggles she nodded her head. “I know it’s just a baby Angie, but I
can’t get my head around it. I’ll decide soon.”

“
Well, has Phil let up on
adopting Mac?”

Kennedy rolled her eyes. “He had better, or
my mother-in-law will get a shotgun after him.”

“
Liam’s mom that pissed,
huh?”

“
Yes, Liam was all she had.
He had a rough childhood and she wasn’t able to protect him much.
But they were closer before he died. Now she feels like she has to
be the reminder to Mac of who Liam was and who she came
from.”

The sadness returned.
Sometimes it was hard for Kennedy to breathe when she thought of
her dead husband, and Sally felt the same. When Kennedy married
Phil, he asked to adopt her daughter. His reasoning? He wanted both
his girls to take on his last name. Kennedy said no of course, but
Phil thought it was because of Liam’s mother. The fool had the
nerve to call her in Chicago and ask for permission. Sally went
nuts. Somehow, she scraped together enough money to fly into town
and had her own confrontation with Kennedy, who’d never seen Sally
more passionate about anything. Kennedy wondered if Liam were
smiling down from heaven to see his mother stand up for him.
Not going to happen. Mackenzie is a Flanagan and
it will remain that way. Hell, my baby keeps Liam’s picture next to
her bed
.

“
Yeah, the twins told me.
Last time they were at your house Mac and the boys got into a
debate over whose dad is the biggest hero. The twins said they won
the argument because their father was alive. The boys said heroes
can’t be killed. I meant to tell you this, girl. I felt awful. Did
she mention it?”

Kennedy frowned. Their lunches were placed
before them. Mackenzie hadn’t mentioned it, but she remembered
finding her crying and fighting with the boys. She didn’t know the
cause. That must have really hurt her little girl. A ball of pain
lodged in Kennedy’s throat.

“
I read them the riot act
good, don’t you worry.”

Kennedy smirked. “Gee, thanks, Angie.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes.
Kennedy bit down on her lip, swallowing. “I guess Phil deserves a
wife and a life free of my pain. So does my baby. Mackenzie would
love a little brother or sister.”

“
You deserve some happiness
too, Kennedy. Having a child will move your family
forward.”

Kennedy smiled as she picked up her fork.
She felt somewhat better, and warmed up to the prospect of a new
future. She decided to take a leap of faith. She would tell Phil
that she would be going off the Pill and moving ahead with their
plans to expand their family. It was time to let go of the ghost
that haunted her, let go of her husband, and accept the choice she
made. Liam would have wanted that for them both.

***

Two Weeks Later

Liam tugged at the drawstring of the thin
pants he wore. A wave of dizziness went through him. He walked
stiffly to the bathroom and snapped on the light. The cramped grey
space was equipped with a toilet, sink, and a showerhead that
pointed directly down to the drain in the middle of the floor. It
was heaven compared to what he’d been forced to endure.

Someone from the supply corps had brought
several brand-new sets of utilities and left them folded on the
desk. The nurse had given him a razor, scissors, and some shaving
cream. The items waited for him on the shelf over the sink. He
didn’t recognize the bearded man who stared back at him from the
mirror. He used the scissors first, wishing for a pair of clippers.
He cut the scruff from his jaw; his hair looked way longer than
regulation in some spots, barely a quarter-inch off his scalp in
others. He wondered if it had fallen out, or if some doctor had
shaved it off. He just kept cutting, dropping clumps of dingy,
tangled hair into the toilet. He did the best to shave and groom
himself. The final result proved to be a huge improvement over what
he’d seen in the mirror half an hour before. He literally shuddered
to think of the way he’d looked when he’d first been brought
aboard.

Staring at his reflection, he felt such
anger and disappointment. He didn’t want her to see him this way.
He still had dark circles under his eyes, and his face had that
sunken, hollow look, like the bums that slept in the doorways on
Madison back home. He’d been holding down solid foods, but it would
take a while for him to get his body mass back. What would Kennedy
think of her broken husband now?

Liam craved his lady. He fought against
unspeakable odds and cruelties to get back to her. He was done
waiting, done debriefing officials from every branch of the
service, and a couple of the covert ones too. He understood who
Alexa and Eric were now.

From what he’d been told, a new
counterterrorism unit had been created shortly after the success of
his mission five years ago. Vasquez now led the team, completely
black ops, with members taken from all branches of the service.
Plans for such a cross-service venture had been proposed years
before, but the politics of command had always gotten in the way.
Those politics vaporized in the hours after 9/11, and changes had
been implemented in record time. Liam’s unit had been redeployed to
Fort Bragg, where they’d been mixed and merged with the Deltas
based there and a few volunteers from the Marine Special Purpose
Force. As usual, the Marines had wanted to go their own way about
things.

The unit had a focused, singular goal:
eradicate the threat of terror wherever it could be found on
foreign soil. Oversight was provided by a joint-services task
force, with representatives from the CIA, the NSA, and the DoD,
each sharing their own flavor of op intel. That wasn’t the biggest
change. This new organizational structure completely bypassed the
Joint Special Operations Command, somehow, and Alexa Sinclair had
not only been promoted to full colonel, but appointed their
tactical liaison to the White House as well.

After hearing the word
‘colonel’, Liam had gone a little fuzzy on the rest of the details.
It wasn’t funny, but he had no choice except to chuckle. Life had a
fucked-up sense of humor. He got tortured for five years and they
got medals and promotions for bravery.
Yep, that’s a fair trade
.

Liam sulked on that for a few days. Soon
afterward, he decided he didn’t give a shit anymore. All he wanted
was his family. He’d get his life back, and when he did, he’d never
let go of his Kennedy again. But they were getting in his way
there, too. They’d impressed upon him the need for secrecy. The
night they’d found Liam, they’d removed the bodies of the two
soldiers and authorized an airstrike right over the spot where he’d
been held. First, they’d tossed a few of the dead combatants,
naked, into the hole. The strategists wanted everyone to assume any
bone fragments left behind had been the captive Americans,
ironically killed by one of their own bombs. The CT strategists
hoped it would buy them enough extra time to track Sarkhir and get
one more shot at him.

They wanted Liam to stay aboard ship for
several more weeks. Well, fuck that. His friends owed him their
lives and their successes. He would find a way to make them use
their power and cut his chains.

He pulled the belt of his pants tight,
tighter than he ever had before in his life, and took a last look
in the mirror. He was fully dressed and standing on his own power
for the first time in months. He wanted to appreciate every step
back to normal, but he still felt naked without his wedding
ring.

He limped out of the
bathroom just as a sharp knock came and the latch to the outer door
released. A very young, red-faced lieutenant looked in and saluted
him. Liam stood there for a moment, clenching his teeth. Though
Liam was much older, the two men were of the same rank. A salute
wasn’t required, and the kid knew that. Liam gave him a half-handed
salute back and glared silently at the gold metal emblem pinned to
his collar.
Naval Intelligence Service.
Kid’s probably not even warfare-qualified. Rides a fucking
desk.

“
Your attendance is
requested in the satellite room, Lieutenant.”

Finally
. He’d been demanding this meeting for more than a week. He
tried not to be too bitter over the repeated delays. He was more
than happy to get it over with. He grabbed a pair of crutches to
aid him. “Lead the way.”

“
Yes, sir!”

The officer held open the metal door for
Liam to step through. He wondered if Alexa would be there. Her
availability had been one of the crappy excuses they’d given him,
the demands on her time, how hard it was for her to come out this
far. From Washington, he assumed. He still didn’t fully understand
her role in all of this. Since his capture, there had been flashes
of people and conversations that led to little clues. For instance,
he felt almost certain Alexa had been at his side the first days
after his rescue, and she’d pulled major rank on more than one
official to get there and stay there. He was so heavily medicated
at the time he couldn’t be sure.

Now he intended to confront them all and get
the answers he needed. Somehow it made him feel alive again. He
managed most of the way with the crutches until he had to climb to
an upper deck. He passed off his crutches to the lieutenant and
grunted as he forced himself to do most of it on his own. At one
time he could have kicked all their asses for sport. Now he’d
become some weakling. Fuck that.

When he emerged at the top
of the ladder, he found several officers who saluted him as he
limped by. A few had obviously heard of his rescue and nodded
appreciatively toward him.
So much for
keeping it a secret
. Liam glanced back over
his shoulder.

“
Where are the men who were
found with me?” he asked.

The officials who flowed in and out of his
room would never disclose what had happened to them. At some point,
Liam had stopped asking, but the kid looked like the type who
needed approval. Maybe he’d want to score a few points.

“
They didn’t make it, sir.”
The officer cleared his throat.

Liam shook his head and sighed. Privates
Jacob Pettyman and Daniel Acevedo had been kids, too. Neither had
even been twenty when they were thrown into confinement with him.
He’d manipulated the situation as best he could, taking most of the
abuse in order to spare them. How could God be so cruel?

His escort delivered him to a large wardroom
somewhere in the heart of flag country. Everyone stood passively
around a black lacquer table, waiting. The center of the table was
aglow with an interactive color large-screen display that
pinpointed the location of all ships and military installments in
the area of operations, as well as all listening posts, both active
and passive.

They were in the middle of
the ocean, Liam figured, studying the chart. He knew they were far
from land, but hadn’t known how far.
Way
too far for a COD flight, goddamnit
. They
had him.

Alexa noticed him first, then Ant, who
nudged Eric. He had to smirk. At one time, they’d looked to him for
leadership, and now he had to salute each one of them. The others
watched him hobble in. The rest of the men in the room he didn’t
know, and didn’t want to know. It pissed him off not to recognize
even one of them. How long had he been gone again?

“
Welcome.” Alexa smiled
brightly at him and he smirked back. She pointed him to a chair in
the center of the long side of the table.

Eric leaned over. He touched his arm as he
sat down. “Liam, are you up for this?”

“
Fuckin’ A. I want this over
with so I can get home.”

Eric nodded, and everyone quietly found
their seats. Liam leaned back in his chair. The exertion to get to
the room had him tired, and even though he supposed the chair would
be considered comfortable, sitting up still hurt.

Alexa introduced the others
present, as well as the men on the secure link who were conferenced
in for the meeting. They gave the usual
your country thanks you
bullshit he
had heard sixty-plus times from every man or woman who’d visited
him since he awoke. Liam sat there, wondering when the hell it
would be his turn. The moment the man in the corner seat paused
between sentences, Liam broke protocol and spoke.