Execution Style (6 page)

He shrugged. “They have a fishing bait that’s used for catfishing named Catfish Charlie. I didn’t think a restaurant could be very appealing, seeing as it’s named after that shit.”

I smiled. “It’s really good. Don’t let the name fool you.”

He grunted. “Only for you, Mercy Me, will I risk my health to eat
in a restaurant that’s named after something that uses ground up fish guts and blood to make their product.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and looked down at my menu, even though I already knew what I wanted.

The table in front of me shifted, and I looked up to see Brock, one of the men that worked for me, sitting down opposite us.

He wasn’t alone, either. Porter and Maine were with him.

Porter took a seat next to Brock, and Maine pulled up a chair from another table without asking the occupants.

They gave him a look, but didn’t say a word. Mainly because Maine was about two inches shy of six and a half feet and built like a scary motherfucker.

That’s what Porter and Brock said, at least.

“Gentlemen,” Miller greeted the men.

They didn’t spare him a glance, instead focusing all of their attention on me.

Porter, Brock, and Maine had been with Second Chances for a little over seven months now.

They were all from different branches of the military, and had all suffered life altering injuries that took them out of their military careers abruptly.

Brock was the first to speak. “We’ve been waiting for you to come in.”

I smiled slightly.

“I wasn’t ready,” I admitted.

He nodded, his head turning down to look at the table as if he really wanted to say something, but was telling himself he shouldn’t.

And I was thankful. I didn’t really want to start that here and now. Not yet, anyway.

There was going to be a time and a place to bring that up, but I wouldn’t be doing it after I just had a very exhausting first session with my therapist, and braving the public for the first time since the incident.

Brock looked up, and I was struck speechless by the look in his eyes.

Brock had become a great friend when he started on at Second Chances.

He was tall with brown hair, muscular,
and tanned. He was normal in every way.

Or at least with all of his clothes on.

Brock was missing a leg.

He’d been shot in the leg over a year ago, and had caught an infection in his bone.

In order to keep the infection from spreading, they’d had to amputate his leg from the knee down.

He walked perfectly well, though.

You’d never know he was even missing a leg at all unless he wanted you to know.

A version of the same thing had happened to Porter.

Except for Porter had an above the knee amputation.

Porter was quiet, and I didn’t know much of his backstory.

Only that he’d been released from the Marines on medical disability, and the life he’d thought he was going back to was no longer there anymore.

At least, that’d been what he told me.

Porter was the strong, silent type.

He had blonde messy hair, beautiful skin, and blazing green eyes that reminded me of a wolf’s.

“Maddie says hi,” Maine said softly.

Maddie was Maine’s fiancé.

They’d met shortly after Maine had moved here.

“Tell her I said ‘hi’ back, and that I’d like to do lunch sometime next week to see when she wants me to go try on bridesmaid dresses,” I said softly.

Maine was sweet.

By far the most well behaved of the group, he was the one who tried to keep the others in line.

He was on the shorter side, around five foot eight. He had black shaggy hair, and looked to have some Chinese ancestry that gave him an oriental hint to his features.

He reminded me of Bruce Lee.

Maine had severe PTSD, and struggled with it on a daily basis.

He’d just started being able to go out in public, but loud noises still scared the shit out of him and sent him into a fog of memories.

Which was made more than apparent in the next few seconds when the doors to the kitchen banged open.

The waitress who’d taken our order was in the process of going in with a large tray of dirty dishes, and the inevitable happened.

One second the dishes danced precariously on the edge of the tray, and the next they crashed loudly to the ground, causing Maine to freeze.

He didn’t remain frozen for long.

The next second he was spinning around and crouched down, hands covering his ears as he took in the restaurant with sightless eyes.

“Shit,” Porter hissed, standing up.

“Don’t touch him,” I ordered them all. “Brock, call Maddie. She’s at work and not far away.”

Maddie was a sales representative at the local Dixie
Star Boutique down the road. She owned the store, and hopefully had a few of her
underlings there so she could come up here.

I’d found out that it took Maine a very long time to come out of his episodes. The longest one I’d witnessed, to date, was over an hour long, and the only one able to break him out of it was Maddie.

Miller stood to the side, staring at the man, waiting for him to go crazy.

But he also had a sympathetic look on his face, one that told of a dark understanding.

“You okay?” I asked him.

He turned his eyes to me, those gorgeous blue eyes, and shook his head. “Yeah, fine.”

Ten long minutes later, Maddie came running around the side of the building, and rushed in through the front door.

She approached Maine slowly, eyes haunted as she walked up to him slowly.

“Maine,” she called from a few feet away. “Baby, guess what.”

Maine turned his head, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her presence.

So there we sat, waiting on pins and needles for him to come out of his fog.

Something he did long minutes later when Maddie whispered something in his ear.

“You’re shitting me,” he rasped.

She shook her head, hugging him around the neck. “Nope. Found out this
morning.”

“You’re gonna give me a baby?” He whispered fiercely.

She nodded, tears running down her cheeks as she threw herself into his arms.

He caught her easily, and whooped loudly. “I’m gonna be a daddy!”

Brock and Porter were grinning ear to ear, as was Miller.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t.

My mind was on my own life.
My own little
could be.

That just brought another possibility up. One I’d been studiously ignoring since the moment I’d refused the morning after pill.

A pill that was against everything that I was, against everything I’d learned from the moment I was old enough to go to church.

A pill that would’ve kept me from feeling like I was right this very second.

I could be a mom.

To a baby that wasn’t created out of love, like it should be, but out of hate.

A baby that was made by a man that had raped me.

Though shall not kill-
that was what I was thinking when I’d refused that little pill.

All of a sudden, all the things that I’d been ignoring crashed into me.

I stumbled back, but I didn’t fall.

Why? Because Miller was there to catch me.

Brothers are good for two things. Drinking your beer and watching your back.

-Life Lesson

Miller

One week later

“Wow, I’m surprised you graced us with your presence,” James drawled.

James was the resident sniper for the SWAT team, and a really good guy…most of the time. Right now he just pissed me off.

I was in a bad mood. Probably overthinking the last thing Mercy had asked me to do as I walked out last night. To her.
For her.

Something that I thought about all night long, and kept thinking about since the moment I woke up from what little sleep I was able to get.

“Fuck off,” I said, lacing up my boots.

So I’d been spending a lot of time with Mercy. Big fucking whoop. He spent a lot of time with his own wife and kids, yet you didn’t see me giving him shit about it.

“Somebody’s grouchy this morning. Who pissed on your bran muffin?” Foster drawled as he practically fell into the seat beside me.

He looked tired. Which I guess was normal for a man that stayed out so late that he was home
after
the streetlights went
off
for the morning.

He did have a nice smile on his face, though.

“Pissed in your Corn Flakes,” I corrected him.

“Whatever,” he muttered as he started yanking his clothes out of his locker and shrugging into them.

“Did you really wear no shirt or shoes up here?” Luke, the team captain, asked as he walked into the room already dressed.

“Sho’ nuff’,” Foster confirmed.

Luke just shook his head and turned his gaze on me.

“How’s our girl doin’?” He asked curiously.

I smiled. Mercy had become quite the popular girl among the SWAT team.

She’d practically been everywhere that I had for the past week, and she’d come to be a part of the team.

Well, not the
team
, because I sure as fuck would never let that happen, but she’d become an add-on to me.

Where I went, she went, and vice versa…when we were off, that was.

Her parents had just returned last night from their Caribbean cruise, so I assumed that’d slack off, which made me unexplainably sad.

We’d literally spent every waking moment that we weren’t working together, and it’d kind of suck if her time with me was stolen away.

Yes, call me selfish, but I was really taking a liking to having her around.

“What the hell are we doing here so early? What the
fuck
is wrong with nine in the morning instead of six?” Bennett, another member of the SWAT team, grumbled as he walked in the door.

“The problem with that is that we need team hours, and that can’t be done by ten if we start at nine. Not to mention the place we’re going to has to open late to let us have the place to ourselves,” Luke snapped.

“What the hell is your problem?” Downy asked as he followed closely behind Bennett.

Downy was our hostage negotiator, and damn good at his job. Oh, he was good at the SWAT part of it, too, but not like he was at negotiating.

The man was a natural at what he did, and if he could talk the situation down instead of us having to use force to get inside, then that was a good thing in my book.

I didn’t want to put my life on the line if I didn’t
have
to.

“Where are we going, anyway?” John asked from his position in the corner of the room. “I left my nice, cozy bed with my sleepy, soft wife in it for the first Saturday I’ve had off in a month to be here. It better be good.”

John was our computer expert. He participated in all the drills, and kept up his part of the training, but he didn’t participate in the SWAT operations unless he was needed, instead staying in the truck to work his mojo magic with his computer.

He was also newly married. As in, last week newly married.

Which had surprised not just us, but the entire department. Mainly because he’d married a young rookie cop that’d been out of the academy for less than a
month.

She was cute, though, and they were happy.
Who was I to say anything to the contrary?

“You’ll see. Get in the truck, boys,” Luke said cryptically.

We arrived at Extreme Paintball less than thirty minutes later, and every one of us had a grin on our face.

“Fuck yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” Foster said as he got out of the truck first.

“This counts as team time?” Bennett grinned, hopping out of the truck and walking towards the front door.

The place was massive, and all indoor.

I’d heard about the place, but had never stepped foot inside.

There hadn’t been enough time.

The first month I’d gotten stateside, I’d applied at a few locations that had SWAT teams, but, in the end, had been recruited by Luke to become a part of Kilgore SWAT team.

Once I’d attended the academy, I’d immediately started the
normal every day work of a patrol officer in the Kilgore area. Then had gone through training.

From there, I’d had a lot of busy things to do, such as getting a house, fixing up the house, taking care of the property, and spending time with my family.

A family that I’d neglected in the eight years I’d been a Navy SEAL.

No to mention that Foster got out only two weeks after I had, deciding with me that it was time. Especially after how the last mission had ended.

Which was horribly, but that wasn’t something I should be thinking about right now. Not when we were about to go into a paintball place and play for fun. My mind didn’t need to go to those dark places again.

There was a time and a place for that, and there needed to be whiskey. Lots and lots of fucking whiskey.

Something that they didn’t allow if the sign on the door was any indication.

Michael’s hand came down hard on my back, snapping me out of my thoughts like a cold hand clutching the beating heart from my chest.

I reacted on instinct, going down low and sweeping my leg out.

However, he must’ve been ready for my reaction because he jumped up and out, missing my sweeping foot, and then the follow-up uppercut with practiced ease.

“Fuck,” I hissed once I realized what I was doing. “What the fuck, man?”

Michael shrugged. “Sorry, you were standing there looking at the sign like you were lost in thought. Wherever you were wasn’t a good place for you to be right now.”

I shrugged and nodded.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

Michael replied with, “Anytime.”

Michael was yet another member of the nine man SWAT team.

He was dubbed ‘Saint Michael’ before Foster or I had arrived, but I didn’t see much saintly behavior coming from him. In fact, I’d seen him with more ladies lately than the entirety of the police department combined.