The Mercenary's Daughter Read online

  She shrugged and nodded, her mouth twisting into a sympathetic smile.

  I swallowed, choking back the memory. It seemed to follow me no matter where I went.

  “I...shot a guy in the foot,” I answered, keeping the whole truth locked up inside me. “A Captain, actually.”

  Sasha cocked her head. “Right. Now I need the whole story.”

  Didn’t everybody? But what business was it of anyone’s what those men did to me? They were so careful not to rip clothes or leave marks. And with two against one there wasn’t much I could do. Two ranking officers’ word against mine. I was lucky one was stupid enough to leave his gun within reach. He was lucky all I shot was his foot.

  “Being an enlisted girl is, like, no problem at all, ninety nine percent of the time. But there’s always that one percent, you know? We were on a special forces training patrol and got separated from the rest of our squad. The two guys I was with came onto me, and when I said no, they got...rough. So I got rougher.”

  I didn’t know why I told her. Maybe because she was a stranger who wouldn’t be devastated by the truth, but it felt good to say it out loud. The relief of admitting it to another person felt like sharing the burden and proved it wasn’t just something I’d imagined. What happened to me was wrong, and it wasn’t my fault. But the humiliation of that frightening, fragile moment still ached like a fresh wound.

  “Oh my god, that’s horrible.” Sasha froze with the salad bowl in her hands. “It’s not right, you should—”

  “It was my word against theirs,” I interrupted. I threw the diced potatoes into a large skillet on the stovetop. “And since one was a decorated Captain, and with the military having all their issues with sexual assaults...it was easier for them to kick me out than admit what really happened.”

  “Does Harry know?”

  I winced. “Not exactly.” I’d thought about telling him, but it wouldn’t change anything. “It’s just easier...for both of us this way. I’d rather him think it’s ‘typical screw-up Tara’ than upset him with the images of me being assaulted. Being a screw-up is something I can fix, but the truth will never stop torturing him.”

  Sasha’s shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, kinda ruined my whole career path,” I said, trying not to sink back into the memory. “I guess now I’ll have to become an assassin or something. I don’t know.” I flashed a playful smile at Sasha and lit the burner. “Not sure yet.”

  WE ATE DINNER QUIETLY, the four of us studying our steaks as silence stifled the room. I glanced at Mitch, who drank from a tall glass with some sort of green gooey shake inside, but his expression remained cold and distant. Even Dad and Sasha wouldn’t look up from their plates.

  “So, Sasha, you and my dad do the same thing?” I finally asked, deciding enough was enough.

  Sasha dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “Me? No, I’m just a rep. Harry designs the slides, I run around and get manufacturers to buy them.”

  “Slides for like, dishwashing machines and stuff, right?”

  “Exactly, dishwashers, mostly.” Sasha smoothed her napkin back over her lap. “But some industrial items too.”

  Dad turned to me. “Speaking of work, how’d that job interview with Vince go?”

  I scratched my head. “Um...I don’t think that’s gonna work out. He’s actually cutting back, not hiring,” I answered, spearing a seasoned potato. “But there’s an installation job I heard about. An alarm company.”

  Mitch laughed a little too loudly. “Hey, do what you know.”

  “Mitch—”

  I waved Dad off. “It’s okay. If he doesn’t get it out, we’ll never get past it.”

  “Oh, we’ve been past it,” Mitch muttered. “In fact, we’ve been past it for four years now.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, knowing what he was getting at, and immediately my defenses went up. I wasn’t Mom.

  “Mitch, I joined the Marines,” I snapped, unable to hold back. “I didn’t take off.”

  Mitch dropped his fork on the table, and looked me in the eyes. “Call it whatever you want, but you couldn’t stay out of jail, and then when you had no other choice, you bailed.” He caught himself and turned to Sasha, then to Harry. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Sasha said with an empathetic smile.

  “I thought I could deal with this, but...” Mitch grabbed his glass of green goo, headed out the sliding glass doors and disappeared into the backyard.

  I leaned back in my dining chair, a little shocked by how deep-set his anger seemed to be. He’d always had a short fuse, but he wasn’t a grudge holder. Usually a few jokes would lighten his mood and we’d be over it.

  I laughed uncomfortably. “So, that went well.”

  It didn’t take me long to go after him. I stepped into the backyard, past a ring of shrubs, and made my way up to the nearly completed office Dad had mentioned. The only thing left to do was some finish work and a little painting.

  Eventually I found Mitch on a plastic lounge chair by our small kidney-shaped pool. I knew he heard me coming, but he didn’t turn. Instead, he took another sip of his green drink.

  “What do you want?” His deflated tone broke my heart a little. I hadn’t realized he’d been so upset about my leaving.

  I plopped down on the empty lounge chair beside him and looked up at the night sky. A low-hung sliver of moon sat patiently behind gray clouds, as hazy as the heart of an ice cube.

  “So, you get your acceptance letter yet?”

  “Spare me. I’m not in the mood for small talk and you’re horrible at it anyway.”

  I exhaled and nodded. After a few moments, I pulled out a thin-pressed silver necklace. There was a medallion at the end, a picture of a matronly woman with a halo, staring down at a child. Saint Anne. The patron saint of families and children. I rubbed my thumb against the smooth back, the way I’d done so many times in Fallujah. No matter how bad things got, it always reminded me that somewhere out there I had my family, and if I ever made it back, they’d be there.

  I held it toward Mitch. “Still have yours?”

  “No. Why would I? It didn’t work.”

  I stared off across the yard, up over a long row of palm trees, their tops clumped like a dragon’s back. Leaning forward, my boots bruised footprints into the grass, and I slowly slipped the necklace back under my shirt. “Look, I know—”

  Mitch shot to his feet. “You don’t know anything,” he said, flinging the words like claps of thunder.

  My head hung in defeat. “Sit down and talk to me, okay?”

  Instant anger swept across his face. “No, you don’t get to control this situation.”

  “I’m not trying to.”

  “You always do. You do whatever you want, whenever you want. You always have. So, don’t pretend you give a crap about this family.”

  “I do.”

  “Bullshit,” Mitch yelled.

  “Mitch, come on. I did what I had to do.” My words felt empty in the silence, like he was beyond my reach. “What did you expect? That we’d be pen pals?”

  “I expected you to get your freaking life together and be here. For me. For Dad. You just drove your life into the ground and used the military to get out of it all. And don’t act like you joined because you believe in this country or whatever. Like you’re some sorta hero.”

  “I’m not saying I—”

  “And no, we didn’t need to be pen pals, but how about a phone call? Something.”

  I shot up to my feet and stepped toward him. “You think I didn’t try? Every time I sat down to call I felt like I was saying goodbye. I couldn’t get that deep. I couldn’t do it, okay? Have you even thought, for a second, how I felt? I watched friends die. There were times I didn’t think I’d make it. Isn’t that payment enough for all the dumb shit I did?”

  Mitch stared at the dark grass at his feet. “It’s always about you. No one else matters because you’ve got it worse.”
<
br />   I exhaled a sigh. Maybe he was right. In pushing him away to protect myself, I’d made him relive the worst part of our childhood. “Would it help if I said I was sorry?”

  He shrugged.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, really meaning it.

  He shook his head, and I could see all the hurt I felt when Mom left in the way he looked at me. “I’ll get over it.”

  As he turned to go back inside, I watched him walk away, wishing I could redo the last four years.

  “Thanks for not making this weird,” I yelled after him, wincing at the sound of the sliding glass door slamming shut.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MITCH, DAD AND I WALKED Sasha to the door. The drama of the night still permeated as Sasha gave me a hug goodbye. I could feel it in the stiff way she held her shoulders. When we separated, Sasha and Dad’s cell phones rang at the exact same time. They gave each other a vague conspiratorial glance, before muting their ringers.

  “Must be work. I’ll see Sasha out,” Dad said, as they both quickly left the house.

  I moved to the window, opening the blinds a hair to see them both on their phones. What kind of an appliance design company had emergencies after 8 p.m.? The two of them were engaged in animated conversations, and I squinted, wishing I could hear what they were saying, but eventually gave up and closed the blinds.

  I slumped down onto the couch, waiting for Dad to come back and explain. Mitch flipped on the TV. Details of the Prague embassy attack were all over the news. It had happened days after my discharge.

  A new kind of weapon was involved. It wasn’t a typical bombing. There was no outward explosion, but rather some kind of implosion. The news camera flashed to a helicopter view. Overhead, a scorched patch of earth stretched on for entire city blocks.

  This was big. I hadn’t heard from Tibbens or BT, two of my Marine buddies, since I’d left. I wondered what repercussions it had on them. They’d finished training. Maybe they were there.

  For a good five minutes, Mitch and I watched in silence.

  “Can you believe this?” I asked. “The buildings are just...gone. I—”

  Mitch switched the channel without answering, finally settling on a show about how the universe was created, and cranked up the volume.

  I let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. While some things had changed, one thing hadn’t, he still knew how to piss me off. I pressed my lips together, trying to avoid another blow out. Thankfully, Dad came back through the front door.

  “So...that was the office,” he said, clearing his throat. There was a dark brown envelope under his arm. “There’s an emergency at our Beijing plant. They made this drawer slide 1/4 inch, instead of 1/2...Never mind, point is, I’ve got to visit the plant and get things back on track.”

  I stood, my mind swimming with suspicion. “Wait. You’re leaving?”

  “I’m afraid so. Tonight, in fact, just for a few days. I need to put out a few fires and then I can head back.”

  What he was saying didn’t make senses. Nobody flew out in the middle of the night to fix dishwasher slides. Before I could interrogate him further, Mitch looked up from his show.

  “Where’s she staying?” he asked.

  Dad hesitated, as if suddenly remembering the conversation we’d had earlier. I waited to see what he’d say.

  “Here. If that’s okay with you,” he answered.

  “It’s not my house,” Mitch said, turning back to the TV.

  Dad cocked an eyebrow at me, and I flashed him a cheesy smile in response, hoping I didn’t have to go searching for a free couch this late.

  “All right then. You two, try not to kill each other.”

  AS DAD FINISHED PACKING, I stepped into his room, lingering by the doorway. His bag was meticulously organized, everything rolled and folded and separated into different sections. Much like him, everything was pristine and in perfect order.

  “Do you need a lift to the airport?” I asked, hopeful he’d take the bait. The whole Beijing story seemed made up. If I could catch him in his lie, maybe he’d tell me what was really going on. “I could drive your car and drop you off.”

  “No, I’ve got a ride. Thanks.”

  “Okay, come on,” I said, unable to hold back. “Tell me the truth. You think I really believe you’re flying out in the middle of the night for a dishwasher emergency?”

  He zipped up the small suitcase, and stared at it for a moment. “Tara. Do you think I’d really leave if I didn’t have to?”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t answer my question. Are you trying to track down Mom or something? Why won’t you tell me?”

  He stopped and stepped closer to me, putting a hand on each of my shoulders. “Honey.” He looked into my eyes with a sad downturn of his lips. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but I promise, this is work. It’s 8 a.m. over there. The plant just opened.”

  I pressed my lips together, feeling guilty for doubting him. Maybe the military had skewed my view of reality, turning me into a one of those paranoid veterans most people thought were crazy.

  “I’ll be back before you can say Tallahassee.” He turned away to grab his bag, letting it go. “Oh, and about your brother. He’ll get over it. Just try and take it easy on the kid.”

  “I will,” I said mechanically, still lost in thought.

  “I guess what I’m getting at is...he tends to bottle everything up. Try to let the steam out a little at a time so he doesn’t explode. Know what I’m saying?”

  I nodded, but as Dad started to head away, I couldn’t ignore the nagging shard of guilt in my heart. We hadn’t really had the chance to talk. Not one on one. “I know I’ve made things difficult,” I blurted out.

  Dad turned. “What?” he asked, thrown off by my words.

  “I just don’t know...how to fix my mistakes,” I admitted. It had been so long since I’d opened up to him, I felt myself freezing up. I made fists of my hands and my nails dug into my palms. “I wish I could—”

  “Listen to me.” He stepped closer again and lifted my chin with his knuckle, looking me in the eyes. “I’ll always love you. And I know Mitch loves you, too.”

  Something about being home made me feel so lost again. I didn’t want him to leave.

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  “Just be there. That’s all.”

  “Right,” I said. Although I wasn’t quite sure being here was enough. Mitch wasn’t exactly happy I was staying. “Do you have to go? Isn’t there someone else who can handle this one?”

  “Hey, when I get back, I’ll take some time off and we’ll log in some major father-daughter time, okay? I’m willing to make an effort if you are.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine. I’ll be back in a few days.” He kissed me on the forehead and pulled me in for a one-armed hug.

  “Okay,” I said, forcing a smile. “Well, have a good flight. And be careful, okay?”

  As he disappeared down the hallway, I rubbed my face with both hands. I was looking forward to being the better daughter, to spending time with Dad and proving to him I could manage without the military. Now I was just stuck with Mitch, whose life’s mission was to poke me with a stick until I exploded.

  Cue the sarcastic eye-roll—this should be fun.

  THAT NIGHT MY DREAMS were warped with details of the Prague attack and the ghosts of friends I’d lost in Fallujah.

  As I drifted off to sleep, I found myself watching a short man with dark skin, darker hair and a full beard through a peephole in an adjacent hotel room. He dropped a surprisingly slender missile launcher into a fiberglass carrying tube, then slipped the bungee-cord strap of the tube over his shoulder and headed for the door.

  “He’s making his move,” a deep and distant voice crackled into my earpiece.

  I glanced at the Glock in my hand, realizing I was the special agent in charge of neutralizing the threat.

  “I’m on it,” I answered back.

/>   Emerging on the top floor of a luxury resort, I spotted the man charging to the elevator. Beads of sweat ran down his back as he hazarded a glance over the railing, down into the atrium.

  The suites were set in a circle and framed the lobby, which highlighted an enormous aquarium, five stories below, that held a hundred thousand gallons of sea water and two hundred different species of fish. The man jerked back as the elevator announced its arrival with a dainty ding. He lurched inside. The doors slapped shut behind him.

  I barreled forward in a dead sprint, racked the chamber of my handgun and leveled it toward the elevator, but I was too late.

  My earpiece crackled again. “Tell me you have eyes on the target.”

  I slid against the railing, catching sight of the dark-haired man riding the glass elevator down to the lobby, and answered into my tiny collar microphone. “Not for long.”

  The voice in my ear was desperate. “I’ve got no one else in proximity.”

  “Understood,” I answered. With a quick swing of my leg, I stepped over the railing.

  I sized up the aquarium below. This was an atrocious option, but the only one left. I ceased all thought, gritted my teeth and jumped. My stomach left me as I dropped the five stories and struck the serene water, the weight of my body crashing into the floor of the tank with a hard slam.

  The impact was the equivalent of being hit by a car, and for a moment I blacked out, but the cold water jerked me back into consciousness. I stirred, looked around. The lip of the aquarium was thirty feet up. I could swim for it, but it would eat more time. Instead, I jammed my gun against the tank and fired. The enormous glass wall transformed into a beautiful spider web, then disintegrated. Glass detonated outward, vomiting thousands of gallons of water into the lobby.

  Hotel patrons screamed and scattered as I rolled out onto the floor along with hundreds of squirming fish. As I scrambled to my feet and burst outside, I spotted the dark-haired man heading for the fire escape. Pushing past the searing pain in my leg, I clenched my jaw, and made a final limping sprint toward the target. But as I reached the staircase, the man disappeared onto the roof of the building and out of sight.