Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Had he left his friend behind? He hadn’t meant to. He’d been utterly lost after he’d gotten the news that Harry had died. He hadn’t thought about the fact that Alfi would miss him, too.
Was he always this selfish? Again, not something he tried to achieve, but something a man had to look at and examine as he grew older.
“I don’t think she’s ever forgiven herself.”
“I looked into her after I met her,” Alfi admitted. “I ran a pretty thorough trace. She killed two people in that accident. Do you think anyone gets over that?”
“I think she didn’t mean to do it, and it solves nothing and serves no one at all if she throws her life away.”
“But she’s not. She’s trying to save lives.”
“At the expense of her own,” Brody shot back. “It’s why I walked away. I can say I was trying to spare her all I like, but it was a selfish act because I was in love with her and I couldn’t watch her die. But she gave that up the minute she chose to bring Nate into this world. She can’t not care about herself anymore. She’s his mum. She’s everything to him.”
Silence descended while Alfi added two packets of sugar to his tea. “You can get by without a mum. God knows I did.”
“Nate’s not doing that. Nate’s growing up with two parents, and if I have my way, he’ll have brothers and sisters.”
Alfi huffed. “You want him to go through what you did? Brothers can die. It might be better to teach him to rely on himself.”
Brody shook his head. “Been thinking about that too. I hated how I felt after Harry died, but I wouldn’t take back a single second. I loved my brother. That’s what I was trying to do with Steph. I was trying to protect my own selfish arse.”
“Yeah, you were, and you were doing the same thing when you walked away from me, you arsehole.” He sighed and slumped back in his chair. “And I decided to punish you by keeping Nate a secret and trying to take your girl. Though I do care about her. Hell, man, I started out thinking you deserved not knowing since you wouldn’t even accept her calls and then time moved on and I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Phone call would have worked.” He took a sip, breathing in the smell. P&G. Not the brand he expected to find here in the States, but it was familiar and soothing.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m sorry, Brody. I can’t say more than that. You know I’m a selfish bastard, but I did get her out of there. I didn’t fail you when it came to that.”
“Why didn’t you fly back with her? Or call me?” He was calm, but his anger was simmering. He could understand that he had some culpability, but Alfi had taken it too far. “Anything could have happened to her.”
“I thought it best we split up. I was worried they might have recognized me. I was hoping if they were going to follow, they would come after me.”
He wasn’t sure he believed that, but he wasn’t going to argue. He needed information. “What do you know about them? And how could you have left that poor nurse behind to die?”
Alfi went white and his body stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I’m talking about the nurse. Anya. We sent a couple of drones to get footage of the clinic and it looks like she’s dead.”
“You saw her body?”
“We saw what looked like a shoe in her doorway. Can’t tell much more but the way it’s sitting, it seems like it’s attached to something. Probably a body.”
Alfi shook his head. “Anya was supposed to run. She promised me she could make the machines look like they were working. That fucker wasn’t supposed to be back until morning, but he had a couple of men working the perimeter, keeping the locals out and us in. She can’t be dead. I left her there because she had the keys to a Jeep and she was going to sneak out and get to the village where we’d sent Keniyah. Hell, I was sure Keniyah would have sent the local police by morning. Damn it, she can’t be dead.”
His head fell forward and Brody sighed. Alfi was a bastard, but he did have a heart.
“I’m so sorry. God, I’m sorry,” he said.
Brody got up. They were going to need something far stronger than tea. “Come on, let’s get you back to the house. We’ll settle you in for the day and we’ll talk more.”
And he would wait for Steph to see how his night would go.
* * * *
Steph stared at her former head of security. She’d been a bit surprised to find him sitting in the kitchen of their safe house when Shane had driven her back. Actually, she’d been completely surprised because she’d expected Brody to wait for her, but he hadn’t been in the car that picked her up.