Accidental Shield (Marriage Mistake #6)(97)

“What happened?” I ask softly, hoping I can coax him to let things out. Let them go.

His gaze goes across the room, out the doors to the sea.

“It was a kidnapping, a woman and her daughter. We’d tracked them all the way to Bali, but the bastards there were better armed, better manned than our intel suggested. They hit our boat with some kind of improvised explosive and sank it before we hit the shore. I got Cash to safety, along with a couple other guys, but the others...”

His thick sigh tells the full tragedy.

My heart breaks a little then. I wrap my arms around him tighter, just listening to the steady, rapid beat of his heart. “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “It gets worse. I was captured while looking for my men. They did the usual shit, knocked me around, stuff I’d learned to handle since BUD/S school. They used a drill on my back, used it to peel away the skin, trying to make me talk, tell them who’d hired us. It almost fucking killed me.”

My stomach clenches. My eyes sting at the pain he must have endured. “But you didn’t talk,” I whisper, already knowing he didn’t.

“No. They had me in the same room as the woman and her daughter, though, so she could watch her rescuer die. I came to while they were telling me they’d kill her and the kid, all because they were family of this man who’d double-crossed them. They took my weapons, but I found a chair and used it on the man with the gun. I tried. Before I could do more, everything went crazy. More minions rushed into the room at the same time my men came crashing through the windows. I threw myself over the woman and her daughter, tried to protect them from the gunfire, but...”

My heart jumps up in my throat. “But?”

He sits up and flips his legs over the edge of the bed.

The scars on his back seem larger to me now, knowing how they got there, and the gruesome pain he’d endured. They almost glow like soft bony discs in the moonlight.

I lay a hand on his shoulder. “Flint, you did everything you could. You were—”

He shakes his head like it’s heavier than the moon. “We extracted her daughter, brought her home safely, but they’d already abused the woman. She’d taken a direct hit to her abdomen in the crossfire. Cash fucking tried, but...she died on our way home.”

Okay.

I’m crying.

I can’t imagine what he’s gone through, but I sense how much this weighs on him, dragging down his soul. “It wasn’t your fault! Just like you always tell me. Bad people doing horrible things doesn’t mean you should take the fall for their evil. You tried.”

He shakes his head again, his final answer.

I lay my hand on his back, over the scars.

“Yes, tried, Flint,” I tell him again.

I wish there was some magic combination of words to help him.

“Not hard enough. We should’ve been able to bring her home alive. That little girl lost a mother, and they got away,” he growls. “They got to live to savage more innocents.”

Scooting closer, I rise up on my knees and massage the muscles in his neck and shoulders. They’re like giant knots. “And I should’ve been able to do something on that boat.”

He twists to look at me, frowning. “No, you—”

“It’s the same thing. I was there. I should’ve been able to do something.”

“Hardly, Val. Difference is, I’m a trained professional and—”

“And I’m just a spoiled rich girl?” I’m not trying to argue with him.

I just want him to see the similarities. His gaze lasers through me.

“Look, you keep telling me none of this is my fault,” I say. “If you’re right about that, then you have to know what happened to her wasn’t yours. I’m sure you told the other men who were with you that. It wasn’t their fault. You’re too good a man not to.”

He looks at me, then shakes his head one more time and stands up.

I don’t want to push him too hard. It’s something he has to see for himself. Just like me.

Honestly, from what he’s just told me, I can see things differently in my own situation. I don’t know why exactly, but I know it’s the truth.

It’s not my fault.

I’m still going to do something about it, just like he did with her, but I’m not going to beat myself up.

And if I have anything else to say about it, neither will he.





*



We wake up late the next day, past eleven o’clock.

I hear the shower hissing and smile.

While he’s in the bathroom, I collect our clothes. I lay his on the bed and get dressed before walking out to the kitchen.

Since Flint made such a scrumptious dinner last night, I’d like to return the favor.

I’ve never had the opportunity—no, that’s not right.

I’ve had the opportunity to learn how to cook, I just never took it because we had a chef.

Since living here, I’ve learned a few things. So I dive into fixing sandwiches, grabbing everything from the fridge.

They’re piled high with meat and fancy cheeses, plus a selection of fresh fruit on two plates, when he comes into the kitchen.

I’m nervous. I don’t know exactly what to say. Remaining silent, I stay planted.