Any Way You Want It (Brand Clan #2)(66)

Zandra waited, her heart pounding with dread.

He swallowed tightly. “Shaughnessy had shot and killed Jaffar’s family members. All of them, including the youngest child. A four-year-old.”

“Oh, my God,” Zandra breathed in shock.

Remy’s nostrils flared, his eyes burning with raw emotion. “I lost it. I stormed over to Shaughnessy and cracked him on the jaw with the butt of my gun. When I asked him what the f*ck had happened, he said that Jaffar’s family had been whispering to one another, plotting to kill him. He said the oldest son rushed him with a knife, and he was just defending himself.” Remy snorted bitterly. “The kid was fourteen years old. Fourteen. I’d seen Shaughnessy dismantle a three-hundred-pound, AK-47–toting tango without breaking a f*cking sweat, and here he wanted me to believe he’d felt threatened by a skinny teenager wielding a butter knife. I was furious. We started yelling at each other, and then I heard a scream from the doorway. An anguished, bloodcurdling scream I will never forget for as long as I live.

“Jaffar had overpowered the man guarding him and run down the hall. When he saw his family members sprawled across the floor...his pregnant wife...his children...all the blood... Jesus,” Remy whispered hoarsely, closing his eyes with a hard shudder.

Zandra was horror-stricken. She couldn’t speak as nausea clawed at her throat.

After several moments, Remy inhaled a shaky breath and opened his eyes. “When Jaffar saw what Shaughnessy had done to his family, he tried to kill him. But as he pointed the gun at Shaughnessy, I couldn’t let him do it. So I shot him without thinking twice. When he fell to the floor, I went over to check his pulse. Before he died, he looked into my eyes and he...he condemned all of our souls to hell. I was the only one who spoke Arabic, so no one else understood what he’d said. But I did, and it’s haunted me ever since.”

“Oh, my God, Remy.” Zandra touched his thigh, feeling his muscles tighten beneath her hand. “I’m so sorry. What an unspeakable tragedy.”

His jaw hardened, grief and regret stamped into his features. “It was.”

Zandra rubbed his knee, trying to soothe him. “What happened after that night?”

He grimaced darkly. “The operation was a colossal clusterf*ck. We’d not only lost our high-value target, we’d lost one of our own. Heads had to roll.” His lips twisted bitterly. “I was a convenient sacrificial lamb.”

Zandra was stunned and outraged at the injustice of it. “So that’s why you were discharged.”

He nodded tightly. “Shaughnessy wanted to cover his hide, so he accused me of misconduct and insubordination. Our commanding officer intervened to ensure that I received an honorable discharge.”

Zandra was livid. “And what about Shaughnessy? He slaughtered eight innocent people that night, including an unborn child. Why wasn’t an investigation launched? Why weren’t charges brought against him?”

“The Pentagon didn’t want the public to know,” Remy admitted grimly.

Zandra snorted. “How f*cking typical.”

Remy pushed out a heavy breath. “You have to understand something. There are some classified missions that aren’t disclosed to the public for years. And then there are covert operations that will never see the light of day. The Fallujah op fell into the latter category.”

“So what happened to Shaughnessy? He’s the one who went rogue and botched the mission. He’s the reason you were forced to kill Jaffar. Did he at least get discharged?”

“No,” Remy answered in a low, embittered voice. “As I explained before, Shaughnessy hailed from a long line of decorated naval officers. No one wanted to tarnish that legacy.”

Zandra frowned, growing angrier by the second. “But he was obviously a loose cannon.”

“That’s true. He was. But he hadn’t always been.” A dark shadow fell over Remy’s face. “Four months before the Fallujah operation, he’d lost his best friend in Afghanistan. It devastated him. That night at Jaffar’s house, he looked into the faces of Jaffar’s family members, and all he could see were the insurgents who’d killed his childhood friend. It was too much for him, and he snapped.”

“Dear God,” Zandra murmured, shaking her head at the senselessness of the carnage. One tragedy begat another tragedy, and innocent lives were destroyed. When did it ever end?

“Shaughnessy wasn’t discharged,” Remy continued, “but he was reassigned out of the platoon to a desk job.” He paused, his eyes darkening. “Four days ago, he shot and killed himself.”

Zandra gasped, staring at Remy. “Oh, my God. Why?”

He pressed his lips into a grim line. “Knowing the type of man he was, my guess is he couldn’t go on living with the guilt of what he’d done that night.”

Zandra felt moisture pricking her eyes. This story couldn’t get any more tragic.

Remy shook his head slowly at her, his eyes haunted. “I’ve killed more men than you will ever know. I’ve killed with guns, with bombs, with improvised weapons. I’ve killed with my bare hands, and I’ve watched men take their last breath as I shoved my knife through their heart. Fighting to win is what I was trained to do, and I did it well. But no life I’ve taken has ever affected me the way taking Jaffar’s life did. Watching him fall next to the body of his pregnant wife...surrounded by their dead chil—” His voice hitched, and he dropped his head.