Claiming Felicity (Ace Security #4)(12)

Closing his fingers around hers, he led her into the other room. He gestured to the couch, and she sat. He followed suit, sitting right next to her. So close their thighs touched. She went to scoot away from him, but he squeezed her hand. “Stay?”

She took a deep breath and nodded.

Resting their hands on his knee, he got right to it.

“When I was nineteen years old, I was a private first class in the Army. I was on patrol in a city in Iraq. Our job was to walk around, get to know the locals, show them that we weren’t any danger to them, earn their trust. I didn’t mind it. The kids were my favorite part. We couldn’t communicate that well with each other, as they didn’t know English, and I didn’t speak their language either, but we communicated with hand gestures and facial expressions. They were innocent and so easily amused. Children here in the States have every electronic gadget imaginable. They’re entertained by television and cartoons. They get Happy Meals and fast food whenever their parents will relent and buy them for them. These kids had nothing. Maybe a ball. Sticks and rocks. But they were as happy as any kids I’ve ever seen. Their faces would light up when they saw us. They’d follow us all over the village.”

Ryder took a deep breath. He’d never told anyone this story before. His handler, Rex, knew what had happened, probably from reading the official report from that day. He’d mentioned it once in passing, but hadn’t asked any questions, and they hadn’t discussed it at all.

Felicity squeezed his hand. She didn’t say a word, but that small nonverbal movement said more than she knew. He needed her compassion to continue.

He didn’t look at her, but went on. “One day we were patrolling as usual, and I noticed a little girl who always greeted us wasn’t there. Zariya was ten. She had beautiful black hair that came down to the middle of her back. It was always a mess, tangled from blowing in the wind. She let me braid it once, after we’d walked through the entire village and had fifteen minutes to kill. It was soft. So soft. It reminded me of my mom’s hair. She taught me to braid, and the time we spent together in the mornings when I braided her hair was something I missed when I left home.” Ryder took a deep breath before continuing. “I asked one of the boys where Zariya was, and he pointed to an alley with a lot of doors. The squad had been down it, but we hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual. Me and my friends went where the boy had pointed, wanting to say hello to the happy little girl. When we approached one of the doors, we heard crying from inside. Not hesitating, we knocked, then entered.”

Ryder stopped. This was harder than he thought it’d be. He didn’t know if he could continue. Didn’t know if he could bare his soul to Felicity like this. He wanted her to trust him, but had second thoughts about telling her this story. Suddenly he didn’t think she’d feel safe around him if she knew what he’d done that day.

“Was it bad?” she asked softly.

“Yeah.” His voice cracked on the word.

“Tell me,” she urged.

Ryder cleared his throat. He’d come this far, he might as well finish it. “We walked in and saw the place was a mess. Trash everywhere, and it stunk. Like the worst body odor you could ever imagine. But the thing that stuck out to me was a pile of black hair on the dirt floor in front of us. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing, but I knew it wasn’t good. We heard whimpering from nearby, and we all moved that way. Two of my friends were in front of me, and they stopped in the doorway. I pushed past them, and it took me a moment to understand what I was seeing.

“It was Zariya. The bastard had shaved her head. Bald. Probably to punish her for something she’d done. He was in bed, on top of her. She was whimpering and crying, but he didn’t even care. My buddies and I were pissed, and one took hold of my arm and tried to pull me out of the room. I remember staring at him as if he was crazy. We couldn’t leave her there. Not like that. Then he pointed to the side of the room. To a white dress. A fucking wedding dress. Zariya’s parents had allowed her to be married to a man at least four times her age. And he was raping her.”

Ryder heard Felicity’s gasp, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t. “I snapped. My buddies said that she was married and we couldn’t interfere with local customs. They were going to let that man continue to hurt her. Night after night. Not caring that she was only a little girl. I didn’t give a shit if that was all right in their culture. Didn’t care that I might start an international incident and hurt relations in that village. I walked right up to that fucker and blew his brains out. I tore him away from Zariya and reached for her. I wanted to comfort her, needed to tell her that everything would be all right, but she freaked. Screamed her head off. Scrambled to get away from me. Curled up into a little ball in the corner of the room and refused to look at me.

“Before that, she’d been following me around for weeks, smiling, holding on to my jacket as we walked around the village. Not once had she ever been scared of me. Not once, Felicity.”

“What happened to her?”

Ryder whipped his head around to look at Felicity. “What?”

“What happened to Zariya?” she asked again.

Ryder sighed and brought a hand up to run it through his hair. “I don’t know. I was dragged back to base and put in isolation when I wouldn’t calm down. Then they shipped me to Germany and back to the States.”