Raid (Unfinished Hero #3)(61)

“You feel that squeeze, babe, and you can still breathe. If you actually knew, you wouldn’t be able to live with that shit. You wouldn’t be able to sleep. Your mind would go over it and over it, and since you weren’t there, you’d make shit up that would torture you, but I promise you, none of it would be as bad as it actually was.”

“I believe you,” I retorted. “What you don’t understand since you won’t let me talk about it is that I’d rather live with that torture, the pain of which I would eventually be able to control, than let you hold onto that pain without even a little release so you can learn to live with it.”

He went silent but the air in the room got heavy.

I ignored that and declared, “You need to leave.”

“Hanna—”

“Leave!” I shrieked, losing it, hands straight down at my sides in fists.

Then I was going backwards, tripping over my feet, and I would have gone down if Raiden’s arm wasn’t around my waist.

Then I couldn’t go down because my back was flat to the wall and Raiden’s front was pressed to me.

Not this again.

I couldn’t help it. It freaked me out when he did this so I started panting.

“You know why we do that shit?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t even know what shit he was referring to, but that wasn’t the only reason I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer because he was scaring the pants off me.

He didn’t need me to answer.

He kept going.

“It’s not for God, babe. And it’s not for country.”

My chest pressed repeatedly against his with each breath.

Raiden went on.

“It’s for pretty girls with tanned legs that go up to her goddamned throat who ride asinine bikes and who’ll drop to their hands and knees, crawl to you and take your cock, moaning against it, making you so f**kin’ crazy you think your dick’s gonna explode in her mouth.”

Oh God.

“Raid—”

“You might think that’s jacked, but it’s not. It’s the goddamned f**kin’ truth. Whether you got that in your bed before you go or hope to find it when you get back, that’s why you do it. You do it for her. You do it to keep her safe. You planted kids inside her, or you hope to; you do it for them. You get home in one piece, she’s your reward.” His body pressed into mine and his face, partly shadowed, came to within an inch of mine. “You’re my reward, Hanna.”

My reward.

Oh.

My.

God.

Raiden wasn’t done.

“I didn’t know it. When I was over there doin’ what I had to do, I didn’t have any f**kin’ clue. I didn’t know until I saw you laughin’ with Paul Moyer. Jumpin’ up and down with Bodhi, all excited about shiny ribbons on your goddamned bike. So into me you could barely talk when you ran into me. Sittin’ outside on your goddamned f**kin’ porch swing of all f**kin’ things, lookin’ right out of a f**kin’ movie. So cute. Christ, no joke, it hurts even to look at you and believe you’re real. So f**kin’ sweet, I remembered there’s a God and He actually likes me. You go over there, far f**kin’ away, you see shit, you do shit, you get through it knowin’ that’s home. That girl in the porch swing, knittin’ a goddamned afghan and drinkin’ wine, carefree because you sweat and bleed so that’s what she can be.”

Listening to his words, the tears didn’t bite the backs of my eyes.

They spilled over in streams.

“Sweetheart—” I whispered brokenly.

“And you know what gets me?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “What gets me now is the guys who bled out in the sand and they didn’t have that. They died never understanding. They died not gettin’ even a taste of their reward. They thought they were protecting home and country, but they didn’t even know what home was. I feel for the women who lost their men in that sand, Hanna, it guts me. But their men died havin’ that. Knowin’ why they died. Knowin’ exactly what home means and knowin’ it’s worth it. Those guys who didn’t have it, they died without a f**kin’ clue. And every day since I clapped eyes on you, finally understanding, it f**kin’ destroys me.”

His words destroying me, I wrapped my hands around the sides of his neck and held on. “Raid, sweetheart, please—”

He talked right over me.

“So I’m not leavin’, Hanna. I was a dick and I hurt you and I cannot promise it won’t happen again, so I won’t. And you are not wrong. This shit burns in me, what happened, what I saw, what I did. But most of all who I lost. Every one of those guys deserves to have their reward sittin’ in a porch swing or however that shit comes about. When I say those men were good men, there isn’t a word in the f**kin’ dictionary that describes how good those men were. And there are only four of us left who know exactly what that means. They died and I’m here and I found my reward and I’m not letting it go. Because if they were alive and they knew I let something that important slip through my fingers, they’d be pissed at me. And if they can sacrifice everything so you can have your porch swing and I can come home and have everything they lost, you can f**kin’ learn how to take the heat and give it to me.”