In Plain Sight by Hope Anika

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The trailer was still paintedbright teal. The steps had been replaced; they were wooden now, instead of the diamond-plated aluminum they’d once been. And the curtains were gone, replaced by narrow white blinds, which were firmly closed against the early morning sunlight. But other than that…it could have been then.

Then.

Some people dreamed about distant places; Max dreamed about distant times. Then. When he’d loved, and been loved; when the woman inside of this trailer would have welcomed him with open arms.

Before he’d burned everything he loved to the ground and walked defiantly through the ash.

He’d been so arrogant; so idiotically confident. Convinced he would be better, have more, be more. And yet all of it had made him less. It’d turned him into someone he didn’t even recognize.

Someone he didn’t like.

Reclaiming himself had been the easy part; like putting on an old, worn-in, comfy pair of boots. Accepting who he was and making peace with it, no matter his mistakes and regrets. But mitigating the damage he’d caused—that was another matter entirely.

He’d killed men. Maimed them; blown them up. And those acts didn’t come without a price—in this life, or likely the next. But in his darkest moments, it was the look on Fiona’s face when he’d walked away from her that haunted him most. The scent of the freshly turned dirt covering their parents’ cheap, narrow graves; the raucous caw of the crows overhead. It hadn’t been just Fi he abandoned that day, but the entirety of his existence. His sweet, but vague and weak mother, who’d died when he was ten; his neglectful, abusive bastard of a father, who’d followed seven years later. The nomadic life he’d never asked for; the little sister he didn’t want.

Thea.

For a long time, he hadn’t let himself think about her. She’d just lived within him, a deep, dark, precious secret he’d kept hidden, even from himself. The memories had been too painful.

Shameful.

Which was far worse than a little pain. He’d held himself to the highest of standards as a soldier, and it wasn’t until then that he’d realized how irretrievably he’d failed those who’d relied on him. Those he’d loved. His abandonment had been a willful betrayal, an abdication of not only his responsibilities but of every single relationship in his life.

They had every right to hate his guts. There was nothing he could do about that truth; it just was. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to make amends. He didn’t deserve their forgiveness, but he was not above asking for it anyway.

Fi was trying. And maybe Rye and Selena had helped with that, but that was okay. Max would take what he could get, and he would run with it.

But Thea was another matter entirely.

What he’d done to her…it shamed and disgusted him to even contemplate it. He wasn’t at all certain it was something he could ever make up for. Some things were unforgivable, and what he’d done might be one of them.

He didn’t know. But he was going to find out.

Because he couldn’t let her go; it simply wasn’t in him. Not now. Not ever.

Even if she hated him.

He could work with hate. And the fury that simmered deep within her, flickering behind that icy shield she wielded meant something. Something he could use. Every dirty trick; every underhanded tactic. Nothing was above him, not when it came to her.

He wouldn’t be covert; he’d come at her head-on, guns blazing. She was a woman who dealt in truths few could handle: she would not appreciate subterfuge. And he knew she remembered how it had been.

What they had been.

It was always between them; a living, vibrant, thing neither of them could deny. He could feel it deep inside, that slow, steady, unwavering flame. And he could see it in her: in the stiffness of her body when he got too close, in the delicate, wild flutter of her pulse when she looked at him. The flush of her cheeks; the cold burn of her gaze.

She wanted to tear a strip a mile wide off of him and beat him with it.

The idea excited the hell out of him.

His timing wasn’t great; he had a lot of shit to wade through before he could seriously pursue her. But the moment of his opening salvo had arrived, and he wasn’t passing it by.

He’d already dealt with everything else. Linus, who’d called this morning to tell him Lyssa was in a coma, but still hanging on, about Moss’s decapitated body, which had washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan, and that Aristotle Dolan was calling for Max’s head on a pike. Max had thanked the kid and cut him loose; he’d done more than enough. But Linus had surprised him.

This isn’t over, and even if you are kind of a douche, I want to see it through.

Which Max wasn’t sure was a good idea, but he appreciated the offer.

He’d left Selena and Ares devouring breakfast at the motel, quietly watched over by a couple of plain-clothed agents who owed him a favor. Just in case. He wasn’t worried that Selena was still a target, but since he was, it paid to be careful.

Then he’d called his attorney and asked him to file a petition for temporary guardianship of Selena under seal—which should help keep things on the down-low—and at least for right now, he was still a decorated federal agent with a boatload of military medals. He was hoping that would be enough to get the judge to sign off on it. And if not, well, there were a handful of people he could call. It would get done.

Fi and Rye had been conspicuously absent from breakfast, and when Max had knocked on Fi’s motel room door, she hadn’t answered. Which would have worried him—if he hadn’t called Rye and gotten a short, annoyed response.

We’re fine. Talk later.

Which meant he’d interrupted something. Not that he wanted to know what.

So he’d taken advantage of their distraction to rent another box truck, and another RV for Fiona to live in, and had them both delivered to the lot; then he’d had the windshield of her pick-up replaced.

She might have kept her chin up while dealing with the destruction of her entire world, but Max had seen the devastation in her. That she hadn’t turned right around and blamed him—because it was his fault, all of it—had astounded him. And humbled him. He owed her a hell of a lot, more than he could ever repay. So getting her back on track was the least he could do.

Mick, of course, had been pissed. It’d been a long time since Max had seen him, and there’d been a time they’d been good friends, but he hadn’t been welcoming or friendly that morning when they’d crossed paths.

You walk away from them again, and I’ll break every bone in your body,

Max would like to see him try, but he appreciated that while he’d left, Mick had stayed, and he had the right to protect his family. To Mick, Fi and Thea were family. So Max had only nodded sharply and kept walking.

Eating crow.

Again. Hell, he’d eaten so damn much of it lately, he probably had feathers sticking out of his mouth.

The door to the trailer he stood before suddenly opened, and Thea appeared. Clad in a pair of filmy green pants and a delicate silk tank, her hair a messy pile on her head; large golden hoops swung gently in her ears. Her scent wafted to him, spicy ginger and earthy sage, and her pale, winter’s gaze was cold enough to freeze stone.

Max wanted to touch her so badly he could taste it.

She wasn’t ready. But the fire he could see smoldering deep within her gave him hope.

Hope.Something he’d once mocked and shunned, now something upon which he was going to bet everything.

“We need to talk,” he said.

The End

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For a sneak peek at Hope Anika’s novel, Hail Mary, keep reading…