Chapter 22: : Chapter 22

This wasn’t happening. I simply refused to believe that any of this was real. But those were my letters on the table, along with the pictures and notes the kids had sent to Chaos.

Beckett.

I looked again, just to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind. Nope. Just my heart.

“How? Why? You told me he was dead!” The words flew out without any pause for him to explain. Maybe it was because I honestly didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want my tiny little glass bubble of contentment to shatter.

“I never said that. I told you that knowing what happened to Ryan—to me—was only going to make you hurt worse than you already did.” His hands gripped the back of the chair. Lucky for him, having something to hold on to when I was in free fall.

“How? When you’re alive!” I shouted. “How could you let me think you were dead? Why would you do that to me? Is this all some kind of joke? God, the things you knew about me when you showed up…why, Beckett?”

Sensing the tension, Havoc got up, but it wasn’t Beckett she sat next to, it was me.

“It isn’t a joke—never was. I didn’t tell you because I knew once you figured out who I was, what had happened, you would throw me out. Deservedly so. And when you inevitably did, I wouldn’t be able to help you. I wouldn’t be able to do the one thing Ryan asked of me, which was to take care of you.”

“My brother. All of this was for my brother? Did you sleep with me for him, too? Just to keep me close? Make me fall for you?” How much of us was a lie?

“No. I fell in love with you way before Ryan died.”

“Don’t.” I backed up, needing distance and air. Why was there no air? My chest hurt so badly that the simple act of breathing took concentration.

“It’s true.”

“It’s not. Because if you’d loved me then, you never would have let me believe you were dead. You wouldn’t have left me alone at the worst time in my life, and then shown up a few months later as someone else. You lied to me!”

“By omission, yes, I did. I’m so sorry, Ella. I never wanted to hurt you.” He looked convincingly sincere, but how could he be when he’d been lying to me for eleven months?

“I mourned you. I cried, Beckett. Those letters were special to me, you were special to me. Why would you do that?”

He stood there silent and stoic, and my disbelief and shock transformed into something darker and more painful than I’d ever imagined.

“Tell me why!”

“Because I’m the one who got Ryan killed!” His roar was guttural and raw, as if the admission had been ripped from him unwillingly. The silence that followed was louder than either of our voices had been.

Havoc abandoned me, taking her place at his side. Havoc and Chaos. How very perfect they were for each other.

“I don’t understand,” I finally managed to say.

Beckett bent slightly, rubbing Havoc’s head in a way I’d seen him do hundreds of times. It wasn’t for her, but to soothe him. She was his working dog and his therapy dog all in one.

“Do you remember when I told you that I killed a child?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t likely to forget something like that.

“It was on the twenty-seventh of December. That intel didn’t pan out, and I lost it. You tell yourself that you’re the good guy. You’re there to stop the terrorists, to give the civilians back the country they deserve, that we’re keeping our country safe. But seeing that little girl die at my hand…it broke something in me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, about what I’d done, or what I could have done differently.” He rubbed his hands over his face but pulled it together.

My stupid heart swayed toward him, despite everything he’d done. I’d seen firsthand what those nightmares did to him. The rest of him might be a lie, but I knew this was true.

“The next night, new intel came in, and we had orders. Half of the squad was tasked to go, me included, but the thought of putting my hand on my weapon literally made me vomit. I knew I was a danger not only to myself and the mission but to my brothers. I went to Donahue and pulled myself off the line. I know that sounds simple, but it’s not. It’s admitting to your brothers that you don’t belong with them—that you’re broken. Donahue agreed and said I needed a few days of downtime to get my head straight.”

“That’s understandable,” I said softly.

“Don’t do that. Don’t pity me. Because when I pulled myself off the line, there was an empty slot, and Ryan took it.”

I breathed through the pain like I’d learned to when Mom and Dad died. All I’d wanted since those men showed up at the door was my brother back, but I would have settled for knowing what happened to him. Now that door was cracked open to the truth, and I was torn between longing to know and the clawing need to slam it shut and continue on in ignorance.

“He took your place.” Just saying the words sent a torrent of emotion coursing through me. Pride that Ryan had stepped up. Anger that he’d put himself in harm’s way one time too many. Gratitude that Beckett had lived. But the sadness overwhelmed it all. I missed my brother.

“He took my place.” Beckett’s jaw flexed as he drew a shaky breath. “During the mission, he was separated from the rest of the squad. They acquired the target, but Ryan was gone. Chatter indicated capture.”

My eyes burned with the familiar sting of tears. Keeping them closed, I brought a memory of Ryan to mind, laughing with the kids by the lake, skipping rocks. Giving up on teaching them finesse and just going for the splash contest. Alive. Healthy. Whole. I gripped that mental picture so tight I could almost feel the water on my skin. Then I opened my eyes. “Tell me the rest.”

He shook his head as his fists clenched. “You don’t want to know the rest.”

“You lost the right to tell me what you think I need. Now finish it.” This was like Maisie’s mega-chemo, right? Blast out everything in one powerful, excruciating procedure, and then rebuild.

“God, Ella.” He looked up at the ceiling and then down at my letters before dragging his gaze back to mine. “He was tortured. It took us three days to find him. When they told me he was missing, I pulled myself together, and Havoc and I went hunting. Radio chatter, sources…they all came up blank after that first night. I even searched the internet, thinking if they’d killed him, they would have posted it online.” He hissed. “Sorry, that didn’t need to be said.”

“It all needs to be said.”

He nodded. “Okay. We finally got some intel off a group of kids, goat herders a little ways outside the town. We rode out, but by the time we got there, the compound was empty. Havoc…she found Ryan about fifty yards away.”

“He was dead,” I guessed.

“Yes.” His face contorted, his eyes darting from side to side, and I knew he was lost to the memory. “Yes, he was dead.”

“Tell me.”

“No, it won’t help you sleep, Ella. Trust me, it’s the stuff of nightmares. The stuff of my nightmares.”

Did I really want to know? Would it help in any way? Would I regret passing up this one chance I had? “Give me the basics.” After this, I might never see Beckett again, and no one else in that unit was going to tell me anything.

“Basics? There was nothing basic about it.” His expression shifted every few seconds in the set of his mouth, the puckering of his forehead, the tension in his jaw. “We found him stripped of his uniform—down to his boxers and tee. They’d…worked him over something awful.”

The first tear escaped, streaking my cheek with fresh, ugly grief.

“Ella…” The anguished whisper was nothing like I’d ever heard from Beckett.

“Go on.” I blinked, sending another stream of wetness down my face without bothering to wipe it away. If Ryan had endured all of that, then I could cry for him without the social niceties of clean cheeks. “They wouldn’t let me see him. They said the remains weren’t suitable for viewing.”

“He’d been shot in the back of the head, and that kind of wound—”

“Executed.”

“Yes. That’s our best guess. They did it in a hurry when they heard us coming, and…left him as they escaped into the hills.”

I nodded, the motion sending wetness onto my shirt. “What next?”

He pulled out the chair and collapsed into it, deflated, with his hands over his face.

I should have felt guilty for putting him through this—making him tell me. But even after what he’d put me through with his lies, all I felt was an unexplainable connection to the man I loved, who had been there and recovered my brother. In a strange, horrible way, that pain connected us in a bond I was both terrified and desperate to sever.

“Please, Beckett.”

His hands fell listlessly to his lap as he slouched back in the chair. When he looked at me, misery was etched in every line of his face and deadened eyes.

“He was gone, but warm, and I flipped him over, thinking I could start CPR, but I couldn’t. There wasn’t…” He shook his head. “I can’t. I just can’t.” His eyes shifted like he was pushing fast forward in his mind. “The helo came, and we evac’ed him. I took his dog tag—I’d known he’d wanted you to have it—and sat with him all night before the plane came, and then Jensen brought him home to you. I was deemed too valuable to the mission to be given leave—especially now that our objective had changed to Ryan’s killers.”

“Did you find them? I don’t know why that seems important; it’s not like there’s really any justice in war.”

“Yes. We did. And do. Not. Ask.” His eyes turned hard and dangerous, and I saw him again—the man who was capable of compartmentalizing everything. I saw the storm in his eyes, the way his fists balled. This was Chaos.

And at one time, I’d had true, deep feelings for him.

“Did you get the other letters? The ones I sent after?” I needed to know. They’d never been returned. Those letters had been testaments to my pain. Had he read them and simply turned away?

“Yes. But I couldn’t bring myself to read them. Couldn’t make myself lift a pen and tell you what happened, not that I was even allowed to. I’d fallen for you, this incredible woman I’d never even met. I’d never felt love before, not in that way, and all I wanted to do was protect you.”

“By ghosting me? By making me think you’d died alongside my brother?”

“By not doing anything that would bring an ounce more of pain into your life. I break everything and everyone, Ella. That’s why they call me Chaos. It was given to me long before the military, and once I came to your brother’s defense in a bar fight and the nickname came to light, it stuck there, too. Rightfully so. I bring destruction everywhere I go. I hadn’t even met you yet, and I’d already cost you Ryan. The last surviving member of your immediate family died because I couldn’t get my shit together long enough to do my mission. I am the reason he’s dead. Did you want to keep writing to the man who got your brother killed? Should I have lied to you then, instead? You don’t give second chances when it comes to your family, remember? Even if I told you the truth, and you somehow forgave me, then keeping up with our letters, knowing I had caused his death, and that I might be the next notification you got? I couldn’t do it. You deserved to cauterize that wound and move on.”

“Move on?” I paced back and forth along the end of the table, my energy suddenly too much to contain standing. “My daughter had just been diagnosed with cancer, my brother was dead, and I had no one. Ryan left me because he had to. You chose to.”

“It was far better for you to think I died than to know the man you’d been so kind to befriend was responsible for Ryan’s death.”

“Go to hell.” I turned and headed toward the door, only to stop before I made it out of the great room. “When did you decide to come here? To carry on the lie?”

“Donahue gave me Ryan’s letter right before I was due to get out. He keeps all of our last letters. I had already chosen to stay in—there was nothing else for me. But I read the letter, and I knew I had to come. Even if it shredded my soul to be this close to you and never tell you who I was, or that I loved you, I had to come. I was the reason he was dead. I couldn’t very well deny my best friend the only thing he ever asked of me.”

“So you decided to lie.” He’d invaded my life, my heart, every molecule of my existence under false pretense. “Knowing what my father had done, what Jeff did, you still chose to lie to me.”

“I did.”

I leaned against the wall, my heart demanding I walk out the door and save whatever was left of it, while my brain fought to get every answer I could before the heartbreak consumed me. Even Jeff walking out hadn’t hurt this bad, because I hadn’t loved him like this.

I loved Beckett to the depths of my soul, in a way that consumed even the smallest bits and shadowed places I’d kept hidden from everyone else. Even the love I had for my kids connected to the way I loved Beckett, because he loved them, too.

“Did you ever think about telling me?” I turned my head slowly, somehow finding the strength to look at him.

“From the first moment I saw you,” he admitted, having moved to lean against the end of the kitchen counter, the same one we’d made love on for the first time. “It was always on the tip of my tongue, especially when you asked about Chaos. I saw the pain you were in, and part of me wondered if maybe you’d fallen for him the same way I had for you.”

“And still you let me believe he—you were dead.” I didn’t answer the implied question.

“I would get so jealous of myself, wondering why you had opened up to me when I was just a letter, but the real me had no chance. I knew from the beginning that telling you would lead to the moment we’re having right now, when you would inevitably kick me out of your life, and that meant I couldn’t do what Ryan asked and what you needed. The lie was the only way to help you. So I accepted that I would never be more to you than the guy your brother sent.”

“And then I fell in love with you.” Foolish, stupid, naive heart.

“You gave me a glimpse of the life I never thought I could have. You showed me what it meant to have a family and people who show up, and I did my best to show up for you. I can’t thank you enough for the last eleven months, and I can’t begin to explain how immeasurably sorry I am for what I’ve done to you, and what I’ve cost you. Ella, you’re the last person I would ever want to hurt.”

“But you did.” That hurt was an avalanche headed my way. I felt the rumble in my soul, saw the chilled powder descend over my common sense, even heard the warning sirens in my head. I’d fallen in love with this man, and he’d lied to me every day for the last eleven months.

Jeff promised he’d love me forever. He pretended to be something he wasn’t, and then he walked out.

Ryan promised me we’d always take care of each other. He joined the military and came home in a box.

My father promised he was just going TDY for a week or two…and never looked back. Never even asked for visitation.

Beckett…Chaos. What else had he lied about? Could I believe anything he’d said in the last year? Had he lied to the kids? Was he even telling me the truth now? Or just what he thought might earn him my mercy? Could I believe anything he’d ever tell me again?

“I am so very sorry. Forgiveness, or even understanding, isn’t something I’m expecting from you. I’m in no way worthy of it, or you. I never was.”

My heart started screaming. I was near the end of whatever strength I had and needed to get out of here before I had a complete breakdown. The look in his eyes kept my feet glued to the floor. There was no plea, no terror over what was happening to us, just sorrowful acceptance. He’d always known we would end up here. He put us through it anyway.

Was there any way to come back from this? I loved this man, and he loved me. That was worth fighting for, right? But how toxic would we be if we ever found a way past it? I would never forget what he’d done—it would always linger over us like an ominous cloud, raining down poison.

“I need to ask you one last question.”

“Anything,” he answered. How could a face so beautiful mask so much deception?

“Everything you did—the adoption, our relationship, Maisie’s graduation, Colt’s tree house—was that because of Ryan’s letter?” My breath caught in my chest, waiting for his answer. As much as he’d hurt me, I needed to know that we were real, that I hadn’t been that stupid.

“No. Ryan’s letter got me here. I wouldn’t have come without it. But the rest, Ella, that was all because I love you. Because I love Colt and Maisie. Because for this brief, shining moment, you were my family, my future, and it looked a lot like forever. I didn’t do all of that for Ryan. I did it for you. For me.”

The ten feet between us stretched endlessly and yet felt like nothing as I debated my next move. There were equal parts of love and lies between us, but my anger over his betrayal overshadowed it all.

I still loved him—both sides of him—but I’d never be capable of trusting him again. Without trust, what good was love? How could you build a life with someone if you had to question the truthfulness of everything they said and did?

“It’s not enough.” Once the words were spoken, I felt their truth ring in my soul. “You’ve looked me in the eye for nearly a year and lied to me. I shared everything I had with you—my heart, my soul, my body, and even my family—and you couldn’t even be truthful about who you are. I don’t know how to even process that. I don’t know what parts of you—parts of us—are lies or truths. I want to be strong and say that we’ll get past it, because we love each other so much, but I don’t think that’s possible. Not now, anyway. I don’t have enough strength left in me for this. Ryan’s death took it. Maisie’s diagnosis took it. I should have known you’d take it, too, but I trusted you, and now I don’t have anything left to give.”

My hand along the wall steadied me as I walked toward the front door. The sunlight streamed in through the glass pane, beckoning me like a promise—if I could just get out of here somewhat intact, I’d be okay. Because I had to be. I had Colt and Maisie to take care of. I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart like some lovesick girl.

I didn’t have the luxury of forgiving Beckett.

“I understand.” His voice came from right behind me as my hand gripped the door handle. I felt his nearness, that palpable electricity that had always sparked between us, and knew if I turned he’d be right there. “If you need anything, I’m still here.”

My eyes burned again, but this time it wasn’t grief over Ryan, but Beckett. The feeling was similar, knowing I’d lost the person I’d loved most.

“I think it would be best if you left.” I spoke directly to the door. Beckett remaining in Telluride would only give me time to fall right back into him—and I couldn’t survive another lie. I couldn’t be strong for my kids when Beckett brought me to my knees, and they came first. Always. “I’ll have your things boxed from my place and sent over. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

As surely as if I’d cauterized the wound with a branding iron, every nerve in my body cried out with pain, sharp and nauseating. Without waiting for his response, I walked out of the cabin and didn’t look back.