Chapter One
There are moments in life where you recline and bask in the glory of what you’ve done. What you’ve accomplished. What you’ve created with your own hands, and sweat and the blood of your enemies. The money of your dead friends.
This moment.
It wasn’t one of those kinds of moments.
All his coalescing thoughts and feelings were more in the shitter variety.
Charles Bresnick AKA “Titanium,” former team leader of Elite Recon AKA “Daddy Warbucks,” current founder and leader of the Elite teams, was the sole owner and proprietor of thus aforementioned shitty moment.
Picture a no-holds-barred MMA fight with blood and sweat and lots of yelling. A title match rolled around inside his head as he sat behind his desk in the Elite compound. His body? At least, what was left of him joined the party.
He killed his brothers.
Truly.
Killed them as if they’d left the face of the planet never to be seen or heard from again. His team knew the end game. His men and one woman under his command were brought up to speed, sort of, on what would happen if a mission went so FUBAR they couldn’t survive it. Or weren’t supposed to make it home alive.
Operation Phoenix had been the one. Their asses had been served up on a platter to be presented to an infestation of assholes determined to rule the world.
Not from a political dais or an activist’s memoir. Oh no.
They ruled from the underbelly, where every sinister nightmare known to inhabit the Earth slithered.
His team knew some of what they were really fighting.
But Chrome and Steele’s men, they’d known nothing. They’d been pulled into his personal vendetta against Red Wolf, no matter how hard he’d tried to keep them separate.
Their blood was on his hands, and if he could see he knew they’d be dripping crimson.
His hand automatically went to the Elite Metal brand on his chest. The new family he’d created but wasn’t truly a part of.
He led them, gave them each a chance to make things right. To finally deal with some of the loss they’d all had to swallow, but they couldn’t know the whys of it. What drove him didn’t have to be their cross to bear. He was damaged enough for all of them.
Shaking his head, he tried to take a calming breath but a bit of a growl was all he could muster. Annie, his seeing eye dog, and Elite mascot extraordinaire whined and nudged his leg with her muzzle.
He petted her and scratched behind her ears. “I know, girl. I know.” He petted her some more and cracked the knuckles on his free hand.
Blind. He was—blind.
Several days after the blast, his eyes ruptured. A hell of a secondary parting gift. Corneal scarring blinded him, courtesy of a rushed surgery to save his eyes from the damage inflicted on them in the explosions during Operation Phoenix.
What really clinched it? The nearly complete retinal sheering from the high order explosives used to vaporize his legs in Russia, AKA the shithole when he died.
Not “died” like the rest of the Ghosts. Hidden away so they could heal and deal with the loss of self—handed to them on a coffin stamped by Red Wolf himself. No. He got to deal with extra bullshit on top of being responsible for all of them. Plus kicking the big one.
After a secret group rescued them, they resuscitated him in the helicopter. Twice.
Blood loss from his wounds, supposedly. Apparently, that was a thing when legs were shanghaied from a body. He was no different, which blew his special snowflake mindset all to hell.
The men and women who rescued him and the others told him time and time again he shouldn’t have lived.
Awesome. Guess fate had some more bitch-slapping to hand over so he was stuck ’til she had her fill of him being her whipping boy.
Stuck leading missions where the men and women under his command tolerated him. Barely.
Chrome’s men hated him. Hated him because he signed their death certificates, taking from them the only lives they loved. Their dreams and aspirations for a future exploded with the evac order going to hell in a hand grenade.
Men and women he trusted with more than his life were responsible for the extraction.
He trusted them with his friends’ lives.
People always said life and death were two halves of the same coin, but people didn’t know jack.
Life before Phoenix minted on one side of the coin, life after on the other side.
Being the same person but somehow—not.
It taught him things weren’t how he thought they were. All the pieces sitting on the checkerboard weren’t the colors he understood them to be. Not black or red, but some a marbled combination of the two and he was still trying to figure out the last few pieces. How they fit into this board of deceit. Hate. Lies.
Their mission in Russia was a game changer.
More than three years prior, every member of Elite had died. Some snatched to heal and be born again but not in the same skin.
Others stashed away under the guise of being given a new benevolent chance from Uncle Sam and his cronies. A take your leave from the higher ups, as if they were doing them all a favor.
It had nearly cost him his last breath to buy those chances.
What he’d really bought was time, an amazingly precious and almost priceless commodity.
The adage that someone can buy anything with enough money was wrong.
He couldn’t buy revenge.
Nor could he buy the lives of his mother, his older brother, or his brother’s wife.
Those were things he could never have returned, but he dealt in finding time regularly.
He’d needed time with his partner to get everything in place to pull them all together. The endgame hadn’t been ideal when he finally couldn’t wait any longer to pull in Steele, but it had all worked out.
Kind of.
It had almost all worked out.
Sorta.
The men and women of his command mating up like magnets.
Exactly how it was supposed to be.
What they deserved. A small portion of what was owed to them for what their own country raped from them in the process of gaining another foothold into world domination.
So why was he pissed off?
He was alone.
Trapped in the darkness.
Caged inside his own fucking broken body.
As Lifetime movie as it was, he was surrounded by his brothers and sisters, even his blooded niece, Poppy, and he’d never been more lonely. Not even in the months he was in and out of a coma. The surgeries. The mother fucking rehab.
They were all making a home here on the Elite compound…
Home.
Not for him.
Just another place in the dark. Like any other. They all looked the same with no sight to guide him.
Annie, his wonder dog, whined again. The weight of her chin rested on his thigh, right above where one of his prostheses attached. Running his fingers over her silky fur, he tried to find his inner peace. Or Zen. Or some other existential bullshit place no more real than an honest politician’s summer home. His happy place lived on the same street as Pee Wee Herman and a rainbow unicorn he met once when he was stupid enough to drop acid in college.
What did they have in common?
None of them existed.
Closing his eyes used to help him focus. It would block out the extraneous visual noise the military coughed up, often, and give him an opportunity to sift through everything. Weed out the chaff and keep the good stuff.
Now?
Now didn’t look any different in the new shade of black when his lids finally closed. It was noon on a bright and shiny day. Only reason he knew the time? Because his clock on the wall had gone off a few minutes prior and his neck was growing warm from the sun coming in the window behind him.
Was he grateful for surviving?
Most days.
Today wasn’t most days.
Today he wanted to put his fist through the plate-glass window toward the corner. He’d tried once, in the middle of the night when no one else was around.
Amazing, how fast he remembered it was bulletproof.
The kink movie everyone was talking about, had nothing on his kinds of fucked up. Grey was sedate. Grey was comfy.
Black, where he existed with the rest of the men and women he’d resurrected, and all of its lovely shades made his world turn.
Had for years.
Years before he entered the military. Coming up on the twenty-year anniversary of when his mom died.
Died. Sounded so serene when he phrased it so simply.
Murdered. She was murdered. That was the reality of her death. A life snuffed out too early because she was in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
And he got to witness it up close and personal.
His happy memory kicked up a whole ‘nother round of fuck this shit. He seriously contemplated taking on round two with the window, but then he heard her.
Raineta. His nurse. Babysitter. Resident ass kicker.
Yet everyone called her Raine.
He heard her before she even entered the room. So did Annie, if the telltale thump thump thump of her tail against his desk was any indication.
The nurse’s subtle fragrance wafted in his direction as soon as she got close enough, probably because he was sucking in oxygen like a Dyson.
Her scent? Fuck.
And it smelled as if she’d gotten a delivery of bagels. Oh, if she only knew…
He’d never seen her before, but he knew her.
The cadence of her steps coming down the hall. Her voice as she hummed the Jeopardy theme song. And the taste of strawberry jam she’d made the summer before.
Knowing her didn’t mean anything though. Not really. Not when he couldn’t even take her hand if he wanted to hold it. Not without fumbling around like a blind man.
Blind man.
Funny.
The full background check he’d had run on her answered a hell of a lot, too. He knew everything about her. Everything. Down to her shoe size. Seven and a half. And her middle name. Sadie. And she had an obsession with the Jeopardy theme song because she used to watch it with her grandfather. Yet those things weren’t the reasons he knew her.
Really really knew her.
Like the shop she used to buy bagels in Buffalo where she grew up. Yes, he had some picked up for her once a month. No, she didn’t know it was him.
Or her favorite flowers were yellow. The kind of flower made no difference but they had to be yellow. He hadn’t gotten around to asking about the whys of that one yet but it didn’t stop him from having yellow flowers planted around the main house when the compound was finished.
Wanting her was a hunger inside his gut he couldn’t tame. Though she’d never want him. Not since he was totally deadsky on the love and marriage thing. Who would want the shell of a man he’d become?
Truly. Who?
Who would want a half metal man with a nickname to match, and more baggage than a cargo plane flying to Alaska?
He sure wouldn’t.
Which didn’t even take into account the bounty on his head. Dead or alive. Each day he edged a little closer to the former.
“Afternoon, sunshine,” Raine’s happiness enveloped him as soon as she crossed the threshold.
Picturing her hair as dark as she’d described it for him years before when he’d first hired her made his cock twitch behind the fly of his camo pants. Years had passed since he’d been weak, and angry and scared.
Well—at least he’d finally kicked the first one. He was not weak. Warrior blood ran through his veins. He mentally shrugged. Some days.
“Could you fucking knock? I did have a door put on my office for a reason.” Not the same kind of warrior obviously, but still one.
Kind of.
“Sounds like someone woke up on the grouchy side of the bed this morning.” Raine tried to sooth him, but he was far from an easy out on his temper.
“Grouchy, my ass. And it’s already the afternoon.” If anyone needed a braille reading, paper pusher with a black book amazing enough to put the President’s to shame, then he was their man. Amazing, how much those particular requirements really didn’t come up too often.
“Have you eaten? Could explain why you’re being an asshole.” She tried to be helpful and be funny, but he just couldn’t rein his bad mood in.
So, he made it his business to be in everyone else’s business when it came to protecting his family.
Raine was family.
And she deserved better than him. So he pushed her away. Every chance he could.
“Grouchy doesn’t even touch my mood, sweetheart.”
“You know I hate it when you call me pet names.”
“Sure do…Princess.” He was being a dick and pushing her buttons. He knew it, mentally acknowledged it and couldn’t. Help. Himself. Knew he should stop and apologize, but he kept pushing.
“Oh. I see what’s happening here. You’re having a pity party of one—and a half.”
Raine walked around the desk. He heard her. Sensed her as she petted Annie. And he was jealous—of his dog.
“And how’s it working for you? Feeling better? Making you look on the bright side of things? Motivated?” She continued to pet his golden retriever. “There’s power in a name, Charles. Or Titanium. Or Warbucks. You have several to pick from. A luxury most people can never even hope for. And what are you doing with your second chance?” Compassion bled into every word, grating on his already frayed nerves. “Moping? You’re better than moping.”
With everyone else, he had to be someone else. He had to be Titanium. The man they remembered. The Marine. The brother. The man who got shit done anywhere in the world, no matter the circumstance or the mission.
Or he had to be Daddy Warbucks, the man behind the teams so secret they truly didn’t exist to the U.S. government or any other government. He had to be on his game. All the time. In control. Completely. The man with all the answers, even when he had none. Or when he had them all and couldn’t share even one.
He couldn’t lose his shit. Ever. Not with anyone.
No one but his Raine.
He shook his head, at himself more than at what she’d said.
“You should have let me die after Russia. Save you the trouble of being a part of it now.” Cracking his knuckles, and clenching his teeth, he knew how close he was to needing a real fight and he didn’t want her there for it. He had to get rid of her and asking nicely wouldn’t work, mostly because he couldn’t fork over the please or the thank you. Embracing his inner jackass came much easier. “Feel better about yourself when you make fun of the resident cripple? All your hard work down the drain when someone puts a bullet in me.”
“When you’re like this, everyone else will have to stand in line behind me.” She placed her hand on his arm. “Let’s get you up and out of here.”
He could hear her mounting frustration, but she kept it under wraps. Under control. He didn’t want her in control. He didn’t want to have to rely on her. The opposite was what he wanted. Her beneath him, dripping with pleasure, needing his touch and his kiss.
Yet, he knew he could never have what he wanted with her.
Not when she knew what he really looked like beneath his T-shirts and camo.
She deserved better.
Sneering, he threw her hand off. The heat of her touch seared his flesh and the need to taste her nearly bowled him over. What he wouldn’t give to be with her. But it would never happen, so he lashed out with exactly what he was most afraid of.
“Honey, I don’t screw the help and I sure as hell, don’t do pity fucks.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and he stilled.
This is it. This is the time I’ll push her away. Push too far. She’s going to up and quit because she shouldn’t have to deal with me anymore. She’s worth more than the handsome salary I pay her and I know it.
She was worth—everything.
And the day had arrived.
The one she’d tell him to shove it and walk because there was no healing him. He was un-savable and she needed to know it.
He expected her to slap him and walk out, allowing him to finally deal with her departure instead of the anticipation of it, which was sure as shit killing him.
Her just plain storming out was an option too, as the seconds ticked by.
Instead, she knocked him on his ass even though he sat firmly on his keister.
“Charles Titanium Bresnick, how dare you be such an asshole. Even though you can’t see your worth doesn’t mean it gives you the right to shove your pile of monkey poop into the next cage. Get up.”
“Monkey poop?” He started to stand, so stunned with her imagery he did what she ordered without thinking at all.
“If the poop fits. Up. Up. Even Annie’s already beating you. Move it. We’re on the way to the gym. We’re going to do Zumba.”
“Oh, hell no. That shit’s awful and makes me want to beat my head against a wall.”
“Might do you some good with your hard-as-granite head. Hurry up. My grandma could move faster than you when she was ninety.”
He knew her grandparents were deceased and enjoyed the stories she told about them. “Bet she had two good legs and eyes, so she won automatically.”
“And a robo-hip. She could kick your butt with nothing but a look.”
“I couldn’t see it so…”
“You could feel it. Swear her look burned.”
She read him the riot act for his pity party on their way to the gym and didn’t stop until they were at the door to the locker room. “You’ve got three minutes to change into workout clothes or by God I will come drag your ass out of there by a prosthesis and we’ll do Zumba until you fall over. And you, Mr. Sunshine, got five more reps of squats for rolling your eyes at me.”
“You remember who signs your paychecks, don’t you?”
“Two minutes thirty-five seconds. Thirty-four. Thirty-three.” Her voice grew fainter as the door closed and he walked a few feet away to his locker. But she never stopped counting. Never left him, and he knew it.
He fought her every step of the way because she could take his anger. It was partly what made her so good at her job. She understood it somehow, his fears, and turned them around on him so he could focus with them and use it. She always made him work harder. Grounded him when nothing else kept him tethered to the Earth, and kept him out of his grave more times than he cared to count. And he loved her for it.
Love.
Yeah.
Fuck him.