Ales
I watched the love of my life as she fell asleep in my arms. I had all this pent-up anger I needed to release, but I didn’t want to take it all out on her. She didn’t deserve all of that. I thought about where my anger and energy were most needed. It was time to extract all the information from the asset, whether he liked it or not.
I slipped out of the bed walking toward the bathroom. I shut the door and jumped in the shower. I quickly showered, fighting my body from wanting to go back to bed to rest in Elani’s warmth. I shut the water off, opened the glass shower door, and began to dry myself off, hoping this last session wouldn’t go as horrible as it had been.
My fist connected to the muscular man’s jaw. I knew it would break if I did it again. I stopped torturing him with the fists I had been raining on him. He looked battered as he hung upside down with blood all over his face. I inched closer to his face.
“Are you ready to tell us how much information you gave them?” I asked.
He spat in my face, a mixture of blood and spit. I curled my upper lip in disgust as I wiped the spit of my face. I glared at him for a minute. I smiled, loving his reaction. The nameless man, now that he was wiped from existence, looked at me and I knew he was terrified. I got a rush from the fear in his eyes. He knew that I knew he was broken already. I had him.
My smile didn’t disappear as I reached into the small of my back, where my gun was tucked. I pressed the barrel of the gun on his temple.
“You don’t want to die, do you?” I asked, taunting him. “I mean, you want to live and get some sort of immunity, right? You claim to be this strong man, but you forget before you left for your part of the mission, you were the bottom. You are weak. Little boys like you make me cringe.” I forced myself to stop speaking, not wanting to waste even more time on him.
I watched his facial expression as I used my other hand to punch him right where his Adam’s apple bobbed. He opened his mouth to exclaim, then I shoved my gun in his mouth. I cocked my eyebrow as the stench of his piss filled the air. This was nothing to me, and it didn’t distract me from my mission.
“Tell me,” I commanded. My voice came out menacingly lower than it usually was.
He mumbled the name I was looking for to unlock his computer.
“Thank you,” I said as I removed the barrel of my gun.
He started to breathe again.
I cleaned his spit off my gun on his drenched t-shirt. I heard a knock, and then someone came in the room. It wasn’t the director; he never wanted to get his hands dirty. He pretended like this side of the job never existed, nor had he heard of it. I shook my head as I heard Patro’s heavy footsteps make it toward me. I tilted my head and observed the traitor. It took me almost a whole month to break him. I had to give him props for remembering his training. I had trained him, but he seemed to forget why I was the leader of this team. Unfortunately, instead of seeing the example, he became the example.
“Did you hear me?” Patro interrupted my thoughts as I began to drift off into that headspace when I remembered the Trojan war I fought in.
I shook my head to rid of the blood lust rising inside of me.
“What did you say?”
“It’s Jace.”
I rolled my eyes at that name. I swear, if he caused more trouble, I would do more than just let Patro beat him to a pulp.
“What about that punk?”
“Cyril. Jace is Cyril.”
At his statement, I turned around so fast I almost lost my balance. My eyebrows furrowed.
“What does that mean? How?”
Patro shook his head.
“He made a deal with Hades. I didn’t know about all this until now, when your mother told me.”
“SHE ISN’T MY MOTHER!” I yelled.
My chest was heaving, and I didn’t know why. Why couldn’t I accept her as my mother as easily as I accepted everything else? I shook my head again. I needed to kill something.
After a moment, I looked Patro in his eyes and whatever he saw there made him take a step back from me. I should’ve been shocked, but instead, I fed off the fear.
“Kill mission,” I said, before walking away.
The nameless man whimpered.
I had forgotten all about him. I stopped and slowly turned to face him. He seemed relieved to see me walking back toward him, but then I smirked, and the fear crept back in full force; his body started to shake.
Good.
I stared down at him as he stared up at me. I didn’t say anything, nor did my smirk disappear. I pointed the gun at his temple and pulled the trigger.
I didn’t think about anything else as I turned around to leave. I fought in many wars. This was nothing compared to what I had seen and participated in. He should feel lucky that what I did to Hector’s body, back then, was not done to him. I didn’t mutilate his body, nor did I humiliate him.
Lucky bastard.
One way or another, something had to be done about those who tried to infiltrate and were successful at turning one of our agents. I reached into my jean pocket, pulling out my phone. I sent a mass text to my team of six letting them know it was time. My body hadn’t felt like this for a long time now, and I was ready to kill. What brought me joy was knowing Cyril was back in my life. I could just jump from glee at how much I would enjoy ending his life. Many different things flashed in my head, but I told myself one kill mission at a time.
“Find him,” I said to Patro as we were in the hall walking toward the helicopter waiting outside for us.
***
I shut my eyes as we rode in through the dark Vegas sky, the angry clouds mirroring my mood.. I needed to get my head into this moment, and be void of everything else, yet a memory of when Alana and I became one popped into my head.
I hadn’t thought about that moment for so long, but even then, when I made that decision, I never regretted it. It was days before I left again for war, after she begged me not to go. I told her to wait in my chambers as I discussed something with the priest. She trusted me, not questioning what I wanted from a priest I never talked to even from the moment I was born. It could’ve been because of the memory of my dear friend Patrocleus and how much love I had for him as my brother that made me realize I never wanted to lose another soul I loved dearly.
Although I loved Patrocleus and Alana two different ways, it did not mean I loved one less. It was silent when I walked back into my chambers. I looked around to see Alana preparing my bath before the feast began, the feast I told her not to go to. She looked beautiful as her curly mane cascaded down her back. It was much longer than before, but I was the only one with the honor to run my fingers through it when she unbraided it. She was a sight for me in her silky, see-through nightwear. I could see the outlines of her ample breasts as she got on her knees, bending over a bit to test the temperature of the water. Her movements weren’t done on purpose, but her back arched exposing more of the roundness of her butt.
I looked behind me to see the priest watching her as well. I tilted my head and cocked my eyebrow with my arms folded over my chest, waiting for him to look my way. He felt my eyes on him then turned to look at me. He had the nerve to look ashamed. I could’ve gouged his eyes out for that simple act, but I needed him.
I cleared my throat and turned to look at Alana. She looked up at me and innocently smiled. I loved this woman so hard that I would never be able to see straight ever again. She owned me in more ways than one.
“Come here, love,” I called to her.
She didn’t hesitate as she stood up and walked over to me. She stood at a distance from me because of the priest in the room. I reached out, taking her hand in mine. I never wanted her to feel like she couldn’t stand closer to me than she already was. I looked down at her as she faced away from me looking down at her bare feet. I tucked a finger under her chin and guided her to look up at me.
Alana stared into my eyes while I watched her for a moment. She didn’t say anything as I smiled at her. I knew how much she loved that smile and she was always the cause of it. I was in a dark place after Patrocleus died, and she was there, just as if the gods knew, if they placed her right in front of me, I would never let go of her. Not even in death will I ever let go of her.
“Are you ready?” I asked her.
Her eyebrows furrowed. “Ready for what?” she asked in a small voice.
“I want you to be my wife,” I said with confidence.
Her eyes widened, and she looked from the priest to me.
“What?” she screeched. She tried to back away from me, but I snaked an arm around her waist to keep her in place.
“You are everything to me, Alana. This,” I pointed to her and me. “I want you to know it’s real. I want to reassure you I will always come back to you. Do me the honor?” I sounded like I was begging, but I didn’t care.
Alana shut her eyes and, for a moment, for only one moment, I thought she would withdraw from me. But as I began to contemplate how to convince her, she spoke.
“I will do anything for you, my liege. I will marry you, because you’ll always be the one I love until eternity.”
Those words…those words were our vows to each other. Vows that escaped our lips traveling all the way to the gods’ ears. We were one, even in the eyes of the gods.
***
I jolted out of the memory and tried to calm myself down. I don’t know how long I was gone, but when I opened my eyes, we had finally reached our destination. We were on the outskirts of town where the operations of the now nameless agent ran. We’d landed miles away from there so they wouldn’t hear the helicopter. I looked around and saw my men waiting in vehicles for me with all our equipment. This wasn’t the same extraction mission we went on to retrieve our turned agent; this was a kill mission. One I reveled in because the warrior in me wanted this just as much.
I knew this wasn’t going to go down as simply as we wanted it. I smiled, knowing we were catching these terrorists by surprise. These weren’t your typical, so-called terrorists the news paraded on the internet, using people who resembled middle easterners, or anything. These were people just like everyone else in the United States. They fit into society; some of them were teachers, parents, gardeners, or like the nameless agent. They infiltrate and become part of every organization, not letting folks, even trained individuals like us, sniff them out until it’s too late.
As we slowly walked in the building that posed as a laundromat, one of them knew something was going on. Before he could tell his buddies, I gave the signal to one of my men to open fire. Seconds passed by before his buddies, who were all making bombs and other equipment, began shouting as they opened fire back. I whispered to the device in my ear to one of the guys outside.
“Cut the lights.”
A moment later, it was pitch black and my team had their night vision goggles on. This threw the terrorists into a frenzy. My team of six knew exactly what they needed to do. They were highly trained. If they were on my team, I could trust them to do what needed to be done without question. Just as I gripped a man by his neck bringing him down to the floor, putting my heavy foot on his neck, my cell phone rang.
I rolled my eyes, wondering who the hell could be calling me right now.
“Marx, who the hell is calling me?” I shouted through the earpiece.
“It’s the wife, sir,” he answered.
I smirked at how he referred to Elani. They all knew she was my woman, and it made me smile, him calling her my wife.
“Okay,” I said, and he put her through. “Baby?” I answered.
“Ales? Where are you?” She groaned as she spoke. I smiled proudly knowing she was trying to get out of bed but probably flopped back down.
“I’m working, honey,” I said as I aimed my gun and shot another man who was trying to escape through the back.
“What’s that noise?” she asked me.
“You sore, love?” I asked, my voice dropping an octave. “You seem to sound fine, right now; should I change that?”
“I’d love to get a few more days of sleep. I remember how much you loved to sex me up into a coma back then.”
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth to keep from losing my sight on this mission. I heard all my men screaming, “Clear!” I was relieved.
“Your wish is my command, my love. I’ll be home in a little while,” I said, before hanging up.
I looked down at the guy, not yet dead and still under my boot.
“Guess Christmas came early for me,” I said with a sardonic smile. I looked up to see my men coming back in. I nodded at them. “Let’s get this man back to headquarters. I’d love to break him in.”
I walked out of the laundromat and dialed the director.
“Barrows,” he answered.
“It’s done. We have a gift we must break in. Send your people in to clean up the mess,” I ordered.
He chuckled. “I don’t take orders from you. I’ll call my people when I can,” he replied smugly.
“You forget I don’t care about anything. I can kill you in your home, beside your wife, and no one would ever know it’s me. Before you threaten me about being recorded or using this threat against me, you forget my rank is higher than yours. I don’t answer to you.”
I heard him breathing heavily as if he was about to speak again, daring me to kill him tonight, before the sun rose.
“Get it done,” I replied and hung up. I turned around to see Patro standing by the doorway shaking his head at me. I shrugged my shoulders.
“Go home. We’ll give him the basics before you break him in.”
I rolled my eyes, tossing my gun his way. I made it to the helicopter and told the pilot to get a move on. I rested my head, waiting to make it back to my bed and knock out for a couple of days as well.