Chapter One
WILL
Eighteen months ago
I missed the ocean so much it hurt.
When the plane descended below the clouds and I caught my first glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean in almost three years, I damn near cried. The only body of water I’d seen in months was the Kabul River, and that wasn’t intended for surfing.
I took my time wandering through the Boston airport. I still didn’t understand how my little sister Lauren—she’d always be Lolo to us—was getting married.
This weekend.
To a man.
We last spoke in August, around her birthday, and she wasn’t seeing anyone then. Fast forward a few months and some highly covert ops, and I’m being shoved on a transport plane to appear at my sister’s wedding.
How the fuck did all that happen?
Unsurprisingly, my mother was stationed on the other side of the security checkpoint. Her fingers were flying over her smartphone, and I realized I hadn’t read her blog in months. Shit. As far as my mother’s affection for her children ranked, it was Lo, the blog, me, then Wes.
Allegedly, my younger brother Wes was a real asshole while he was a toddler. Thirty years since the terrible twos ended, and my mother was still reminding him about that.
Mom startled when I dropped my backpack beside her, but that shock transformed into a wry frown. “Oh for the love of Pete, William, would it kill you to groom yourself once and a while?”
Apparently thirty-four wasn’t too old for my mother to scold me for messy hair and an overgrown beard.
My mother’s fingers fluffed my hair before they fisted, and she yanked me down for a hug. “I’ve been a little busy with the global war on terror and all,” I said. That, and a certain amount of shaggy scruff was essential in my line of work. “And one of these days, you’re going to have to tell us who this Pete guy is, Judy.”
She pulled my hair a little harder; she hated it when I called her Judy. If she had her way, we’d still be calling her mama and asking her to rock us to sleep.
“He’s my man candy on the side,” my mother replied with a shrug. I bet my father loved hearing that one. “Keeps me young.”
She shifted her hands to my shoulders, squeezing down to my biceps, elbows, forearms, and then gripped my hands. She always did this when I returned home from deployment. It was her way of checking that I was still in one piece. After years as a Navy medic, my mother knew exactly what the battlefield could take.
“I really wish you didn’t tell me that shit, Mom.”
She ran her hands up and down my chest, and repeated the motion on my back. “Too long, Will. Too long,” she whispered. A smile pulled at her lips, but the tears shining in her eyes gave it all away. “I don’t want them keeping you for another twenty-seven months straight. I’ll tell that to the Joint Special Operations Commander himself if I have to.”
“You do that, Mom,” I laughed, pulling her toward the baggage claim. But she was right; it had been deployments, extended deployments, special deployments, all one after another. Pepper that with training ops and a couple of months with an advanced demolitions crew, and I could only count a few weeks of leave in the past three years. “I bet the Lieutenant General loves hearing from SEAL moms.”
She rolled her eyes before wrapping her arm around my waist. “How were your flights?” she asked.
“Strange,” I said when reaching for my bag. She pointed to the sliding doors and I followed her to the curb. “It’s been a while since I stayed in an aircraft through take off and landing.”
“You and your HALO humor,” she murmured. “Wesley’s parked over there. He’s telling stories.”
My mother gestured to the far end of the loading zone where Wes had two members of the State Police hanging on his every word. He mimed an explosion, and despite the fact we were at an airport and bombs were the last thing anyone should ever discuss, his new Statey pals were captivated. The story was effective in distracting them from his illegal curbside parking, too.
“And that’s how you get out of Moscow before the Spetsnaz notices you were there in the first place,” he said. With a lopsided smile, he beckoned me closer and draped his arm around my shoulder. “Boys, it’s my pleasure to introduce my brother, Commander Halsted.”
“It’s one promotion after another with you, isn’t it?” Mom asked. “Maybe now you’ll get off the front lines.”
Unlikely.
Once the pleasantries were handled, my mother grabbed us by the collars and towed us toward the rental car. “You two need haircuts, and anything would be better than cargo pants and old t-shirts.”
I sucked in the fresh, salty air as we approached Cape Cod, and I wanted to spend every minute of the next four days in the ocean. I was raised on the beaches of San Diego, a water dog to the soul, and I believed an afternoon spent surfing was the cure for anything that ailed me.
Wes leaned on the center console and glanced to me in the backseat. “Where have you been hiding out these days?”
“J-bad.” I shrugged; all told, I didn’t spend much time on base in Jalalabad. “Or thereabouts. And what the hell were you doing in Moscow?”
“Started as a sneak and peek with a recon squad,” he said. “Ended with a surprise extraction. Good times.”
Wes was a master of tradecraft. Despite his thoroughly California looks, he could blend in anywhere and spoke enough languages to make it believable. He’d been loaned out—along with a few other SEALs and Delta Force guys—to man a covert unit responsible for preventing another Cold War. It was a classic counterintelligence program potluck, and it was a mystery who’d be cleaning it all up.
“Get it all out now,” Mom said, “because you won’t be talking about reconnaissance and assault teams at your sister’s wedding.”
“Yeah, can we talk about that? What does the Commodore say about this?” I asked. There was no doubt that my father was not excited about seeing Lo married. “When did Lo get engaged? And who the hell is she marrying?”
Wes passed a phone over his shoulder, and I knew without looking it contained a rundown on our sister’s fiancé. Thank God for Wes’s fuck buddy at the CIA.
There wasn’t much beyond the basics: name (Matthew Antrim Walsh), date of birth (nearly three years older than my sister), federal tax filings (architect-engineer, and his bottom line was annoyingly healthy), known associates (too many siblings to comprehend; dead parents). He was Ivy League all the way—Cornell, MIT—and he didn’t even have a speeding ticket to his name.
I hated everything about him.
“I’d like to meet this asshole,” I said.
My mother let out a long-suffering groan. “For your information, Matthew is a wonderful young man and you will not do anything to interfere with your sister’s happiness. Is that understood?”
“What qualifies him as a ‘wonderful young man’?” I asked.
“To start, he reads my blog every week and shares my posts on social media.” My mother glared at me in the rear view mirror. “That’s more than I can say for either of you.”