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Chapter One
The metallic click of a weapon sounded inches from Colton Nox’s head. The noise had every muscle in his body as locked and loaded as the weapon poised at his temple.
“On your knees.” The gritty voice was all too familiar, distinctive for the broken accent.
Colton’s mind jumped to the next segment of the memory. Skipping over the worst moment—the one where he made the biggest mistake of his life—was his modus operandi when it came to this memory.
Now he sat in the Humvee, body rocking as they rolled along the desert track leading out of Iraq. Operation Nicklaus never hit the news. The only people it affected were dead and buried.
Colton’s brain flinched from the sounds of explosions and screams.
He piled out of the Humvee with his commanding officer and two other men who’d survived the horrific ops—only to be ambushed on the only road leading out of the city.
He could feel his rifle in his arms. The scope pressed against his eye and the crosshairs on the person none of them thought they’d ever get a shot at.
His finger twitched, but he was cool when he squeezed off the shot. Before the body hit the ground, he jerked out of the reverie.
Neck aching from the sharp angle of his head against the airplane window, Colton stifled a groan as he straightened in his seat. His long legs were cramped from the economy seating and the packed flight. When his elbow brushed against the passenger beside him, he glanced at her, an apology on his lips.
The words faded as he realized she was asleep and he hadn’t even jostled her. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he attempted to shake the nightmare that looped in his mind ever since that day.
The day when he fucked up. Bucked authority. Not even killing the leader of a renowned terrorist group could ever make up for Colton’s lack of judgment that cost his best friend his life.
Yeah, it was a goddamn nightmare he lived with daily, hourly, sometimes minute by minute.
It was the one thing that could get him on a flight to Montana to face a new nightmare.
He reached into the pocket of his black leather jacket and slipped out the letter. He unfolded the sheet of paper, smoothing the creases put there from folding again and again, and read the first line written in angular script as if the pain of the person writing it seeped into each jagged point.
The letter was difficult to read, but Colton knew it by heart.
A letter from Forest’s father. He thanked him for being beside his son when he died.
Clearly, Sean Gracey was not aware that Colton was responsible for Forest’s death.
He continued to skim over the letter. Gracey accepted Colton’s offer to help on the prestigious horse ranch where Forest grew up. He also warned him that Colton would receive no special consideration. He’d be treated like any other ranch hand.
Sean Gracey closed the letter by telling him to expect back-breaking work that would snap a city boy like him in half.
Colton’s lips twitched at one corner. That was his favorite line—he heard Forest’s voice in his head each time he read it.
But dammit, being broken went against the grain. He was an angry boy who had grown into an angry man with a weapon that the US government placed in his hands. He fought his way through several rings of hell.
Military school hadn’t smothered the banked anger inside him. Four years of that only tacked on an added layer of annoyance with authority.
These things earned him top rank. It got him through SEAL training and carried him through several top-secret ops in the Middle East and South America.
The final op would stick out in his mind forever as the time when he went too far.
He rolled his shoulders to dislodge some of the tension banding across them, but stopped when the woman next to him stirred.
Snap a city boy like you in half.
Colton welcomed the challenge and a different kind of pain that would, with any luck, help ease the guilt of what he’d done. Call it penance or punishment. Either way, he was ready.
The plane touched down nice and smooth. The woman beside him lifted her head and gazed at him through a haze of sleep. Colton quickly folded the letter and slipped it back into his pocket.
His phone buzzed with a text message, and since he wasn’t leaving his seat in the back of the plane anytime soon, he read it.
