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A few times, I’ve needed to make an appearance when the target is reluctant to accept my meeting place suggestion. Those men are careful enough to stake out a place and not move until they see their prey. On those occasions, I don my disguise and make a show of arriving at the location. The target sees me and is all too ready to follow, only for me to be quickly escorted out through a secondary exit.
The ruse is successful because, with the right makeup and the right clothes, I easily pass for a fifteen-year-old girl. For this reason, it’s my pictures used in any contact with the targets. It’s not like I could use a real teenage girl to play “pretend” with. I have several different photos in rotation, but for my safety, I only send pictures when absolutely necessary.
I’ve never actually witnessed an arrest at one of my sting ops. The detectives I work with, one in particular, don’t want me anywhere around when they make contact with the suspect. Usually, I’ll get an email with a news clip or copy of DA charges to let me know the bust was a success. In the cases where I’ve worked with my own jurisdiction’s Detective Cooper, I get a phone call. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if I’m on hand to witness a monster’s life come crashing down around him or not. Knowing that I’ve prevented him from creating more victims is enough. The work is gratifying, to say the least, and each takedown satisfies the demons torturing me. For a while.
Tonight’s hunt revolves around a man I call Predator Tom. I’ve been leading him on for a while now, and my work resumes with a bit of Minecraft world-building. I get logged into a public server in the game and walk around, get in a few fights, and generally make my character be seen in the area my target frequents.
Within ten minutes, I get my first message. Gotcha.
Bastien “Bash” Laurent
Today is opening day of baseball season, which explains why the bar is packed on a Thursday night. While I could do without the crowd, at least the beer is cold and the wings are hot, two things I’ve been without for the last three weeks.
My team of private military contractors just got back from a support deployment in the Middle East. We served as security forces for a joint training camp of Marines and Iraqi soldiers. I’ve never much liked the desert, always preferring the water or mountains from my time in the SEALs. And just like that, I’ve sunk my first night back.
For the last eighteen months, thoughts of my Navy days have left a sour taste in my mouth. I don’t regret any part of serving in SEAL Team Two. Just how I left. I miss being part of The Teams, the brotherhood—my platoon.
As I wax melancholy over my lost career, my phone pings with an incoming message, barely audible over the cheers around the bar. I drop my eyes to check the screen and shove my fingers into my temples. Speak of the devil. Jackson “Clothespin” Bennet, a friend from the SEALs and someone I’ve been avoiding lately.
I spin the phone around a few times on the worn bar surface before unlocking the device. Reluctantly, I check Jackson’s message. The original crew is getting together next weekend for our team anniversary. Join us.
I want to message back, Not a chance in hell, but I won’t. I don’t do anything except slide the phone away and pick up my beer again. Jackson shouldn’t have asked. He knows I won’t go. If it were any other occasion, I’d be the first to sign up. I just don’t feel much like celebrating our SEAL anniversary anymore. Not since I got kicked out of the Navy.
I’m still angry, but not at Jackson or anyone else on my old team. I’m not even angry at the Navy. My resentment is reserved for one person alone: me. I’m mad as hell at my own stupid self.
After a lifetime of fighting against it, I became the one thing I swore I’d never be, my father. He was an asshole. All my life, I fought against my breeding so much that the day I turned eighteen, I changed my name, dropping Smith and adopting my mother’s French maiden name.
Too bad changing your name doesn’t change who you are.
For as long as I can remember, my father liked to use his fists on my mother. When I got old enough to get between them, he found more enjoyment in putting his hands on me. Years later, I was big enough that he started having second thoughts about taking me on. It wasn’t long after that he put my mom in a coma.
My life became a countdown to freedom after that. The second I turned eighteen and received my ID with my new name, I rushed to the closest military recruiting office. I’d seen commercials about soldiers in training and in battle and knew I needed an outlet for my hand-me-down hot temper. I thought the military would provide safeguards to keep me from becoming what I hated.
It just so happened that the closest recruiter happened to be working for the Navy. I signed up, never looking back, and for years, my plan worked. In basic training, the Navy broke me down and made me a team player. SEAL training built me into a fighting machine and placed me under the direction of Timothy “Stone” O’Reilly.
The SEALs gave me better focus and even stronger boundaries. While stationed at Little Creek, I could exorcise my demons daily. And when in the field, my temper took a backseat to keeping mine and my team’s asses alive.
After nine years, all my good intentions went up in flames in a single moment. One second was all it took of not keeping myself in check for my father to win out. I put my fist through some prick’s face for something he said And, of course, he had to be an officer.
It doesn’t matter that the guy deserved it. I let him get to me. I let my temper fly, and it cost me my career. Dillan Knot took a chance on me after I was forced out of the service, and ever since then, I have kept to myself, flying under the radar as co-leader of an elite team of paramilitary operatives. I’m good at my job, just as I was a good SEAL. I won’t fuck up and let my father win again.
I glance at my phone, feeling guilty for ignoring Jackson’s text. I’m not my father, but I don’t want to be reminded of what I lost, either. Loyalty to my friend eventually wins out, and I open the messaging app to peck out a quick reply. Have to work.
The device rings a second later. Shit. Dropping my head, I bring the phone to my ear. “Laurent.”
“I’m calling bullshit,” Jackson announces.
I won’t even try to deny it. “Fine. It’s bullshit. I’m still not going.”
“The hell you aren’t. It’s time I drag your ass out of the shit pit, kicking and screaming if I have to. You’re coming. I’ve even lined up a date for you.”
“Hell no. Now you couldn’t even drag my dead ass there.”
“I’ll do it if I have to—”
Cheers from around the crowded bar drown out Jackson’s voice. I look up to one of the half-dozen TVs hanging over the bar in time to see one of the Nats trot around the bases after hitting a home run during his first major league at bat. “Bennet, it’s pretty loud here. I’ll have to catch up with you later.”
“Convenient,” he grumbles before hanging up.
