Page 12 of Fallen Rook

At six thirty, I started prepping food for the week, cramming foiled salmon into the oven, sweet potatoes into the microwave, and tossing some premade salads. I slipped sugarless trail mix into small Ziplocs, and made chia seed and yogurt mix to put in the fridge.

As I was preparing my meals for the week, I called my grandmother to keep her company. She always woke up at six to feed her cats and water her ten thousand plants.

“Grams.” I allowed my Staten Island whine to slip through. She would never accept the stony, remote version of me, and didn’t deserve it. “What’yous upta today?”

“Thomas,” she tsked, and I heard the sound of dozens of wailing felines begging her for food. Jean Rothwell had a bit of a hoarding problem. Only it was stray cats she was collecting, as opposed to junk. “When am I seeing your face again?”

“Soon.”

“Soon, my hide. It’s been five weeks.”

“Been slammed with work, but I plan to stop by on Sunday. Take you to church.”

“If I’ll agree to be your date.”

“Oh, you’ll be my date, Jean Margaret Rothwell. We both know my coming to church is the ultimate sacrifice and declaration of love.”

I’d grown up agnostic and crossed the line to atheist after two tours overseas. The shift between a noncommitted believer to a rejecter of any form of higher existence happened in the space of those tours, and the sights I’d seen in both. But the final nail in the metaphorical coffin was losing the only thing to make me happy after surviving two wars and abusive parents.

The first tour I did was the initial surge in Iraq. By then I was in my midtwenties and a part of the A-team long enough to be appointed to extremely delicate tasks. I saw some shit, lost some friends, and came home hardened and rough around the edges. During my second tour, I did a village stability op in Afghanistan, working alongside the Afghan special forces. This time, I saw a lot worse. All throughout, I wondered how people clung to their unshakable faith. I suppose religion brought comfort and solidity in a world that was ruthless toward everyone, no matter how innocent and vulnerable. I rejected any hope that promised, but would never materialize into, a happy ending.

By the time I was discharged from the army, I was an ODA—Operational Detachment Alpha—unit commander of twelve Green Berets.

I was also so thoroughly disheartened by humanity as a concept, the only career path I considered viable was locking away bad guys. Counterterrorism was my first choice, but organized crime was where help was needed, more specifically from someone with my skill set, so this was where I’d ended up in the bureau.

I had a rigid set of morals and ethics, which was how I knew the encounter with Vincenzo Ferrante was a moment of brief insanity. Not to be repeated, and not to be shared with the world.

“Make it a church date and lunch, and I might think about it,” my grandmother negotiated on the other end of the line. My lips almost quirked up as the oven beeped and I extracted the salmon tray, letting it cool off on the stovetop.

I tugged off my oven mitts, neatly folding them back into a drawer. “Fine. But wear something nice, Grams. I have high standards.”

“Speaking of those impossible standards of yours, are you seeing anyone?”

She knew the answer to that question, because it’d remained the same for the past eight years. “No.”

“Well, you should. You’ve only given me one grandbaby, and he’s in middle school. I want more, and I want you to settle down with a nice boy or girl.”

“Nice boys or girls won’t have me, Grams. I’m too damaged for them.”

“Oh, nonsense. Just say the word and I’ll find you a—”

“This conversation is over. I’ll see you Sunday.”

“What about Kathlyn Gaynor’s daughter? She just got divor—”

“Good for her. People suck.”

“Oh! Jill McKenna’s son is single and looking for—”

“Grams, he is twenty-three!”

“What’s wrong with twenty-three? Age is just a number.”

“I’m not in the market for anything serious.”

“You bet your boots you are. You’re just waiting for the right person to come along. They should hurry up. You’re not getting any younger.”

I glanced at my watch, suppressing a groan. I lost all my patience for the day, and it wasn’t even eight in the morning.