Page 24 of Bare
Rosemary giggled. She’d probably really like his mother.
She shifted her legs closer to him and relaxed into the quiet. When she was sick, she’d learned to listen. Really listen. The tension in the room had eased, but it was going to be incredibly hard for Aleksei to keep talking about Phillipe. Hopefully, her silence would give him the space and time he needed to find the words he wanted to use. After a few minutes of listening to the sounds of the crackling flames, he finally spoke.
“Phillipe was my best friend. We started at Quantico on the same day. We were both Special Forces. He was a Green Beret, and I was a Marine Raider. We’d both been through some real shit and had an instant connection. After training, we were both assigned to work out of DC. They normally pair new agents with more experienced ones, but a few months in, my partner blew out his knee playing softball the same week Phillipe’s partner announced his retirement, so they put us together.”
It was as if he’d flipped the off switch on his anger and was retelling a story he’d heard second-hand. His demeanor appeared calm, but his muscles were rigid against her legs. He was as taut as an overstretched elastic wrapped around a too-large ponytail. So tight that it might snap free at any moment.
“And then you moved to Philly?” she prompted. He would feel better if he kept talking.
“Samantha, Phillipe’s wife, wanted to move to this area to be closer to family, so they transferred us. I moved here, and they bought a house in Abington. Things were great. Sometimes we’d hang out in town. I went to their place for barbeques, Sunday dinners, the kids’ birthday parties, all that kind of stuff. We played in a softball league. Sometimes Samantha would bring the kids to watch our games.”
He ran his free hand through his close-cropped hair and then grabbed his beer from the coffee table and drained it. “I loved being an honorary uncle. I thought we were so fucking lucky. And then the shit hit the fan.”
Aleksei’s tension emanated from his body in such forceful waves that it was like sitting next to a furnace. The heat of his stress combined with the heat from the fireplace made sweat bead along the edges of her wig. She pressed her hands to her thighs, trying to draw her mind away from the itchy feeling building along the edges of her scalp. He deserved her full attention.
“What happened?”
He ran his long fingers over his hair again, his head slowly shaking back and forth. “The worst thing is, I don’t really know. We had an apartment in Northern Liberties that we used for our cover. It was a quiet night, and I was tired as shit. I had a beer with Phillipe and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, he was gone. His bed hadn’t been slept in. And I knew. Right then, I knew something terrible had happened. We found him later that day. It was...difficult.”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then reopened them. “It’s crazy the things you focus on. When the ME flipped him over, he had some kind of dirt on his face. I remember wishing I could just clean his face. There was nothing I could do about the bullet wound or his missing hands, but the least I could do was wipe his face. And they wouldn’t let me. They wouldn’t let me.”
Her lungs felt weighted down, like they were full of rocks. She would give anything to ease his pain.
“Did they find the person who killed him?” She had to ask even though, in her heart, she knew the answer.
He shook his head again. “No. There were no fingerprints. No physical evidence. I think it was someone from the case we were working on, but there was no proof. Somehow, it got leaked that he might have been an undercover cop. He was never linked to the FBI, and Philly PD denied he was one of theirs, but the murder was all over the news. The FBI closed down the op and shut down the investigation into the murder. They didn’t want any bad press. They wanted it to all blow over.”
He shrugged. “They moved on to the next thing and expected me to do the same, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t work every day with people who were willing to sweep Phillipe’s murder under the rug. People who could just go on with their lives and ignore his death.”
She hated the contrast of the pain in his eyes and the neutrality of his voice, the forced calm that masked his sorrow. She knew all about survivor’s guilt. She’d waited months for her mother’s murderer to be brought to justice. Aleksei was still waiting.
“So, you quit the FBI and started working as a consultant?”
He nodded. “We were supposed to have each other’s backs, but he chose to go out alone that night. In the weeks before his murder, he seemed quieter than usual. He blamed his mood on being separated from his family for too long, and I believed him. He was my best friend. I should have known there was more to it.”
Aleksei’s voice cracked, a small fissure in his composure. “He didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was going on. He didn’t wake me up to go with him. He never should have been out there alone. I should have asked more questions. I should have pushedharder. If I had been a better partner, been a better friend, if Phillipe had trusted me...maybe I could have saved him.”
“And if you couldn’t?” Rosemary asked.
“At least he wouldn’t have died alone.”
Chapter Eight
The words hung in the air, creating distance while at the same time forging an unbreakable connection. He had just told her he would have preferred to die with Phillipe rather than let him die alone.
Was that love? Loyalty? Insanity?
He’d been an FBI agent. He’d been a Marine. His best friend had died a brutal death. Was his sense of duty misplaced, or was it exactly where it should be?
His words warmed her heart and spoke to her soul, so what did that say about her? What kind of person empathized with that sentiment?
One who had visited death’s doorstep. One who had lain awake too many nights, terrified of dying alone. One whose life consisted of years of illness-imposed solitude. One who was desperate for the type of true, deep friendship Aleksei shared with Phillipe.
At least she was self-aware.
“One time, when I was in an argument with Sage, she told me something profound. It was the second time my cancer came back, and the treatments were brutal. The doctors weren’t evensure they would work. My labs kept getting worse instead of better. One of the doctors suggested I stop treatment so I could have more quality of life during my last few months, and I told him I would think about it.” A wry laugh escaped her lips. “Sage was livid. Absolutely livid. I told her it was my life and my choice, and she said she couldn’t live without me. That sometimes it’s harder to be the one who lives.”
Aleksei lifted his hand to her cheek. His fingers were warm and rough with calluses.
