Page 1 of Broken Promise
PART1
CHAPTERONE
Rafe
It was safer not to dream.
It was safer to sleep the sleep of the dead. Where you put your head down and you didn't wake up again until your alarm.
Those were the easiest nights. But tonight was not one of those.
Hell, there were some nights where I would have paid a King's ransom, would have robbed the whole bank just to have a normal dream. The kind with a happy ending or one where I could fly?
Nope.
My brain had zero interest.
Instead, something deep down in my psyche wanted to explore all the mistakes I'd ever made. To play them ad nauseam, ad infinitum until I went deep down into that rabbit hole of different choices. Different paths I could have taken.
My brain enjoyed a full cinematic replay of my worst screw-ups, with Dolby surround sound and 4K resolution.
Lucky me.
I tossed and turned, my mind in a constant state of turmoil. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face. The face of the girl who had changed everything. I tried to push the memories away, to block them out, but they kept coming.
The nightmare du jour was theVandergraffmission. After all this time that name still tasted like broken glass every time it danced on my tongue.
And like every nightmare ever known to mankind, there was no stopping the show before it was done. There was no hopping off the ride before the last stop. All I could do was endure. The sweat popping on my brow, my gut clenching, part of my brain desperately trying to tell the other one that this wasn't real. It was a memory. Afalsememory. But it still felt like I was back there that night. In that mansion.
I was young, new to the game, and more than a little cocky. I mean, what young, adrenaline-fueled government-sanctioned assassin isn't? The mission was simple: take out DieterVandergraff, human trafficker, arms dealer, and terrorist.
As it turned out, 'simple' was a gross overestimation.
My mind’s eye was desperate to look away from what it knew was coming but all I could do was watch as I slipped through the shadows, like a ghost. A shadow within shadows.
I was the guy they brought in when they needed someone who could be unseen. Unheard.
I was the guy who was invisible.
Until the moment when I wasn’t.
The girl standing there was a doe-eyed teenager, with dreams probably as pure as fresh snow. How was I to know she'd be home? My intel had said Vandergraff’s daughter would be out of the house.
Yet, there she was, just in time to catch me transforming her father from the 'living' to 'no longer a problem' category.
I started to shake as I tried to mentally look away.
But the memory wouldn't let me. It replayed the scene like a broken record, taunting me with the consequences of my actions. The girl had screamed, begged for her father's life, and I had frozen. It was supposed to be a clean hit, an easy way to eliminate a monster from the world. But in that moment, I had seen the human in him. I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on an innocent girl.
Her eyes... God, those eyes. They flashed wide, full of unspeakable horror and fear. It was like I'd personally shoved her out of innocence and into this damned nightmare. Her scream split the silence, the sound searing itself into my memory.
The look in her eyes still haunted me, a reminder of the toll my actions could take, even when they were for the greater good.
The memory played out in my mind, over and over again, until I was drenched in sweat and gasping for air. It was safer not to dream, but it was impossible to stop the nightmares. They were a part of me, just like the memories that haunted me every waking moment.
My eyes snapped open, wrenching me from the hellish past. My heart pounded like a jackhammer in my chest, my shirt sticking to my skin, heavy with cold sweat. The shrill ring of my phone ripped through the predawn silence, echoing the rhythm of my heartbeat.
The screen flashed with what I knew was an FBI number. Former boss. Former life. You don't need caller ID to know who's calling at 3 a.m. when you're an ex-agent. They didn't even try to be subtle.
