Backblast by Candace Irving (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

She swore she could feel the remorse warring with the fury still consuming John's soul. Even Riyad must've felt it. Believed it.

Because the agent had pulled away from the wall unit once again, this time to quietly prompt John before she could. "Major?"

The ever-present creaking of metal filled the stateroom.

Regan ignored the fisting in her gut and offered her own prompt. "He bragged that it was his idea to infect me with the chimeral virus, and you just…?"

John's stare was colder than Riyad's had ever been when it finally sliced up, and it was beyond empty. "I saw red. To tell the truth, Rae, I still don't remember coming to my feet, nor do I remember taking that final step toward him. All I know is I reached through the rage to grab the back of his head and slam that laughing face into the bulkhead. Just once. At least, I think it was just once. I can't be sure. I just know if those Marines hadn't pulled me off him, I'd have bashed that son-of-a-bitch to a pulp."

John's scarred right hand came up to cover the crime scene photo and remained there as he sighed. "Hell, it looks like that's exactly what I did."

The hush returned. Terse breathing accompanied the creaks of the piping and vents, merging with the ever-present, distant drone of machinery. Even Riyad appeared loath to break the spell.

The satellite phone in his cargo pocket had no such reservations.

The phone shrilled a second time as Riyad retrieved it. "I need to take this."

She nodded briefly, then wondered why she'd bothered. The spook had already stepped out into the passageway and closed the door behind him, shutting her in with John.

Alone.

For a solid minute, neither of them moved, much less spoke. Every single, stark second was absolute torture. Through them all, John stared at the bloodstained hand still lying on the table beside the crime scene photo.

Suddenly, she couldn't handle it. Before she could stop herself, she broke protocol and reached out, ignoring the fresh tremor in her own hand as she sealed it to the crisscross of keloid ridges and valleys that covered the back of his.

His entire body flinched.

"John?"

He dragged his attention from the photo. But instead of focusing it on her, he stared at the voice recorder.

It was still on.

She hadn't forgotten. She simply didn't care. Or perhaps she cared too much. If she got pulled from this case, so what? The alternative was killing her. Just as John's grief over that single, instinctive blow was slowly killing him.

But he was right.

She reached out again, this time switching the recorder off before returning her hand to where it belonged. She threaded her fingers into his and squeezed firmly, attempting to impart the final vestiges of her hope before it evaporated. "John, I know you. Whatever happens during this investigation, whatever else we learn, I know you didn't mean to kill him. I plan on doing everything in my power to prove it."

There was no way—absolutely none—that she'd allow this man who'd sacrificed so much for his country to end his life where that so-called Army translator should be—on death row, waiting for someone to push a lethal injection into his veins.

To her dismay, John withdrew his hand from beneath hers and reached for the recorder she'd killed. He switched it back on.

His hand dropped into his lap, the stark truth of what had happened that morning locked in those dark gray eyes as he faced her full on.

For once she'd have given anything for John—a soldier of absolute, unshakable honor—to lie through his teeth.

But he didn't.

And she damned near died as John all but shoved that needle into his own arm as he took in her silent plea and slowly shook his head. "Agent Chase, I know you mean well. I appreciate it. But let me make one thing clear: I'm guilty. Not only did I kill Tamir Hachemi—in that moment, I wanted to."

7

Regan tracked the arc of her pen as it rolled back and forth across the metal flap she'd lowered from the wall unit to create the desk in her temporary quarters. While the waves hitting the Griffith were mild compared to those she'd experienced upon boarding, it didn't seem to matter. Her stomach had resumed its nauseating lurch—and it had nothing to do with the motion of her pen or the ship.

It had to do with John. His confession.

Those three damning words that had rasped past his lips. Agent Riyad might not understand their significance, but she did.

I saw red.

While they'd lain in bed together in Germany sixteen months ago, John had opened up a bit more about his childhood. That same, seemingly simple euphemism had served as the oft-repeated excuse from his father the morning after the bastard had gotten drunk and taken a belt, a branch, his fist or worse to John while he was growing up. He'd taken the beatings for twelve years, until the night his father had grabbed one bottle too many, only to have it jerked from his grip and smashed into the wall instead—by John. Fed up, and now tall enough to take on his father, he'd given the brute a choice. Hit him again, and the next time, John would hit back.

Hard.

The physical abuse had ended that night.

But the emotional?

For the next two decades John had lived with the deep-seated, insidious fear that his mother's prediction—and excuse—for taking his baby sister and leaving her five-year-old son to endure his father's vitriol and beatings alone would come to pass. That one day, some unknown and inescapable trigger would click deep within, and John too would see red and snap.

That day had finally come.

Whether the translator realized it or not, Tamir Hachemi had discovered it.

She was the trigger. The reason John had finally vaulted to his feet in that conference room and blindly vented the pain, horror and rage of the past few weeks—hell, the entire past decade—onto his once-trusted colleague.

Just one blow. But