of old stale sweat and piss hung heavily in the air in my holding cell. It invaded my nostrils every time I took a breath.
Fluorescent lighting hummed above my head, flickering more than it actually provided light. My shoes scuffed across the smooth concrete floor as I paced. Black lines from rubber soles and nicks in the concrete told me I wasn’t the first one unable to sit still in there.
The windows had thick bars in front of them, like we were all hardened criminals who were going to try our hands at escaping. The sting of the handcuffs they’d slapped on me days ago still burned at my wrists, but I was pretty sure I was just imagining it at this point.
With my mood flipping violently from extreme to extreme, I was shitty company to anyone who had the misfortune of being dumped in this cell with me. Lucky for them, they came and went within hours.
I was the only one who had occupied this hellhole consistently in the time I’d been there. Thousands of questions sped through my mind, but no one was around to answer them.
The guards were built like solid bookshelves and had the personality of them, too. During my first day, I kept expecting someone to come talk to me. I’d gotten all the facts straight in my head and was more than ready for my statement to be taken.
Unfortunately for me, no one seemed interested in taking it. The guards refused to answer any of my questions, though one had told me the officers would come by when they were “goddamned ready” to.
The cot in the cell was made of metal rungs that dug into my ass when I sat and my back when I tried sleeping. The thin, threadbare mattress and blanket they had generously provided didn’t do shit to help with the discomfort.
And this was coming from someone who was used to sleeping under far worse conditions than this. I’d slept on surfaces ranging from concrete floors just like this one to sand under the stars in faraway lands, and not once had it kept me from getting in at least a few hours.
This time, however, I wasn’t so lucky. I’d tried the floor, but it was my mind keeping me from really getting much sleep more than my surroundings. I could’ve dealt with everything, but the one thing I wasn’t doing well with was not being able to tell Sofia where I was.
God only knew what she was thinking at this point, but I doubted it was good. My only hope was that she knew me well enough by now to know that I hadn’t just left her behind without a word.
The woman consumed my every thought. Even those concerning my future in the Navy.
Whatever happened from there on out, she would play a role in the decisions I made. If having this time to think had done anything good for me, it was that I’d realized I couldn’t let her go. I knew she had to go back to campus to finish her studies, and I was hopeful that once this shit show was over, I’d be deployed again.
But as far as I was concerned, neither of those things dictated our future together. Because we would fucking have one.
We had to.
As unlikely as it might be, I was absolutely and unequivocally in love with her. No one and nothing would keep us apart. Unless of course, she didn’t want to be with me, in which case I’d have to drown myself in a vat of whiskey like every other heartbroken man did before he figured out what the hell to do with himself next.
If, however, she did want me, I would apply every ounce of focus I had to our relationship. My missions had taught me that nothing was impossible if I applied myself, and that was exactly what I would do.
Body, mind, and soul, I would dedicate myself to her, to being better for her and to prove to Charles that I wasn’t the piece of shit he thought I was. But he and I needed to have a conversation first. The only thing that would keep me from breaking his fucking jaw in so many places that he had to take his meals through a straw for the rest of his life was that I needed him to be able to speak for said conversation.
Also, he was still Sofia’s dad. If I maimed him, it probably wouldn’t win