enabling him. If he’s going to live there, he should at least get a job and help contribute to the finances.
I should sit Brian down to find out exactly what his side hustles are. Why does he have money coming in soon for a job he’s already completed, but owe someone else money? I should give him guidance, despite him being five years older than me. Help to put him on a path that will lead him to independence and perhaps some type of success. He may not have gone to college, but he’s not without skills. Hell, I’m sure Dad could even get him on at the steel plant if Brian wanted.
But I decide against it. I’ve tried these conversations over the years, and it results in nothing. Brian will nod, agree, and promise to step up to the plate. I’ll get hopeful and aspire for something good for my brother.
Then he’ll do nothing, and I’ll be disappointed.
It’s better to keep my expectations low when it comes to Brian’s future.
Brian has his check in hand, so I finish doctoring up my coffee. As I head back toward my room, I say, “Lock up on your way out.”
“Okay,” he says quietly, then adds. “Thanks so much, Jaime. I owe you.”
I don’t reply because there’s no point. I’m not even sure I’ll see that two hundred dollars again.
After I close my bedroom door, I head into the bathroom, taking some deep breaths along the way. I have to let go of the frustration Brian causes within me—not because he doesn’t do as I expect, but because I love him and only want what’s best.
I choose to let it go for the day. I have a busy caseload to deal with, women and children’s safety to help achieve, and a date with a hot, intriguing man tonight.
CHAPTER 4
Cage
Christ, I’m nervous and sweaty. I’ve been in situations so dangerous and vile most people would be forever traumatized. But getting ready for one date with Jaime has my hands shaking.
When was the last time I’ve actually been on a date?
Ten years ago, in high school?
I left home in rural North Carolina when I graduated high school. College wasn’t of interest, but the Navy was. My grandfather had been in the Navy, and I saw it as a ticket out of small-town life. A chance to have adventure and excitement while seeing the world.
I quickly figured out the best way to do that was to become a Navy SEAL. Eight weeks of naval recruit training, another eight weeks of Navy special warfare prep school. Then the hellish nightmare of BUDS, the six-month course for basic underwater demolition and SEAL training where we lose over eighty percent of the recruits through attrition. Spent a fun five weeks doing parachute jump school and finally a twenty-six-week course for my qualification training, where I was awarded the U.S. Navy SEAL Trident.
I was officially a Navy SEAL.
My training was nowhere near complete, though. I was assigned to SEAL Team 4 in Virginia Beach, where I underwent another eighteen months of pre-deployment training. Only after I completed that was I able to go on missions.
It was a good time in my life. I loved the Navy and the structured order. I loved working to protect my country, and I most certainly got adventure—along with danger—and I saw the world.
At the end of my enlistment, I had a few options. I could have reenlisted and stayed in the Navy. I’d been approached and offered a job with the CIA in their Special Operations Group. And Kynan McGrath reached out to me—upon recommendation of my best friend, Bodie Wright, who had been working with him for a few months. Bodie and I had been on the same SEAL team, and he was the closest thing I had to a brother. Kynan offered me a job working for the private company, Jameson Force Security. I’d be doing the same stuff but with fewer constraints and a hell of a lot more money.
It’d been a no-brainer for me, and I accepted the job with Jameson, not just because of the money, but mainly since I’d be working with Bodie again. It had been a down time in my life when he left the Navy before I did.
At any rate, through all of my training and deployments and missions with Jameson, which were just as dangerous—Bodie and I had been captured once, and I’d gotten shot in the leg—I never had time for dating.