The taste of vodka on my lips mixed with cigarette smoke has been my only comfort this past week. It's even more so right now because today is the day they planned on raiding the compound and, according to my current time, they should be done their task. It's midday, our time, which meant it was late at night in Albania and I still haven't gotten a fucking phone call yet.

My hopes are not particularly high considering I know what they're walking into, the shit show that awaits them. My mother though, she had a rather positive outlook, whether that was for my benefit alone or she truly felt that way I don't actually know. Brooks was certain he could get Dani out and there was no doubt in my mind that he meant it. He had the proof. She had been going on scheduled daily runs with a guard like clockwork. It was Wolf that was my biggest concern. If they didn't have Wolf I doubt Dani would come regardless if Brooks got to her. She wouldn't leave him again.

I see her being dragged away from me, my son torn from her arms. It haunts me day in and day out, like a fucking constant nightmare. Her screaming. Our son fighting to get out of Dedaj's arms. Me bleeding all over the fucking place, feeling my soul leave my body. The entirety of it playing over and over again— my complete fucking failure as partner and father. My eyes dance across my abdomen for the millionth time. Ugly red scars are all over it. They're disgusting.

My sister's laugh pulls me out of my self-loathing and I want to roll my fucking eyes right out of my skull. She's flirting with her guard, shamelessly caressing him in her bathing suit, if you could even call what she's wearing a bathing suit. It exposes way too much of my sister's body. Way more than I care to see.

"You know you guys can fuck, right?" Both of them look in my direction. Braxton looks surprised while Adri does not. "Adri, I am not our parents. I could give two shits about who you want to get down and dirty with. But, please, for the love of all that is holy, fuck this guy and be done with it. Your incessant flirtation is driving me up the fucking wall. I wonder if it's as annoying to him as it is to me."

"Oh fuck off, Torey." She jumps into the pool, splashing a bit of water on me. Once she surfaces she adds, "you're just cranky because you haven't been laid in a good while." She sticks her tongue out in a teasing manner.

I blow out a breath of smoke. "Oh yeah, and I wonder why that is, Adri... Maybe because I was fucking stabbed? Maybe because of that? Plus, I don't enjoy hoeing myself around like you do." I mean, that was kind of a lie considering I used to thoroughly enjoy hoeing myself around.

"Not all of us can be in a polyamorous relationship like our parents. Best of both worlds though, am I right?" She has been using every opportunity to bring that up— specifically Brooks.

"Fuuuuuuck ooooooffffffffff." I swing the rest of my drink back feeling a nice buzz setting in. "I told you Brooks and I aren't a thing. I'm with Dani."

"Yeah, and he's with Dani too, right?" I purse my lips at that because she's not wrong. Things are still a bit muddled in the relationship arena. "It's also why you stormed out to the guest house the other night and pounded on his door when you thought he had someone in there with him. Sure sure. Yeah, you're not a thing at alllllll."

I'm about to give her a rather nasty retort when I feel a buzzing in my pocket. Nervous anticipation has me pulling it out automatically, heart beating a million miles a minute when I see my mother's name on the screen. "Please tell me you have good news. Please tell me you have them." I'm met with silence. My heart skips three beats. "Mom. Please. Tell me. You have them." My voice sounds panicked even to my own ears.

"I'm sorry, Torey." I'm on my feet in an instant, not even caring about the subtle searing sensation in my abdomen. "They were all over the mountainside. They were picking us off like flies. There was no way we were even getting close to inside." I grab the empty tumbler glass next to me and launch it across the patio. I had known this was going to be the outcome. I had told them. "Brooks was able to make contact with Dani but..."

"But she wouldn't come unless she knew you had Wolf, right?"

"Right." I slam my first into the iron table at the conformation, splitting my knuckles open. "I thought you should hear this bit specifically from me." What the fuck bit is she talking about? There's something worse? Fucking hell. "The man watching her..." She pauses and it drives me to near insanity.

"What about him?" I feel my jaw clench so hard it might break. "What about the man watching her?"

"He told Brooks that you trained him."

"I have trained a lot of men in my years working for Dedaj, Mom. Please get to the fucking point." Preferably before I spontaneously combust.

"Alright, well, her assigned guard's name is Tristan. You would know him as Tristan Grant." I wrack my brain for a face, for a body, anything, but come up empty. "If it helps, he uhm, he looks a bit like you." Tristan... A man's face flashes behind my lids.

"Yeah, okay. I think I know who you're talking about."

"He's not working for the Dedaj family. He's a Marling. His name is Tristan Marling." I let that fact sink in for a minute. A Marling...

"As in Scott Marling, Marling?"

"Yes." The man who nearly killed my parents. The same one who got my mother into this lifestyle. The man who stabbed her.

"And you said that this man is Dani's personal guard?" She's quiet and I can tell there's something else, something more that she isn't sharing. That's when a nasty feeling sinks into the pit of my stomach. "Put Brooks on the phone."

"Torey, I don't think it's good for you to be getting all worked up. I don't think—"

"I said put Brooks on the fucking phone." A moment later he picks up the line and I can tell by the loud sigh he lets out. "Brooks?"

"Yeah Tor?" His tone is curt.

"This man." I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration. "The man who kind of looks like me and is Dani's personal guard..." I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself the fuck down but it is not working a single bit. "This man and her..."

"Mmm?" He's being short for a reason, not wanting to give anything away.

"Their relationship. Did it seem more that just... work related." He doesn't respond which tells me one thing— that their relationship isn't just business, that this fucking Marling asshole is trying to fuck my woman. I feel like I'm about to implode. "So, let me get this straight, she saw me stabbed, bleeding to death and dying on the floor and thinks she can substitute me with some fucking knock-off..."

"Torey, calm down."

"I'm perfectly calm."

"The fact that you'd even say that means you're on the verge of pulling a Mount Vesuvius." I hate the fact that this man knows me so well. It's so fucking irritating. "You're still healing, Tor, remember that. You're no good to anyone if you're in the hospital."

"I will put that asshole in the god damn hospital. I will kill him. I will wring his neck between my hands like a god damn fucking..." I have no other words so I just let out a frustrated growl of a noise.

"She's not substituting you. Her father is definitely manipulating her with someone who looks like you and talks like me."

"You... you heard him talking to her?" There's silence. Which tells me that whatever romantic Romeo bullshit he was spilling to her she was buying. "I'm going to fucking kill him. I'm getting on a plane. I am flying to wherever the fuck and I am going to blow his head off."

"Torey, nothing is going to happen. She knows you're alive. You should've seen the look on her face. She thought you were dead." Spectacular. She thought I was dead and her father used a lookalike to try and woo her into being complacent. I'm seething. "Tor, seriously, calm down. We've got it under—" I hang up on him because I don't want to hear how I should just chill the fuck out when all I want to do is rage. I don't want to hear about how they have it covered when they don't.

I slam my phone down and stalk over to Braxton. He's eyeing me cautiously, not knowing what to expect. I don't blame him. Most people who glance at me do so with caution to, especially when I'm in this state. I hold out my hand to him with, "give me your firearm."

"What?" He looks hesitant and that makes me want to punch him in the face.

"You heard what I fucking said. Give. Me. Your. Firearm."

"With all do respect, sir—"

"Do I look like a fucking sir to you? Do I look like I need your respect?" His eyes narrow infinitesimally. "I swear to god you can either give me it willingly or I will take it from your fucking corpse."

"Jesus Christ, Torey!" Adri is out of the pool in an instant. "What is your problem?"

"Mind your business, Adri."

"Here." Braxton hands over the gun. I turn off the safety before cocking it. Without a second thought I aim at a palm tree a couple of hundred feet away and fire several times. Adri screams but I don't care I hold out my hand for another clip and the man obliges. "That's all I got." I don't respond. I just aim at the tree and fire, picturing Dedaj's face as clear as day.

A/N:
Torey does not seem happy...