“I love you, Angie, I wouldn’t have married you if I didn’t. But you agreed with me, or was that just all pretend? I don’t want a divorce, but I am not staying here to work in insurance. I want to be proud of the mark I make in this world, I want you to be proud of me, and serving my country will do that.” Leaning down, I kissed her soft lips, lingering to inhale her sweet scent. Putting it to memory just in case.
“It is up to you, Angie, think about what you want. If you want me, then let me know in eleven weeks.”
With one last chaste kiss, I turned and walked out of our bedroom, down the hall and out the front door to my car. The sobs of my wife ringing in my ears the whole way.
FOUR YEARS LATER
“Private Walsh, mail for you.”
I took the thick yellow envelope and stared at it with an expressionless face. I knew what it was, the multitude of phone calls with Angie the last few months coming to a conclusion with the appearance of the envelope.
“Thanks, mate,” I replied, breaking tradition and not using the mail clerk’s rank.
“No worries, Rafe, I see from the address on the top this isn’t the news from home I like to deliver.”
“Shit happens, mate. It has been a long time coming; being married and spending more time in foreign countries does not make a successful marriage.” Truer words had never left my lips, and in the last few years, I had done a lot of talking. Going home to a wife who hated my job, fighting more than we made love, then leaving again all pissed off and angry at each other meant this envelope was actually more welcome than disappointing, to me at least.
Angie didn’t divorce me four years ago when I left for basic training, but she was now. To be honest, we should have done it after I finished my commando training and got accepted into Team FIVE. Our fights really started to escalate to full out shouting matches, mainly about her jealousy of my teammates and the close bond I shared with them. She hated the secrecy about my job and that I lived in Queenscliff off base with them. She complained that being stuck in our small house in Bendigo all on her own was unfair, and if I was allowed to live off base, she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t live off base in Bendigo with her.
Angie wasn’t one for understanding logic, all she understood was what Angie wanted. Our arguments consisted of my living arrangements, my team and the fact that I spent a lot of time in Ballarat at what she called a gang hide-out. The Wounded Souls compound was not even close to being classified as a gang hide-out, but getting her to understand that was near impossible. It was getting so bad going home to her, I even lied to her about my leave and stayed in Ballarat, not letting her know I was even back in the country. I guess I was scared to be the one to end our relationship. Now, it was done.
Pulling the tab off the back of the manilla envelope, I yanked out the contents and started to scan the legal jargon. There wasn’t anything I would fight her for, we didn’t own the house we lived in. The only real financial request she was making was for me to pay out the lease so she could move out immediately. Fair call, Angie hated that house and I couldn’t begrudge her to leave it all behind her.
Other than wanting the lease paid out, she wanted me to pay her legal fees, which was basically it. Our years together didn’t garner assets or property, my Jeep was nine years old and I stored it at the base in Queenscliff or at Ballarat, depending on where we shipped out. We had no kids or bank accounts to divvy up, nothing to fight over.
Leaning over my bed, I reached inside my duffel bag for a biro and signed my name beside the coloured tab, dated it, then tucked it into the included addressed envelope.
Getting up off my bunk, I walked woodenly to the area where we put out letters to home for the mail staff to find. Looking at the non-descript parcel in my hand, I heaved a tired sigh.
Divorced at twenty-six.
I didn’t see that coming.
CHAPTER ONE
RAFE
The Wounded Souls compound was chock-a-block full of family and friends. Drinks were flowing, food littered tables everywhere, and people were laughing and chatting, making it impossible to hear the inner voice in my head berating me for being here instead of where I should be.
“Rafe, you want to stay at the compound tonight?” Gabriel Booth, my commanding officer, asked, walking up to me with a beer in each hand.
My normal refusal rose immediately, but a flash of light pink a hundred metres away caught my attention.
Pink, I like it.
Looking at my captain, I nodded my head. “Why not Tank? I can’t be stuffed driving tonight, and staying the night here won’t change anything.”
“You know Rafe, you don’t —”
Holding up my hand, I stopped Gabe from saying anything more.
“Don’t mate, please. Logically I know that, but I have a responsibility, Tank. I know you guys don’t get it, but I do, and while I can’t explain it, it is what it is,” I insisted, hating to have this conversation with one of my best mates. My team supported the decision I’d made three years ago without so much of a bad word, but recently they had gotten a little more vocal, a little more … forceful that it was time to pack it in and get on with my life.
If only I could. Seeing Peyton head in the direction of the back garden, I stood up from the picnic table.
“I’m staying tonight, Tank, good enough?” I asked, hoping that he would accept my decision and give the topic a rest.
“Righto Rafe, I accept that.”
Picking up my beer from the table, I nodded at him.
“Gonna go see how she is doing, her last letter to me didn’t give the impression she was in a good place,” I said with a nod in Peyton’s direction.
“Yeah, Dad told me the club went out to her place a few weeks ago and installed more locks. Ford and Lucky upgraded her security camera system,” Gabe told me, his face worried.
“She isn’t doing any better, is she, Rafe?”
“She is and isn’t. With Justin still on the loose, I can’t blame her for being wary. I can’t believe he disappeared virtually without a trace. The club and Jason have a big reach, and still, Justin is like a ghost.” My back teeth ground against each other just thinking about that prick Justin. His attempt to kill Peyton and Addy might have failed, but he succeeded in turning Peyton into a shell of the woman she used to be. She is scared of being away from her house and scared to be there. My heart fucking aches for the sweet woman that had managed to become somewhat of an obsession to me. I had no fucking right, but my feelings for the vet nurse grew more and more every day.
“Go find her mate, my guess she has gone down to the garden where it is quiet.”
“And where she can see anyone coming,” I added grimly, hating that Peyton had learned such techniques such as staying where she could see someone coming at her, never sitting with her back to an entry and worst of all, learning to use a gun.
It didn’t escape me the irony; I hated that I was teaching Peyton to shoot, yet I was a sniper in the army. My job was all about guns, but I would give anything for that to be the opposite for Peyton.
“Fuck if only—” I stopped myself from voicing the rest because it didn’t matter how much I wanted things to be different. Unfortunately, Gabe heard me, and being the man he was, he wasn’t going to let an opportunity pass by him.