Page 4 of Scars of Fate

Suppressor.

Night vision.

Extra magazines.

Medical kit.

Everything sat exactly where it belonged.

Everything except the one thing I’d buried years ago.

The belief that everyone could be saved.

That lesson had cost me my marriage.

Cost me the only woman I’d ever loved.

I shoved the thought away before it could take hold.

Wynn belonged to another life.

Another world.

One I’d spent years convincing myself no longer existed.

“Brave,” Adam said quietly over the radio. “Bring them home.”

I pulled my night-vision goggles into place as darkness swallowed the broken landscape.

“We always do.”

I gave the signal.

Six operators from the Brave slipped silently toward the compound.

None of us knew that one of the people waiting behind those walls was about to change my life forever.

2

WYNN

Twenty-Seven Hours Earlier

The little girl couldn’t have been more than six.

Dark curls matted with dust.

One tiny arm clung desperately around my neck while silent tears rolled down her dirty cheeks.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, gently smoothing her hair. “We’re almost finished.”

Her mother sat against the far wall, pressing a blood-soaked cloth against her husband’s shoulder.

No one complained anymore.

No one cried.

They were simply exhausted.