Ammo and Mary Read online

  “Um …?” was all she got out as she looked at me and started laughing.

  “That was a bit weird, but that seems to be moving in the right direction. I will tell you about in a few minutes,” I said, running a hand though my hair.

  “Ammo?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah, that’s me. It’s my name I earned as a SEAL. Most of the folks I work with are ex-military and we use those names. Domino is Lance Wheeler, owner of Forces Security. His idea was to hire operators who have special skill sets. We provide security, investigations, and a few other services to people that need those skill sets,” I explained while opening the door to the office. I used the code and thumb scanner to open the door.

  “I didn’t realize exactly what went on, but I made some guesses.”

  We walked into a reception waiting room area.

  “This is the reception area. Gena, Domino’s assistant, greets clients and takes them to this conference area. There’s a little kitchenette with coffee and snacks at the end of this hall. Around the corner here is the command room.” I led her in, and Tarzan was there with Hack and Gena.

  “Hiya. Tarzan, Hack, Gena, this is Mary. Mary, that’s Tarzan, aka John, Hack at the computer, and Gena.” Tarzan came up to her and gave her a hug, lifting her up off the floor.

  “It’s so good to meet you, Mary. I’m glad you’re still hanging out with him. I know he’s a gruff bear at times,” he said, putting her down. She was laughing.

  “Oh, he’s not that bad.” She shook Hack and Gena’s hands.

  “Everything okay?” I asked the others.

  “Yeah, just some research,” Tarzan said. The way he said it caught my attention. I wondered what was going on. Tarzan cleared his throat. “Well, I got to head home. Gena, just send that to my tablet. Thanks.” And he left the room with a wave.

  I looked at Hack and Gena. “What’s going on?” I asked them. They looked at each other, then back at me.

  “Jenn got some news at the doctor today. Tarzan is freaking out a bit. It will be fine,” Gena said.

  “What kind of news?” I asked.

  “Um … the cancer kind. They have lots more tests and such to do, but they think it’s treatable and she should be fine,” Gena said. I could tell Gena really didn’t want to talk about this.

  “Okay. I will talk to him tomorrow and see what we can do,” I told them.

  I looked over at Mary. She looked up at me and offered her hand. “You two going to be okay?” I asked Gena and Hack.

  “Yeah, we were about to call it a night,” Hack said, getting his workstation in order and shutting down his computer. Gena picked up her tablet and walked to the door. Hack followed. “Nice to meet you, Mary. See you tomorrow, Ammo.”

  Gena nodded and they left. I heard Gena head upstairs and Hack head to the door.

  “I was not expecting that. I’m sorry,” I said to her.

  “Oh, Ben, it’s okay. I don’t think anyone expects that. I will add them to my thoughts and hope for the best,” she said. I wrapped my arms around her. It made getting that crap news easier to bear. She held me tight.

  “Well, let’s finish showing you around.” I was sad to lose the feeling of her arms but wanted to show her where I worked.

  I led her out of the command room and down the stairs. “We have two basements and three floors. We just left the first floor. The second floor is a bunk room and clinic for us when we are on missions. The third floor is Gena’s space. She has an apartment up there. This is the first basement. It has the gym and locker room. The second basement is my office, armory, and training room,” I explained as we walked into the gym.

  “Oh my. This is huge. It extends under Domino’s then?” she asked.

  “Yes. The next floor down does as well. We also have an elevator for this side. It has a hallway that connects it to the big garage. We have some company vehicles and larger equipment in there. I can load them or unload them as needed.” I took her hand and led her down another flight of stairs.

  “This is my workspace,” I said as we arrived at my desk. The armory was behind my desk, all locked up behind a steel cage. I watched her looking at the rows of guns, body armor, ammunition, and gadgets.

  “This a lot to maintain, but it’s all in order. Very nice work. You obviously enjoy it.” She smiled up at me.

  “Thank you. Come on. We can go to my apartment next. I’ll make dinner and we can watch a movie,” I said, giving her hand a small tug. We walked out of Forces through the parking lot and up the stairs to my door. “It’s not much. But it’s home.”

  I held the door open for her. She stepped in. I kicked off my boots and took off my jacket to hang up. She saw what I had done and took off her shoes too. She shrugged out of her jacket and handed it to me. She looked even better without the jacket. Her jeans hugged every curve. The shirt she wore was a V-neck and showed just enough.

  “You are a bit of minimalist?” she asked, still looking around.

  “You could say that. It’s just what I need. The bathroom is behind the kitchen and the bedroom is straight ahead. I’m going to start dinner. Make yourself comfortable,” I said and started to gather items in the kitchen for dinner.

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” she said and headed to the bathroom.

  While she was gone, I got her a glass of water and left it on the coffee table. Then I started chopping the chicken, vegetables, and herbs for dinner. I was making chicken and dumplings. It would be ready in about forty-five minutes. I heard her moving towards the couch. It was close enough that we could talk comfortably.

  “I would offer to help, but you don’t want that, so I think I will sit and watch you instead.” She giggled nervously.

  I smiled. I liked her little flirty comments. They were so cute. “No worries. I got it. I put a glass of water there for you if you’re thirsty.”

  “Aww, that was sweet. Thank you. So, Ben, you have never really talked about your family. Did you want to tell me about them?” she asked.

  I had a picture on my dresser of my sister, me, and Gramps. She must have seen it.

  “Well, it’s not pleasant. My parents were great. My dad was an investment banker. My mom was a stay-at-home mom though she owned her own business. We lived in Morgan Park about a mile from Gramps. Gramps was my dad’s dad, and he was very involved in our lives. Anyway, the summer between eighth grade and freshmen year, my parents were hit and killed by a drunk driver. The driver didn’t make it either. When the police came to the door, I had my sister call Gramps over before they said anything. I knew it was going to be bad. Gramps came over and they told us the worst news of our lives. Gramps took us home. The three of us did the best we could to live our lives to the fullest. I knew I wanted to be a SEAL. I did everything I could to reach that goal. Martial arts after school, constantly swimming; I studied hard. 9/11 happened and I worked even harder. When I turned eighteen, I signed up and got myself placed so I had the best chance to be a SEAL. When I came home from Basic, my life changed forever. Again.” I got myself a glass of water. It felt good to wet my throat. But it was not strong enough. I really wanted a shot or two of whiskey, but I didn’t have any. I kept no alcohol of any kind; it was too tempting.

  “My sister is two years younger than me. We were very close. We didn’t fight much, and after the loss of our parents, it just was not worth it. She wanted to be a psychiatrist and a psychologist, it was going to take forever for her to finish school, but she wanted to help people. She was taking college-level courses at sixteen. I fully believed she was going to do it because there was no stopping her. She didn’t care about how many years of school she had to complete; she was going to have her doctorates in both. As far as we know, two days before I was due to come home, she went to the community college for her classes with her friend. When it was time to leave, she was not there. Her car was, but she was not. The friend called my gramps and he called the police. They did a search for her. Nothing. I came home and I did a search. Nothing. Final
ly, we got video from the college. She was carried out by three guys. They were not students at the college, so we have not discovered their identities. My gramps took it very hard. He did not recover. He died feeling he failed. It was devastating to me. I have never given up looking for her. Through contacts and friends, I found out she was sold to different cartels in Mexico. I lost her trail. I have not picked it up again.”

  While I talked, I put everything together in the pot. I was just waiting for the dumplings to cook.

  Chapter 12

  Mary

  I was still trying to digest everything he’d told me. It was so heartbreaking, and I saw why he didn’t talk about it. I stood up and walked over to him where he was standing in his kitchen, leaning up against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest. I put my arms around him. He opened his arms and wrapped them around me.

  “Ben, I am so sorry.” I didn’t know what to say.

  “It’s okay, Mary. You didn’t know. And better to find out now than later. You remember that case I told you I was working on? Well, it’s to catch the bastard that is behind the trafficking of my sister and countless other women. I may not be myself all the time as it continues. I may end up having to kill him. Can you accept that about me? My job is training others to kill. Then we go out and may have to do just that,” he said.

  I looked up at him and said, “Ben you do whatever you have to do to protect yourself, your teammates, and those who can’t protect themselves. You are not out there murdering little old ladies or babies. You are out there making the world a safer place. How could I have a problem with that? Yes, I will worry about you every time you have to go out, but no, I will never have a problem with you doing what you have to do.” I could see some of the tension he held leave his body. I really hoped he understood that I had no problem with what he did. I would just have to prove it to him. I laid my head on his chest and could hear his heartbeat.

  We stood like that until the timer went off. He let me go to shut it off. He got out two bowls, two spoons, and served up what was in the pot. I grabbed two paper towels because I noticed he did not. I followed him to the coffee table. He placed a bowl near my water and plunked a spoon in. “I hope you like chicken and dumplings,” he said as he dug in. I stirred up my bowl. There were chunks of chicken, vegetables, and dumplings. I loaded up my spoon with a little bit of everything. It was amazing.

  “Ben, this is amazing. I love chicken and dumplings. Rosa’s son Andre makes it once in a while. His is very good, but he is into fusion and it’s not the good home-cooked kind, like this,” I said, then dug into my bowl.

  I felt bad for him and was trying to think of something else to talk about. “Well, my parents retired to Florida. My father was an engineer and he decided that he had enough of the Midwest winters, and they moved. Rosa and her family came here from Texas to be closer to Abe’s family and she adopted me into her family. Her sons cook in the restaurant and her one daughter is a CPA; the other runs the front of the restaurant.”

  “Mary, you already told me about Rosa and her family. And I know about yours.” He was quiet for a moment. I didn’t remember telling him about my parents other than they were in Florida. I knew I’d talked about Rosa’s; I just didn’t talk about my parents often. “Mary, please don’t hate me, but I need to explain something to you.” Ben had finished his bowl and turned to me. He saw I’d finished too. He picked up my hands and held them.

  “Look at me.” I looked up into his dark blue eyes. He was very worried. I was scared for what he was going to tell me. “Mary, when we were trying to get Eve back, I investigated you, everything about you.” He watched my reaction. I was frozen where I was. I’d never noticed. I had never seen him.

  “Before we contacted you, we had to make sure you were not Durando’s creature. I watched you take care of Eve as you did your job. You tried to make things better for her. Though you knew Durando was crazy, you still tried. You knew you could not go to the police without getting her hurt or worse. But I saw you struggle. That was when I got Hunt to come to you. Mary, I vetted you myself. I verified everything I could about you. I dug through your background and your life. I knew everything about your life, your parents, where you went to school. I knew you before you knew I existed,” he explained.

  I sat there and let out the breath I was holding. I didn’t know how to feel. If we would have met in any other way, would it be that different? He would have found all these things out about me anyways. Did it matter how he’d found out? I had nothing to hide. Should it really change everything? I looked at him. I really liked him. He was a good person. He had been handed many crappy things in life and he’d made the best of it. He could have never told me he’d spied on me but had been very honest about it. He didn’t have to tell me, but he valued honesty and had told me. Should it really matter? “After everything you found about me, how did you feel?” I thought this was what would matter to me. I looked into his face to see what he would answer.

  Looking me in the eyes, he said, “I found a lonely woman, who was honest. She tried to always pick the right thing to do. Even when she didn’t know what it was. You were incredibly loyal to your clients. You honored your word. We deduced that you could help us. I knew you would be relieved that you had a way to help Eve that would not instantly get you both hurt or worse. I found someone I wanted to know,” he said, squeezing my hands. “I was so thankful when you used that burner. I was ready to come to your rescue at any point. But with that one phone call you showed how caring you really were. I just wanted to be one that you cared about,” he said. He looked down at our hands after that. He rubbed his thumb across the back.

  “Ben, how many girlfriends have you had?” I did not know why I felt this was important at that moment, but I knew it would be.

  “None. I have never dated. I always took care of my sister and Gramps. I was too busy trying to get together everything I needed to be a SEAL to worry about girls. Then my sister was gone. That changed the way I felt about dating and girls. I had too much respect for them to just use them. After I became a SEAL, there were a few Frog Hogs, they are women who hang around certain bars in specific hopes of sleeping with a SEAL, but that was no strings attached to scratch an itch—not a relationship. It was a mutual decision to take care of needs. But never more than a few hours and never all night.”

  He had no idea what he was doing other than being honest. He would have no clue telling a woman that you are interested in that you investigated them sounds like a stalker. He’d dug through everything in my life and still wanted to know me. I knew he would always be honest with me since he’d just told me something that should have sent me running for the hills. I felt him rubbing the backs of my hands. I knew he was waiting, but I also knew he was patient and would not rush me.

  I looked in his eyes. I saw his fear that he had lost me. I saw his hope that I would forgive. I felt that, even knowing all this, things between us should not really change. He was still honest, he had integrity, he would never purposely hurt or harm me. Wasn’t that what counted? That he cared about me? Not about how he’d found about me? I didn’t know how to put what I wanted to say into words, but I could show him.

  I let go of his hands and reached for his face. I pulled him towards me and looked at his confused eyes. My lips touched his. I poured myself into the kiss. I wanted it to say what I could not. As the kiss ended, he wrapped me in his arms and pulled me to his chest. He buried his face in my neck. I held onto him.

  “Mary. I …” his voice was full of emotion and sounded choked.

  “I know, Ben.” It was all I could say. There was so much emotion flowing between us. I ran my fingers though his hair and we just held each other close. Our emotions started to calm a little.

  “So, we are okay then?” He still had some fear in his voice.

  “Yes, I think we will always be okay as long as we hold onto our values and are honest.” I felt him nod his head in agreement.

  “Let
me pick up the dishes and we can watch a movie before I take you home. How does that sound?” he asked.

  Oh, it sounded good, but I don’t think he realized we would not be watching the movie.

  Chapter 13

  Ammo

  I couldn’t believe how that all had gone over. She was still here. I’d told her everything and she was still here. She’d said she could accept me, my job, and what I had to do. It didn’t seem to bother her at all that I’d killed people and might have to do so again. She’d also accepted that I had to spy on her. She hadn’t flipped out or wanted to leave. She had understood. I didn’t think I’d ever had anyone in my life that understood me other than Domino and Tarzan. Then that kiss. I had never been in love, but I thought that was what that kiss was full of. If I’d listened to all the things that Tarzan tried to explain to me about love over the years, that must be what I was feeling. It was all so new.