Shock registered on both his sons’ faces.
“I don’t understand,” Raid said, his tone as grim as Ryker’s had been moments earlier. “What the f**k are you saying, Dad? Did you just find this out? How the hell did you find this out anyway? And if her death wasn’t an accident . . .”
“Who killed her?” Ryker asked hoarsely.
The knot in Eddie’s stomach grew, clenching painfully. “It’s a long story, one that begins before you were born.”
“We’re listening,” Raid said tightly, his features drawn into a mask of pain and confusion. And worry.
Eddie finally slumped into one of the armchairs across from the couch where Raid and Ryker sat and bleakly stared at his sons.
“You both know I served in the military.”
They nodded, impatience simmering in Ryker’s eyes. He wanted his dad to get to the point.
“I served in a special ops group, one that didn’t officially exist. Our missions weren’t the usual run of the mill. We took on missions that were it discovered the U.S. had a hand in them, the fallout would have been messy. One particular mission took us three years to complete. Three long years of waiting and watching for the right opportunity. Raul Sanchez was our mission. Taking him down and dismantling his operation. Three years and two months into our operation, we caught a break. We got intel that he was going to be in a particular location for a family gathering. His daughter’s birthday. This was a man who was as slippery as an eel. More than one country’s military was after him. We just happened to get to him first.
“We set up surveillance on the compound where he was going to be. Everything went off without a hitch. But then the unthinkable happened. We believed his wife and daughter had already left in a car. We waited until they were clear of the compound and then we went in.”
He broke off, regret and guilt surging and pumping through his veins as if it had happened just yesterday. For years he’d lived with his mistake. A mistake his wife had paid for, his entire family had paid for. And now it would appear Eden would pay for it if he and his sons didn’t prevent it.
“A firefight broke out. Our entry wasn’t clean. A guard got lucky and deviated in his patrol, saw one of my men and all hell broke loose. I was leading the group of men tasked with taking out Sanchez. We burst into the study he was holed up in. He had two men with him and they drew on us. We had no choice but to return fire and . . .”
He scrubbed his hands over his face, tears burning his eyelids.
“What happened?” Raid asked quietly.
“Sanchez’s wife and daughter got caught in the cross fire. God, she was just a little girl. Holding the doll she’d been given as a birthday present. There was blood everywhere. God, I can still see them in my dreams, my nightmares.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry, Dad. That’s a big burden to carry around all these years,” Ryker said.
“Sanchez and his son got away, in the chaos and my horror over the wife and daughter being caught in the cross fire. My priority was trying to get them help, and Sanchez and his son escaped.
“We cleaned up best we could. Collected the information needed to dismantle his operation and rounded up a lot of the key players in his business. He had a hand in a lot of different pots. Drugs. Arms trafficking. God, he even had a lucrative human trafficking operation going. Selling young girls into sexual slavery to the highest bidder.”
Raid made a sound of disgust.
“I thought . . .” Eddie took a deep breath. “Years went by and I thought I’d put it behind me. I retired after that debacle. I just couldn’t do it any longer. You children were born and your mother and I were happy. And then . . .”
He choked off, emotion knotting his throat as tears gathered in his vision.
“Sanchez waited, biding his time, planning his revenge. He was responsible for your mother’s death and he wasted no time in letting me know he was taking an eye for an eye. A wife for a wife.”
“What the f**k?” Ryker demanded. “And you never told us? You just let him get away with that? Killing our mother?”
“No,” Eddie said quietly. “No, I didn’t. I called Guy.”
“Hancock?” Raid asked in a puzzled tone.
Eddie sighed. “There’s a lot you don’t know about Guy. He joined the military, followed in my footsteps in more than one way. He belonged to a group that was buried so deep that according to military records, they were all killed in action. They no longer existed. They weren’t supposed to have any ties to the outside world. They lived, breathed and ate their missions. But he kept me in the loop. He wasn’t supposed to, which is why I never let on to you or Eden. All you knew was that he was serving and off the grid. And it’s why we never see him. I hear from him sporadically. He never tells me much, just that he’s okay from time to time. He’s made a lot of enemies over the years and now the government has cut ties and likely has orders to eliminate him if he ever surfaces.”
“So you contacted him after Mom died. Why?” Ryker demanded.
“Because I wanted revenge,” Eddie said in a low voice. “I wanted to go after the bastard and make him pay for what he took from me. For what he took from all of us.”
“Jesus,” Raid breathed. “And? Did you? Did you find him?”
Eddie was silent a long moment before finally nodding. “Guy went after him. He didn’t want me involved. I gave him all the intel I had. I called in a lot of favors to get the information he needed.”
“So he killed him,” Ryker said bluntly.
Again Eddie nodded.
“Christ, Dad. And you didn’t think we deserved to know all of this sooner? And why tell us now? What’s going on?” Raid demanded.
Eddie paled, suddenly feeling years older. The weight of a lifetime of regret settled like a ton of bricks on his shoulders and his heart.
He reached up to the mantel and picked up the photos and the note he’d received. With shaking hands, he shoved them toward his sons, simply waiting for them to look them over and draw their own conclusions.
“Holy f**k,” Ryker exploded. “Eden is being threatened?”
“His son,” Eddie said in a strained voice. “It has to be the son. We weren’t able to find him. Just Raul. But his son would want revenge because not only did he lose his mother and sister but then Guy took out his father and now he’s looking for revenge. By hitting me where he knows he’d hurt me the most. Through Eden.”