🗝️Detective Ryker Viltarin must uncover dark secrets before he loses not only his heart but also his life.🗝️
You're on your own, far from home
The wind is blowing in the top of the pines
A gloomy sky where the sun never shines
Deep...
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Ryker swallowed hard. His mouth was dry, and his head throbbed as if he had been sitting unprotected in the blazing heat for too long.
"On my last mission, a grenade exploded not far from me," he said quietly. "One of our own troops."
Now that he had revealed his secret so far, the words began to gush from his throat like water from a spring - albeit shaky and choppy.
"We were caught unprepared. The mission was actually safe, well planned, and everything went well ... or so we thought."
Lost in thought, he ran his hand over his arm. The muscles under his fingers tensed and relaxed as he felt the unsightly plexus of scars under the tattoo.
"I still don't know whether it was misinformation at the time or whether there was a leak in our ranks. But ... we ended up in a crossfire. I was lucky. Others in my unit had to pay with their lives. They died in the dirt, were killed instantly, or bled to death. I ... was hit by shrapnel from the grenade." His voice broke under the weight of the memory that lay on his chest like a rock.
Hardly anyone knew that the most dangerous thing about shells was not the explosion core but the scattering circle around it. The metal splinters from shredded objects could spread far around the point of impact, causing severe injuries that often resulted in death.
He was about to reach for the fabric again when he heard slow footsteps behind him.
"Oh God, Ray..." it gasped close behind his back, making him flinch, though he could hear Eve approaching cautiously. "How... how did you... how could you...?" she stammered, and he could hear in her voice that what he said had hit her. He was sorry ... At the same time, it felt strangely liberating to share everything with her.
"How could I survive that," he continued her sentence in a raspy voice and turned to the side. His heart was pounding wildly in his chest, and his whole body was tense. He could hardly bear the thought that she might look at him disgustedly.
Eve stood barely an arm's length behind him and stretched her hand so far that she almost touched him. Her usually warm, green-blue eyes were wide and focused directly on the black lines and Celtic knots. But instead of the disgust he had feared, he saw only horror and pity in her eyes. He had to blink and look again. But the image didn't change. There was no disgust. Not a hint of it. Caught off guard, he lost his train of thought for a second. Then he cleared his throat and started again.
