Thick as Thieves 2: Under Your Command

Chapter 14

Twelve Years Ago

"Ayani and I had been married nearly sixteen years. Together for longer than that....we met while I was still in basic training. I was young and idiotic, and she was..." Taylor swallowed back the lump in his throat, feeling several pairs of eyes watching him, listening, expecting some great speech to sum up the life of the woman he loved on the day he bid farewell to her forever. But it was harder than he thought. He cleared his throat, looking down at the casket beside him. "She didn't deserve what happened to her. None of them did. But she was brave 'til the very end. She saved our son. And there's not a day that goes by that I don't miss her." He walked towards the casket, resting his hand on top, expecting to feel some kind of connection but instead feeling nothing but a cold, wooden box. "Goodnight, sweetheart."

The young twins watched from their pew at the front of the church, tears swelling in their eyes as they watched their father's speech. Michael felt his chest tighten, his heart breaking all over again. He couldn't believe she was actually gone. He was proud of his dad for standing up in front of their friends and family, knowing that he would have found it far too painful. He watched tearfully as their father stepped down and the celebrant took over.

But Lucas was far from impressed; Michael heard his low, bitter whisper in his ear: "That's all he has to say about her? That's it? After everything she did for him?"

Michael turned his head to look at him, stunned by the reaction. "Lucas, he did his best."

"His best isn't good enough," Lucas muttered, leaning back to watch as their father took a seat next to his comrade, Alicia Washington. He couldn't ignore the way she comforted him, the intimate way she put her hand over his. Their father seemed to lean in to her, as if she provided him with some strength that no one else could. Lucas barely paid attention to the rest of the service after that.

Lucas hadn't been able to sleep since the kidnapping weeks earlier. He would lie awake all night, staring at the fuzzy ceiling, replaying that day over and over in his head. Remembering the sheer terror he felt, believing he was going to die. The night of the funeral was no different. The insomnia was made worse by his brother's persistent snoring. He wished he could be so content in the wake of their mother's murder.

Grumbling, he crawled out of bed and trudged downstairs for a glass of water. He heard voices which made him stop in his tracks. He knew some relatives had come round after the funeral to keep their dad company, so he surmised that they were probably still here, despite it being almost 1am. He decided to forget the water and head back to bed, when he heard that one of the voices was female.

No, he thought angrily, recognising the voice. He peered over the banister to see Washington sitting at the kitchen table in a crop top, his father kneeling down beside her, applying bandages to her stomach.

"You don't have to do this," she said. "I can change my own bandages."

"It's nothing," Taylor insisted. "Consider it payback for all the times you've stitched me up."

There was a small silence as she winced. Lucas could just about make out the wound on her side before his father wrapped the bandages around her. He wasn't sure what had happened to her in Somalia after he had been taken, but he did know she had been absent for the entirety of his time as a hostage and that she had been in intensive care for several days before being released just in time for the funeral.

Lucas rolled his eyes as he watched them both. He didn't really know much about the woman his dad called 'Wash' apart from the fact she had been utterly useless in protecting him and his mother.