He was acting like a goddamn teenager with a crush on the cheerleader. Yeah, he’d had his share of fantasies on those long nights in the cold with only his daydreams to occupy his thoughts. Eden wouldn’t give a man like him a second glance. Or maybe she would, but it would be because she was doing a double take at the hideous scar that marred his face. That thought effectively put a damper on his imaginings and he got back to the task at hand.
He secured the ankle holster before sliding the smaller Sig into place and then put on the shoulder harness and secured the larger Glock. He grabbed the duffel bag carrying his clothes and the case holding the ammo and then carefully shouldered the straps of the two high-powered rifles. One was a semiautomatic, the other his .308 with the high-powered scope he used for sharpshooting. Anything else they needed would be on the plane in the weapons locker.
He wasn’t sure what kind of trouble Eden Sinclair was in, but Ryker had sounded worried, and not much worried the Sinclair family. Their father was a badass in his own right. Raid, the oldest, was a seasoned cop and Ryker worked in private security, a smaller, less military version of KGI. All his jobs were on the up-and-up. Mostly personal security, which made it odd that he was seeking KGI’s help for the trouble his sister was in. Swanny would have thought that if she was in any kind of trouble, the family would close ranks around her and handle it on their own. They were private that way. Which only reaffirmed his belief that the situation was dire. Ryker’s vagueness on the phone bothered Swanny. He had a bad feeling about the whole damn thing. But there was nothing to do until they got there and heard firsthand what was going on.
He hurried back into the living room to see Joe stuffing his bags with clothing and his own personal arsenal, which was similar to Swanny’s own. They all had their personal preferences when it came to guns, but they all adhered to the motto that many was sufficient but more was even better.
If the zombie apocalypse ever occurred, they were definitely prepared. The KGI compound could withstand a f**king war. The sheer number of legal—and illegal—shit that was housed behind the walls of the compound would shock the average citizen. Swanny had his own stash of C-4 and enough grenades to repel a small army.
During his captivity, he’d sworn never again to feel that kind of helplessness and fear. He’d accepted the inevitability of his own death. He’d even embraced it. In his darkest hours, he’d prayed for it. It shamed him now, but at the time, death was the ultimate freedom. Escape from his dismal reality.
Thank God for Shea, Nathan’s now-wife, who’d inexplicably reached out to him across thousands of miles, speaking to him in his mind. Helping him and Swanny escape their captors and certain death. And Grace. Shea’s sister. God, she’d healed him. She’d f**king healed him from injuries that would have slowed his and Nathan’s escape. He’d begged Nathan to leave him. To save himself. And instead Nathan, with Shea’s and Grace’s help, had healed him. Made it possible for him to soldier on, and they’d made it out of those mountains alive. Not unscathed. But alive nonetheless.
He absently fingered the scar on his face. A memento from his time in captivity. Insurance that he’d never forget those endless days of torture and starvation. They’d carved him and Nathan both up. They both still wore the scars from their captivity, but Swanny’s were more visible. His face had been slashed and by the time they’d been rescued and hospitalized, there was little a surgeon could do, and he wasn’t vain enough to ever have plastic surgery.
No, he wore that scar as a reminder of what he’d survived.
His sex life had certainly suffered as a result, but sex wasn’t one of his priorities. Not since coming home alive. He threw himself into his job. His new family. He shook his head. He had no family. Not until Nathan. The Kellys and KGI had embraced him. Marlene Kelly, the matriarch of the Kelly clan, had adopted him as one of her own, and she treated him just like he was one of her many children.
Frank and Marlene Kelly had six sons, but Marlene had adopted others into her fold. Rusty Kelly, the sullen teenager who’d broken into her home but was now about to graduate from college, a vibrant, beautiful young lady who had the world at her feet. Swanny had no doubt she’d one day rule the world.
And there was Sean Cameron, a sheriff’s deputy in Stewart County. Also adopted into the Kelly fold and treated much like all Marlene and Frank’s other children. It was mind-boggling, the extent of the Kellys’ generosity.
The family had grown and expanded. Joe was the only unmarried Kelly, and he definitely heard about it from Marlene on a regular basis. There were grandchildren aplenty and more on the way.
And here in the middle of it all was Swanny. He’d gone from a solitary existence with only the men he served with as his brothers. And now he had the entire Kelly family plus the KGI team members. All at his back. Ready to go to the wall for him. It baffled him, this unconditional loyalty.
He’d crawled back to the little house he’d inherited from his parents after he and Nathan had been discharged from the hospital. But he’d been restless and . . . lonely. His brush with death, facing his mortality and then his miraculous healing had brought him to Tennessee, seeking answers from Nathan about what had happened in those mountains before they were rescued.
And he’d stayed, first adopted into the fold instantaneously by Marlene Kelly and then offered a position with KGI. He’d joined the new team headed by Nathan and Joe and joined soon after by Edge and Skylar. They were his family now. And having family, people who accepted him, felt . . . good.
When he’d served in the army he’d had a purpose. His life had been consumed with the need to protect and serve. After his injuries and discharge, he hadn’t known what else to do. There was nothing for him on the outside. He’d never be happy with a nine-to-five office job or joining the rat race as a civilian. KGI had given him purpose again.
KGI helped people. They protected the innocent and the weak. They helped bring down the ass**les in the world, those who preyed on the innocents. Now when he woke in the morning, he felt alive. Like he had a future. KGI had given him that, and he’d be forever grateful to them for that.
He’d resigned himself to never settling down, having a family, things most people took for granted even if they weren’t in a hurry. He was surrounded by just those things. Each of the Kelly brothers, with the exception of Joe, had met their soul mates. Even the team leaders, Rio and Steele, had settled into domesticity with an ease that still amused and befuddled the men and women who worked under their command. Hell, even Cole and P.J., two of Steele’s team members, had hooked up and were living in marital bliss, though he imagined theirs was an interesting arrangement since P.J. could kick ass with the best of them. It was for certain she kept Cole on his toes.