17. Old Enemies Rise Again

(End of June 2010)

Horny

Hanna’s keyboard tapped steadily in the living room while her music played in the background. The condo felt normal with her here—busy, lived-in—but none of that did a damn thing to reduce my morning wood. It didn’t matter how frigid the shower; my body had its own needs and wants. Going from nightly sex to nothing was its own special kind of hell. While my brain understood the breakup, my body, not so much.

I hated admitting it, but lately I’d caught myself staring at random girls. There was the cute brunette in the local coffee shop who leaned over her laptop when she typed. My eyes lingered a little too long, and she caught me staring. She gave me a flirtatious smile in return. It wasn’t her, and it wasn’t a real attraction; it was just stupid, distracting horniness.

And the only reason I hadn’t acted on any of it was because of Keira.

One date, one kiss, one night of letting myself relax—that was all it took to pull her into the ugliest parts of my world. She had no idea what she walked into, and it nearly got her hurt. I wasn’t going to do that to another innocent girl, so I stuck to school, hockey, and the small circle of people who already knew how chaotic things could get around me.

But none of that solved the physical frustration building day after day, especially now that Willow and Asuka had started messaging again. I found myself thinking about them more than I wanted to admit.

I missed them, not just the sex. Though my body remembered every bit of it, I missed the closeness. Willow laughing into my neck, Asuka resting her hand lightly on my stomach. The feeling of being anchored and loved.

Losing them wasn’t just missing girlfriends; it was losing two people who steadied my life in ways I didn’t appreciate until they were gone.

Elizabeth was the one who drove the breakup, and she made sure it applied to all of them. Now this NCAA smear—anonymous tips, coordinated posts, everything landing exactly. I didn’t want to accuse her of anything, but with Kiyomi’s evidence and the pattern lining up the way it did, it was impossible to ignore.

Hanna made the condo feel less empty, but she wasn’t a replacement, nor was she supposed to be.

Then there was Mitsy.

She walked in last week, took one look at me, and didn’t hesitate.

“Michael, are you tugging the goalie?”

I almost dropped my water bottle, snorted water out of my nose, and spluttered, “Mitsy—come on.”

A huge grin betrayed her stern countenance. “You appear seconds from exploding.”

Hanna practically slid out of her chair, cackling.

But they didn’t stop there.

“Seriously,” Hanna said, spinning halfway around in her chair, “you should go out, meet someone instead of living like a monk.”

“Exactly,” Mitsy added, clearly enjoying this way too much. “We know lots of nice girls who would love to meet you, and they won’t freak out when your life turns upside down.”

I hated the interference, but I knew it came from a place of love.

I sighed. “You both remember what happened with Keira, right?”

They looked at each other and quieted immediately.

“Fair,” Hanna said.

“Okay, that’s a good point,” Mitsy admitted, then her eyes lit up again—always a warning sign. “What about Emma or Kristen? They already live in the spotlight, know what your world is like, and they’re both crazy about you.”

I froze.

She wasn’t wrong.

I’d been so wrapped up in my own bullshit pity party that I hadn’t even considered the people who still cared about me. Emma. Kristen. Even Molly. I’d been a lousy friend to them, disappearing into my own head while they kept reaching out.

Mitsy wasn’t being subtle, but she wasn’t wrong either.

I realized I’d been acting like an ostrich with my head up my ass, waiting for my life to fix itself magically. Meanwhile, I had options—good ones—and I wasn’t doing anything about them.

Maybe I should call Emma.
Maybe Kristen.
Definitely Molly, my dick thinking for me.
Maybe fly to see them again.

For the first time in months, it hit me that nothing was stopping me except me.

Serbia was only days away. Willow and Asuka would be there, and between the guilt, the leftover feelings, and physical frustration, I didn’t know whether to hope or brace myself.

But I knew this much: I couldn’t keep hiding from my own life.

Basra Ghosts: Sir Alaric Voss

(Concurrent with the NCAA hearing – Late June 2010)

While the NCAA hearing played out in Ann Arbor and a different kind of damage control unfolded across Michigan and Dearborn, a similar clock ticked in a stone house on the Irish coast. Sir Alaric Voss kept his own counsel there, counting time in margins and couriers rather than press cycles.

Wind off the Irish Sea slipped through the wooden window frame, causing a slight draft in the room. Voss sat at his desk in the half-light, the kettle muttering behind him, the smell of Yorkshire Tea mixing with the iodine tang of the sea.

A single logbook lay open across his desk. Basra ‘96 — Objective Rhinehold. Each line bore a name, each name the same marginal note: Abandoned.

He traced the faded ink with a finger. Men once under his command, erased by a government more frightened of headlines. They had been promised extraction; instead, London disavowed the mission to calm Parliament. The official report said, Mission exceeded scope. Voss called it treachery.

He had believed in order once. SAS Major Alaric Voss—disciplined, punctual, loyal to a fault. He thought service could impose shape on chaos, but Basra taught him that discipline without truth was only obedience.

When the inquiries began, he expected vindication; instead, the generals who had signed his orders fed him to the press. The Crown called it accountability; he called it erasure. They stripped his command, closed his accounts, and used his fall to protect themselves. That was the first betrayal—the one that ended his faith in uniforms.

Out of that exile, he built something new. At first, it was simple commerce: moving aid, securing convoys, escorting relief flights through fractured lands. Order was still a service, and Voss learned to sell it. Then clients began to ask for things that could not pass customs, and he discovered profit in discretion. Humanitarian corridors became trade routes; trade routes became pipelines; soon, those pipelines carried more than medicine.

The press later called it the Adriatic Chain. Inside the trade, he was only ever the Colonel, the strategist who kept borders open and names hidden. After he was “Retired on Grounds of Service Requirements, or ’We want this problem gone, now, quietly’,” his private empire ran without a leak and with military precision.

Then came the boy from Ann Arbor. A British minister had approached Michael Stewart after the Queen’s granddaughter vanished while working in New York. With official channels paralyzed, Michael volunteered to help—no payment, no protection—because doing nothing felt like cowardice. Using Mr. Carroll’s introductions, Michael penetrated Voss’s “Adriatic Chain” under the guise of a buyer, purchasing four captives outright to secure their safety: Chelsea, the Queen’s granddaughter; Natalie, Chelsea’s American roommate and closest friend; Kim, a Japanese teen later confirmed as Kenji Yamamoto’s daughter; and Mindy, a schoolgirl barely sixteen.

Between what Michael witnessed and the debriefing of the rescued women, MI6 assembled the picture they had been missing. The intelligence identified Voss’s safehouses and command structure. The Queen authorized a SAS operation that struck overnight, rescuing the remaining captives and capturing Voss’s trusted lieutenants. Worse, Drake was taken alive, and the Adriatic Chain collapsed in days.

Voss watched ten years of effort and profit vanish beneath the same royal crest he had once served. He lost more than revenue; he lost the legend that protected him. To his clients, he was no longer the untouchable Colonel and became a ghost, undone by a student who acted from conscience. London called it justice, Voss called it humiliation that would be repaid in kind.

The tea finished steeping, and he took his first sip, instantly returning to the simpler days in the Regiment. He paused, savoring the warmth in his hands and stared at the letter Cormac Doyle had sent him—cream stock, no return, Belfast postmark, the handwriting exact as a draft officer’s. Voss reflected that the letter was anachronistic in an age of instant communication — but then, so was Cormac Doyle. Once an IRA bomber, now his most trusted lieutenant, Doyle had been forged in Belfast’s sectarian fires and tempered by the years that followed.