Rocco and Mandy: A Red Team Wedding Novella (Book #6.5) Read Online Free Page A

He tossed the journal box onto his chair then walked over to the window. The cool air from the September morning poured into the barn from the dormer window’s broken panels.
    He considered his convo with the doc, wondering if the guy was going to be able to sift through his madness and find the real him. His training in the Red Team had included extensive psychological rewiring, so much so that he could play a role better than a method actor. He could become his false identity so completely that it felt more real than his original self. Even now, he was both Rocco and Khalid, the identity he used to interact with some of the team’s informants.  
    He felt like a tuning fork that couldn’t stop vibrating, couldn’t become a single tone.  
    He’d played the shrinks’ game to get out of Walter Reed. If Kimble couldn’t grasp the reality of him, he’d do the same. He could act any role; maybe the biggest role he had to act was that of being normal.  
    He went over to his trunk and unlocked it. He dropped the journal inside next to the box with his six-shooter. The question was, would acting be a life sentence? Was he always going to have to run every convo, every sight, sound, and scent through the fake him until the end of his days? Could he never be one person again, confident in himself—and in the reality surrounding him?
    He opened the little lockbox and palmed the revolver. It was cool and heavy in his hand. He slid the cylinder open and confirmed it wasn’t loaded. Yep—the single bullet, the one with his name on it, was still in the steel box. Rocco pulled the trigger. The snap it made wasn’t even as loud as a cap gun. It was empty and useless. Like him.

    Mandy came to a sharp stop in the lower level of the barn. She’d heard a mechanical snap. Just once. She’d heard it plenty of times before, when her grandfather was cleaning his guns. He often would do a dry firing when he finished.
    “Rocco?” she called out, hurrying toward the stairs. “Rocco?” She heard what sounded like his trunk slam shut. As soon as she could see into the hayloft, she scanned the space. Rocco was standing next to the closed trunk, his hands at his sides. She couldn’t see a gun anywhere. Was he hiding it? She knew what she’d heard.
    His face looked calm though his eyes were screaming at her. She fought tears. Now was not the time for hysteria. She walked over to him and took hold of his face. He looked down, masking his expression as a current rippled through him at her touch.  
    “What are you doing up here?”
    “Nothing.”
    She lowered her hands. “I heard a gun, Rocco.” He didn’t answer, didn’t blink or shrug or make excuses. “What’s in the trunk?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Open it.”  
    “Why?”
    “Why are you keeping secrets from me?”
    “What makes you think I am?”
    “Because you won’t open the trunk.”
    His nostrils flared, and he thrust his chin forward as if thoroughly insulted at her insinuations. He bent over and opened the lid. Inside were a square steel box and a stationery box.  
    “The shrink asked me to do some writing.” He lifted out the smaller box and opened it, showing her the leather journal inside.
    “That’s a good idea. What about the other box?”
    “Leave it, Em.”
    “I can’t.”
    Rocco lifted that lid, too. A single bullet rolled around the empty box. She picked it up and held it between them as she asked, “Where’s the gun?”
    “There’s no gun.”
    “Why a bullet without a gun?”
    “Safer that way.”
    Mandy’s mouth opened in a gasp. She pressed her hands to her face as she walked over to the window, trying to stave off the panic that comment shot through her.
    “You said life was a choice,” Rocco reminded her.
    She looked back at him. His eyes were dark and desperate. “No. No, I said how you react to life is a choice, not life itself. Rocco, is this what you do up here? Think about ending your life?”
    He tore his eyes from her and