Yesterday was the day he’d learned who his wife had been fucking for the last eighteen months.

Yesterday had been total and utter shit.

The signal came. Go time.

Deep breath. Get centered. Time to lead his team.

He pitched and rolled forward off the ramp. Wind buffeted him, roaring in his ears, blocking all other sound. He turned to face upward. The plane grew smaller as the last of the platoon rolled off the ramp, dots above in the night sky.

Satisfied his team was in free fall, he rolled to face the cloud cover below him. The plane would return to Whidbey. They were on their own and would treat this as a real op until the first task was complete and the trainers called a halt to debrief on their successes and failures.

There was an exhilaration to free fall that didn’t go away, even when he had hundreds of jumps under his belt. But today, the feeling was muted.

He dialed in, checking his altitude. There was no room for a wandering mind here. Even with every patch of skin covered, it was damn cold as he plummeted toward earth. The lake would be even worse.

He hit the cloud layer and felt the sting of ice pellets as they pummeled his thick wet suit.

Thankfully, the storm hadn’t quite started yet, and beneath the cloud canopy, his chute opened without a hitch and the wind wasn’t so wild as to throw him off course.

All around him, chutes bloomed as the others pulled their cords.

The quiet that came after the chute opening always brought a sense of peace, but in a low-opening jump, there wasn’t a moment to enjoy it. This was an op, and he was about to go into battle.

He released the chute as his feet touched frigid water. The water was hellishly cold, but the insulating layers of wet suit did their job, keeping the worst of the cold at bay, and his body heated the trapped liquid.

He made his way toward shore, weighed down by the heavy gear bag. He was going to kick Rivera’s ass for coming up with this nightmarish scenario. Didn’t matter that they’d been friends for years. The paces the team was being put through were bullshit.

Without warning, a memory surfaced. A barbecue on the beach two years ago. He’d been there with Pam. Rivera had Lynn at his side. Everyone on the team had been there, including Brock.

Had that been when the affair started? Or had it been later, after the op that had sent Rivera to the hospital and Forsythe and Adams to the morgue?

Do I even want to know?

Not really.