Chapter Text
Chapter One
The Kind of Man They Followed
It was barely eight-thirty in the morning, and the Austin, Texas heat was already beginning to spread across the training grounds like a threatening, sepia-colored wave waiting to crash.
The recruits hated it. Beads of sweat had already begun soaking through their shirts and sliding down their temples.
Staff Sergeant Arthur Morgan barely seemed to notice. He stood near the obstacle course, hands resting on his hips beneath the pale morning sky. Always watching, searching for mistakes, enforcing discipline exactly as was expected of him. Thirty-six years old. Tall. Big and strong. Eyes as blue as the Caribbean Sea after a storm. The sort of man who looked carved rather than born. His sleeves were rolled to his forearms, exposing old scars and sun-darkened skin. A cup of bitter, cheap coffee sat forgotten atop a nearby crate in a Styrofoam cup, already lukewarm.
“Move your ass, Jenkins!”
The young soldier stumbled over the final obstacle and landed face-first in the dirt, his embarrassment far too obvious to hide behind a brave expression.
Arthur walked over. The recruit braced himself for a reprimand, but instead, Arthur extended a hand.
“Again.”
Jenkins blinked.
“Sergeant?”
“You didn’t break your damn leg.”
The kid grabbed his hand, and Arthur hauled him upright with a single pull.
“Again.”
A groan of protest escaped the recruit. Arthur nodded toward the course.
“You wanna know the difference between quitting and failing?”
“No, Sergeant.”
“Good. Because I wasn’t asking.”
A few laughs rippled through the platoon. Even Jenkins smiled. Arthur waited until the kid started moving again before turning away.
That was the thing about Morgan.
He was hard. Everyone agreed on that. He expected competence. He expected effort.
He expected people to care about doing their jobs well.
But unlike some NCOs, he never seemed interested in making soldiers miserable just because he could. He had already experienced firsthand what it was like to be humiliated by a superior simply for sport. The men respected him because he demanded excellence. They appreciated him because he demanded it from himself first.
Around base there was an unofficial saying.
If Morgan’s pissed at you, you screwed up.
If Morgan’s disappointed in you, you screwed up bad.
Nobody wanted the second. Not because they feared punishment. Because they knew he’d lose sleep trying to help them fix it. By midmorning he had already corrected a maintenance issue, mediated a dispute between two specialists, and personally checked on a young private whose mother was undergoing chemotherapy back home.
Arthur knew everyone’s names, their wives, their children. He knew about divorces, even addictions. The things that kept them awake at three in the morning. Not because it was part of his job, but because he paid attention.
Captain George Madden claimed Arthur carried an invisible notebook around inside his head.
Nobody argued with that theory. Arthur was reserved, stoic, and sometimes intimidating.
Around noon, Arthur found himself sitting on the tailgate of a military vehicle beside Specialist Ramirez.
The young soldier looked exhausted. Arthur knew why. Ramirez had a newborn baby. Gabriel, barely three months old, and that came with alarming sleep deprivation and marital strain.
The usual, if you asked anyone on base.
“You look like hell.”
Ramirez laughed.
“Thanks, Sergeant.”
“You sleeping?”
“Not much.”
Arthur nodded.
“Neither is your wife.”
“No, Sergeant.”
“Then quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
Ramirez rolled his eyes. Arthur smirked.
Then he added quietly:
“Take care of her.”
The soldier looked at him, confused. Arthur stared toward the maintenance area.
“The kid isn’t gonna remember who changed his diapers. He’s gonna remember whether his parents stayed married.”
Ramirez nodded slowly.
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Arthur stood up. Conversation over. Advice delivered.
Those were the kinds of things that made men follow him into places they were afraid to go. Arthur wasn’t just a Staff Sergeant they were required to obey. Sometimes he was like a father, an older brother, or a crazy uncle who never slept. Depends on who you ask.
Those were the kinds of things that made disappointment from him hurt worse than any shouting ever could. What most of them didn’t know was that Arthur Morgan had become very good at helping everyone else while quietly neglecting his own life.
By sunset he was running on barely four hours of sleep.
Again.
His hands trembled slightly when nobody was watching.
Again.
The bottle of whiskey hidden in his temporary apartment would probably lose a little more of its contents tonight.
Again.
The nightmares would return.
Again.
The dead never stayed buried very long inside his head.
The Army knew how to build leaders, but it didn’t always know how to repair them.
The first beer appeared in front of him around eight.
Arthur frowned.
“I didn’t order this.”
Warrant Officer Cole Mercer slid into the chair across from him.
“You don’t gotta.”
Arthur was already looking at him suspiciously.
Which meant Cole was smiling.
“Absolutely not.”
“Absolutely yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Arthur looked toward George Madden for support.
The captain betrayed him immediately.
“He’s right.”
Arthur sighed.
“I hate both of you.”
“You love us.”
“I tolerate you.”
“With you, that’s basically the same thing.”
The bar was packed with soldiers enjoying a rare Friday night off. Laughter filled the room. Courage disguised in green uniforms and thousand-yard stares flooded the crowded space. Country music played through old speakers. The smell of beer and fried food lingered in the air.
Arthur had been told they were just grabbing a couple drinks. A few beers. Nothing out of the ordinary. Now he was beginning to realize he’d been ambushed.
Again.
“You boys are getting too old to lie this badly.”
George grinned.
“Took you long enough to figure it out.”
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
“Where are we going? Something tells me this dive bar is only the beginning of a night I want no part of.”
Neither answered.
That was answer enough.
“No. Absolutely not.”
Arthur knew those two far too well not to put the pieces together. Cole nearly choked on his drink laughing.
“Oh, absolutely yes.”
“I am not going to a strip club.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Arthur pointed at both men.
“Those places are full of creeps.”
“Some.”
“Losers.”
“Some.”
“Idiots who convince themselves women are in love with them.”
George raised his beer.
“Most.”
Arthur shook his head.
“Pay somebody enough money and they’ll smile at anything.”
“Sounds like the Army.”
The table erupted with laughter. Even Arthur lost the battle against a grin for half a second. Then it disappeared. Cole exchanged a glance with George. There it was. The problem.
Arthur still laughed.
Sometimes.
He still smiled.
Sometimes.
But not enough. Not like before. Not since certain deployments. Not since certain funerals. Not since certain memories refused to stay in the past. The bottle wasn’t helping. The insomnia even less. The isolation definitely wasn’t helping.
And neither of them knew how to fix it.
So that night they settled for dragging him somewhere loud enough to quiet Arthur’s mind for a little while. Even if that meant taking him somewhere he’d probably hate the moment he stepped inside.
The Lucky Bunny glowed neon pink beneath the Texas night. The place looked like a giant monument to male pleasure disguised as female empowerment and entertainment.
Arthur hated it immediately.
The neon rabbit above the entrance blazed with almost blinding intensity. The place was enormous and, according to Cole and George, one of the best strip clubs in Austin.
“Wonderful.”
Cole clapped him on the shoulder.
“You’ll survive.”
“I hope not.”
George laughed.
“See? He’s having fun already.”
Arthur muttered something that sounded deeply unfriendly before following them inside, dragging his feet.
The place was crowded.
Music.
Laughter.
Perfume.
Alcohol.
The usual.
Arthur sat down at a table and immediately began wishing he were anywhere else. Dancers and waitresses in scandalously revealing outfits strutted from table to table. Arthur ignored them. He drank. Smoked. Listened when spoken to. Answered when required. Occasionally laughed.
The younger soldiers seemed relieved simply to see him outside of work. As if that somehow proved Staff Sergeant Morgan was human.
Arthur wasn’t entirely convinced himself.
An hour passed. Maybe more. The whiskey softened nothing. The noise irritated him. The lights gave him a headache.
A dancer approached their table. Then another. Arthur remained polite. Detached. Uninterested. Exactly as expected.
Until the music changed. The opening beat thundered through the speakers. A familiar bassline.
Dirty Diana.
Several men cheered.
The lights over the main stage dimmed, transforming the room into something resembling an altar for whoever was about to step onto it.
Conversations shifted. Attention moved. Arthur glanced up more out of habit than interest. Something was about to happen. He could feel it.
Then he stopped.
A woman stepped into the spotlight. Tall. Dark-haired. Long black waves cascading down her back. The stage seemed to narrow around her. Not because she demanded attention. Because she behaved as though she didn’t need it.
That was different.
Arthur found himself setting his drink down. The woman moved with controlled elegance. There was no desperation in her. No exaggeration.
No eagerness to please. Her confidence wasn’t playful. It bordered on arrogance. As though every man in the room existed beneath her notice. And somehow, that made them watch harder. She looked like some mythical spectacle that had materialized in a place beneath her station.
A tattoo curled along her left arm. Dark ink against bronze skin. Her figure was lean rather than voluptuous. Strong legs. Narrow waist. The body of someone who trained it. Worked it. Lived inside it deliberately.
Not a fantasy, but a weapon.
Her face was even more striking. Not because she was the most beautiful woman in the room, though many would have argued otherwise. She had dark almond-shaped eyes that seemed foreign to what most Texans considered familiar.
Prominent brows. Full lips. A nose that gave her beauty character instead of perfection.
And beneath all of that…
Something wasn’t right. Arthur couldn’t identify it immediately. Then he saw it.
A brief turn beneath the stage lights, and the smile disappeared. Only for a second. But it disappeared.
And beneath it sat something cold. Something tired. Something lonely.
Then the mask returned. The smile came back as though it had never left.
Arthur kept watching her cautiously, against his better judgment. Against his usual indifference. Against every instinct telling him this was exactly the kind of place he hated.
Beside him, Cole noticed first.
Then George.
The two men exchanged a glance. A dangerous one. The kind old friends share. George leaned back in his chair. A slow grin spreading across his face.
“Well. Who would’ve thought?”
Arthur didn’t answer.
Cole looked toward the stage. Then toward Arthur. Then back toward the stage.
And suddenly started laughing.
“What?” Arthur asked.
Cole raised his beer.
“I’ll be damned.”
Arthur frowned.
“What?”
George’s grin widened. For the first time all night, Staff Sergeant Arthur Morgan wasn’t looking for the nearest exit.
He was looking at Cherry.
And neither of his friends had missed it.