Laughing Eyes: Bittersweet Familia (3)

Bittersweet Famili
a

Book Three

By

Melissa Jane

Laughing Eyes

Published by Melissa Jane

© Copyright

This book is licensed for your enjoyment only. It is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblances to people living or dead, locales and events are entirely coincidental. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient

Produced by Melissa Jane

Front cover by Andrea King

Model: John Daniel

Editor: Al Marie Kuit

For more information about the Bittersweet Duet series please visit

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Bittersweet Duet

Little Doll (Book 1)

Crimson Desert (Book 2)

Bittersweet Familia

Laughing Eyes (Book 3)

Sofia (Book 4)

Author Notes

Laughing Eyes is the third book in my collection. It follows
The Bittersweet Duet
, Little Doll and Crimson Desert. While only a minor character in the first two books, Danny Peters takes centre stage in Laughing Eyes. His is a story that began many years before Little Doll. It’s heartbreaking, it’s raw. We’ve caught a glimpse of him already, but what really is his story?

Laughing Eyes contains SERIOUS SPOILERS for both Little Doll and Crimson Desert. Laila and Aiden are not completely embellished characters in this novel as they have already had their story told in the Duet. Therefore if you opt to read Laughing Eyes first (which I seriously beg you not to) you may find that Aiden and Laila are not well described. I did this to benefit all my readers of the Duet.

As I said before, Laughing Eyes is a journey for Danny. It will rip your heart out, but bit by bit you may well be put back together again.

WARNING:
As well as serious spoilers, Laughing Eyes contains EXTREME adult themes and must be approached with maturity. While this is a work of fiction, there may be cause for triggers in some readers.

Laughing Eyes contains Abuse, Violence, Language, Sexual content and Graphic Imagery.

The devil doesn’t live in Hell. He lives, breathes and walks amongst us.

Dedicated to the late Jane Bowen.

Danny

“Take the fucking shot!” The sarge barked through my ear piece. I flexed my fingers twice to rid the tremble, but it was useless. “You have two seconds to make that shot, Peters!”

“The target is no longer in sight,” my voice croaked back. That wasn’t entirely the truth. Nicolas was right there in front of me, but I didn’t have a clean straight shot at him. Blinking furiously to clear my cloudy vision, my chest pounded painfully against the rubble beneath. The fucker was practically dancing before me and I couldn’t shoot him, not with Tomas also in the firing line.

“Shoot the fucking target, Peters, and get the fuck out of there!”

“Danny, what’s happening?” Hearing Aiden’s concerned voice through my ear piece brought on a fresh wave of tears, a hard as fuck lump forming in my throat.

Aiden hadn’t seen what had happened.

He hadn’t heard the screams or seen all the blood. No one except for me and the fucker I was trying to kill. 

Danny

Three months earlier

“You want us to what?”

“You heard correctly.” The sarge said, matter of fact.

“Yes, I heard the words but I’m not quite sure I completely understand what the job is you have assigned us. I mean…” I couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief, “… you do know that we belong to a platoon and have never been contracted out before?”

“I think what Corporal Peters is saying,” Aiden, who had remained somewhat reserved since we entered the sarge’s office was finally speaking up, “is that we are happy and honoured to take on the challenge Sir, but we will require a full briefing with no details spared. This is all new territory, with an international government that would happily destroy us knowing we are on their land.”

“What he said,” I pointed to the man I was about to enter into this fucked up new world with, “especially since we will be acting alone without our team.”

The sarge cleared his throat and stood up from the corner of the desk he had been sitting on for the last half hour, as he implored how much he needed the two of us. “I understand your concerns, Corporals, and you would be acting foolishly if you believed it was nothing to be worried over. However the fact of the matter is, you two are my best snipers and you work well together.”

Aiden and I looked at each other knowing that at least that part was true. We did work well as a team. Without a doubt we excelled at our jobs. Excellent marksmen with perfect track records. But that didn’t change the fact that we were about to become sitting ducks without any backup.

“So we go in alone?” I asked, just to clarify.

“I might be able to muster one or two others, but no one else around here has a set of balls as big as the ones you two have, so I don’t like my chances.”

Heaving a sigh of resignation, I accepted the inevitable. “Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do, so if my mate here is in, then I’m in.” I grinned broadly as a set of eyes that clearly didn’t share the same sentiment bored holes into mine. Aiden was clearly not impressed. “When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

Anna

“Wake up, babe.” I could hear my friend, Luiza’s voice breaking through my haze. It was husky and still sounded half asleep.

“Where did those hours go?” I groaned, stretching my tired limbs to the four corners of the tiny bed.

The lamp shade next to me flicked on casting a soft glow around the darkened room but was bright enough to blind me.

Groaning even louder, I laid my forearm across my eyes.

“Anna, do you think they will come for us too?” There was no mistaking the concern in Luiza’s voice.

I swallowed hard as I contemplated the severity of the question.

Peering between one bent elbow to block the invasive light, I studied my friend. It was obvious she’d had another nightmare in the few hours’ sleep we’d managed. “Babe, I think even if they were close we wouldn’t know it. We probably wouldn’t even hear it.”

“Do you sometimes wonder whether we are doing the right thing by sticking around?”

If we were in any other situation, I would say no. I still didn’t want to believe that one man could cause so much destruction in the country I love. In the land I had so frequently traveled; the very place both our parents were born. But here we were. Childhood friends; Luiza and Anna taking on the world one injured person at a time.

For the past few months we would wake at four in morning in our dingy shack we shared and get dressed in our most unglamorous, ultra conservative clothing. After staggering through the door that hung only by one hinge, we would then spend two hours on the back of a 1970’s Chevy truck navigating the windy, ominous roads, picking up other aid workers along the way. Once we arrived at our destination we would set up camp and set about rebuilding the destroyed and bloodied communities ripped apart by El Leon’s control. The group of eight volunteers would stay and nurse those injured back to health, bury the dead and provide food for the otherwise too stricken victims.

The hardest part I had come to learn, was receiving our next call. That next call brought on the worst of two worlds. We would have to farewell the current community that in some cases, was only twenty percent reformed to head to yet another rural barrio hit by the sadistic violence.

Needing her to absorb the seriousness of the situation, I propped myself up my elbow and faced her head on. “I think about it all the time. But you know as well as I do we can’t just leave. This is our country, our people. They need all the help they can get.” Although we both lived in the States, our families had been lifelong friends, born in the beautiful Panama,

“I know,” Luiza sounded resigned to her fate as she pulled on her gumboots.

Almost immediately after finishing our nursing degrees, the nation was shaken to its core by rumours of genocide in the country regions. By whom, we didn’t yet know. There had been survivors. Not many, but enough to keep eight relief workers overworked, tired and shaken for the rest of our lives.

“All I know is,” Luiza began, before tying her long dark hair in a ponytail, “I hope someone catches the fuckers who are doing this.”