Toronto, Canada, 2006. A few months after the worst year of the Iraq war. Gabriel Navarro splits his time between his job slinging ink at the Atlantis Ink tattoo parlor, and working on his master’s degree in fine art. Gabe is twenty-two, sure of his beliefs and his artistic integrity, and na?ve enough to think he’ll never have to compromise. And then one night Jake MacLean walks into the shop and changes everything. Jake Maclean is twenty-eight and a veteran American Army pilot. He's been staying with his ex-pat sister in Toronto while he tries to get his life in order. The problem is, he can't. After his disastrous final mission in Iraq, he's overcome with anger and survivor’s guilt, trapped in a losing battle to atone for a failure he’s sure can never be forgiven. Left without hope, he decides to have his memory of the mission tattooed on his back, with the condemning words: God Will Judge Me. He doesn't expect to fall for the tattoo artist. Gabe falls just as quickly and deeply for Jake, though Jake's reluctance to talk about what happened frustrates and worries him. Gabe knows Jake isn't doing well, but accepting Jake’s claims that he's "fine" is far easier than dealing with the frightening truth. But soon it’s horribly clear Jake can’t control his panic attacks or flashes of violence, and he's getting worse. If Gabe can’t help him face his demons, Jake is headed for a crash -- and there’s every chance he’ll take Gabriel down with him.

Black Hawk Tattoo

Isaac was wrong, anyway. It wasn’t luck that had saved him. All this time, Jake had thought he didn’t deserve to live, but maybe it was really the other way around: Jake didn’t deserve to die.


Dying was easy, wasn’t it? He’d seen that, experienced it firsthand. And maybe that had been the point all along: living was the real punishment.


“Something funny, MacLean?” Isaac scowled at him when Jake couldn’t keep the helpless smirk out of his mouth. “You amused by that, nearly punching your own ticket?” He looked over his shoulder again, shaking his head in obvious disgust. “You’re more of a fucking mess than I thought.”


“I know,” Jake said, and it was easy to stop smiling after that.


Alice’s cell phone barely had time to spit out the first tinny note of its ringtone before she snatched it off the counter. She stabbed the answer button with the pad of her thumb and clapped the phone to her ear. “Did you find him?” were the first words out of her mouth.


Chapter 107