by Elle James
DELTA FORCE RESCUE
Brotherhood Protectors Series Book #15
Elle James
Twisted Page Inc
Contents
DELTA FORCE RESCUE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Wyatt’s War
Chapter 1
About the Author
Also by Elle James
DELTA FORCE RESCUE
Brotherhood Protectors Series Book #15
New York Times & USA Today
Bestselling Author
ELLE JAMES
Copyright © 2020 by Elle James
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-62695-275-1
PRINT ISBN: 978-1-62695-276-8
Dedicated to my editor Delilah Devlin who makes my writing shine. And to my proof readers, Fedora, Sheila, Carmen, Laurel, Rachel and Amanda, who find those pesky typos. And to all my readers who keeping coming back for more. I love writing for you! Thank you for buying my books!
Elle James
Author’s Note
Enjoy other military books by Elle James
Brotherhood Protectors Series
Montana SEAL (#1)
Bride Protector SEAL (#2)
Montana D-Force (#3)
Cowboy D-Force (#4)
Montana Ranger (#5)
Montana Dog Soldier (#6)
Montana SEAL Daddy (#7)
Montana Ranger’s Wedding Vow (#8)
Montana SEAL Undercover Daddy (#9)
Cape Cod SEAL Rescue (#10)
Montana SEAL Friendly Fire (#11)
Montana SEAL’s Mail-Order Bride (#12)
SEAL Justice (#13)
Ranger Creed (#14)
Delta Force Rescue (#15)
Montana Rescue (Sleeper SEAL)
Hot SEAL Salty Dog (SEALs in Paradise)
Hot SEAL Hawaiian Nights (SEALs in Paradise)
Hot SEAL Bachelor Party (SEALs in Paradise)
Brotherhood Protectors Vol 1
Visit ellejames.com for more titles and release dates
For hot cowboys, visit her alter ego Myla Jackson at mylajackson.com
and join Elle James's Newsletter at
https://ellejames.com/contact/
Chapter 1
Briana Hayes hitched up her leather satchel, resting the strap on her shoulder as she walked down the stairwell of the rundown apartment building. The day had been long and depressing. She’d already been to six different homes that day. Two of the parents of small children had threatened her. One child had to be removed and placed with a foster family after being burned repeatedly with a cigarette by the mother’s live-in boyfriend. Some days, Briana hated her job as a Child Welfare Officer for the state of Illinois. Most days, she realized the importance of her work.
Her focus was the safety of children.
Thankfully, the last home had been one in which the mother seemed to be getting herself together for the love of her child. Because of drug abuse, she’d lost her baby girl to the state. After rehab treatment, she’d gotten a job, proved that she could support herself and the baby and regained custody. Briana prayed the woman didn’t fall back into old habits. The child needed a functioning mother to raise her.
The sun had slid down below the tops of the surrounding buildings, casting the streets and alleys into shadow. A chill wind blew dark gray clouds over the sky. The scent of moisture in the air held a promise of rain. Soon.
Briana picked up her pace, hurrying past an alley toward the parking lot where she’d left her small non-descript, four-door sedan. A sobbing sound caught her attention and she slowed. She glanced into the dark alley, a shiver of apprehension running the length of her spine. This part of Chicago wasn’t the safest to be in after sunset. Though she didn’t want to hang around too long, she couldn’t ignore the second sob.
“Hello?” she called out softly.
The sobbing grew more frequent, and a baby’s cry added to the distress.
Despite concern for her own safety, Briana stepped into the alley. “Hey, what’s wrong? Can I help?”
“No,” a woman’s voice whispered. “No one can.” Though she spoke perfect English, her voice held a hint of a Spanish accent.
Briana squinted, trying to make out shapes in the shadows. A figure sat hunkered over, back against the wall, holding a small bundle.
“Tell me what’s troubling you. Maybe I can help.” Briana edged nearer, looking past the hunched figure for a possible trap. When nothing else moved in the darkness, she squatted beside a slight woman, wearing a black sweater and with a hood covering her hair. She looked up at Briana, her eyes red-rimmed, tears making tracks of her mascara on her cheeks.
The baby in her arms whimpered.
“What’s your name?” Briana asked.
“I can’t.” The woman’s shoulders slumped.
“My name is Briana,” she said. “I just want to know your name.”
For a long moment, the young mother hesitated. Then in a whisper, she said, “Alejandra.”
“That’s a pretty name,” Briana said, in the tone she used when she wanted to calm someone who was distraught. “And the baby?”
The woman smiled down at the infant in her arms. “Bella.”
“She’s beautiful.” Briana couldn’t leave them alone in the alley. “Do you need help getting home?”
She shook her head. “I can’t go there.”
“Has someone hurt you?” Briana asked, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I can call the police. We can have him arrested.”
“No!” The woman reached out and grabbed Briana’s wrist.
Alarm race through Briana. Instinctively, she drew back.
The woman held tightly to Briana’s wrist, balancing the baby in the curve of her other arm. “Don’t call. I can’t… He can’t know where I am.”
“If he’s threatening you, you need to let the police know,” Briana urged, prying the woman’s hand free of her wrist. “They can issue a restraining order against him.” When the woman shot a glance around Briana, Briana looked back, too. A couple walked past the end of the alley without pausing.
“Are you afraid to go home?” Briana asked.
“I have no home.” The mother released Briana’s arm and bent over her baby, sobbing. “He had it burned to the ground.”
Briana gasped. “Then you have to go to the police.”
She shook her head. “They can’t stop him. He doesn’t even live in this country.”
“Then how…?”
“He has people,” she said. “Everywhere.”
Briana sank to her knees beside her. “Why is he doing this to you?”
The woman looked from the baby in her arms up to Briana. “He wants my baby. He won’t stop until he has her.”
Briana studied the woman and child as the first drops of rain fell. “You can’t stay out here. You and the baby need shelter.” She reached out her hand. “Come. You can stay at my apartment.”
“No.” Alejandra shrank against the wall, drawing the baby closer to her. “It’s too dangerous for you.�
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“I’ll take my chances,” Briana reassured her.
“No. I won’t do that to you. He will kill anyone who interferes with his attempt to take my daughter.”
“Is he the father?” Briana asked.
Alejandra choked on a sob. “Yes. He is. But he’s a very bad man.”
“How so?”
“He is El Chefe Diablo,” Alejandra whispered. “The head of the Tejas Cartel from El Salvador.”
Though the word cartel sent a shiver of apprehension across Briana’s skin, she couldn’t ignore the woman and child’s immediate needs. “I don’t care if he’s the head of the CIA or the Russian mafia, you and Bella can’t stay out here in the rain. If not for yourself, you need to find real shelter for the baby.” Again, she held out her hand. “Come with me. If you won’t stay with me, we’ll find a safe, anonymous place for you to stay.”
Alejandra shook her head. “Anyone who helps me puts themselves in danger.”
Briana firmed her jaw. “Again, I’ll take my chances. And I know of a place where you won’t be found. It’s a privately run women’s shelter where they don’t take names and they don’t ask too many questions.”
Alejandra looked up, blinking as rain fell into her eyes. “I won’t have to tell them who I am?”
“You won’t,” Briana assured her. She reached out again. “Come on. I’ll take you there.”
The woman clutched her baby closer. “You…you…aren’t working for him, are you?”
“What?” Briana frowned. “No. Of course not. My job is to help children. Your baby needs protection from the rain. You need protection from the weather. If you don’t come with me, I can’t leave you. I’d have to stay here with you.” She gave her a twisted smile. “Then we’d all be cold and wet.”
“He always finds me. No matter where I go.” Alejandra took Briana’s hand and let her pull her to her feet. “I can’t get away from him.”
“We’ll get you to the shelter. No one else has to know where you are. Just you, me and baby Bella.”
“The people at the shelter?” she asked.
“Won’t know who you are. You can tell them your name is Jane Smith.”
Her eyebrows rose. “They won’t require identification?”
“No. They’ve even helped immigrants who had nowhere else to turn.” Briana slipped an arm around the woman and helped her to her car. “Come on. Get into my car. I can crank up the heater. You two will be warm in no time.”
Briana helped Alejandra and the baby into the back seat of the car. “Hold on. I have a blanket I keep in my trunk.” She rounded to the rear of the vehicle, popped the trunk lid and reached into the back where she kept a blanket, a teddy bear and bottles of water. She grabbed what she needed and closed the trunk.
Alejandra had buckled herself in and raised her shirt to allow the baby to breast feed.
Briana draped the blanket around the two, handed the woman the plastic bottle of water and laid the teddy bear beside her. “The shelter is about thirty minutes outside of Chicago. You might as well settle in for the ride.”
Alejandra nodded and leaned her head back against the headrest. “Thank you.” She closed her eyes, her arm firmly tucked around the baby nursing at her breast.
Briana climbed into the driver’s seat, shifted into gear and drove out of Chicago to the shelter she knew that didn’t require government assistance, therefore wasn’t run with all the background checks or identification requirements. Alejandra and Bella would be safe there. Once she had them settled in, she could go home to her apartment, knowing the two were safe from harm and out of the weather, at least for the night.
Traffic was heavy getting out of the city. Eventually, she turned off the main highway onto a secondary highway, and then onto a rural Illinois county road.
A glance in her rearview mirror made Briana smile.
Alejandra, Bella lying in her arms, slept, her tired face at peace except for the frown tugging at her brow.
The wife or girlfriend of the leader of a drug cartel… Briana had run into women who had been on the run from drug dealers, mafia or gang members. Each had been terrified of being found, of their children being taken from them, or murdered. Their fears were founded in truth. Briana had witnessed the aftermath of a gang member’s vengeance, and the memory still haunted her. She found it incomprehensible that a man could murder a woman and child out of sheer hatred.
The shelter was located at what had once been a dairy farm. The huge old barn, where the cows had come to be milked, had been cleaned out and converted into living quarters for women and their small children who needed a place to hide away from brutal and abusive relationships. The foundation was funded by a celebrity who preferred to remain anonymous. The rumor had it that the celebrity had once been a woman in need of assistance and a safe house to live in.
Manned by licensed psychologists, social workers and occupational specialists, the shelter was there to provide a place to live and to help the residents learn new skills and, ultimately, become independent and able to take care for themselves. They also had an attorney on retainer to assist the women in getting the restraining orders, separation agreements and divorces they needed in order to start new lives away from toxic situations.
When they arrived at the shelter, Briana parked at the rear entrance, where the people who ran it preferred potential residents to enter. Though they were out in the county, the fewer people who knew of the comings and goings, the better they were able to keep women hidden from their abusive significant others.
As soon as they drove beneath the overhang, a woman emerged from the entrance, a smile and frown of concern on her face. She started to open the passenger seat door but quickly changed to open the back door. “Hello, I’m Sandy. Welcome to Serenity Place.”
Briana smiled as she climbed out of the vehicle and stood beside Sandy. “Hi, Sandy. This is…Jane and her daughter, Jill. They need a safe place to stay.”
Sandy held out her hand. “You’ve come to the right place. We’re very discreet here. Our primary concern is for the safety of our residents, both big and small.”
Alejandra took her hand and let her pull her and the baby out of the car. “Thank you.”
In the next few minutes, the woman had Alejandra and Bella assigned to a room with a full-sized bed, a crib and a package of disposable diapers. Once Alejandra had changed Bella’s diaper, Sandy took them to a dining room where she helped Alejandra make a sandwich.
“Would you like one, too?” Sandy asked Briana.
She shook her head, though her stomach rumbled. “No, thank you. I need to get back to the city before it gets much later.” Briana hugged Alejandra and slipped a business card into her hand. “If you need anything, call me.”
The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. “You’ve already done so much.”
Briana gave her a gentle smile. “Nothing more than anyone with an ounce of compassion would have done. Take care of yourself and your little one.” She brushed a finger beneath the baby’s chin then turned to leave.
Sandy followed her to the exit. “We’ll take very good care of them.”
Briana turned to Sandy. “She’s scared. From what she’s told me, some very bad people are after her. The baby’s father has some connections. If they find her, it won’t be good for her or the people harboring her.”
“We’ve dealt with similar situations.” Sandy touched her arm. “We’ll be on the lookout.”
“Thank you, Sandy,” Briana said. “You have my number. Call me if you need anything or have any concerns.”
She nodded. “Be careful driving back into the city.”
Briana climbed into her car and headed for Chicago. All along the way, she thought about Alejandra and her baby. The desperation in the woman’s eyes had struck a chord in Briana’s heart. She’d seen that look before in the faces of young mothers she’d visited. Too often, they stayed in bad situations, thinking they had no other alternative. Alejandra had tak
en the step to get away from the man who’d threatened her and her child. It took a lot of courage to leave an abusive man. The least she deserved was a safe place to hide until she could get back on her feet, maybe change her identity and start a new life somewhere else.
Back at her apartment, Briana climbed the stairs to the second floor and let herself in.
“That you?” her roommate, Sheila Masters, called out from the kitchen.
“It’s me,” Briana answered as she dropped her keys on the table in the entryway.
“You’re late getting home. Did you have a hot date?” Sheila stepped out of the kitchen and handed Briana a glass of wine.
“You’re a godsend,” Briana said, accepting the offering with a heavy sigh. “I need this and a long soak in a hot tub.”
“Go for it. I’ll be out here watching some television. I had a busy day at the office. I had to train the new hire.” She carried her own wine glass toward the living room, talking as she went. “I don’t know why I always get stuck training the new folks.”
“Because you have the most patience of anyone in that office. Who else could do it?”
Sheila turned, her lips pinched together. “You’re right. Sherry is short-tempered, Lana is too into Lana and Trent is too busy to train anyone himself.”
“Which leaves you.” Briana touched her friend’s arm. “That’s why I love you so much. You’re the best friend a girl can have. And you have the patience to listen to me vent every day.”
“Girl, I don’t know how you do it. I’d be a wreck every day.” Sheila hugged her. “Go, get that bath. I’ll be out here.”