Her Faithful Protector
Night Storm, Book Six
Caitlyn O’Leary
Contents
Synopsis
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
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Caitlyn O’Leary
© Copyright 2021 Caitlyn O’Leary
All rights reserved.
All cover art and logo © Copyright 2021
By Passionately Kind Publishing Inc.
Cover by Lori Jackson Design
Edited by Rebecca Hodgkins
Content Edited by Trenda Lundin
Cover Photo by Wander Aguiar Photography
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To all the people who need a second chance at love, I hope you’ll find it.
Synopsis
Will Nic Get His Second Chance At Love?
Navy SEAL, Nic Hale, is happy. Just ask him. As the youngest member of the team, he has the world by the tail, and a date every night of the week. Leaving him wide open to the team’s ribbing. No one would ever know it’s a role he plays to try to forget the woman who stole his heart years ago.
When Night Storm is called in to rescue a busload of kidnapped university students in the Mexican jungle, it’s a mission Nic can sink his teeth into. That is until he finds out his high school sweetheart, the love who was ripped from him, is one of the hostages and all bets are off. Will he be able to save her before they finally have a shot at happiness?
1
Shut up.
Shut up.
Shut up.
Shut up.
Camilla Ross had always known that some of the people she went to school with didn’t have the sense God gave a gnat, but she’d never known they didn’t have any sense of self-preservation either.
She squeezed Roxanne’s hand.
Hard.
“Hush,” she whispered as quietly as she could.
“You can’t do this, we’re Americans!” Roxanne shouted.
“Bitch, tell them we can,” the man with the automatic weapon said in Spanish. He shoved the rifle into the tour guide’s ribs. Hard. The woman somehow maintained a smile.
“If you understand English, I think they would listen better if it came from you,” she responded in Spanish, her tone conciliatory.
He slapped her across the mouth and she fell against the front seat of the bus, but she didn’t lose her footing.
“Do as I say, bitch,” he said fiercely. She wiped the blood off of her mouth with the back of her hand then turned back to the bus of passengers, who were mostly university students from the east coast of America. Some of the students had come to Mexico to party, some had come to take in the history of the country; none of the students had been prepared for this.
“Tell them to shut the fuck up,” the man with the gun said again.
“Everybody needs to remain calm and be quiet,” the tour guide said loudly to all of the bus passengers.
Camilla looked out the window and saw that their bus was surrounded. There were three Jeeps and at least ten men.
“What’s he saying?” Travis demanded to know. “Tell him to speak English for Christ’s sake.”
Travis was a football player for Penn State. He had been trying to get Roxanne to notice him since the tour had begun.
“Shut up,” the scary man with the gun said in English as he took three steps down the middle of the bus. He stared down at Travis.
Travis stood up. “Make me.”
The man casually hit Travis in the side of the head with the butt of his rifle. Travis slid down past his seat, onto the floor of the bus.
Did he kill him?
Two screams ricocheted through the bus, one from Roxanne.
“Anybody else?” the man asked in heavily accented English.
People started to cry and whimper.
“What do you want from us?” Roxanne asked.
“Money,” he answered Roxanne in English. He turned to the tour guide whose mouth was still bleeding. “Tell her that if she is not silent I will find other uses for her,” he said in Spanish.
“Roxanne, you need to be quiet, or he’ll hurt you,” Lisa Garcia said as she swiped at the blood running down her chin.
Camilla squeezed Roxanne’s hand even tighter because she knew what the man had really said and what he really meant. The younger woman needed to shut the hell up.
Roxanne tried to pull away from Camilla’s grip. When she couldn’t she glared at Camilla. “Let go of me,” she hissed.
Travis groaned from the floor.
Thank God.
Another man came onto the bus and pulled the bus driver out of his seat.
“I won’t tell anybody, anything. I swear.” The bus driver whimpered in Spanish.
“Get rid of him,” the man with the gun said.
The second man dragged the bus driver out of the vehicle while he continued to beg and plead for his life. Camilla watched outside her window as the man shoved the bus driver to his knees. He looked terrified. Camilla thought she might throw up when a man in a green t-shirt casually lifted a pistol to the back of the nice old man’s head and pulled the trigger. She slammed her eyes shut, but it wasn’t in time to stop seeing the spray of blood and gore.
Our Father, Who art in heaven, please bless that kind man…
She swallowed and swallowed again. Continuing to say prayers in her head for the man who had just been joking with them an hour ago.
“They killed him,” the young man behind her murmured.
“He’s dead,” another girl in front of her sobbed softly.
Both of these students now realized the level of danger they were all in.
When she was finally able to open her eyes again, she glanced over at Roxanne who was still looking at the first gunman. She was giving him a typical look of brash defiance. Hadn’t she heard the gunshot?
Camilla glanced around the rest of the bus. There were fifteen undergrads and graduate students on the bus, she was the only one working on her doctoral degree. That made her and the tour guide the old ladies on the bus because
they were both at least twenty-four. So fifteen prisoners in all.
They’d been touring together for a day and a half. Camilla knew half of these people because she went to school with them at William and Mary College in Virginia. The rest she had just met. She knew that some of the students came from monied backgrounds, but how had these mercenaries known? Who exactly were they?
Roxanne pulled her phone out of the cross-body purse that she had been toying with for most of the bus ride.
“Put it back,” Camilla said under her breath.
Roxanne glared at her, and twisted it around in a vain attempt to get a signal.
Camilla looked up to see if the gunman noticed, but he’d been distracted by two more men boarding the bus. She didn’t know how it was possible, but they looked even scarier than the first man. She knew it was hopeless, but she looked over at Lisa for some sign of reassurance. Stunned, Camilla was met with an encouraging half-smile. It was as if Lisa were trying to tell her it was all going to be all right. For just a moment Camilla clung to that smile, even returning it with a nod. Maybe she had found someone she could rely on in this disaster.
The first man grabbed a hunk of Lisa’s long dark hair and jerked her head back, baring her throat. He yelled in her face, spittle flying. “What are you smiling about? There’s nothing to smile about,” he roared in Spanish.
“I always smile when I’m scared, I can’t help it. I’m sorry, please don’t hit me again,” Lisa begged.
“I won’t hit you, beautiful, I promise.” his voice turned seductive. Camilla shivered, and Lisa’s eyes widened even further, her fear palpable. He pulled out a knife instead and casually sliced down her bare arm, from her bicep to her elbow.
“Anybody else want to smile?” The man yelled in English to the passengers. “Do you want to laugh?” He shoved Lisa to one of the other men who grabbed her around her bleeding arm. She let out a high shriek of pain.
“I’m the boss of you. Call me Boss. Do any of you speak Spanish?” Three people raised their hands, but Camilla didn’t.
“Those of you who speak Spanish can call me El Jefe.” He laughed as he strode down the aisle. When he came to Camilla’s row, he looked at Roxanne and smiled. Roxanne gave him a tentative smile in return. He punched her, knocking her into Camilla.
“I told you not to smile,” he yelled.
He turned and looked around the bus. “Does anyone else feel like smiling?”
Up front, two tears tracked down Lisa’s face and blood from the knife wound trickled to the floor. She was no longer held by one of the mercenaries, so she was holding her arm, her hand doing nothing to staunch the flow of blood.
Roxanne was wailing in Camilla’s arms like the world was coming to an end. Camilla thanked God that the punch had hit the back of her head; it could have been so much worse. She kept Roxanne cradled in her arms as she took another glance up to the front. Was Lisa bleeding even more profusely?
“Listen up, I need all of your purses, wallets, and phones. Your parents are going to pay money for all of you.”
He went to the front of the bus and leaned out, “Maria,” he shouted. “Get in here. I need you to start taking their information.”
Of course, the boss had a secretary.
Camilla winced at her internal joke. Lisa might smile when she was scared, Camilla made jokes. She’d better stop it.
How about the one where my parents don’t have a pot to piss in and I’m going to die? Is that funny?
Roxanne turned her head to look up at her. “He can’t take my phone, I need it.” Roxanne’s whisper was frantic. She handed it to Camilla.
Camilla realized her own phone would be easily found in her purse on the floor, but having Roxanne’s phone could be a real advantage later on. She turned it off, bent over Roxanne like she was giving aid, then shoved the phone down deep into her bra; for once her large bra cups coming in handy for something.
“Maria,” the man shouted again.
Camilla looked out the window for Maria. She was a tall, striking woman who walked with an air of authority. When Camilla saw her casually step over the corpse of the bus driver as if he were nothing more than a log, she knew that Maria was just as hard and evil as the rest of the men. The woman boarded the bus.
“You called?” she smiled at the boss.
“I need everyone on the bus tagged. Let’s see how much people are willing to pay for the cattle.”
She glanced dismissively at Lisa. “You cut her, so she’s not important, right?”
“Tour guide. She might be able to help keep them calm. If not, you know what happens to her.”
Lisa stood up straighter, a determined look on her face. El Jefe ignored her and continued to talk to Maria.
“Make them identify which packs are theirs and go through them.” Once again he sauntered down the middle aisle and chose another two students to harass. They were a couple from Camilla’s school. They were part of the reason she was here, Roxanne’s and four other parents had pitched in to pay for her ‘adventure’ if she’d try to pound some knowledge into their babies while they were having fun in Mexico.
The boss banged open the luggage compartment over Paul and Jan’s heads and grabbed a duffel bag and a backpack as they fell out.
“These yours?”
When the young man refused to answer, the girl gave a tentative nod. “Maria, start with them. I want to know everything.”
Maria eased around the boss and grabbed the luggage from him. She threw the duffel at the man’s head. He barely caught it before it hit him. She did the same thing to the girl with her backpack. She grunted when it hit the side of her face. Jan was doing the right thing, not bringing attention to herself.
“Come with me,” Maria’s voice was monotone. Paul helped Jan to stand up. He picked up her backpack.
“She can carry it,” Maria told the young man.
“Let me.” Jan took the backpack out of Paul’s hands and followed Maria with Paul behind her. Camilla watched as Jan fell backward into Paul when she saw the dead bus driver.
“Quit your whining and follow me.”
Once again Maria stepped over the dead body, but Paul led Jan around the corpse and they continued to follow Maria until she went to where a tarp was laid out on the ground.
Camilla couldn’t hear what was being said, but the two students started to empty out the contents of their luggage onto the tarp.
“What do you find so interesting? Eh?”
Camilla looked up and saw the boss glaring down at her.
“What is so interesting?” he demanded to know.
Roxanne dug in deeper into Camilla’s lap, trying to make herself as small a target as possible.
“I wanted to see what your friend was doing with Jan and Paul,” Camilla answered in English.
“You better concentrate on what’s happening here on the bus.” He turned to Roxanne. “And you. Why are you hiding?” He yanked Roxanne’s ponytail so that Roxanne was forced to sit up. Then he twisted it in his fist so that she was facing him.
“Leave me alone,” she spat in a short burst of defiance.
He laughed.
“You’re stupid, you know that, right? Do you like being hit? Maybe you want to leave the bus now and be hit a few more times? Eh?”
“Please, she’s young. She’ll be quiet, I promise,” Camilla pleaded.
“Ah, her protector. How interesting.”
2
“Yo, you’re not keeping up. You’re young; what’s your problem, another late night?”
Nic flipped Cullen Lyons, his Navy SEAL teammate, the finger and put on some serious speed as he clambered up the rope netting and swung over to the other side. At least now he had a fighting chance of coming in third on the obstacle course today.
Cullen was right, normally he would have come in second behind Ezio because there was just no stopping that guy these days. But no, Raiden was beating him, and Cullen was giving him a run for his money. Then there w
as Zed Zaragoza, who was catching up to him, and that guy was just coming off of disability leave!
Yeah, I seriously suck.
Nic pushed on, determined to come in second as he picked up speed. Two obstacles later when they were doing a low crawl through mud, Nic laughed at Cullen.
“Tough keeping up, isn’t it old man? Have you gained some weight since Carys started cooking for you?”
Cullen snorted. “You think she cooks for me? You must be delusional, Son.”
“Sorry, can’t hear you, you’re too far behind me,” Nic shouted. He got up as soon as he was free of the short wire that they had to crawl under. He took a moment to look back. Cullen was almost done, but Zed was just halfway through.
Good!
Six more obstacles to go.
He ran up the hill at top speed then grabbed the weighted pack and shoved it up on his shoulder. He heard Cullen’s ‘oomph’ behind him.
“You’re making old-man noises, Lyons.”
“Fuck you, Hale.”
Nic laughed and ran faster up the hill, but he could still see Cullen in his peripheral vision. The man was like a tick, he couldn’t shake him off. The good news was that he was gaining on Raiden Sato.
He could see the high step coming up. Nothing more fun than running through tires without tripping. Hell, did the Navy get a kickback from Goodyear? Sure seemed to be more tires than the last time he’d run this course.
Nic chuckled when he saw Cullen trip.
“You’re showing your age. What, are your knees giving out?” Nic taunted.
Her Faithful Protector: A Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 6) Page 1