“Kane, you and Nic are twins on this job. Got it?”
Kane nodded.
Nic jerked his head in his boss’ direction. Kane grabbed his arm. “We’ll take the rear,” Kane said to Max.
Max studied them both for a moment, then nodded.
Zed came up to Max. “I followed the tracks for a bit. Looks like three Jeeps. I counted eight sets of distinct footprints that weren’t combat boots walking in between the vehicles. Three men, five women. There could be more.”
“There are more,” Kane said as he looked up from his tablet. “There were fourteen passengers on the bus, all from universities and colleges on the east coast. With four dead on the bus, they’re down to ten, plus the tour guide.”
“Kane, what else you got?” Max asked as the others gathered around.
“Camilla Ross is supposed to be some kind of teacher or leader on this expedition. The rest are mostly undergrads. Some of them come from really wealthy families, the bios are coming in slowly.”
“What’s the four-one-one on the tour guide, do we have anything more on her?” Max asked.
“She’s led wilderness tours in Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming. She just started doing tours down here in Mexico this year. It’s strange because they don’t pay as well.”
“Are you thinking she’s in on it?” Asher asked.
Kane shrugged.
“Doesn’t make sense if she’s the one who made the S.O.S. call. I say we look at her as a friendly who can actually be of use,” Max said grimly. He turned to Nic. “What about Camilla, she’s a teacher. Does she have any skills that would help?”
“Last time I saw her was six years ago. I don’t know.”
“Okay.” Max nodded. “Zed, you take point. Everyone else spread out. These tracks are too easy to follow; I want everyone on alert to make sure there are no booby-traps, or any unfriendlies left behind.” Everyone gave Max an answer in the affirmative.
7
“Tell me about her,” Kane coaxed. Or was he demanding? Nic couldn’t tell, nor did he care, he just kept jogging forward. Forward, they needed to move forward. Fast. They needed to go faster.
“Nic. We’ll get there, man. We’re going to do this. But we’ve got to do it right. You’ve got to trust our team, the men up front. You can’t get ahead of them.”
Why is Zed on point? Godammit, I should be on point!
“Nic, slow down, you’re getting ahead of the others. You know our position.”
Nic didn’t answer.
“Sailor!”
He turned his head. Kane was stone-faced, which was never good. He stopped in his tracks. Fuck, the man was right. He needed to get his head in the game. But…
Cami!
They were to the right of the barely-there road that the Jeeps had used to traverse through the jungle. Just in case someone was on that trail, they wanted to be out of sight.
“Nic, you gotta talk to me,” Kane cajoled. “Who is Camilla Ross to you? You said you haven’t seen her for six years, man. She’s practically a stranger now, right?”
He adjusted his rifle, making sure that it was secure and that he was ready for anything. He felt Kane’s eyes on him.
“Once she was everything,” he finally spit out. “Once she was my other half.” Nic figured his voice was so low that Kane couldn’t hear him above the cacophony of birds and monkeys and other jungle noises. He was wrong.
“But you were kids, right?” Kane’s voice was soft too.
“Does that really matter?” Nic refused to look at his teammate.
They continued on for long minutes.
“No, it doesn’t matter,” Kane finally answered. “With A.J. it could be decades and I would still be there.”
“Six years is damn near a decade,” Nic spit out. “We’ve changed. There have been others. I don’t know how she feels.”
“I always knew your horn dog persona was bullshit.”
Nic’s head turned so fast it was amazing he didn’t give himself whiplash. “What are you talking about?”
“Nic Hale, man whore. Nope, doesn’t compute.”
Nic was seriously confused. “How do you see that?”
“You were all talk, but I can count on one hand the times that I saw you go pick up a woman at the bar. Yeah, the women who were interested in having a SEAL on their scorecard definitely came onto you and all the rest of us, but I never saw you leave with any of them, no matter how hard they tried. But the next day you’d be all braggadocios. Nope, didn’t compute at all.”
Thank God for the camouflage paint; otherwise, Kane could have seen the flush turning his face red. Yep, he sure screwed the pooch on that.
How many other teammates did I fail to con?
“So, back to my original question. Tell me about Camilla.”
“She was too good for me, that’s who she was. I wanted to marry her, but we were too young. I met her when she was sixteen and a half and I was seventeen. We were the quintessential high school sweethearts, if you can believe that.”
“What else?”
Kane kept his gaze forward, not missing anything. Nic forced himself to do the same, excising all visual memories of Cami from his brain so he could concentrate on the here and now.
“I already knew that I was going to join the Navy as an enlisted man. Follow in Dad’s footsteps. I wanted to be a SEAL, learn things from the ground up before I applied to be an officer.”
“Like we all don’t know that,” Kane smirked.
Nic went to adjust his rifle again, then stopped. It was a habit he had when he was uncomfortable, and a damn stupid one to have on a mission.
Keep it together.
“So how did joining the Navy pertain to you and Camilla?”
Nic climbed over a dead tree trunk, using a vine for support. “It was the one and only thing her parents and I ever agreed on—Cami needed to go to college, not become a Navy wife, following me around to each assignment.”
“You knew you were going to be in Coronado or Little Creek, what was the problem? She could have attended college there.”
“She was being scouted by schools like Yale, Harvard, and MIT. Full rides. I couldn’t get in the way of that. She was adamant that she could go to a school in Virginia or California, but it wasn’t the same thing.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“You don’t understand. She was – no, scratch that. She is brilliant. She planned to get a degree in Pure Mathematics.”
“Are you shitting me? I work with some of the best programmers on the planet and hardly any of them get that degree.”
“Her mother has a Ph.D. in Physics, her dad has a Ph.D. in Archaeology. She comes by it naturally.”
They stopped as they saw Ezio hold up his fist ahead of them.
“Got something,” Zed whispered through their receivers.
They all waited to see what Zed would say next. “This is where they camped. I have a body. It’s not one of the students.”
“Anything else?” Max whispered the question.
“Negative.”
“Proceed with caution. We don’t know if they left any surprises,” Max said. “Kane, has there been any info that’s come in yet about who we’re dealing with?”
“Negative,” Kane answered.
Kane was plugged into so many receivers, it was amazing that he had the bandwidth to question him, Nic thought as he rounded another stump. Seriously, that man was the king of multi-tasking.
A minute later they came upon the muddy clearing that marked where the group had camped for the night. The Jeeps had cut across through the light foliage into the clearing and then circled the area. It was clear that people had slept in the dirt.
“Found a Ding Dong wrapper,” Leo called out.
“I got me an empty snack pack size of Doritos.” Asher held up his prize.
“Obviously, we’re not dealing with Boy Scouts, because nobody taught them how to police their area when they left,” Cullen said. He was tryi
ng for humor, but it fell flat.
Ding Dongs. How many times had he watched Cami bite into one of those tasty chocolate cakes and sigh with bliss?
“Zed,” Nic called out. “Is this from last night?”
He shook his head. “Night before last. We’ve got to get a move on.”
“First, I want a better headcount of what we’re dealing with,” Max ordered. “Anybody who fucked up the tracks near the Jeeps answers to me.”
Nobody rolled their eyes, but it was clear that the entire Night Storm team felt like doing it. They all knew the drill. Raiden took one Jeep, Asher another, and Leo the third. Meanwhile, Zed tried to determine just how many distinct prisoners there were.
It took forever for the team to come up with answers as far as Nic was concerned.
“I’m pretty sure there are three on this Jeep,” Raiden said.
“We’ve got two on this Jeep, and one of them is tiny or it’s a woman,” Leo yelled out.
“I’ve got four on this one,” Asher shouted.
Everyone waited to hear what Zed had to say. “I’m pretty sure that eleven people bedded down within this small perimeter here,” Zed said. He indicated a small space that was circled by the three Jeeps.
“That would mesh with the fifteen people, minus the four dead from the bus.”
Nic felt his entire body tremble. Thank you, God.
“Let’s move out,” Max commanded. “We’re burning daylight.”
Every step was agony. Fire raced through her body, and Camilla couldn’t even see the person in front of her.
“We’ve got to stop, Doctor Ross.”
“No, Travis,” she gasped out. “Have to keep going.” Camilla shook her head so she could actually see. She gave a little shriek when she did it, as another bolt of agony hit her hard. Travis stopped moving. and so did she. She had no choice since he was practically carrying her along beside him. They were bringing up the rear.
“I don’t think your shoulder’s broken. I think it’s dislocated. I know how to fix it.”
“We can’t stop.” Camilla tried to start walking on her own.
One step. Two steps.
I can do this. I’ve got this.
Three steps.
“Ahhhh.” She tried to muffle her scream.
Pain like she never imagined flowed through her body. She’d hit her forehead, landed on her breasts, and jarred her shoulder, all spots injured from her time with El Jefe at the Jeep.
Travis rolled her over.
“Doctor Ross?” Travis’ voice was filled with tears. “I shouldn’t have let you try to walk. I’m so sorry.”
Camilla bit her lip so that she wouldn’t cry, but she tasted the salt of her tears. So much for that.
“Just lie there. I’m going to try to put your shoulder joint back into place.”
“Don’t,” Camilla begged. “Just help me up.”
“I’ve got to. It’s the only way to help you. I’ve seen a lot of injuries on the football team. Your shoulder isn’t broken, it’s dislocated, trust me.”
This was the last kid in the world she would trust. He placed one hand firmly on her sternum; she figured it was to keep her in place, but it fucking hurt. “Please lift your hand. I’ll stay still,” Camilla begged.
Travis looked down at her chest and he must have seen some of the bruising above her tank top because he yanked his hand away.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you more than I have to.”
For the first time, he didn’t seem arrogant; he seemed like an anxious kid who was trying to do something right. Camilla hoped he’d pull it together and be able to help her.
“Relax your arm as much as you can. Take some deep breaths. I know it’s tough, but you’re tough, you can do it.”
Camilla snorted and snot came out her nose. Really? He was doing guided meditation? She thought she heard an engine getting close, but she ignored it and tried to relax.
Travis gently moved her arm so that it was parallel to her body, then he bent it at the elbow and twisted her forearm so that her palm was facing up.
Camilla was sure that her breathing technique was the same as a woman would use if she were in labor.
“Get up!” a man yelled.
Travis gripped her elbow and forearm. His hands were surprisingly gentle and he guided them over her head. Camilla shut her eyes and saw red behind her lids.
“Ahhhhhhhh.”
Her world went black.
She felt something prodding her ribs.
“Get up! You need to start walking!”
“She needs a doctor,” Travis cried out.
“All of you Americans are soft.”
It was a boot. The man was kicking her ribs with the toe of her boot, but the pain was nothing compared with the pain in her shoulder and her breasts.
“He’s right.” El Jefe bellowed in Spanish. The kicking stopped. “Some of the women are slowing us down too much.”
Camilla opened her eyes. Now El Jefe and the kicker were standing over her, with Travis between them.
“You,” El Jefe said in English as he motioned to Travis, “pick her up and put her in the Jeep.”
“She needs medical attention,” Travis pleaded.
“If you care so much, take care of her. Take care of all the whiny women. We have a schedule to meet,” El Jefe waved his hand at Travis, dismissing him.
Camilla groaned as Travis picked her up. Being moved was agony, but at least now she and the other injured were going to get some relief. The girls needed to be able to stop walking, otherwise, they’d drop in their tracks.
“What are you doing?” Camilla heard Maria ask in Spanish. “You’re babying her,” she complained.
Camilla turned her head to watch the byplay between the two of them as Travis walked slowly toward a Jeep.
“Maria, you know we need to meet the trucks and get to the village.”
“Leon, you’re always a soft touch. These women need to toughen up. They’re going to be with us for a while. This is nothing compared to what’s coming next.” Maria shook her head in disgust.
“I know mi corazón, but we need internet access to get to the bank accounts.”
“But—”
“Enough! I’m in charge.”
Camilla saw Maria wince. She would have liked to see El Jefe backhand the woman like he was prone to do, but no such luck. Of course, she would probably just get up and hit him back.
“No! Don’t lay her down, she sits. There’s not enough room for her to lie down in the Jeep.” It was the kicker talking. Camilla was dizzy and she felt like she was going to throw up. She found herself in the backseat of a dirty Jeep, then Jan was sitting next to her. The girl wasn’t even conscious; how had she been walking?
Jan sank forward and then started sliding off the seat. Camilla made a grab for her with her left hand, but Paul was there before Camilla could get a good hold.
“I’ve got her,” he said. Gently, he propped her into the seat and did up her seatbelt.
“Doctor Ross, you need to put on your seatbelt too,” Travis said.
Hell, I’d forgotten all about the kid.
Camilla turned to look at him and immediately regretted it as the pain sliced through her neck. “Thanks for your help,” she gasped out.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. She blinked back tears.
Camilla struggled with the seatbelt and hissed in a breath when it tightened across her breasts. The pain…
The driver swung into his seat then glared at Travis and Paul. “Get back in line, we’re moving out.
The Jeep rumbled to life, and with the first up and down thrust over the non-existent road the seatbelt bit into her breasts and she moaned. She tried to stay conscious. Tried to think of anything good in her life. Any good memory that would get her through this hell.
Camilla looked up at Nic in frustration. How could he not budge on this issue? It made no sense.
“I shou
ld never have told you about those scholarships.”
“Yes, you should have. We agreed to always be honest with one another, remember?”
“Admit it; before I told you about MIT and Harvard, you were considering marrying me before you joined the Navy.”
He didn’t meet her eyes.
She was cuddled on his lap in his small apartment. She reached up and cupped his cheek, turning his face so he was forced to look at her.
“You were going to ask me to marry you, weren’t you?”
His hazel eyes darkened. He nodded.
“Baby, I’ve got it figured out. Marry me, and ask to be stationed in Virginia. I have a full ride waiting for me at William and Mary College. It’s only an hour away from Little Creek, Virginia. We can make this work.”
“And what about if I’m assigned to Coronado?” he asked.
“That makes it even easier, I go to San Diego State University. This is doable.”
She watched as he hesitated. It was time for the big guns. Camilla started to unbutton the front of her sundress. Where before Nic’s eyes had darkened, now they shot sparks of gold as he watched her undo each button—past her bra, past her waist, past her panties, until it was wide open.
He sucked in his breath.
Camilla didn’t have to wait long for his hand to cover her stomach, he felt so hot. His other hand tangled in her hair and he bent down to kiss her. A mere brush of his lips against hers, a tantalizing taste as his breath wafted across her lips. He smelled like mint. He came back and brushed his lips against hers again, this time with a little more force, and she moved her face, trying to prolong their kiss, but he moved too quickly.
The third time he went to tease her, she grabbed his head and sifted his shaggy hair through her fingers. She bit into his scalp with her nails, anything to keep his lips on hers so that she could have his mouth the way she wanted it. She needed him, his taste, his breath. She could feel his smile as he parted his lips against hers and she flowered open, taking his tongue inside her mouth, moaning in appreciation.
Her Faithful Protector: A Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 6) Page 6