by Elle James
If whatever was behind the door was nefarious, on the other hand, he would probably be dead before he had a chance to retreat.
The room was small. Nothing more than a conference table with six chairs and a phone in the middle, but that’s not what mattered. That wasn’t what stopped Ajax in his tracks and took his breath away. “Holy mother of God,” he stated as he released the door, no longer caring if it shut at his back.
The man standing on the other side of the room lifted his gaze and gasped.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other. Not a single sound could be heard except the beating of Ajax’s heart in his ears. “Fuck me. Ryker?” He would know his foster brother anywhere. He didn’t need verification. Except since he knew Ryker was dead, it was a bit difficult to believe his eyes.
“Ajax?” Ryker took a hesitant step forward. “Is that really you?” It occurred to Ajax that Ryker thought he was dead also.
Ajax took two huge steps forward at the same time as Ryker, and they collided in what could be described as a manly hug, if it weren’t for the fact that Ajax’s throat was clogged with emotion.
“I thought…” Ryker’s voice was tight, and Ajax understood.
“They said you were dead,” the men choked out in unison.
When they leaned back, they held each other by the shoulders and stared into each other’s eyes. “What the fuck?” Ryker said.
“I was going to say the same thing.”
“Where the fuck have you been?” Ryker asked.
“My sister’s. In Tennessee. You?”
“Mom and Dad’s place in Indiana.” Ryker released Ajax to rub his forehead. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Not a damn clue. Do you suppose the entire team is coming here?”
The door opened behind Ajax and he spun around, half expecting to see Keebler or Pitbull or any of the other members of their SEAL squad.
That is most definitely not what happened. The newest addition was a woman. Prim. Perfectly put together. Ajax scanned her from the feet up. Four-inch heels. Gray pencil skirt that reached her knees. White blouse. Flawless pale skin. Sleek black hair in a tidy bun. Green eyes. She had two manila folders tucked under one elbow.
She wasted no time, immediately holding a hand out to Ajax. “Mr. Cassman.” He shook her hand, uncertain what to say. Her voice didn’t match the sultry voice he’d heard on the phone. When he released her grip, she reached for Ryker. “Mr. Tufano.”
“How do you know who we are? And who the fuck are you?” Ryker asked.
“My name is Serena.”
“I was told to meet with a man named Charlie,” Ajax stated, glancing at Ryker who nodded agreement. He’d been told the same thing.
Serena smiled politely. “She couldn’t make it.” She reached toward the center of the table and dragged the phone toward the edge. “She’ll be joining us by speakerphone.”
“Charley is a woman?” Ajax asked for clarification. He wasn’t usually such a sexist ass, but he’d wrongly assumed… Charley, not Charlie.
Serena lifted a brow. “Yes. You have a problem with women?”
Ajax lifted both brows and then stroked his beard. He felt defensive. “Not at all.” Especially not you. This entire situation was ten ways of fucked-up, but Serena wasn’t one of them. She was cool, confident, and feisty. It was absurd that his cock took notice because he had about a thousand questions to ask her. Now was not the time to flirt.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Ryker stated, his voice firm, no-nonsense. That hadn’t changed. “Who are you?”
“I told you.”
“Gonna need more than a name, sweetheart,” Ryker stated.
Serena flinched, narrowing her gaze at him. “I’m not your sweetheart, and that’s all you need to know.” She picked up the phone, dialed a number so fast that Ajax couldn’t see the digits, and then pressed a button to put it on speaker.
As the phone rang, Serena pointed toward the chairs. “Have a seat, gentlemen.”
Ajax shot Ryker a narrow look before responding. The two of them had known each other since Ajax moved into the foster home where Ryker had already been living at age twelve. They’d been separated only once since then, and that had been for the last three months. They didn’t need words to convey what they were thinking. “We’ll stand,” Ajax stated, planting his feet wider and crossing his arms defiantly. He wanted some fucking answers and fast.
Serena shrugged. “Suit yourselves.” She made no move to sit either. Nor did she seem remotely bothered by the high heels she stood in. It looked like she wore them often. Every movement she made indicated she was more comfortable in heels than any other footwear.
“Hello?” came an unknown female voice.
“Charley, this is Serena. You are on speakerphone. I have Mr. Cassman and Mr. Tufano here with me.”
“Good.” The silky, smooth pitch of her voice confirmed she was female.
Ajax narrowed his gaze, glaring at the phone.
“Mind telling us what this is all about and do you know why on earth we were both told the other was dead? And while you’re at it, where is the rest of our team?” Ryker demanded.
“I’m going to answer all of your questions, gentlemen,” Charley responded. “Has my assistant offered you a beverage? This is going to take a few minutes. You might want to get comfortable.”
Ajax scowled. “We don’t need anything to drink. We need answers.”
“Look. I’m not the bad guy here. My goal is to help you. You were wronged. My intention is to right that wrong.”
“Who do you work for?” Ryker asked.
“Can’t tell you that. What you need to know is that I’m on your side. I know everything that happened to the two of you and the rest of your team. I’d like to hire you to do a covert job.”
Ajax dropped his arms and leaned forward, setting his palms on the table so he could lean in closer to the phone. “Hire us? Why would we want to work for you? We know nothing about you, and frankly, right now I’m two seconds from pulling the phone cord out of the wall and leaving this room. So, you better give us some answers fast before I lose my cool.”
The woman sighed. “The reason you’re going to take me up on my offer is because I’m going to make you a deal you can’t refuse, and the job I need you to do is to go back into Ethiopia and rescue the rest of your team.”
Ajax gasped as he glanced at Ryker. “You’re telling me the rest of our guys are still in fucking Ethiopia?”
“Yes. My intel suggests they’re alive. I’m still gathering data about their specific location, but I’m expecting to make contact with my source so we can get this ball rolling in two weeks.”
Ajax stared at the phone. This was insane. How could he possibly trust this woman? “Who are you?”
“You can call me Charley. Beyond that, I can’t tell you.”
Ajax jerked his gaze toward Serena. “My partner and I could easily overtake this woman you’ve sent and force her to talk.”
Serena gasped and took a step back, the first evidence that she was flappable.
Charley sighed again. “She knows nothing. It won’t do you any good.”
Ajax gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, his face dipping toward the floor.
“Listen to me,” Charley demanded. “I know everything that happened to you. More than either of you know. You were on a mission, you had the green light, you surrounded the target, and then you closed in. There was an explosion. The building blew to rubble. The two of you were knocked off your feet and thrown backward, landing hard in the street several yards from where you’d been standing. You were both knocked unconscious in the blast.”
“Why on earth was I told the entire team was dead and I was the lone survivor?” Ajax asked.
“Because someone higher up needed to cover their own ass.”
Ajax shoved away from the table and took a few steps back, leaning against the wall for support. He ran a hand through his hair, hair that was i
n desperate need of a cut. “How do you know all of this?”
“I have my ways.”
Ajax groaned.
“What happened to the rest of the team if they didn’t die in the explosion?” Ryker asked.
“No one was in that rubble. None of you had breached the building yet. You two were the only ones knocked unconscious. Everyone else was taken hostage in the ambush. Your backup team was moving in fast, so the rebels had no choice but to evacuate and leave your bodies behind. They probably weren’t certain if you were alive or dead, but in any case, they didn’t have the time to take two unconscious bodies.”
“Unbelievable,” Ajax murmured.
“I agree. Whoever fucked up this mission went to a lot of trouble to clean up after themselves.”
“If the backup team rescued us, why haven’t we heard from any of them?”
“They are still active in the mission, and they’ve been told neither of you survived. After loading you two into the helicopter, they never saw you again.”
Ryker cleared his throat. “This is insane. Both of us were told the rest of the team was dead. Who could be that cruel?”
Ajax agreed. It had been the most hellacious three months of his life. He’d spent it believing not only his entire team was dead, but that it included Ryker. A man he’d considered a brother since they met when Ajax was twelve.
Ajax had yet to go home to Indiana to face the foster parents who brought him into manhood because he couldn’t stand the idea of confronting the heaviness in his soul. On top of that, he was too embarrassed. He’d been told the reason that mission failed—the reason Ryker had died—was because he hadn’t followed protocol. He’d been fucking led to believe that he had disgraced his team and the SEALs. He had been discharged “other than honorably.” Returning to face his foster parents was the last thing he’d wanted to do.
“I don’t know the answer to that yet, but believe me, I’m working on it. In the meantime, I’m hiring you two to go back and get your team.”
Ajax flinched. “Hiring? What if we decline.”
“You won’t.”
Serena set the two folders she was carrying on the table, separated them, and eased them across the surface, one toward each man. A phoenix stared back at him as though the ancient Egyptian bird could see all the way to his damaged soul...daring him to look inside.
Ryker opened his first and after a moment, he whistled between his teeth. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Yes. You have a unique set of skills, not to mention motivation.”
Ajax opened his folder and lifted both brows. Ryker wasn’t kidding. He could do a lot with that kind of money. “You realize I’ve been discharged. I no longer work for the US Navy. Who the heck are we working for?”
“Me.”
“And you aren’t going to tell us who the hell you are?”
“No. It’s safer this way.”
“For us or for you?”
“Yes.”
Great.
Ryker groaned.
Ajax turned to look at him, lifting a brow. They were either in this together or not at all.
“Fuck,” Ryker muttered.
Ajax agreed. It wasn’t as though they could tell this woman they would not be willing to go in and rescue their own men. He turned back to face the phone. “What’s the plan?”
“Pull your shit together, lay off the cookies, and be prepared to travel in two weeks.”
“Who’s paying for all this?” Ajax asked.
“I am.”
“How will we know where to go or what to do?”
“Serena will be traveling with you. She’ll be told when and where to meet up with my contact when you arrive.”
“What?” all three yelled at once.
For Ajax, the thought of this soft woman in the pencil skirt traveling to fucking Ethiopia with him was preposterous. She obviously worked hard to be taken seriously. Standing tall. Keeping her expression tight and serious. All business. But his instinct told him she was more like a dandelion underneath the fake exterior.
That wasn’t the most shocking part of Charley’s announcement, however. The part that made Ajax lift both brows and glance at Serena was that she too was obviously blindsided by this news.
“Charley,” Serena began, “at no time did you mention me traveling with these gentlemen.” She was clearly just as uninterested as Ajax was. Traveling to Ethiopia was dangerous under normal circumstances. He would have his guard up the entire time. And that would be when he was in populated areas surrounded by civilians.
As soon as he left civilization to hunt down his squad, the last thing he’d need was to worry about this feather of a woman. No way. Not a chance. “That’s a dealbreaker,” he told Charley.
Serena flinched and shot him a narrowed look that could have melted a cast-iron pan. She may not have had any intentions of going either, but she sure didn’t like the decision coming from him.
“Nonnegotiable. Serena goes with you. I’ll overnight you the details in a few days. Plane tickets and all the information you’ll need to get started. When you arrive, you’ll stay in a hotel in Addis Ababa the first night. After that, you’ll meet up with my contact and be given further instructions.”
Ryker slapped his hands onto the table again, fingers wide, fingertips white from gripping the surface. “How do we know this isn’t a trap intended to get both of us killed so that whoever fucked up this mission can wipe their hands clean of possible loose ends?”
Serena leaned forward and pushed the top piece of paper in the open manila folder to one side, her fingers moving slowly to reveal the second page.
Ajax's breath hitched and caught. “Motherfucker,” he breathed out. He yanked the entire stack of pages off the table and started flipping through them while Ryker did the same with his set of documents.
“Fuck,” Ryker muttered.
The first several pages were pictures of the rest of their squad. They were grainy and black and white, but there was no mistaking the images of their comrades. Recent images. Their brothers looked like shit. Three months of neglect.
Fuck.
Whoever this Charley woman was, she had them both by the balls. There wasn’t a chance in hell either of them would leave men behind for any reason. Even if Charley was fucking with them and intended to have the two of them killed the moment they stepped off the plane, it was a risk Ajax would have to take. And he knew Ryker would too.
Plus, why send Serena with them if Charley intended to have them both killed? That part made no sense.
Apparently, Ajax was headed back to Ethiopia.
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About the Author
ELLE JAMES also writing as MYLA JACKSON is a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of books including cowboys, intrigues and paranormal adventures that keep her readers on the edges of their seats. When she’s not at her computer, she’s traveling, snow skiing, boating, or riding her ATV, dreaming up new stories. Learn more about Elle James at www.ellejames.com
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