by Casey Hagen
Trusting Lucas (Special Forces: Operation Alpha)
Fierce Protectors Book 7
Casey Hagen
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
About the Author
Books by Casey Hagen
More Special Forces: Operation Alpha World Books
Books by Susan Stoker
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
© 2019 ACES PRESS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the Special Forces: Operation Alpha Fan-Fiction world!
If you are new to this amazing world, in a nutshell the author wrote a story using one or more of my characters in it. Sometimes that character has a major role in the story, and other times they are only mentioned briefly. This is perfectly legal and allowable because they are going through Aces Press to publish the story.
This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I might have assisted with brainstorming and other ideas about which of my characters to use, I didn’t have any part in the process or writing or editing the story.
I’m proud and excited that so many authors loved my characters enough that they wanted to write them into their own story. Thank you for supporting them, and me!
READ ON!
Xoxo
Susan Stoker
About the book
Lucas Burke, former SEAL and current wanderer, keeps close company with the demons haunting him from a lifetime of death, despair, and decisions he can’t reconcile, specifically the role he played in keeping Chloe Crew captive over a year ago. Now working for her brother, he’s determined to keep his distance, but his heart and mind have rallied against his every good intention and decided she’s his to protect, even if that means protecting her from the monsters that haunt her from within.
Chloe Crew, former screwup, current work in progress, has one goal, to build a life where her kids can be happy and healthy. Determined to not repeat mistakes of the past, or let them determine her future, she’s sworn off men. The simple fact that the one man she wants is the man who helped hold her captive said everything there was to be said about her taste in the opposite sex. Now if she could just get it through to her heart.
Good intentions fly out the window as truths come to light and a mutual enemy takes aim. Fighting a sinister criminal hell-bent on destruction strains the boundaries Lucas and Chloe have built for themselves, proving maybe those boundaries have no place when it’s time to unite in their war against those set to destroy them once and for all.
Chapter 1
Chloe Crew stared at the picture on the mantle, the people behind the glass total strangers in light of who she’d become, a shell of a woman moving by rote through life, embarrassment an endless cloak suffocating her every second.
“I often find Zane staring at that picture with the same expression on his face,” Kinsley said from behind her.
Kinsley Scott, her social worker. Well, former social worker. The one she had lied to endlessly because she’d been terrified she’d lose her kids.
And despite the lies, she’d lost them anyway.
Brielle and Tyler had been the only bright spot in a life that had spiraled out of her grip as she’d become the abused possession of dangerous men, each one more horrendous than the last.
Chloe doubted the man so in control of the world around him looked at this picture in the same way. Zane probably searched for some linear way they’d gone from who they were to what they’d become.
Chloe saw no lines at all. Just a spate of years she spent adrift in an unfamiliar fog of questionable life decisions.
“I don’t know who those people are anymore,” she said, her voice scraping past her dry throat. She really didn’t. That girl, with shining eyes and an easy smile, she loved her brother to distraction. In the shadow of parents whose love had never faded and often were so wrapped up in one another that their kids stood on the outside looking in, he’d been her sidekick.
Until he’d left.
Piece by piece she’d crumbled. Oh, not at first. She’d gone to Zane’s graduation and had been the smiling, supportive sister. But as time slid by and he ventured off for longer periods of time into parts unknown, that smile slipped away, replaced by an aching void.
All of a sudden, she was alone in Long Beach, going to school locally when all of her friends had gone away to college, pet sitting for her parents as they finally had the chance to travel, and did so, extensively.
And no one noticed how much she was missing her brother. No one realized that every time she thought about him, wanted to talk to him, but couldn’t because they were on the military’s timeline, that anguish filled her heart, taking her breath away.
“Nothing’s stopping you from rediscovering them,” Kinsley said quietly.
“I’m not sure she exists anymore.”
“You might be surprised, Chloe. Would any of this hurt you as much as it does if she wasn’t buried inside you somewhere?”
She shrugged off the question that cut a little too close to the heart of the problem. “And if I feel no—”
The doorbell peeled, and Chloe jumped.
Always jumped.
She permanently walked around with nervous energy flowing beneath the surface, just waiting for the pristine life Zane had built around her to fall apart. None of it was real. She hadn’t earned any of it through hard work or business savvy.
Nope, she was a kept woman. And not kept by a man where she was supporting the house and family. She was kept by her own brother as though she were the family burden. The fuckup. The source of shame.
Maybe Zane did it out of guilt. Or maybe he did it because he didn’t trust her to be capable of doing it on her own. Either way her stomach churned with the unending knowledge of what she had become.
Kinsley opened the front door, and the air sucked from the room.
Lucas.
Lucas Burke.
Tall and broad, he dominated the entryway. Those unnatural icy eyes landed on her, first with the intensity of a hunter locking on the prey, then softening into what? Care? Concern? Pity?
She couldn’t tell anymore. It all looked the same to her, and it squashed any possible sense of self-worth she could muster.
“Chloe.”
She shivered as his deep timbre filled her from the inside out, grabbing hold of the vestiges of fear lingering inside her from her time held captive.
By him.
With him.
Dammit, she didn’t know. That unease crept to the surface like her body’s own internal stranger danger warning system. Her mind slogged through murky memories of her kidnapping—specifically, the hazy time once they got her to the building where they held her.
His hair was long then, shaggy even, and his face co
vered with a thick, short beard that brushed against her skin, leaving a warm tingle in its wake.
Why would she know what his beard felt like?
And why did she remember taking comfort in it?
She struggled to recall more. Something—anything that ensured she could trust him. Sure, Zane let him into his life, some tight bond from their military years that only they were privy to. Yes, he’d been undercover as a special agent for the DEA. But he’d known she was a victim, and he’d held her there when he could have freed her. He’d helped them keep her from her children.
She didn’t say a word, just watched him in stubborn silence while Kinsley shot looks between the two of them.
“We invited Lucas. I didn’t think—well—is this okay?” Kinsley asked, wincing and scrubbing a hand over her forehead.
Treating her like spun glass. Handling her. An internal scream echoed through her head. She stiffened her spine and jutted her chin. “Of course, it’s fine. I’m fine. Stop treating me like I’m going to break.”
“I’m not trying to,” Kinsley said.
“Well, that’s all everyone has been doing, and it needs to stop.”
“It will,” Kinsley said, shooting an awkward smile at Lucas. “Look, why don’t we go out back. The food was almost ready when I came in.”
Lucas gestured to them to go ahead without another word.
Chloe had to force herself to turn her back on him. She struggled to control her breathing as she followed Kinsley onto the deck overlooking the backyard.
The hairs on her neck stood. Tingles crawled over her sensitive scalp. When she stopped for a brief moment while Kinsley opened the door, his heat reached out to her.
Heart galloping out of control, not with fear, but an entirely inappropriate sensation altogether, she took a breath and instantly regretted it when his warm, familiar cologne triggered an unwelcome awakening of the female inside her who’d always reached for the wrong men.
How the hell would she ever find a way to rebuild her life when some flawed part of her always longed for the wrong guy? And there was no one more wrong for her than the man who’d worked for drug dealers and held her captive.
Undercover DEA or not.
He should go.
He never should have shown up in the first place, and he’d known it from the very minute that Zane and Kinsley invited him.
Lucas shielded his eyes against the powerful sun looming over Long Beach and stepped into the shade of a tall Elm that hovered over the upper section of deck, preferring to hang around the fringes of the party.
Zane shut down the grill after firing up another round of burgers. The men of Fierce surrounded him, grins on their faces, cold beers nearby, half-eaten burgers in their hands. Despite the core four, Slyder, Dylan, Cole, and Evan, having known each other for going on two decades, Jake and Zane seemed to fit seamlessly into the crew.
Lucas hung back knowing full well he did it to himself, and that those guys down there would welcome him in without a second thought.
He leaned against the railing and pretended he didn’t feel Chloe’s gaze occasionally traveling over him from the yard.
She stood off to the side, away from the wives, watching her kids, Tyler and Brielle, as they streaked across the grass with smiles and squeals, melting ice cream cones clutched in their hands.
Every once in a while, out of the corner of his eye, he’d spot a soft smile playing over her lips, her olive eyes softening as she watched them.
Then she’d glance awkwardly at the women and bite her lip. Or she’d spot her brother, and there’d be fire in her eyes.
“Hey, man, you coming down?” Slyder said, nodding up to him.
Lucas leaned on the railing and shook his head. “Nah, I’ve got a great view right where I am.”
Slyder shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Zane said something quietly, and the guys broke away. His feet hit the stairs and in seconds he sidled up to Lucas, searched his face, and handed him a cold beer.
“Something wrong?”
“Nope, just giving your sister some space,” he said, setting the beer next to him without even taking a sip.
“Kinsley said having you both here might not have been the brightest plan,” Zane said, picking at the wrapper around the longneck bottle.
“Chloe has every right to be here, and every right to be mad at me.” Lucas was the one who didn’t belong. He’d gotten used to the feeling, with this, and with the guys. He operated on the outskirts. He had for a long time. They didn’t know his deepest secrets. They wouldn’t understand. And he’d accepted it.
Zane grunted. “You were doing your job.”
“And I resented every fucking minute of it the second they brought her in,” he said, shifting on his feet to face Zane. “Still, it doesn’t matter.”
“Did you tell her that?” Zane asked with a glance at his sister.
“Nope.”
“Don’t you think maybe you should?” Zane asked.
“What’s the point? All I’ll ever be to her is the man who held her captive and now the guy who works for her brother.”
Zane tipped the bottle back and took a long gulp. “Maybe so you both can get closure.”
Lucas watched Zane’s throat work as he swallowed the brew. “Says the guy who hasn’t gotten closure for how many years. When do you plan on getting yours?”
“Hey, it’s easier to fix someone else’s problems.”
“Fuck if that ain’t the truth,” Lucas said, letting out a laugh, the tightness in his chest easing.
“How’s the construction going in the tunnels?” Zane asked, apparently deciding he’d grilled Lucas enough for the time being.
“Almost complete. Over the next few days we’ll get it fully connected to the last wing you guys added to New Hope. Then my work will be done. Now let’s just hope to hell you guys never have to use them up there.” The facility was operating at one hundred percent. Fully staffed, and almost full to capacity, praise had been coming in from all over the state for the new, state-of-the-art center designed to completely change the lives of victims and their families, giving them an entire second chance, sending them into the world with a renewed sense of power and pride.
Chloe had been through an abbreviated version of the program herself as the facility opened a piece at a time during her recuperation.
“Amen. I’m not comfortable with the lack of solid perimeter. They don’t want the families brought in feeling like they’re headed to a prison and I get that, but damn I would feel better making that place a fortress. But since that’s not going to happen, that means developing even more security. I’m going to need help with that if you’re up for it,” Zane said, breaking into Lucas’ wayward thoughts.
He turned to Chloe and found her staring straight at him, her eyes narrowed, not with anger or suspicion this time. Not at all. This was an open curiosity, as though a memory lay just out of her grasp, like having a familiar name on the tip of your tongue. Guaranteed she was digging through the muck of her heroin-induced haze to figure him out.
To figure them out.
More time together would mean more puzzle pieces fitting into place making it harder and harder to walk away.
“I’ll think about it,” Lucas said.
“Uncle Zane, can we spend the night tonight?” Tyler gasped out, his lungs heaving from running back and forth, right before licking the melted ice cream off his hand.
“Did you ask your mother?”
“Well…”
“That’s a no. You need to ask your mom, sport,” Zane said, ruffling Tyler’s hair. “If it’s okay with her, it’s okay with me. But if she says no, she has a good reason, so don’t give her a hard time.”
Tyler ran off, and Lucas’ lips twitched. “You almost sound like a dad. You and Kinsley thinking about starting a brood of your own?”
Zane watched the boy run to his mother, a brief smile curved his otherwise serious mouth as his eyes darted to Kin
sley. “At some point. Right now, my focus is on my sister and making sure she stays well.”
“Any reason you suspect she wouldn’t?”
“No, because she barely speaks to me, so I can’t get a read on her. I still don’t know what I did to lose her trust, and as near as I can tell, she has no interest in cluing me in.”
“And you’re just going to let that go?”
“Don’t have much of a choice, do I? If I pressure her and that pushes her away, who the hell knows where she’ll end up. As much as I hate saying it, she’s a grownup, and that is ultimately up to her, but I won’t see those kids suffer again, and anything that threatens their happiness is a no go for me.”
Tyler bounced on his feet in front of his mother. After a few seconds her gaze snapped up to theirs before shoulders slumped with a sigh and she nodded.
Tyler pumped his bony fist in the air and ran for his sister. Chloe followed along, kissed both of the kids, then gave them tight hugs and a smile before heading in Zane and Lucas’s direction. She tossed her paper plate into the trash and climbed the short steps. “I’ll head over to the house and pack clothes for them,” she said, not meeting her brother’s eyes.
Zane shook his head. “No need. They have a couple of outfits here.”
“Fine. I’ll just—I’m just going to go then,” she said, her hands falling to her sides as though she didn’t quite know what to do with herself.
“You don’t have to leave,” Zane said.
She sighed. “Yeah, I do. I just—look, I need some space.”
“Okay,” Zane said giving his sister a wary look.
“I’ll walk you home,” Lucas said.