by Zoe Dawson
2-Stroke
SEAL Team Alpha
Zoe Dawson
2-Stroke
Copyright © 2021 by Karen Alarie
Cover Art © Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.
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.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Glossary
About the Author
OTHER TITLES BY ZOE DAWSON
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my beta readers, reviewers and editor for helping with this book, especially Lisa Fournier for her excellent help. As always, you guys are the best.
Find me where the wild things are…
Alessia Cara
To pain and hardship for without them, there is very little character.
1
Sarajevo, Bosnia, The Balkans
Zach “Saint” Bartholomew moved through the crush of loud, laughing fans in the basement of Topography. It was a nightclub up above and a mixed martial arts cage match down below. He and Milo “Professor” Prescott navigated the press of bodies and pulled the ball caps on their heads down a little more. Saint had a good growth of beard to hide his features. Beneath their coats, they were armed, just as a precaution.
They walked up to the ringleader of the fighters and Saint gestured to Professor. “My friend can make you a lot of money. What does it take to get into the fight?”
“Tits,” he said and laughed. Lights came on, flooding the square green mesh enclosure with blinding light, illuminating the black mat floor.
Professor nudged him. “Dried blood.”
Saint went to look down, but that’s as far as he got. A woman entered the ring dressed in a black fishnet catsuit from her neckline down to her toes. Beneath the mesh, her breasts were confined in a black lace bra with matching boy shorts clinging to so many tantalizing curves and angles, a man could get eye strain trying to look everywhere at once. The woman was built from her well-muscled arms to her compact middle, to her firm thighs. Her black hair was twisted into knots all over her scalp, tight and pinned to her head. He suspected she didn’t want anything loose enough for her opponent to grab and use against her. Incongruent to that body was her sweet, angelic face with high cheekbones, heavy dark lashes fringing her unsettlingly deep large hazel eyes, reminding him of the changing seasons, harboring a little bit of everything—gold, green, shades of brown.
She was muscle power and eye-catching femininity in a beautiful, heart-stopping, badass gladiator body. As soon as they saw her, the crowd started screaming and clapping.
She didn’t look like bait, Saint thought as a plan began to form. But she did give him a hard-on. He was thankful for the long coat he was wearing.
Professor sighed. “Our easy in isn’t so easy,” he said. “Looks like Darko only likes to watch female cage fighters. He’s no dummy. That is one tough-looking babe with charisma to spare.” He turned to Saint. “Is he here?”
“No, neither is Zasha.” Saint scanned the room again. The tip they’d received about Darko watching these matches in person hadn’t panned out. Dammit! “LT. We’ve got a problem,” Saint said into his mic. “I got something I can play, though. Stand by.”
“Keep me posted,” was his reply.
“Copy that,” Saint said, barely registering the words. He was losing his focus, and that was a bad thing in this deceptively tourist-friendly country. Somewhere in Bosnia, their teammate Neo “2-Stroke” Teller and CIA liaison Chrysanthe Steele were being held captive by Darko Stjepanić, a powerful Balkans crime lord, and Zasha Vasiliev, their former CIA liaison and treasonous bitch who had been under the alias Kelly Sparks. The team was here to find them, and they wouldn’t rest until they were rescued and brought home. Professor had come over from the East Coast to assist as a face that Zasha had never seen.
They needed every edge they could muster.
The gladiator met his gaze, and there was nothing but cool and calm there even when the blonde amazon walked in across from her.
“Inside the cage we have Quell and her opponent Jam. Place your bets. You have thirty seconds,” the fight boss said next to them, his voice loud. People immediately started screaming and waving. Saint had no idea how he could keep any of it straight.
After seconds of that, he then shouted, “Fight!”
Quell did a graceful but powerhouse jump into the air and came down with a punch to Jam’s face that rocked the tall blonde back. Then without hesitating, Quell whipped a one-eighty with a roundhouse kick to the body and a backhand to the face that sent Jam against the waffled mesh wall.
She shook her head and came at Quell, who was ready for her with a flurry of punches and several knees to the blonde’s body. She staggered back, her nose bloody, a gash on her eyebrow. At this point she hadn’t laid a glove on Quell. He got harder—a worthy opponent whipping a SEAL up like a fine piece of gear. Thinking he’d like to test her mettle, among other things, was an understatement. But he wasn’t here for that. Mission first…always.
The woman was as fast and devastating as lightning. In fifty-four seconds, from the time the fight boss yelled for them to begin, Quell had gotten Jam down to the mat and was holding her there. Finally, the blonde tapped out, and the place went crazy when Quell raised her hands.
“I have an idea,” Saint said as he headed for the hallway Quell walked down after leaving the cage. There was just one problem: two beefy guards who made Professor look small.
They needed a distraction, so he deliberately knocked into one of the patrons and sent him careening into another one. With all the fight-induced adrenaline in the air, it didn’t take much for the other guy to push back, and the guards at the head of the hall ran to intercede. Saint and Professor slipped into the hall and moved quickly down to the changing rooms. He pushed open the door and found Quell, the fishnet now on a bench near a bag and nothing but a red push-up bra and matching lace boy shorts on her body. Her hair was wet and slicked back, accentuating the exquisite features of her face. His gaze dropped down her body, from the slope of her shoulders over her breasts and hips and the sleek length of her legs, and he felt gut-punched.
She turned and sighed. “I don’t do autographs,” she said in a faint Slavic accent. “Get out.” She slipped into black leather pants that hugged the lower half of her curvy body. He’d never seen an ass like that…ever.
“We’re not here for autographs,” he drawled, his West Virginian accent thick. “We have a proposition.”
She turned back to them, shrugging into a short, tight leather jacket and zipping it up. Then she looked him up and down and smiled. He felt gut-punched all over again. She was so beautiful. He found it hard to put two words together. Her eyes narrowing, she snapp
ed, “I just bet you do.” She shook her head. “Sorry, handsome. I don’t do that either. I just fight.”
“This…would be lucrative.”
She bit her lip, giving him a sexy amazon look. “Not interested, but it is tempting. I should kick your ass for offering me money.”
Then it dawned on him. She thought he was pandering for sex. He had never paid for it in his life. Getting the ladies had never been a problem for him. If he turned on his Southern charm, he was sure she wouldn’t be interested in walking out. She zipped up the bag and started for the door, but he blocked her way.
“Wait, that came out wrong,” he said, meeting her direct gaze, and he could tell she wasn’t exactly immune to him. He’d take the advantage.
“This is going to come out wrong for you if you don’t move. I’m hungry and tired and don’t want to deal with your male bullshit.”
Professor laughed.
His mama did tell him he could catch many more flies with honey than with vinegar. He’d used his silver tongue in his small hometown to get out of speeding tickets, searches when he was running moonshine, and as a teenager, talking a sweet thing out of her clothing. He smiled slow and wide. “Don’t be like that. Look, if I buy you a meal, will you listen to what I have to say?”
She sighed and not all of it was in exasperation. “All right. You have the duration of a meal. Since you’re paying, I’m ordering lobster.” They followed her out of the club. Her butt looked amazing in the buttery soft leather cupping her rump. “I’ll drive.”
They got in. Saint in the front seat and Professor in the back.
When she parked in a lot adjacent to a seafood place, they got out and went inside. Once seated, she ordered a club soda, shrimp appetizer, and a lobster meal.
When Saint went to talk, she held up her hand. “Just give me some quiet right now.”
“No one followed,” came through his earpiece. It was Anna’s voice. TOC overwatch.
Her meal came and she dug in while they waited, drinking nothing, eating nothing. The hunt sustained him right now.
He watched her crack the claws and the spine of the lobster with adept strength, cleaning out the meat like a pro. When she was done, she sat back and wiped her mouth on the napkin. “All right. What is it you want?”
He was one of those guys that went for the bad girls…very bad girls. The fact that his mind kept wandering with her unnerved the hell out of him.
“We’re looking for someone and think you can help us.” Their intel had been wrong. The cage fighting had been a dead end to insert Professor so he could get inside the organization and discover where Darko and Zasha were holed up.
Darko wasn’t predictable, but Saint could understand the appeal. Two beautiful, capable women throwing down was a turn-on. He had the hard-on to prove it. But he was here for bad guys…not bad girls. Eliminating the refuse of the world was his job, and there wasn’t a SEAL on Uncle Sam’s payroll who coolly, calmly, with utter precision and no fucking regrets all day long carried out that mission without fail better than he and his teammates.
“Who?”
“Darko Stjepanić. He runs with a blonde woman.” Saint didn’t know what was worse, not knowing what was happening to his teammates or lying in a hospital recovering from a bomb blast that had killed an innocent eighteen-year-old woman. She had taken the brunt of the explosion, effectively saving his life. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He was the protector, the defender. He’d had nothing to do in that room except work at keeping his head on straight and pushing the guilt to a manageable level. It wasn’t until later, when the team came home, that he found out 2-Stroke had accidentally killed a nine-year-old boy—Anton Martina. Darko and Zasha had more to answer for than the death of Charlotte Mueller, but justice would be served cold and without mercy.
Quell sat up straighter and eyed them, going a bit pale, her sexy mouth softening. “You know who he is, right?” She looked at Professor and back to Saint.
“Yeah, we know.”
“Darko is dangerous, unpredictable, and runs this whole damn country. His control of a standing army of people who will die for him is legendary. He has a firm grip on the underground, the cops, the government. There are rumors he’s selling arsenals to terrorists. What do you want with him?”
“That is our business, but we’ll pay you to let us know when he shows up.”
She sat back. “You know those fights are my meal ticket. I can’t afford to have an interruption in my payday.”
“With what we’re offering, you won’t have to worry about money.”
“Are you here to kill him?” Another level of tension filled the space between them.
His senses heightened. Did she have some stake in Darko? “No, that’s the last thing we want. We need to talk to him or the woman.”
She seemed to relax, and the tension went from a shriek to a buzz. “Talk?”
“We realize some persuasion will be required.” This was a last-ditch effort to salvage their line of attack, but still, this Hail Mary put Saint even more on edge. His teammate’s and liaison’s lives hung in the balance. Losing them…hell…that was a place he definitely wasn’t going to go tonight.
“Hmm. I see. Are you dealers in some kind of product?” she asked suspiciously, leaning in close.
For a second, as their gazes met, it occurred to him again how her eyes were like the changing seasons, dark, richly verdant greens, mysterious and stimulating flecked with honey, streaked with earthy shades.
“Right.” She’d interpreted his momentary lapse as a refusal to respond to her question.
He couldn’t get distracted by her and that minor slipup left him even more unnerved. “No. He has something we want, and we’re not leaving until we get what we came for.”
“You’re going to rob him?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Are you crazy? That is suicidal. He will cut you up into little pieces and feed you to his piranhas.”
It was Saint’s turn to smile. “Don’t worry about us. Just take the money and alert us when he shows up.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Our time is short.”
“Twenty-four hours. Meet me here.” She extended a piece of paper with an address on it.
Twenty-four hours later, he and Professor showed up to what looked like an abandoned warehouse, but Anna Keegan, their current CIA liaison, had assured him it was Quell’s living space. Anna had tried to look into her in the time between offering her a substantial amount of money for information and her response but came up empty. No name, no identification, no answers. They had to go in blind.
He was aware that this wasn’t just about 2-Stroke and Chry, that a lot more was at stake, including the tight ties between Darko and Muhammad Angar Said and weapons that could cause plenty of death and destruction. But he had to be honest—the free world would have to wait while they saved their teammates. The brotherhood was stronger than any other oath he’d taken. No man left behind. No man forsaken.
They entered into a wide-open space. If these were her living quarters, she was taking shabby chic to a new low. Their footsteps were hollow as they walked across the concrete floor. “That’s far enough,” she said, her voice coming out of the shadows.
“We don’t have time for games, Quell. All we need is your answer.”
He sensed movement in other dark places of the cavernous room. His hand dropped to his waist, reaching back, but she spilled from the swirling shadows like a dark angel, a wicked looking handgun in her grip pointed at him. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“What is this?” He raised his hands. “You on Darko’s payroll for more than cage fighting?” He stepped forward and she held her ground. He came up against the muzzle of the weapon, pressing it into his chest right over his heart. Coming to a sudden, tight-jawed halt, he took big fistfuls of her stretchy tunic and sleek black jacket and hauled her up to meet his glare. Nothing but her tipt
oes touched the floor. “Don’t,” he said in his best I’ll-eat-you-for-breakfast voice. “Not if you want to get out of here alive.”
“What do you want with him?” she asked without one shred of fear. “I’m only going to ask once.”
Somewhere in Croatia, The Balkans
Chry stared straight ahead, her cheek resting against the grit and dirt on the metal bars that had been her scenery for…she’d lost track of time. Her head felt full, and her breath came in small gasps, like life-saving hiccups of the oxygen that Zasha and Darko’s sadistic minions had cut off when they’d repeatedly dunked her head into a barrel of water. Her diaphragm still hurt from the press of the wooden frame against her torso.
Zasha wanted the new codes into the CIA database, and Chry’s refusal to give them to her was the only thing that was keeping her alive. She heard footsteps, and her eyes barely moved when those familiar boots, a small nick in the heel, showed up. He ran a metal baton along the bars and crouched down so she could see his face.
Young and already messed up, leering at her like he wanted to not only hurt her but get off on her pain. She clenched her jaw. All she needed was five minutes…less than that to break his perverted neck.
Fear of Darko and Zasha was the only thing that kept him at bay.
She dismissed him as he rose. “One day, beautiful, then you will be fair game,” he murmured in the heavy accent of the Bosnian language, his slow footsteps retreating. She was certain she would hear them in her nightmares.
She hadn’t seen 2-Stroke since she’d been thrown in this cell, and she was sick with concern about what they were doing to him.