SEAL INVESTIGATIONS: A 5-Books SEAL Romance Series

by Lola Silverman

  “Yes.”

  The snapping sound of electricity filled the air. Rachel cringed and could not stop the groan from sliding past her lips. She couldn’t see. That had been the biggest horror when the torture had first begun. Being unable to see what was coming had forced her to be on the edge of anticipation every single moment. Now, it was almost a blessing just to let the pain happen without the sudden knowledge of its imminent arrival.

  A terrific surge of electricity singed her belly and flew through her body. She screamed as though every cell in her body were on fire. The pain was instant and engulfing. There was another pause, and then she was hit again with another blast of electricity that burned her skin and torched her nerves. Everything inside her wanted to clench, and yet she was tied in a way that prevented movement.

  As sudden as the pain was, there was a moment where her mind flew free of her body. It was almost as if she could float above the moment and watch from a distant place where she was protected from the pain. The transcendence was the only blessing. In that moment she was free. He could not hurt her here. She was gone. Anything he asked fell upon dead ears. Until he spoke a name that forced her back into her body.

  “Alexander!” The Broker shrieked. “Where is he, Rachel? Did you tell your friend to bring him? Is that what you told her?”

  “My brother will kill you!” Rachel snarled. “He will open your guts and let them spill out onto the ground.” She couldn’t see her tormentors. She only knew where they were by the sounds of their voices. “He will kill you, and I will strangle you with your own entrails. I’ll burn what’s left and piss on the ashes. Do you hear me? I’m going to win! You’ll never break me. You’ll never win. You’ll have to kill me first, you worthless bastard coward!”

  She was still screaming obscenities when she heard The Broker laugh and walk away. His retreating footsteps gave her a horrid sense of relief. He would not be back tonight. Perhaps he would not even be back tomorrow. And when he did come back, perhaps things would have changed. They were coming. Tasha had told her so. They were all looking for her. Romero. Yates. Sparks. Bones. Her brother would never stop looking. He was a SEAL, and a stubborn man. She would live another day, and Alex would find her. Soon. Please, God, let it be soon.

  ~~~

  MARLON

  Chapter One

  Marina Reyes stared at the hulking shape of the giant cargo ship squatting in the dark water of Baltimore Harbor. There was a part of her that could not believe her life had blown so far off course in the span of two years. Unfortunately, being abducted from a Baltimore club and held against her will in a huge warehouse had sort of changed her life in a permanent way.

  She inhaled deeply, trying to identify everything in her surroundings with all of her senses. She saw the shape of the ship and the layout of the harbor itself. Her nose picked up a whiff of the pervasive fish smell that always hovered around big bodies of water like this one. There was the pungent scent of refuse, an odor of diesel fumes, and even a hint of rain on the breeze.

  It was cold. The damp air seemed to seep right through her thick black cargo pants and her close-fitting sweater. Her toes were freezing in her combat boots, and she could swear there was ice forming on her nose. Her hair was braided and hung straight down her back. She swiped the thick rope out of the way before sinking down onto her haunches to wait for her contact.

  Until a few weeks ago she’d had no leads on her own abduction case. The Baltimore detective who had wound up with her file on his desk had told her there was nothing left to be done. Then she’d received a phone call out of the blue. The detective had been made aware of a private investigator in the DC area who was investigating several other cases that seemed to share a lot of details with hers. Marina had hopped in the car and driven to DC. Since then her life had been getting stranger by the minute.

  Across the alleyway, she saw a very large shadow peel away from the wall of the building that housed the harbormaster’s office. She held her breath. It was a man. At least she thought it was a man. It wasn’t man-sized though. This guy was built like some kind of giant. His skin was dark, so dark that it fit right into the inky blackness of the night. His clothes were dark too, and he made absolutely no noise as he moved. If she hadn’t happened to be looking right at him when he moved away from the wall she would have never known he was there.

  Marina held her breath. She had never been all that trusting when it came to men. But being snatched up at a club and held prisoner by a group of men with faces she had never seen had destroyed what little faith she had in the basic goodness of men in general. She loosened the telescoping nightstick she carried at her side. If the guy moved wrong, she’d knock him on his ass so quickly he wouldn’t even realize he was down.

  MARLON “BONES” JACKSON felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He knew that sensation. He was being watched. What he couldn’t decide was whether the individual squatting in the shadows fifty yards to his left was friend or foe. He’d come to the harbor at the request of one of his SEAL teammates, Breckin Yates. Yates had mentioned that there might be a contact local to Baltimore who would be able to give Bones some additional info on the surveillance target. Other than that, Yates had been vague as hell about who or what this supposed contact was.

  “Identify yourself.”

  Bones sank back into the deep shadows beneath the harbormaster’s office. The voice had most definitely belonged to a woman. Now that was unexpected. The individual stalking toward him most certainly had the build of a woman. She had a slim body that flared at the breasts and hips. There was a dark cap covering her hair, and she walked with an unconscious swing to her step that bespoke grace and agility. It was the confidence that was surprising. This was a woman who bore watching.

  “I said,” she told him in a tone dripping arrogance, “identify yourself.”

  He cocked his head, curious to see what sort of gumption he was dealing with. “And if I don’t?”

  “I’ll knock you on your ass and make you.”

  Bones couldn’t help it. He laughed. He should have been worried about keeping quiet and not breaking cover. But so far the place was deserted, and there was no cover to break. His deep, hoarse laugh echoed off the building beside him as though it were mocking them both. He could see her stiffen in what was probably outrage.

  “I’m not fucking around,” she snarled.

  Bones saw her pull something—a weapon—off her belt. She swung it down, the stick extending with an ominous snap. “Oh sweetheart, you don’t want to go there,” he murmured.

  “I don’t want to go there?” She took up a fighting stance. She was light on her feet and balanced.

  Bones rolled his neck, feeling a satisfying release when his joints popped. He stood to his full six foot three inches and held his hands low and loose at his sides. He really didn’t want to fight a girl. Actually, he really didn’t want to fight at all. There was no reason for any of this. He sighed. What he could see of her expression in the darkness told him that she needed to pursue what she thought was a threat. Fine. He would play nice and just see where it went from there.

  She came at him like a tiny tornado. The woman was everywhere! She spun and kicked out at him, following it up with a blow with that nightstick that would have shattered his wrist if it had still been there. Bones twisted, sidestepped, and danced to stay out of range. His ability to thwart her attacks only seemed to enrage her more. Then she flung herself right at him, center body mass, and Bones had no choice but to deflect her with his fists.

  HITTING THIS GUY was a lot like pounding on a brick wall, and her blows had about the same effect. Her fists stung as she connected with his rock-solid forearms. The frustration was horrific. She’d spent months learning to defend herself and to attack. She never wanted to be helpless again, and now here she was in the same position she had been when she’d been abducted!

  Feeling almost desperate and no longer caring why it was she had been so convinced that attacking thi
s man was a good idea, Marina launched herself at him. She took him by surprise. She knew it, because she managed to get her legs locked around his neck, and man was he tall!

  Marina felt as though she were hanging ten feet off the ground. His hands took hold of her thighs, but she had clamped on too hard. Leveraging her midsection, Marina flung every ounce of her bodyweight down in a move that should have toppled the giant and put him on the ground at her mercy.

  This guy apparently wasn’t like other men. Instead of falling, she felt him grunt and squat. He took up a low stance that centered his bodyweight and kept him vertical. Then he grabbed her body and wrapped both his arms around her.

  “Stop.” His voice was guttural, but not mean. “I’m not your enemy. My name is Bones Jackson. I’m a Navy SEAL. I’m here investigating some reports of missing women. I’m working with a team.”

  Marina went to speak and found she was almost breathless. “You’re with that PI lady, Tasha Campbell?”

  “Tasha. Yeah.” The guy didn’t look entirely certain. “My SEAL team is working with her and another chick named Cassidy, I think.”

  Marina let go of his neck and dropped to the ground. Her hands in their fingerless gloves hit the ground, and she did a back walkover to regain her standing position. “Sorry. You could have just said that to begin with.”

  “Do you always attack first and check credentials later?” he wanted to know.

  She eyed him, wondering if she should admit that she never attacked. At least, not usually. This guy messed with her head in ways she didn’t understand. She felt this insane driving need to show him she was capable. Maybe it was his size. Or it could have been that badass aura he was toting around like a lethal weapon. Whatever the case, he rubbed her the wrong way.

  “So you’re here to look at the ship with me?” Bones gestured to the cargo ship. “At least, that’s what Yates said.”

  “Yeah. My name is Marina Reyes.” She shrugged, not wanting to seem too overeager—or something. “I need to get a look inside.”

  “Come on then.” He turned his back and started walking toward the pier.

  Marina followed at a respectful distance and wished she could get a better look at her unwanted partner in some good light. There was something ferocious about him, but she couldn’t decide whether he just looked scary, or really was scary. For her there was a huge difference.

  BONES WAS HAVING a difficult time reconciling everything he had seen so far from Ms. Marina Reyes. He had to give her a certain amount of respect for her fighting skills. Not because she was some kind of master in hand-to-hand combat, but because she seemed quite capable of keeping her head in a crisis. She wasn’t a half bad fighter, either. It was very apparent that she’d put some time and effort into her technique.

  She paced along behind him, settling into his blind spot. He couldn’t see her. He could certainly smell her though. Her light feminine musk was a stark contrast to the nasty harbor scents floating through his senses. The smell of her was enticing. In fact, it was sort of distracting.

  He forced himself to refocus on the task at hand. No matter that a delectable specimen of femininity was so near he could actually feel her body heat. There was a job to be done, and that was what mattered. At least, that was what he continued to tell himself.

  The closer and closer they got to the Brazen Belle, the more ominous and deserted the thing looked. There was a crane standing by to load containers, but there was no cargo on the deck of the ship or on the dock. The gangway had been drawn back and sat discarded on the pier. It looked desolate in the dingy orange floodlights.

  “I know these containers,” Marina murmured.

  Bones turned. She was squatting beside a single container. Its haphazard placement on the dock suggested it was empty. Marina was pointing to a set of numbers near the very bottom of the container.

  “You mean you know the company?” Bones prompted.

  His understanding of shipping containers was limited. But he would have assumed that whatever company was using them either owned them or leased them from someone else. The containers would be registered and certified for use, and then the numbers would be included on a shipping manifest going somewhere in the world.

  “These containers here?” She gestured to the first three letters of the registration number JJJ. “These don’t belong to any company. They belong to the organization that’s orchestrating these abductions.”

  “Hold on,” Bones said in a low voice. He could barely contain his eagerness. “You’re telling me that all of the containers used by these people have JJJ registration numbers?”

  “Yes.”

  Bones pulled out his phone and began texting.

  Marina cocked her head. “Does that matter?”

  “We suspect the head of this organization to be a diplomat of some kind. If these are his initials, we might be able to track him via these containers.” Bones pegged Marina with a hard stare. “Do you know if these are registered at each port of call?”

  “No. I don’t know that.”

  “So we need to get into the harbormaster’s office,” Bones murmured. He turned and stared at the dark windows of his new target. This was going to be a little complicated.

  Chapter Two

  Okay, so Marina hadn’t exactly known what to expect from her impromptu investigative partner. To say they were loosely affiliated was a massive understatement. The Baltimore detective had recommended Marina talk to Tasha Campbell. Marina had driven down to DC two days ago, and boom! She’d found herself smack dab in the middle of what quickly escalated into a full scale riot in front of a suspicious club.

  “So,” Marina murmured to the man who called himself Bones. “How did you wind up here?”

  “Investigating this…” He seemed to pause, though she wasn’t certain whether it was because he was searching for the right terminology, or because he was scoping out their target. “I suppose you’d call it a case,” he mused. “My friends and I are a SEAL team stationed out of Little Creek, Virginia. We were on leave. Our commanding officer asked if we’d help locate his younger sister.” One massive shoulder gave a careless shrug. “Here I am.”

  “Just like that,” Marina marveled. “It doesn’t bother you that you’re slinking around in the harbor at night contemplating a basic B&E?”

  “Nope.” Bones did seem very nonchalant about this whole thing. “Have you seen the security guard?”

  Marina realized that she’d been so distracted by Bones that she hadn’t seen the guard in at least fifteen minutes. She stiffened, her nerves going on edge. “He was making fifteen minute rounds. He should have been back by now.”

  Bones grunted. “That’s what worries me.”

  “So let’s bounce and come back another night.” Marina had already started to back away.

  The line of his jaw became harder. Even though he was blanketed by shadows, she could see the stubbornness in his countenance. “No. I’m here. You’re here. Let’s get this done.”

  Marina felt a quiver of excitement flutter through her body. This guy was a no-holds-barred sort of man. She could most certainly respect that. She pulled a lock pick from the hip pocket of her cargo pants. “Let’s do it then.”

  They were perhaps twenty yards from the steps that led to the harbormaster’s office. Marina started to go around Bones and head for the front door. At the last second he grabbed her arm.

  Warmth shot through her body. She drew back in shock, scuttling away from him and staring as she tried to figure out where all the electricity had come from. She’d never felt so much vitality in one tiny touch before in her life.

  Bones dropped her arm like a hot potato. She looked up at his face, surprised, but she couldn’t see the detail of his expression. Had he felt it too?

  He cleared his throat. His voice sounded as though it had been rolled in gravel. “Let’s try the back. There’s no need to get stranded on those stairs right under a floodlight. The building is big enough that there has t
o be a back entrance.”

  “Oh.” She wondered why she hadn’t even considered that practical approach. Normally she was very matter of fact about this sort of thing. It was the only way she’d managed to get out of some of the more horrible moments in her life over the last several years. Now was not the time to lose her objectivity. Not even when her temporary partner was so very—unsettling.

  BONES COULD NOT figure this woman out. She was brave and brash, and yet she was also timid. Had there been a definite sizzle between them when they touched? Sure. But he wasn’t freaking out about it and looking as if he were ready to bolt. He could just stay calm and play it cool.

  Sort of. Except for the part where every cell in his body had sat up to take notice of this woman. She smelled good. She looked good. She could fight. The list seemed to go on and on. Basically, she was fascinating in a way he had never experienced with a woman, and that meant danger.

  He could feel her presence right behind him as he skirted the building that housed the harbormaster’s office. Placed intentionally high off the ground to afford a decent view of approaching ships, it was wreathed in dreary, orange-tinted light. A wind had picked up. Trash blew around. It swirled in little eddies created by the air coming in off the harbor. Bones forced himself to clear his mind and put the tempting Marina Reyes away for the moment.

  The back door possessed a slightly wider metal staircase, presumably for getting boxes of supplies in and out of the office. This access also had the benefit of being sandwiched between two buildings. There wasn’t a whole lot of space to maneuver, but it meant it was also protected from open view.

  “Stay close,” Bones muttered. “We’re going in.”

  She didn’t comment, but he heard her brace herself to follow him. He moved low and fast, cutting across the swaths of light on the pavement and taking the rear steps at a quick clip. Marina had her lock picks out, but it was just as fast for Bones to pull out his knife and slide the blade between the latch and the door. The thing popped open, and they were inside.