by Dale Mayer
BRETT
SEALs of Honor, Book 11
Dale Mayer
Books in This Series:
Mason: SEALs of Honor, Book 1
Hawk: SEALs of Honor, Book 2
Dane: SEALs of Honor, Book 3
Swede: SEALs of Honor, Book 4
Shadow: SEALs of Honor, Book 5
Cooper: SEALs of Honor, Book 6
Markus: SEALs of Honor, Book 7
Evan: SEALs of Honor, Book 8
Mason’s Wish: SEALs of Honor, Book 9
Chase: SEALs of Honor, Book 10
Brett: SEALs of Honor, Book 11
Devlin: SEALs of Honor, Book 12
SEALs of Honor, Books 1–3
SEALs of Honor, Books 4–6
Table of Contents
Title Page
About the Book
Complimentary Download
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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Author’s Note
About Heroes for Hire
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Also by Dale Mayer
Copyright Page
Back Cover
High seas terror, international intrigue… homegrown problems…
Rescuing hostages on a yacht is a fairly normal mission for Brett, one of the elite SEALs, but having one of those hostages be an ex-girlfriend and her kids – well that changes everything.
Particularly now that he knows she’s single again.
Cici had walked away from Brett and into another relationship as a way to heal. Only to end up as a widow raising 2 kids. She’d planned to stay single and secure, avoid all the heartbreak that came with relationships, until she comes face to face with her rescuer… and realizes she’s been fooling herself for years.
Only safe doesn’t mean safe anymore as the situation goes from bad to worse and she realizes she might never get a chance to fix her mistake…
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Chapter 1
Brett Chapman broke through the surface of the water. He reached out a hand and touched the sleek side of the yacht. Moving silently through the dark night, the water lapping around his body, he made his way to the lower deck ladder of one of the world’s ultra-yachts. Unfortunately, the Million Dollar Baby was in trouble. Big trouble.
The yacht had been taken by pirates, the passengers and crew held as hostages. The captain had managed to send out a distress call before they were boarded. Brett’s unit had been called up soon after. He knew several of the guests. His mother had married into a wealthy and boisterous Greek family eighteen years ago. His life had never been the same. It had just been the two of them before, and now it seemed like there were hundreds of family members in his life. As they’d accepted his mom and him, she in turn had adopted all of them.
According to the intel several of his extended family were onboard.
With any luck his mother hadn’t heard the news yet. Or there would be hell to pay.
Brett had shipped out within hours of the distress call. The unknown at this point in time was who was behind the pirates – if anyone. This area of the ocean along the African coastline had seen much turmoil lately with similar attacks. It had calmed down somewhat in the last few months, but the captain had no business bringing the yacht into this area given the recent dangers.
He scaled the ladder onto the lower deck. This was one of the biggest models he’d ever seen. The deck offered a large park-like setting that opened to the ocean. He presumed there was some kind of security measure that closed off this area during a storm.
Security lights shone low on the walls of the deck. It was deserted too. Next on his list to search was the engine room. So far he hadn’t seen anyone – crew – or pirate. He took several minutes to reach his destination. There he quickly scoped out the gleaming room to realize it would take an engineer to handle this state of the art system, and none of the pirates were likely to be as technologically advanced as that – he hoped. With any luck the maintenance crew was still alive and capable of dealing with any issues in the yacht.
Using the blueprints he’d memorized, Brett moved quickly through the decks. As he cleared each floor he updated his team. He was set to meet Chase in four minutes, one deck up. As he arrived on the third floor he realized these smaller rooms were likely the crew’s living quarters. He did a quick sweep through the bedrooms. The first three were empty and as he approached the fourth he heard a sound that made his heart freeze.
A child’s cries of distress.
He went to open the door but found it locked from the inside. He tapped once and then tapped two more times. The door cracked opened and a terrified woman’s face peered out. He brushed her backwards and slipped into the room out of sight. And he choked back a shocked gasp.
Two little children were wrapped around the woman’s legs. He knew of them, but hadn’t met either yet. And he knew exactly how old they were. The boy, Jimmy, was four and the girl, Jennifer, was almost two.
Their mother, Ceci, was on the outside edge of that huge extended family his mother had married into. And the only woman he’d ever loved.
In his night gear he knew she couldn’t recognize him. And she had to be terrified of his weapons.
He held a finger up to his mouth and whispered, “It’s okay, Ceci. It’s me, Brett. You need to remain here with the children, and stay as quiet as you can be.”
She gasped in shock then her face lit up in relief and joy.
He squatted down to the boy and said in a low voice, “Jimmy, you have to be very, very quiet until I come back here and help you, and your mom, and sister off the boat, okay?”
The little boy sniffled, his eyes huge, lower lip trembling. But he straightened up and nodded. Good. At a single rap on the door, Brett moved quickly and without another word, he slipped into the hallway where Chase waited for him. As they moved away Chase said, “Twelve hostiles are on the top floor above us. All hostages are with then.”
“Weapons?”
“Machine guns and grenades, a few handguns. Nothing major.”
Brett snorted. It said much about the type of work they did that those weapons weren’t considered major.
Still, that was good news. He really didn’t like facing rocket launchers. All criminals appeared to have access to the latest and greatest. In close quarters like this, it was a recipe for disaster. Then again so were grenades.
In silence, he went to the main stairwell and slowly crept up one landing. When this went down it would happen fast. They needed to take out as many hostiles as they could to narrow the odds before the others found out they were onboard. Stealth was paramount.
Too many men with guns and happy trigger fingers.
And too many innocent people to get hurt.
Under the cover of darkness, they moved steadily through the ship. Just as they were reaching the next floor gunfire erupted at the other end.
They raced to the aft of the ship and the sound of returned fire. As they approached,
a group of passengers raced down the staircase toward them screaming.
“Take them off the yacht,” Chase yelled to Brett.
With a quick glance between them, the gunfire now heavy and hard, they split up. Chase went up to help while Brett kept moving the passengers down to the rescue boats.
As soon as he delivered them into the crew’s hands, they took over, leaving Brett free to race back down to where he’d found Ceci and the kids.
He knocked on the door hard and called, “Ceci, it’s me, open up.”
A gunshot fired through the door barely missing his head.
“Shit.” He didn’t have time for this. Moving back, he reached out from the side and gave a powerhouse kick, popping the door open. Bullets whistled through the open doorway. But he was already on the ground and lining up for the shot. The gunman stood in front of Ceci. She huddled behind him, the babies in her arms. There was the shot… He took it, dropping the gunmen to the floor, a bullet through the forehead. Brett jumped to his feet. “Ceci, let’s go now.”
He grabbed Jimmy in his arms, and ushered Ceci with Jennifer clutched in hers out the door, then he raced them down to the boats.
The gunfire ceased.
The silence ominous after so much noise.
He knew that could be good or really bad. Transferring the kids to the open arms of the crew, he gave Ceci a hard glance, noted the panic and fear in her eyes and said, “You’ll be safe here.”
At least he hoped so.
He raced back upstairs. Just as he was about to creep up over the last stairs he caught sight of a hostile hiding under a corner of one of the rowboats, a gun lining up towards Mason’s head.
Brett never even hesitated. He pulled the trigger. The pirate collapsed.
Mason turned, weapon in hand, instantly lining up on the new threat, saw Brett, saw the gunman, then gave a quick nod.
Brett snuck over to where Mason stood. “Are we in the clear?”
Mason whispered back, “Not yet. Waiting for Hawk.”
Chase frowned. That wasn’t good. That meant… He slipped back into his hiding place. It wasn’t a long wait. Two pirates marched Hawk into the center of the deck, semi-automatic rifles prodding him forward.
The pirates started yelling at the SEALs.
Chase didn’t understand the words – the language being one he wasn’t familiar with. But the gist of the meaning wasn’t hard to understand. They could all go to hell, and if they didn’t do it fast enough they were going to shoot Hawk.
That wasn’t going to happen. Brett ran through the blueprints in his mind and realized from the level below there were stairs that came up on the far side of the pirates. That’s how they’d marched Hawk up. And if he could get there fast enough it was how he’d get the drop on them. He quickly slipped down the stairs, crossed the deck, and snuck up that way. From his new vantage point, he could see his unit were all holding weapons trained on the hostiles. These guys didn’t care. They planned to shoot Hawk and go down in a hail of fire figuring their own lives were already forfeited.
Brett lined up a shot, waiting for them to give him an opportunity. The second man lowered his arm just a fraction – but it was enough. Hawk was out of the line of fire. Shots rang and the first man dropped. Brett shot the second one.
At the sound of gunfire behind him Hawk turned and said, “Thanks.”
Brett grinned. “Anytime.”
They did a full sweep of all the decks but didn’t flush out anymore gunmen. On that note all of the hostages were released back onto the yacht and the dead gunmen taken over to the boats. As far as he was concerned the gunmen could go into the water for the sharks. Thankfully it wasn’t his decision.
His concern was for Ceci. He headed down to the rescue boats to find her. One of the men said, “She won’t go back on the yacht. And so far, she’s refused to be checked over.” Brett walked across to sit down beside her and the kids. Both kids had their faces burrowed against her, and her arms were locked around them. He sat down beside her and gently rubbed her shoulder.
“Ceci, are you okay?”
She nodded, her gaze huge, wordless.
“It’s going to be okay. We got them all.”
“Good,” she whispered, glancing down at Jimmy who’d lifted his head to stare up at Brett.
Jimmy opened his mouth and said, “Did you kill them? Did you kill the bad men?”
Brett nodded. “All the bad men are gone. They can’t hurt you anymore.” Jimmy didn’t need to know the details – just needed to know the bogeymen were never coming back.
To Ceci he said, “Why don’t you want to return to the yacht?”
“I do not want to go back on there – or on any like it – ever again.” She shuddered. “You don’t know what it was like. The threats they made.” Her arms squeezed the two young children, clutching them close to her.
Brett looked down at the little boy. “Did they hurt the kids?”
Jimmy’s bottom lip trembled. “He pushed me.”
Brett reached out and touched the little boy’s cheek gently. “The bogeymen won’t hurt you anymore.”
The little boy nodded his head. “My name’s Jimmy.”
Brett smiled and held out his hand. “And I’m Brett. I knew your mom a few years ago.”
Jimmy brightened. “You’re one of the good guys?”
The little girl beside him pulled her head out from against her mom’s shoulders to stare up at him. “Hi.” As soon as the word was out of her mouth she shoved her thumb in.
Brett’s heart melted. “Yes, I’m definitely one of the good guys. No more bad guys here now.” He crouched lower brushing a blonde ringlet back off her face. “Hi to you too.”
Her thumb popped out, and she gave him a toothy grin as she tried to stand up on her mom’s knee. Ceci hugged her tight.
“How did you come to be on the yacht?” Brett asked.
“We were supposed to come for just a few days to get away.” She waved her arm aimlessly in the air. “To have a break. A holiday.”
“Do you know all of these people?”
“No,” she said with a note of defeat in her voice. “But Jason Turner was coming. And he was allowed to bring a friend so he asked me to come.”
That made sense. Jason Turner was part of Ceci’s extended family and therefore part of Brett’s. He also thought Jason might’ve been Jimmy Senior’s best friend. Only Jimmy had been killed in Iraq several years ago. As he looked down at the little girl, he realized he probably never had a chance to even see his own daughter.
“They’re beautiful,” he said to Ceci. “Jimmy would be very proud of you and of them.”
Ceci’s eyes filled with tears, her lower lip trembled in a movement all too similar to her children. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she whispered. “I put them in danger. How is that anything to be proud of?”
“This is not your fault,” he said. “I don’t know why it was sailing in these waters or how it came to the attention of the pirates, but yachts scream money and the pirates are desperate. However, it’s over. You can all go home and get back to your normal lives.”
She smiled mistily up at him and said, “Thanks to you.”
He straightened and looked back toward the huge yacht. “Not just me. I come as part of a team.”
“Thank your team for me, will you?”
He hopped onto the yacht, turned back and waved. “I will. You take care of those kids and yourself.”
The zodiac in which she was sitting slowly pulled away and headed toward shore. Onboard was one injured passenger and Ceci with her kids. As he watched the churning wake streak out across the water he had to wonder if he would ever see Ceci again.
Chapter 2
“Mommy, when can I go outside?”
“Not right now. We’ll go later.” As if. Ceci stood staring down at her son, wondering what had happened to her life. Getting away from the yacht had seemed like such a life-changing event. Until everyone realized her passport an
d those of her children were missing along with her purse. Hence her current residence at the US Embassy in Somalia until her new paperwork arrived. That was where the crew from the rescue ship had brought her. The injured passenger from the yacht had been taken to the hospital.
She was stuck here for the foreseeable future until the damn paperwork could be taken care of. Who knew such delays could occur? Jason had called several times checking up on her. He’d been considerate and pushy in a back and forth way. As if he’d had expectations and having missed out was angling for more. It was only through the phone calls that she’d realized how badly she’d misread the situation. She was not interested. Not like that. Not with him.
Jimmy started crying.
“I promise we’ll go out in a few minutes.” But she’d said that over and over.
So often he no longer believed her. Then again, she wasn’t a good liar. And even worse at saying no. Look at Jason, he still didn’t get it. It wasn’t fair of her to not want to be with Jason because of pirates, but it was the last thing she wanted to be reminded of. Then again she hadn’t encouraged him to think they were heading in that direction. She liked him fine – but as a friend. She winced. He’d be upset at that phrase.
She’d married a soldier fully prepared for him to go to war and maybe not come home one day. It was only when she lost Jimmy that she realized she hadn’t been prepared at all. She hadn’t faced the reality of what life without him meant. The emotional devastation not only for herself but also for the kids. The financial responsibilities were a separate reality check altogether.
The pirates had just brought it all back again. Even worse, it had placed her children in danger. And somehow Jason was to blame. In her head, she knew that was wrong. It made no sense. He’d been trying to help her out, hoping to give her a bit of a break. And she’d been so excited hanging out on the yacht. Why the hell had she assumed they’d have a lovely week away without a romantic entanglement? She’d been desperate for a bit of fun. When the opportunity had presented itself she’d jumped at the chance. She was such an idiot.