Remembering the home of her youth brought back fond memories of her mother and simpler times. When she was still young, she had believed that her father was a good man. He’d been her hero. That was, until the night she’d heard gunshots and screaming. She’d awoken from her bed and run downstairs to find her father walking up from the basement with blood on his hands and suit. Elena was eight years old. She was a smart girl. The daughter of the most feared man in all of Poland. While she hadn’t inherited his dark heart, she had inherited his intellect. And it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. After that night, Elena began to see the hints and clues more and more. And by the time she was twelve, she was completely convinced of the reality of what her father did for a living.
The dark thoughts swirled around her brain, and she wished she could escape them. She wished she had not stopped off here and had instead immediately flown to England. But there was so much unfinished business. She had felt compelled to say goodbye one last time, on the off chance that she had been wrong about her father. That they could somehow have a real relationship as parent and child.
Especially now that she was determined to start a family of her own, she wanted a father in her life more than ever. But it had all been such a naïve delusion. The very same reality that had driven her away from her father’s home was becoming more apparent with each passing moment.
She walked through the old oak trees that surrounded her father’s home and ended up in the front driveway. A red Lamborghini slid along the paved drive, its motor rumbling. It stopped, and a man in a white suit stepped out. Elena stood in the shadow of the trees, away from the lights that illuminated the driveway. The man turned toward the house, the light catching his face. Elena dropped her wine on the ground. The man’s face. She knew that face. It was etched in her mind since she’d seen it on her brand-new cell phone the night before. Could it be him?
But no, why would Hawk, the day trader from America, be here at her father’s birthday party in Poland? It just didn’t make any sense. Still, she was drawn toward him regardless of how ridiculous it would be for him to be here. She followed him into the house, keeping out of sight. She watched as her father greeted him and pulled him into his office.
She went to the door and tried to listen in but one of her father’s goons passed by, and she immediately stopped what she was doing and continued down the hall. She put her dirty wineglass in the kitchen and got herself something stronger.
This had to be one of the most gut wrenching, mind boggling, terrifying days of her life. Nothing was making sense and she felt as if she was sinking into a black hole of confusion. Not only had she made a massive mistake in coming here, but the shifter she’d been matched with on mate.com was here too? Was she losing her mind?
She sipped the brandy and milled about the hall, pretending she was looking at old photographs of her mother and herself as a child. It brought back so much nostalgia that Elena felt tears gathering in her eyes. When she was a little girl, she really had believed the world was a good and honest place. And going to the ashram, she had wanted to return to that innocence. But now that she was back here, she knew it could never be.
She wiped away a tear, and her father’s office door swung open. She turned abruptly to find it absolutely was Hawk, from mate.com, standing right there in her father’s house. She blinked several times, her mouth dropping open dumbly. She couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
“Elena, my darling daughter,” her father said, draping his thick arm around her shoulder.
The smell of his cologne made her gag, and her eyes watered even more than they had been before. He pulled her toward the man in the gaudy white suit. His clothing style and demeanor was so different from Hawk, and when he smiled, he had a gold tooth in his mouth. She had not seen that in his online photographs. But it was unmistakably the same man.
“I have someone I want you to meet. This is Mitch Connell. My new hyena associate. Mitch, this is my daughter, Elena. She’ll be beautiful again once she fattens back up. And she’s informed me that she has made a good decision for once and wants to find a man to settle down with.”
He looked at “Mitch” suggestively, wagging his eyebrows. Elena gently pulled herself out of her father’s embrace as Mitch reached out to shake her hand.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Elena,” he said in a low rumbling voice.
The look in his eyes gave away the flame of desire that she too was feeling upon taking his hand. Something electric surged between them before he let her hand go. The moment was all too short. Confusion reigned in her brain. She couldn’t imagine why the man from mate.com was here in her home. None of it made any sense. But the deep connection that she immediately felt for this strange man was undeniable.
“I can see you two are already hitting it off,” her father said triumphantly. “Elena, why don’t you show our guest to his car.”
“Yes, father,” she stammered.
Her father laughed, and disappeared around the corner and out the door to join his guests on the back patio. One of her father’s goons eyed them suspiciously. She took “Mitch”’s arm and began to guide him toward the front door.
“Right this way,” she said in a low voice.
She could smell the scent of his body. A strange musty aroma mixed with the scent of his cologne. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t deny the energy that passed between them.
Outside in the night air, they were free of the prying eyes of her father’s men. She walked him to the door of his Lamborghini, and he opened it.
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said, biting her lip. She didn’t know what else to say. She felt as though she was being slammed from every side by conflicting emotions.
Just before he climbed into his car, he bent in close to her and whispered in her ear. “Stay cool. I’ll text you later.”
Before she was able to ask him what the hell he meant, he slipped into his car, closed the door, and drove away.
Chapter 5
When Hawk arrived at the Justice Squad’s temporary headquarters, he was beside himself with confusion. His men met him at the front door, asking a million questions.
“What was that all about?” Sampson asked. “Who was that the woman? Why did you tell her you would text her?”
Hawk collapsed in the chair at the big oak table in the dining room. Feeds from all the cameras were scrolling on the screen in the living room. He shook his head, and Zander brought him a cup of tea. He thanked Zander and took a sip. He needed to relax after what he just experienced. He looked up and found Jamison eyeing him knowingly. He took a deep breath and let it out.
“I have good news and bad news,” Hawk said. “The good news is I have confirmed that Igor Kroll actively supports hyena terrorists. He is more than happy to supply the enemy with arms. According to him he has everything from handguns, automatic rifles, to military grade bombs. He even hinted that he is harboring a small nuclear device.”
“And this is good news?” Jamison asked sarcastically.
“It means our raid is abundantly justified,” Hawk said.
“What’s the bad news?” Zander asked.
“I suppose it’s both good and bad. The good part is, I found my mate. I was matched with her just as I arrived here earlier today. The bad news is I found her in the compound. She’s the daughter of Igor Kroll.”
His crew sat speechless, staring at him and each other. He squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. He knew exactly how they felt: This was bad. Very bad. They had to take down Kroll’s compound, and in less than sixty-eight hours. But now that he’d found his mate, the deep intensity of his shifter instinct screamed that the only important mission was keeping his mate safe.
He’d known for decades that mate.com had a 99.999% accuracy rate for matching shifters with their mates. But once he had seen her, touched her, smelled her, there was zero doubt in his mind that Elena Kroll was the one for him. And he would go to his death to pro
tect her. The conflict between his duty and the screaming of his bear inside his mind was enough to drive him mad.
“Oh shit,” said Rider.
“Oh shit is right,” said Max.
“Oh boy,” said Titus.
“I had no idea I would feel like this when I found my mate. And Max, I’m sorry for not taking your concerns seriously. If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve considered letting you stay home.”
“Sir, you can’t be serious,” Sampson said. “This is one of the most important missions in Justice Squad history. If Igor Kroll has a nuclear weapon…”
“Sampson, I know. Believe me, I know. But my mate… My mate is in there. When you find your mate, you will understand.”
“Hawk,” Titus said softly. The big brawny shifter could turn from gruff, tough, and mean to sensitive and kind on a dime. And he was showing the softer side now. “If I may speak frankly.”
“Please, Titus,” Hawk said. He needed his friends to get through this now more than he needed mindless subordinates.
“I have no doubt that we can not only complete this mission successfully, but also keep your mate safe and bring her home to Fate Rock without so much as a scratch.”
Hawk let out a long breath he’d been holding and took another sip of tea. He nodded at Titus, glad that his friend and colleague who had just found his own mate understood the conflict that was happening inside his mind.
“How can you be sure that she isn’t part of her father’s organization?” Sampson asked.
“I’m glad you asked, Sampson. I need you to do an extensive background check on Elena Kroll. Where has she been for the last five years? Why didn’t we have intel on her before my meeting today? This is a serious oversight that could get people killed. I need to know immediately.”
“I’m on it, sir,” Sampson said, tapping away at his computer.
“What are you going to do?” Max asked. “Are you really going to text her?”
“I have to get my own answers. I can’t believe that my mate would be part of a criminal organization that would literally sell nuclear weapons to terrorists. How could I? Would any of you believe that?” He looked around the room at his men. The faces were blank. The idea that any of their mates could be born and raised in evil and accept it as part of them was incomprehensible. “I need to hear it from her. I told her I would text her. If she really is the woman she portrayed herself to be on her mate.com profile, I’m sure she’s as confused as I am.”
“What if it’s some kind of trap, sir?” Sampson asked. “What if they have infiltrated mate.com and faked the results?”
“Then you can look into that also. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my room.”
“I would advise against texting Elena Kroll until we have the information we need.”
“Get me the information, Sampson, ASAP. Until you’ve got it, I have to trust my gut. It’s what got me this far. And it’s what I depended on before we had all these fancy gadgets. When I can’t trust my gut, that’s the day I’m no longer fit to lead.”
No one objected after that. Hawk disappeared into his bedroom and closed the door behind him. He had to admit, he was shaken.
He sat down on his bed and pulled his encrypted cellphone from the drawer of the nightstand. He let out a long sigh. Texting her was dangerous and against protocol. He knew that mate.com had security measures to protect its users’ information. The founder of mate.com, Cory Bright, was a genius. He updated his site with the newest privacy firewalls that he himself developed. If anything on the Internet was secure, it was mate.com’s texting app.
He turned on his screen and tapped over to mate.com. He gritted his teeth as his finger hovered over the screen. Finally, he tapped the “message now” button next to her profile photo. He let out a sigh. She was even more beautiful in person than she was on the screen.
“Hello Elena.”
“Who are you? Why are you buying weapons for my father?”
“Please, Elena. We need to trust each other. At least to some degree.”
“I have no reason to trust you.”
“I know you felt the connection that I felt. I could see it in your eyes. I could feel it in your touch. You and I are mates. We have a bond that goes beyond these suspicions. If I didn’t feel it, I wouldn’t even be contacting you.”
“Why are you contacting me?”
“I need to know that you’re the woman you say you are. Why did you say you are an English yoga instructor?”
“Everything in my profile is true. I’ve been living in an ashram in India for the last five years. I’ve been off the grid. No social media. No job history. But I’m on my way to England to work with a friend in her yoga studio. Visiting my father is a brief stop off to say goodbye for the last time.”
“Do you know what your father does?”
“Do you? Who are you? Why are you here? Why does your profile say you’re an ex-military day trader from some small town in the USA?”
“All that is true. And the rest I can’t tell you. Not yet. Not like this. It isn’t safe.”
“Then why are you contacting me?”
“I need to speak with you in person.”
“Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how much danger I’m in?”
“Why are you in danger?”
Hawk was growing concerned. The more he talked to her, the more he was convinced that Elena Kroll was completely innocent.
“Why did you meet with my father today? You know the man. You know who you’re dealing with.”
“You think you’re in danger from him?” Hawk wished more than anything that he could get through to her. That she would trust him. But he couldn’t just expect her to let her guard down. He wanted to believe everything she said. And in his gut, he did. But she had no real reason to trust him other than the feeling that all shifter mates felt upon meeting thier fated one. How could he ask her to trust that? He had to give her more to work with. But he didn’t know how.
“Coming here was a mistake.”
“You have to let me help you.”
“I have no reason to trust you.” Her text came through with several typos.
He could tell she was nervous. His inner bear screamed for him to run back to the compound, pull her out, and shoot everyone in sight. But there was protocol to attend to. Highly orchestrated steps that had to be performed. It was for the security of not only his men, the mission, and possibly this entire region of Poland. If there really was a nuclear weapon in Igor Kroll’s arsenal, everyone for hundreds of miles was in danger.
He couldn’t jeopardize their safety because his inner bear was screaming to act irrationally. This text conversation alone was dangerous. But he had to protect Elena. That he knew for sure. And there was no way he could protect her unless she trusted him.
“Please meet with me tomorrow, Elena. I’ll try to explain as much as I can. If you can’t trust me, trust yourself. Trust the feelings you felt when you met me. I know they were the same for you as they were for me.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Hawk lifted his head and said gruffly, “Come in.”
Sampson stood in the doorway, his face expressionless. Hawk was used his tech expert’s lack of emotion, but he wished that for once Sampson would give him some hint of what he was thinking.
“What is it?” Hawk snapped without meaning to. If Sampson was startled by it, he gave no indication.
“I conducted background checks into both Elena Kroll and mate.com’s servers, sir.”
“Yes? Spit it out.” He was growing angrier by the minute. There was so much on the line. He had to keep his cool. But his inner bear was screaming so loud he could barely hear himself think.
“Yes, sir.” Sampson was unaffected by Hawk’s rough tone. “It appears Elena Kroll has been living in a remote ashram in southern India for the last five years. According to some emails I was able to procure from the CIA, she is in contact with a woman named Bridget O’Neill who is a yog
a instructor in London, England.
“According to these emails, Elena is on her way to London. And the flight bookings in her name would confirm that narrative. As for mate.com, I scanned their servers multiple times with the help of Cory Bright himself. There is zero evidence of tampering with the mating algorithms or the app of any kind. My conclusion is Elena Kroll is your mate and that she is a yoga instructor on her way to England. Whether or not she has any knowledge of or involvement in her father’s organization is beyond my current knowledge.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. That’s all I need,” Hawk said, looking back at his phone.
Sampson disappeared out the door and it clicked closed. Everything Hawk already knew in his gut was confirmed by Sampson’s intel. Now he just had to get Elena to trust him. And he had no idea how to do that.
“How do you know what I felt?” she had typed several minutes ago.
“Because I’m a shifter. I know what it feels like to meet your fated mate.”
There was a long pause.
“Why does your profile say you’re a bear when my father thinks you’re a hyena?”
“I’ll explain as much as I can if you’ll just meet me tomorrow. Please, Elena. You have to trust me.”
He didn’t know what else to say. He felt like a fool for pleading like this. But what else could he do?
“Okay. I’ll meet you. Where?”
“I’ll send you directions at noon. We will go somewhere where we can’t be seen or heard. You’ll need to make sure you aren’t followed. Can you do that?”
“I can try.”
“Good. I will contact you again at noon tomorrow.”
Hawk set down his phone and lay down on his bed, looking up at the ceiling. His heart pounded in his chest. If there had been any other way to go about this, he would have chosen that path. The conflict between keeping his mate safe and fulfilling his mission was incomprehensible. He had to do both, there was no other choice. He just hoped he was man enough to do it.
C.O. Bear (Justice Squad Book 4) Page 3