by Elle James
“Is that why I feel like I was run over by a truck?” she asked.
He nodded and bent to press his lips to her forehead. “I never should have left your side.”
She shook her head. “If you hadn’t taken care of the guys with the gun and knife, they might have gotten to my father, or taken it out on the guests. You did the right thing.”
“But I almost lost you,” he whispered hoarsely.
“I’m alive because of you.” She squeezed his hand holding hers. “You were there when I needed you most. I knew you’d find me in time.”
“I’m glad you knew, because I wasn’t so sure.”
She pressed his palm to her cheek. “There’s something I want to do before I die.”
“But you’re not dead, and you’re not dying,” he assured her.
She chuckled and coughed. “I know. But when my life passed before my eyes, I had one big regret, and I want to rectify that before anything else happens.”
He loved the feel of her soft skin beneath his hand. If she weren’t in the bed, covered with wires and beeping monitors, he’d gather her into his arms and hold her close. When he’d seen that boat flip, Ronin had never been more scared in his life.
He swallowed to dislodge the knot forming in his throat and whispered, “What do you want to do before you die, sweetheart? Go skydiving? Sail around the world? See the Aurora Borealis? You name it, I’ll make sure it happens.”
“Nothing so exhausting.” She cupped the back of his hand in hers and pressed a kiss to his open palm. “I wanted to tell you that I love you.”
Ronin’s knees melted, and he almost fell to the floor. “That’s what you thought about while you were drowning?” He shook his head. “Bella, those are the sweetest words I could ever expect to hear.” He lowered the rail on the side of her bed, lay down beside her and gathered her in his arms, wires and all. “Sweetheart, I’ll do whatever it takes to deserve your love.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” she said, closing her eyes and with a smile curling her lips. “You just have to be you.”
“You want me to leave the Navy, I will. If you want me to find a job in Italy, I’m there.”
“No. Please, don’t quit the Navy and your position with the SEALs. I know how much it means to you and how it’s a part of who you are. I’m just afraid whoever sent those men to capture me will be back again. I’m sure they went after my father to get to me. I couldn’t live with myself if my father died because of what I did in Syria.” She became agitated, the heart monitor pulsing faster with every beat of her heart.
Ronin leaned up on his elbow. “Shh, Bella. Don’t worry, we’ll think of something.”
He smoothed his hand over her hair and calmed her.
When Isabella fell back into a troubled sleep, a plan formed in Ronin’s mind.
15
Two weeks later…
“Magnus, we’re in place, ready when you are,” Maddog’s voice said into Ronin’s headset.
“Roger.” Ronin adjusted the tripod on the front of his rifle, lining up the barrel with where he expected to engage his target.
His team had moved into position after dusk. Darkness had settled on the village, the stars just beginning to appear and shed light on the buildings below.
Ronin lay at the edge of the roof, staring through his rifle sight at the building intelligence had identified. The heat of the day had already begun to dissipate, cooling the sweat on his brow. If their sources were right, Abu Ahmad al-Jahashi had used this structure as his headquarters for the past week. He and his terrorist fighters had taken this village from the locals without much of a fight.
What could they do? They were unarmed and too poor to afford the luxury of having an opinion about politics. All the villagers wanted was to be left to tend their goats, grow their crops and live in peace.
ISIS had taken their village, most of the food they’d stored for winter and whittled their herds of goats down to a paltry few animals.
For a small bribe, they’d been more than willing to share information about the ISIS leader’s movements to the intelligence guys embedded in a nearby community.
“Vehicle approaching,” Viper said from his position near the road leading into the small hamlet built into the side of a hill in Syria.
The sun had set more than an hour ago, giving them plenty of time to get into position and prepare for the ISIS leader’s return to his base.
Ronin kept his rifle completely still and turned his head to study the SUV entering the narrow streets.
“That looks like the vehicle the intel guys reported he’d be in,” Viper said. “They said he stole it from a village mayor he murdered.”
They’d also confirmed he’d let his men rape the women and small girls before he killed every member of the mayor’s family.
The bastard had no shame, no heart and no soul. It would be a privilege for Ronin to put him out of the world’s misery.
He settled in behind the sight and waited for al-Jahashi to step out of the SUV. Ronin had chosen to infiltrate the village alone, slipping past the guards positioned on either side of the road leading into the walled community. He’d rappelled in from the cliff side and chosen a position on a rooftop close enough to ascertain the identity of his target, and yet far enough away to give him enough of a head start to get out of town when things got hot.
Helicopters waited a couple miles away, loaded for bear, ready to provide air support if necessary, and extraction when needed.
Ronin had insisted on going alone. It was easier to get one man inside undetected than an entire team. As soon as he dispatched al-Jahashi, he’d slip back out as quietly as he’d come in, no one the wiser as to who had taken out one of ISIS’s most violent leaders. He hadn’t come for the glory or to get his name in the papers. He’d come to take care of the people he loved. And he’d promised Isabella he’d return alive, not in a body bag.
Had they gone through regular channels, it would have taken a literal act of Congress to deploy the SEAL team. As it was, Ronin made a few calls, found out others had been studying the al-Jahashi situation, and the timing couldn’t have been better to stage an operation to take out the ISIS leader.
The SUV appeared in Ronin’s sights and pulled to a stop, brake lights gleaming red before the driver shifted into park.
The passenger door opened and the interior light shone on the man climbing out.
In Ronin’s sight, the image couldn’t have been clearer. The man had dark, thick eyebrows, a full dark beard and the distinguishable scar slashed across his right cheek.
“I have my mark,” Ronin whispered, curling his finger around the trigger.
“We’ve got your six,” Maddog said.
Ronin gently squeezed the trigger. The silencer on the end of the weapon muffled the sound of the shot fired. The bullet hit the mark, but al-Jahashi stood as if surprised. For a long moment, Ronin waited, ready to fire again, if the first round didn’t do the trick.
Al-Jahashi dropped to his knees and then fell face-first to the ground. The men around him scrambled in an attempt to understand what had just happened.
Quietly, efficiently, Ronin grabbed his rifle and leaped over the side of the building to the ground, scaled the wall of the village and dropped to the other side without being seen.
Shouts rose up from inside the village, but Ronin was already several yards away, running up the hill, heading for the other side.
“I’m out,” he reported.
“Bringing up the rear,” Viper acknowledged.
“Covering your asses,” Maddog weighed in.
“Mission accomplished?” Viper asked.
“Mission accomplished,” Ronin responded, already at the top of the hill. Keeping low to the ground, he tried not to present too much of a silhouette on the ridge. ISIS terrorists would be searching the village, and then the surrounding areas, looking for the sniper who’d killed their leader.
Ronin planned on getting out of
Dodge before the bad guys knew who’d hit them.
Behind him, he heard the faint footsteps of his colleagues scrambling up the hill. He glanced back to see Maddog and Viper making their way back to the same helicopter pickup point Ronin aimed to reach before anything else happened. The choppers were on the way in, the familiar whomp-whomp-whomp of rotor blades beating the air and giving him a sense of urgency to get where he was going in a hurry.
As he topped the ridge, he dropped to the prone position and covered his team as they scrambled the rest of the way up the hill.
The mission had gone without a hitch. In fact, it had gone entirely too smoothly. Ronin’s gut knotted. His instinct was telling him something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Maddog, Viper and the rest of the team made it over the ridge with no problem and nobody shooting at them.
Ronin watched for a few moments longer, scanning the rugged hillside bathed in starlight. Nothing moved, no one was chasing them.
He could barely see the headlights of the SUV. The walls of the village hid them. But a faint glow was moving toward the entrance.
He moved his night vision goggles into place over his eyes and studied the exterior of the walled village and the rooftops.
He could see the familiar green heat signature of someone moving around the top of the building from which he’d staged his target acquisition. The man appeared to be looking toward the building where al-Jahashi was killed. Then he turned to face the direction the SEALs had exited.
Time to go.
Ronin slipped over the ridge and half-ran, half-slid down the other side.
A Black Hawk helicopter from the 160th Night Stalkers landed long enough for the team to climb aboard. Another hovered nearby, providing cover in case ISIS managed to move fast enough to send someone out to fire on them. Once everyone was in the first craft, it lifted into the air.
The chopper had only halfway turned when something slammed into the tail section and sent it spinning out of control.
Ronin had barely gotten aboard and didn’t have his safety harnessed engaged.
The helicopter plummeted toward the ground, whirling like a wound-up top, centrifugal force flung Ronin out the door. By then, the Black Hawk was only ten feet off the ground. But when he hit, pain shot through his leg, and the wind was knocked out of his lungs.
The chopper landed hard, the blades still turning, but it was intact.
For the first few seconds, Ronin couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe and couldn’t call out to his buddies. All that was going through his mind was he would be breaking his promise to Isabella. He wouldn’t be coming home.
Then as if a switch was flipped, he sucked in a deep breath, replenishing his lungs and fueling his body with the determination to live. He’d be damned if he broke his promise.
Ronin tried to get up. Pain stabbed through his leg, and he fell back to the ground. He ran his hands over the leg and bit down hard on his tongue when he encountered a protruding bone. Compound fracture.
Damn.
The pilot of the second Black Hawk opened fire, launching two laser-guided Hellfire missiles. The resulting explosion shook the ground beneath Ronin.
SEALs and pilots scrambled from the disabled helicopter. Some helping others who’d been injured in the rough landing.
Ronin had been thrown at least a hundred yards from where the bird had landed. The others would spend too much time searching for him and risk having the second chopper shot down. If he wanted to be rescued, he had to help himself.
He pushed himself up to his knee, jolting the broken leg, but fighting through the pain. On the count of three, he hopped up on his one good leg, the pain in the other making black spots swim before his eyes. Ronin waited until the pain and the spots cleared enough he was fairly certain he wouldn’t pass out, and he could see where he was going. Then he started the painful journey toward his team, hopping, one foot at a time, every movement sending crippling pain throughout his body.
When he was within fifty yards of the chopper, a member of his team ran toward him, slung his arm over his neck and half-walked, half-carried Ronin toward the chopper. Another SEAL jumped down and helped load him in and lay him on the floor next to his best buddy Maddog, and Frito, the Hispanic SEAL who always had a joke and laughed in the face of danger. Doc, the team medic, was working on Maddog, establishing an IV and cutting open the man’s pant leg.
Doc glanced across at Ronin. “Status?”
“Compound fracture, left leg,” Ronin said through the gritted teeth.
“Let me get Maddog stabilized, and I’ll be with you next.”
“No worries.” Ronin glanced up at Viper. “Is he going to make it?”
Viper nodded toward Maddog. “Maddog is. But Frito…” he shook he head. “Fell from the helicopter right before we crashed. The skid hit him in the chest, crushing him. It took all of us lifting, to get him out from under.”
Ronin’s chest hurt almost as much as if he’d been crushed beneath the chopper. “He had a wife and kid.”
Viper nodded.
Another reason why SEALs shouldn’t marry.
Was he being selfish to wish that kind of life on Isabella?
Doc finally made his way over to him, got him hooked up to an IV with Viper holding the bag, shot a little morphine into the drip and waved at him. “Say goodnight, Magnus.”
Already loopy, Ronin let the drug take effect. “Goodnight, Mag—” and he was out.
Isabella had flown from Venice to Frankfurt as soon as she’d gotten word from Ronin’s brother, Sam. Ronin was at Landstuhl Regional Hospital near Kaiserslautern, Germany. Lorenzo had come along as protection.
She’d had to run the gamut of red tape to even be allowed into the military hospital, since she was an Italian citizen, even though she was Ronin’s fiancée. Until they were married, and she had a military dependent ID card, she’d continue to have problems.
Ronin’s brothers Sam and Mack met her in the lobby and helped her through the forms and paperwork.
“I thought Ronin had three brothers,” she said as they finally headed for the elevator.
Sam grinned. “We told Wyatt not to come. He’s still on his honeymoon.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s just a broken leg.”
Isabella nodded, though her gut tightened. A compound fracture could have killed Ronin, had it severed a major artery. From what she’d been told, he’d been thrown from a helicopter. The fall alone could have ended his life.
“He’s lucky he didn’t break his fool neck,” Mack said.
Isabella’s thoughts, exactly.
Sam chuckled. “Probably landed on his hard head.”
Isabella understood the need to laugh off an injury. There were enough frightening events and sadness in the world. If someone came out of a bad situation, it was better to laugh than cry.
She also knew one member of the team hadn’t been as lucky. Maybe she was insensitive, but she was glad it hadn’t been Ronin.
Finally, they reached the door of Ronin’s room.
Her heart fluttering, her breath catching in her throat, Isabella pushed open the door and entered.
“Look who we found wandering around in the lobby?” Sam said.
Ronin opened his eyes and turned his head toward the door. When he spotted Isabella, he frowned. “What’s she doing here?”
Mack’s brow rose. “Uh…fiancée?” He looked around as if for the punchline. “That’s what they do. They come to the hospital when their soldier or SEAL is injured.” Mack grabbed Sam’s arm. “We were just going for a cup of coffee. You two look like you need some alone time to talk.”
Ronin raised his hand. “Don’t…go. What I have to say can be said in front my brothers.”
“Think about it, Bro. You’re still on pain meds,” Mack warned.
“I’m thinking more clearly than I have in a while.” He faced Isabella. “I’m sorry. But I can’t marry you.”
Isabella’s heart lodged in her throat. She c
ouldn’t lie. The words stung. But she also knew he didn’t mean them. He was probably worried about his ability to recover and hold a job.
Though he’d spoken to her, he wasn’t making eye contact.
She glanced at Mack and Sam. She didn’t have to say a thing.
The two brothers nodded and backed out of the room.
“Going. For the coffee,” Sam said. “Be back in a few.”
Once the door closed behind the brothers, Isabella crossed to the bed and reached for Ronin’s hand.
He jerked it back. “I’m serious. It’s over.”
Fear turned to anger, and Isabella crossed her arms over her chest. “Look at me, Ronin Magnus,” she commanded in her best Angel of Mercy combat voice.
He shook his head. “You know as well as I do that nothing between us will ever work. Why kid ourselves?”
She could see the hopelessness in his face and hear it in his voice. He didn’t want to end their relationship any more than she did.
Instead of trying to talk her way out of it, she took a risk and tried reverse psychology. “You’re right.”
His head snapped up, and he finally looked at her, a little shock in his eyes at how easily she acquiesced. As quickly as the shock appeared, it disappeared into a fierce frown. “Damn right, I’m right. Navy SEALs should never marry.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry about your teammate. I’m certain his wife is grieving and wishing she’d never married him.”
“Exactly. Now she has to raise their daughter alone. Pile on the grief, and it makes for a miserable way to live.”
“Yeah. I’m sure she would rather not have loved him than to have known love for the few years she had him. How selfish of your friend to do that to her. I’m sure he didn’t explain it in a way that she would understand.”
Ronin’s eyes narrowed. “He told her from the beginning what could happen.”
“And she still agreed to marry him and have his children? Silly woman.” Isabella tsked her tongue. “She’d have been better off alone. No one should fall in love, especially if the person they love could be killed in a war.”