A man who had done more for his country than most; especially some drug trafficking asshole.
“Okay so this is the first we’re hearing about the Commander being involved in anything shady. First things first, we consider the source.” I wrote that shit in big block letters on the power point board I had set up.
“Next, we know the Commander, he was basically in charge of whether we lived or died for a huge fucking chunk of our time when we were in, and he never let us down. Aside from that, we knew the man, stand up as they come.”
We were all in agreement that whatever this was-was nothing but a smokescreen. I wasn’t sure what the locals knew or thought about what we did in the navy. It’s a safe bet that the Commander never discussed missions and shit on the outside, but they had to at least know that you had to have nerves of steel to make it through fucking boot camp, farther more stay in for as long as the seven of us had.
“Devon I’m gonna need you to keep your ear to the ground, they seem to trust you around here more than they do the rest of us.” That’s because he had this deceiving, innocent boy next door look about him. With his nod I carried on.
“Until we know who said what and to whom, we can’t really move, but we’re not sitting around here on our asses waiting for them to make first strike. Con is right, it has to be about the money. We moved it, they start calling. That was a lot of fucking money; people commit horrendous acts for less so we know what we’re up against.
From now on the women are under twenty-four hour guard. There will be no time when they are not under the eyes of one of us. They’re always together anyway unless they’re going off to work. Con make sure Dani takes a leave of absence or some shit, I’ll work on Gaby. They can use the weddings as an excuse.”
You’d think in the middle of this fuckery there would be no room for bullshit, but that didn’t stop the five of them from making smart ass remarks about marriage.
“Moving right the fuck along, tonight we’re gonna start with Robert, aka the douche.” I don’t know where we got a pic of this guy but we had one up on the board with a death arrow pointed at his head. I didn’t have to think too hard to figure out whose handiwork that was. “I’m not sure he has the balls, but we’re not taking any chances.” They may think this shit was gonna have us running scared, and again, I don’t know where they ever got the idea that we were pussies, but that phone call had the opposite affect to what they expected.
We threw around scenario after scenario but the reality was for now, all we could do was batten down the hatches and protect our flanks until we knew who the enemy was.
“You know what I’m thinking, I’m thinking somebody knows about our relationship with the commander. I’m not talking about the town’s speculation as to why he left his team his land, but someone knows how any mark against him would affect us not only personally, but because of missions.”
“Lo’s right; the more I think about that call the more something stinks. We already know that this is no low-end operation they’re too good. We can’t even get a whiff of who these fucks are, and the people we’ve spoken to so far don’t even seem to know who the fuck they’re working for. I’m thinking that phone call was their first mistake, it gave us a little more insight than we had before.”
“You’re on to something there Con.” I looked around at the rest of them, especially Ty who already looked like he was ready for battle, hotheaded little fuck. “Did you make that call?”
I kept my eye on Zak as I asked and almost rolled my eyes at his reaction. He was as prickly as a damn teenage girl on her period over this shit. “Yep, she’s on it, said she was getting rusty since her retirement.”
“Retirement? I didn’t know about this.” Vanessa was a little young to retire so that meant something serious had went down. I guess I’ll have to wait until she showed up here to get the particulars. Zak seemed as stunned by the news as the rest of us, which meant he hadn’t been keeping tabs on her. I wasn’t even gonna go there with him right now, because that shit looked like it was gonna take a couple bottles of scotch at the very least.
“You know we never went through the Commander’s stuff when we took over. It’s still all locked away in the library of his place.” Cord reminded me of something I hadn’t thought of in a while.
None of us had wanted to go through the old man’s personal papers and shit, felt too much like a violation of trust. So we’d locked everything away safely in his old home, which we had pretty much converted into an office with bedrooms and shit.
“What are you saying, that there’s something there to verify this shit?” I sighed long and hard at Ty’s outburst. This fucker is gonna give me agida. The only time he’s actually calm and rational is when we’re on a mission, any other time it’s like dealing with a psych patient fresh off their meds; ADD fucker. “No Tyler that’s not what he’s saying. Look, we were all there; we all know the Commander was the salt of the earth. I think what your brother is saying is that maybe we’ve been coming at this thing all wrong.
None of us stopped to wonder if the old man was privy to any of this, if he suspected something or not. It’s worth a look to see what if anything he knew. We just assumed that the old guys came to us first, but what if the Commander, who we know was highly intelligent, and extremely perceptive, was onto whatever this is?”
That seemed to calm his ass down and we were back on track. We decided that there was no point in putting that shit off once the decision had been made, so we sent Candy home early, which translated to her heading to Connor’s house, where the women were gathered with their wedding shit.
***
GABRIELLA
“Okay Candy spill.” I dragged her through the door after I’d spied her coming. I guess the guys had given her the day off because she was carrying her bag and the whole lot of them had descended on the old plantation house like the feds. “Lordy Gaby let me clear the door at least damn.” Like I had time for that.
Dani and I have been on pins and needles ever since we were given our staying orders. It was gonna take me a while to get used to this mess, but with Logan there was no choice. Nothing I tried could sway that man from his path, he’s as mule headed as one of my grandpa’s old bulls.
I have wedding shit coming out my ears, first he curtailed how many hours I could spend running around, with his be home before dark dictate, and now he’d pretty much put me on house arrest. If I didn’t love him like crazy already I’d brain him with something for even thinking he had the right.
“Don’t nobody got time for that shit, what’s going on over there?” Dani came in the living room with a tray of cookies and tea, like any decent southern belle would at a time like this.
Men are a slower breed, they do not understand the rigors of dealing with wedding plans and making sure that every little detail was just so. Especially when you were planning a double wedding where two of the four participants just grunted and whined when asked for their input.
“Hey Candy, they got you too huh.” Dani placed the tray down and sat with her prim and proper self like the lady of the manor. It amazes me that we had grown up together, been taught damn near the same things, and I had broken out of my shell and she hadn’t. Don’t get me wrong, Dani can get loose with hers if she has to, but she takes a little time to warm up. College had taken care of my good and proper thank you very much.
Being away from momma and daddy for the first time in my life, I’m not ashamed to say that I had gone buck-wild. The only thing I had kept was my virginity, because it had been drilled into me in my mama’s milk that that belonged to the man I was gonna marry, everything else was up for dibs.
I drank, smoked, though I didn’t like the taste of my first and only cigarette, went joyriding and everything else a delinquent teen with a bank account could get up to. It was some kind of cosmic joke I am sure that I had fallen and fallen hard for a man like my Logan. I couldn’t fall for any of the milquetoast mamby-pamby saps in my circle, no
I had to go and give my heart to Leonidas.
I had held onto my bad girl persona from my school days unlike Dani who was a born lady down her little pink toes. Logan likes to tease sometimes and ask how comes he’d ended up with the tomboy, but deep down I knew he needed someone like me to put up with his brand of crazy.
“I don’t know what all’s going on girls, you know these men, they’re as tight lipped as they wanna be, but something’s lit a fire under their asses. They ain’t never had time for going through that place before, never showed much of an interest in it anyway, but now it seems they’re hell bent for leather to get to ‘em.”
“Logan isn’t talking and Dani says all Connor told her was not to leave the compound until farther notice. I sure wish I knew what was the big secret. You don’t think it has anything to do with one of their missions do you?” I looked at Dani with a little fear in my eyes now. She reached out for my hand and squeezed.
“No, they would’ve told us if they were going away. I think this is about those night moves.” She gave me a look, which I understood very well. Although he men trusted Candy, there were some things that were meant to be kept just between us, if they wanted her to know about their little secret rendezvous they’d let her in on it.
Logan had told me the bare minimum about that as well, and only because I needed to know where the hell he was leaving my bed to go to almost every damn night. It’s not like he’d sat me down and talked me through it all nice like either no; if I remember correctly that conversation had gone something like, ‘the boys and I have some shit to take care of and might have to leave at night for a while, I won’t be gone long, there’s nothing for you to worry about.’ That was about it.
Candy didn’t even ask any questions because she knew better and as much as I was dying to know, the talk soon turned to weddings. But while my two companions were discussing seating arrangements my mind was on what the men were up to. If Logan knew he’d have my ass, but I could never give up a good mystery.
All I needed was to get my girl Dani on my side and between the two of us we might be able to help. How bad can it be? This is Briarwood after all, nothing remotely interesting ever happens here.
Chapter 5
LOGAN
We spent a good part of the day going through the old man’s shit and had yet to make a dent in it. Mostly we’d found old letters between him and his childhood sweethearts, and some from colleagues and shit like that, but there was nothing to raise any eyebrows so far. We worked through lunch or tried to, but the women descended upon us and browbeat us into taking a break.
I could tell my nosy ass princess was trying to sniff out what we were doing, but her sneak was as obvious as the nose on her face. Poor baby, it must be hell being surrounded by SEALs when you’re accustomed to hoodwinking lesser men with a smile. That shit wasn’t about to work, well except maybe with Ty, and since she was still shy about cooking, and the way to his heart was food, we were safe for now.
“Did you get anything done this morning baby?” She was sitting on my lap, swinging her feet as we ate our sandwiches that the girls had whipped up and drank lemonade mixed with iced tea. She looked about twelve with her hair in a ponytail and not a smidge of make-up on. I like seeing her like this, without the damn war paint that got onto everything.
“Nope, nothing at all. How long’s this little hitch in my giddy-up supposed to last anyway?” I squeezed her around the middle, because although she said that shit all light, there was a hint of complaint in her voice.
“As long as I say.” I waited for it because I know her, she can’t leave shit alone for too long, I keep telling her one of these days that shit’s gonna land her ass in trouble, but she’s still convinced herself that she can get me to see things her way.
The others couldn’t hear what we were saying thank fuck, because I would hate to have to deal with their shit if she gave me hell. “Logan we’re trying to plan a wedding here. There are things that we need to be on site for, we can’t just sit on our asses and expect them to get done. I understand your not wanting to participate, but now you’re interfering with what I have to do and that’s not fair.”
I had to let that shit sink in to make sure she wasn’t playing with me, or hadn’t lost her damn mind, but she was dead ass serious. A look wasn’t gonna cut it this time, but now wasn’t the time either.
“We’ll talk about this later.” I tried to head shit off, the fuck I know about arguing with a female? In my mind, as her man, I lay down the rules, she follows, end of story. “What’s there to discuss? I can give up today but…”
What the fuck? “I said later Gabriella.” My tone had her deflating which usually would make me try to placate her, but this shit was serious, besides if I start letting her talk me into shit we’d both be in trouble. She wasn’t too pleased when they left so we could get back to what we were doing.
“What’s the matter Cap, your woman giving you fits?” I threw a piece of bread at Quinn and tried to escape. These fucks like to snick their noses in every damn thing, and the fact that she and I were whispering while the others were carrying on a conversation, would only get their antennas going. “Mind your own damn business you fuck.”
“See what I told you, bitch made, both of them.” Ty had to duck after making that statement because both Con and I went after his ass. “Say Cap, you do know you’re supposed to be the one in the tux right, you too Con.” He thought his ass was funny. I cannot wait for him to fall. “As a matter of fact, I do, but I’m thinking of having my attendants, that would be you fucks, wear kilts on account of my Scottish blood.”
“The fuck outta here with that shit Cap, I’m not wearing a skirt no matter what the fuck it’s called.” I knew that would shut him up. I also knew we were all trying to blow off steam before going back in. “Okay guys back to it.”
There wasn’t any of the usual banter between us; we were all pretty solemn once we passed the door into the private library that we had kept under lock and key since the night we’d buried our old friend.
This is the reason we had been putting this off, it was like saying the final goodbye, something that as tough as we all are, I didn’t think we were quite ready to do. For the next few hours there was just more of the same, but then coming on to later in the evening, shit started to take a turn.
“Why the fuck was he writing in code? And check the dates, this was a little before he died, like a few months.” Devon passed the ledger type book over to me and the rest gathered around to read over my shoulder.
Something that had been kept between the eight of us was a secret code. We’d all worked on it together and came up with basically our own language. It had been some time since any of us had used it, but it wasn’t hard to decipher.
“Shit he suspected something.” I ruffled through the pages getting little snippets here and there but I knew we were gonna have to go through it with a fine toothcomb.
“He knew we’d find this eventually, or have reason to come looking, that’s why it’s in our code. Whoever he suspected is very powerful for him to go to these lengths. Ty make copies for each of us will you?” I passed the book off to him and went back to my digging.
We were all more awake now that we knew we were on the right track. Poor commander, I wonder why he never said anything. We all spoke to him at least once a week when he was alive, even when we were on active we never lost touch, he was our father.
“Did he say anything to any of you about this?” They all shook their heads, which was pretty much what I expected. Our bond was such that there had never been any secrets between the eight of us.
We were each aware of our rank yes, but in the heat of battle, a bullet could give a fuck, so we’d learned to trust in each other beyond the titles. That meant that whatever the old man shared with me stateside, he would’ve shared with my brothers and vice versa.
***
We found a few more things that looked like they may be of interest, but then we br
oke away for dinner because the girls were getting grumpy. They knew some shit was going on but had no idea what.
I, as well as Connor was operating under the fact that they were on a need to know basis when it comes to this shit. They on the other hand like typical fucking females wanted to know everything, so they were playing the role since they didn’t get their way. I guess after their little fishing expedition didn’t turn up anything at lunch they had decided to change up the act. It was pissing me the fuck off.
I know just how to deal with Gabriella and her bullshit, what Con does with his woman is up to him. She tried coming out of her damn face in front of Quinn and Zak, asking my shit that I had already told her was none of her damn business.
“Are you trying to get fucked up?” She gave me the cold treatment after that. I saw Con whispering to his woman and she was nodding like she had some damn sense. How the fuck did I end up with the hardheaded one?
“Damn, it’s like the arctic in this bitch, what did you two do now?” Cord slapped Ty on the back of the head for being stupid and saved me the trouble. The idiot didn’t realize yet that when the women get like this it was best to ignore their shit until they came to their damn senses, either on their own, or with a little help. He’ll learn, just as soon as he finds one that ties his ass in knots and he learns the difference between a jump off and a wife.
LOGAN SEAL Team Seven (Book 2) Page 3