Santo sighed. “That’s a relief. I’ll be out in the main living room with the rest of the guys when you’re all ready to come out.”
Anya nodded and turned to Phantom, handing him the bag. “I think I’ll join the guys. You need some time with Elena before you come out with us.”
“Thank you.” Phantom took the bag from Anya and waited for her to close the door behind her as she left his room. He drew a deep breath as he turned to face Elena. She had pulled the blanket on the bed over her torso and watched him closely.
He fished in her bag and pulled out a T-shirt. “This should be comfortable and won’t irritate your wounds.”
She grabbed the shirt and quickly pulled it on over her head. “Phantom, I have to talk to you. It’s really important. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“You said something about Jonas Franklin being a human trafficker. What happened? What made you think he’s involved in such a thing?”
She ran a trembling hand through her hair. “I-I came across information on his computer. It was by accident, and I thought it was a joke at first, but the more I saw, the more I realized it wasn’t.”
“And what happened? How did you get shot?”
“I was terrified. I knew I had to leave. I thought Jonas might discover what I had seen on his computer. I couldn’t take a chance. So I went home and was starting to pack a bag when someone knocked on my door. I don’t know what made me suspicious, but I took my boots off so he couldn’t hear me approach the door.” She glanced down to the bottom of the bed and saw her feet still in socks. “He said his name was Randy, and I looked through the peephole and saw the shotgun. I was able to jump almost completely out of the way before he shot. Obviously not far enough.”
Phantom sat on the edge of the bed and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You did wonderful, Elena. You were brilliant.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I shot him, Phantom. I shot him as he tried to kick his way through the door.”
Phantom rubbed his fingers across her cheeks, swiping away the tears that trickled down her face. “I saw the inside of your truck. The man tried to kill you. Why didn’t you go to the sheriff as soon as you left Jonas’s ranch?”
Elena shook her head frantically. “We can’t trust the sheriff. Jonas has pictures of them together all over his office. They’re clearly friends. For all I know, he could be partners with Jonas.”
“He’s not. The sheriff is a good man. We’ve worked with him before on a delicate situation. What made you think you had to run?”
“I didn’t know for sure. Jonas is good with computers. If he looked around enough at what I had been doing on the computer, he would see what I had found. I couldn’t take any chances. Now I know for sure that he found out.”
“He’s good with computers? How good? Do you think he knows how to write code?”
Confusion crossed her face. “Phantom, I feel like you aren’t telling me something.” She bit her lower lip as her gaze swept over his face. “How did you know what needed to be done for my gunshot wound? And why do you have medicine to use on someone who has been hurt? What aren’t you telling me?”
Phantom ran a hand down his face, trying to think of the best way to approach the conversation with her. He had planned to tell her the true nature of his work when he returned from Mexico. He just hadn’t planned on the circumstances being anything like this.
“Elena, you’re right, there’s something I need to tell you. Just hear me out before you jump to any conclusions. Please understand that everything between us has been real. I’ve just kept one detail from you.”
“What? You’re starting to scare me. What have you not told me?”
“I’m here on a special undercover assignment. I’m a Navy SEAL.”
* * *
Elena struggled to pull in a deep breath. A SEAL? He couldn’t be serious. He had told her everything about his life. He had told her about being a consultant, and… Her mind began to race. Had he been lying to her this entire time?
“I don’t understand. What… How can this be an undercover assignment? You’ve shared everything with me, haven’t you? You obviously know a lot about horses, so I know you didn’t fake that with me. You-you…” She searched his face, desperate for answers. His serious expression told her he wasn’t trying to keep any secrets from her. He was finally telling her the entire truth.
“You’ve been lying to me this entire time, haven’t you? The story about being a consultant was just a load of bullshit. Tell me all your lies, Phantom. I want to know!” Her world was caving in. From the horror of what she had discovered on Jonas’s computer, to the terror of being shot, to Phantom’s lies, everything was falling apart.
“No! No, that’s what I need you to understand. I haven’t been lying to you. But I couldn’t tell you about our undercover role here. Not until I had clearance to do so. It not only puts you in jeopardy, but it puts the entire team at risk.”
“The team? Are you telling me that all these men are SEALs? Does Anya know too?” She needed to focus on her breathing because she felt as though she could start hyperventilating at any moment.
“Yes. All the men are SEALs. Anya knows, but she doesn’t know the details about the missions we run. She knows the risks and dangers we face, and she’s prepared to be here for Stryker whenever he gets home from a mission. We were sent here on an assignment to work with the community and network to identify any threats from Mexico and Central and South America. That’s exactly what we’ve been doing.”
Elena thought she might be sick. Even her best friend had kept things secret from her. “Am I part of your cover story? That’s it, isn’t it? How could I be so blind?” She pushed herself away from him, stood, and began to pace the room. “You’ve been using me for your cover. I thought what we had was special. Hell, I fell in love with you. Or at least I fell in love with the man I thought you were. Do I really know you at all?”
Phantom shoved himself to his feet and rounded the bed to face her, gripping her shoulders. “You know me better than anyone else in this world. Everything between us has been real. Yes, I needed you to help me network and connect with the community, but that is as far as your involvement goes in this operation.”
Elena pushed his hands off her shoulders, sidestepping him. “I trusted you. Do you know how hard that was for me? I should have known better. I should have stayed as far away from you as possible.”
“Don’t push me away, Elena, please. Don’t discard what we have together.”
She whirled to face him. “What exactly do we have together, Phantom? A few laughs and some great sex? I fell in love with an illusion.”
He raked his hair back with both hands. “This is my nightmare come true. I’ve never felt about a woman the way I feel about you. I knew I was going to tell you the truth when we got back from our mission. And I was terrified this was exactly how you would react.”
“Your mission? Is that where you’ve been? Is that why you couldn’t tell me anything?”
“Yes. But you seem to have stumbled right into the heart of it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Our mission was to bring down a human trafficking ring operating out of Reynosa, Mexico. The mission failed, and somehow the traffickers managed to get the hostages to the United States. We didn’t know who the main point person was on this side of things, but it seems you found him for us.”
“Jonas.” Her trembles increased and she felt slightly light-headed. “He’s the one running things here in the United States.”
“Yes. And we need your help to bring him down. Will you just come out to the living room and talk to the team? We need to know all the details so we can stop him before it is too late.”
“Too late for what? The slave auction is still a few days away.”
“Yes, but if Jonas thinks his cover is b
lown, he might kill every last one of their hostages.”
Elena shuddered. “Yes. I’ll talk to the team. But we are far from finished with our discussion. I have a lot of questions.”
Chapter 22
“Elena, I know this is going to be incredibly hard on you, and I know you need your rest after everything you’ve been through. But we must act quickly in order to save these lives.” Stryker watched her intently from where he sat on one of the plush couches across from her.
She wrung her hands together nervously, then forced herself to stop, clasping her fingers together in her lap. “I need to know who you all are. Who you really are.”
“That’s a fair request. I’m the team leader. Several months ago our commanding officer asked me to take on this assignment and select the men who would be a part of this team. Phantom is one of our strategic and tactical experts, and is one of the first men I asked to join.”
Elena glanced over at Phantom who sat next to her, though she had made sure they weren’t touching. Her emotions and feelings were so convoluted she didn’t know how she would respond to his touch. “So you weren’t completely lying to me when you said you went into consulting for placement and strategy.”
A muscle in Phantom’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t say anything. He continued to stare at her with an intensity that was unnerving, though. Stryker cleared his throat. “I doubt Phantom truly lied to you about anything. He’s one of the most honest men I’ve ever worked with. But it is our duty to uphold our assignments above anything else. He couldn’t tell you who he really is until he had clearance from the admiral.”
Elena’s eyes widened and she looked back at Phantom. He had said something about clearance earlier, but she’d been so caught up in everything else she hadn’t latched onto the words. “Do you have clearance from your admiral? Or are we breaking all types of rules here?”
“I asked the admiral for permission on our drive back from Reynosa. I let him know how important you are to me, and that I wanted to open my life to you.”
She swallowed hard. She knew very little about the military, but enough to understand that it must have been a very serious conversation to convince the admiral to allow him to break their code of silence. Could it be that he felt things for her after all?
“Santo is our sniper, and Brusco works closely with Santo to identify targets and gather other information that happens fast when you’re on the ground in hostile territory. Snap is also a tactical leader. We rely heavily on him to map out extractions and plan infiltrations. Buzz is our communications and technology expert. He runs our satellite systems, computer databases—anything technical goes through Buzz. Lobo, as you know, is new to our group. He’s got a wide variety of expertise, especially in breaching enemies’ strongholds.”
“You aren’t really able to tell me much more than that, are you?” she asked softly, squeezing her hands together so tightly her knuckles began to turn white.
“It’s not only for our safety; it’s for yours as well,” Santo said solemnly. Elena wondered if they were all taught to say that since it so closely echoed what Phantom had said minutes earlier. “We don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger.”
“Can you tell us more about Jonas Franklin?” Phantom asked.
She nodded, unable to look at him directly. She was afraid if she did, she would start to cry. She didn’t know what to believe about their past several weeks together. She didn’t want to believe it had all been a lie, and her heart fiercely refused to think it could be. Her mind, on the other hand, warned her she was in grave danger of having her heart shattered into a million pieces that she’d never be able to pick up.
“Jonas has been a client of mine for several years. I took him on not long after I moved to Hebbronville after graduation. He’s always made me uncomfortable—always tried to invade my personal space and made unwelcomed advances. Today, after I had finished working his horse, I needed to find an invoice stored somewhere on his computer in the barn.”
“How did you know how to log on?” Buzz asked.
“He-he somehow knows about my love of puzzles. A few days ago, he showed me the logic puzzle he had created for the log-on, and I solved it quickly. He changed it—possibly so I wouldn’t find what I did today—but I figured out the answer and was able to get into his computer that way.”
“How does he know about your love of puzzles?” Phantom asked tensely.
“He claims there are people in town who will talk about my hobby from time to time. That’s all he would say. I think the man might be slightly obsessed with me.”
“Once you logged on, what did you find? Be as specific as possible if you can,” Santo encouraged her.
“A-a window popped up right away. It was a streaming video of women, children, and men, all stuffed into these two box trailers.”
Santo leaned forward. “Are you certain it was two? Could you see the license plate or any other information like that?”
Elena shook her head. “No, the camera never shifted that far. It stayed focused on those poor people. But I know for certain there were two trailers.” She frowned as a memory tickled at the back of her mind, then sat up straighter as it came to her. “There appeared to be a logo stamped on the sides, but it had faded over time. I’d know it if I saw it again.”
“Could you tell how many people there were?” Phantom asked.
“No. The trailers were crowded, though. The people looked filthy and abused. Most of them lacked any clothing at all, and the rest wore tattered cloth. There was a man speaking on the video. He had a thick accent—he must have been from Mexico or further south. He said they were about to cross the border and would arrive soon.”
“How long ago was this video shot? Could you tell?” Buzz had also leaned forward, resting his large forearms on his thighs.
“The time stamp indicated it was in the early hours this morning. If they were headed for Jonas’s, they would be here already.”
“What else did you discover?” Stryker asked.
“I closed the window and opened a folder, hoping to find the invoice and get out of the office as quickly as possible. The folder was labeled ‘work,’ and inside were so many pictures of people who were obviously intended to be slaves. They were kept in animal cages, and most were bound and gagged. Then there were these-these photos of people who had been killed. Jonas was in one of the photos, aiming his gun at a group of terrified young men and women. The next photo showed them all shot and dead.” She grabbed the bottle of water on the table next to her and drank heavily, trying to swallow down the bile that continued to rise in her throat every time she thought about what she had seen.
“Was that all you found?” Phantom asked.
“No. There were notes about some type of auction being held this weekend. I wasn’t able to read much before Jonas came into the barn.”
“Is that when you ran?” Brusco asked, joining the discussion.
“No. I knew I had to close down everything so it wouldn’t be obvious what I had been looking at. I was able to find the invoice, but not in enough time to dial the number before Jonas came in the office. I just picked up the phone and pretended to be on a call. He seemed to believe it.”
“And you left? If you closed all the windows you had open, what made you think he would come after you? Is it possible the man who shot at you doesn’t have any ties whatsoever to Franklin and what you found?” Snap asked.
Elena shook her head. “No, no. It isn’t a coincidence. Jonas is good with computers. I already told Phantom that. All he had to do was backtrack to see what I had been doing on the computer.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I just had this terrible feeling, and I couldn’t shake it. He, well, he tried to make a pass at me again before I left. He tries almost every time I see him, so it didn’t strike me as that unusual. It’s just that, well, this time he said that eventually I woul
d be his. He said it was just a matter of time.”
Stryker exchanged looks with Phantom. Elena didn’t know what they were trying to communicate to each other and wasn’t certain she wanted to know. Phantom returned his gaze to her and raised his hand toward her as if to comfort and encourage her, but stopped halfway in reach and dropped his hand back to his side.
Elena yanked her gaze away from him and stared down at her clasped hands. “I called Evie right away to see if she knew what we could do, and she wanted to go to Judge O’Connor, but I don’t know who we can trust. The man has many connections.”
Santo frowned “I know Judge O’Connor. Who is Evie, and how do you know her?”
“Evie is one of my closest friends. She, Anya, and I all went to A&M together. She serves as the assistant to Judge O’Connor.”
“And you don’t feel you can trust Judge O’Connor?” Santo raised an eyebrow.
Elena shook her head. “No. No. Evie told me that Jonas comes to Judge O’Connor’s office frequently, and she isn’t sure what their discussions are about. We just can’t take any chances.” She glanced down at her clenched hands, then looked up at Stryker. “What little I was able to read in that one document said that the so-called ‘shipment’ was coming from Reynosa. Phantom told me that is where you’ve been the last couple of days—in Reynosa to stop the human traffickers. They must be headed to Jonas’s ranch. The video I saw said that’s where they were going.”
“Did the man on the video specifically say they were headed to Jonas’s ranch?” Stryker asked.
Elena closed her eyes, her memory drifting back to the horrific video she had watched in dismay. Her eyes snapped open. “No. No, he just said he would reach him soon.”
“It’s possible there could be a specific location closer to San Antonio where they plan to meet and hold the hostages,” Lobo suggested.
“We need to bring the admiral up to speed on all this. I think we need to get with the sheriff and take down Jonas’s ranch.” Phantom looked around the room at the team. “Any other thoughts?”
A SEAL Always Wins Page 23