by Zoe Dawson
Every time Chloe cried or laughed, and he saw his sister in her, he damn near broke down. He was training his ass off to operate, and he couldn’t sit in his cozy house any longer while God knew what happened to Paige.
He’d made the decision to travel to Brazil and look for her. Do whatever it took to bring her home.
“You look pissed, dirty, sweaty and damn defiant,” Pitbull said.
Hemingway crossed his arms over his chest and looked out the window. By the tone of Pitbull’s voice, he was in for some major ass chewing.
“Atty!” Pitbull said. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
He met Pitbull’s eyes in the rearview and said, “I was thinking my sister is in danger, and we’ve not heard one word about her from anyone. A Navy SEAL’s wife! I took matters into my own hands.”
The woman’s shoulders tightened. He didn’t know her, but he was sure she was trying to help his sister. They both were. He just couldn’t accept that there had been no word. The anxiety and worry had taken over.
She reached over and clasped Pitbull’s arm and murmured, “Yelling at him isn’t helping.”
“Yelling? You think this is yelling?” He glanced up in the mirror again and Hemingway’s gut clenched. “LT isn’t going to be happy.”
He didn’t know Lieutenant Ford “Fast Lane” Nixon well, but what he did know was that he wasn’t as lenient as Ruckus and kept his operators tight and locked down. He looked like a boxer, had the body of a weightlifter, and the legendary reputation of chewing men up and spitting them out. He did not suffer fools easily.
It’s a good thing Hemingway was no fool.
When the vehicle stopped, he opened the door and followed them inside the gray municipal looking building. It was close to downtown and he could see the river in the distance. Once inside, Pitbull went up three flights of stairs to a room that had couches, a large screen TV, a refrigerator, and a sink along with a few tables and chairs.
Rolling his shoulders in weariness and the exertion of running from and being taken down by Pitbull, Hemingway started to sink into one of the couches, a dull headache pulling at the backs of his eyes.
He was so damned tired he could barely see straight. Probably because he hadn’t been sleeping well. His gut had kept pumping out anger-induced adrenaline; the image of his sister being hurt and tortured was unbearable.
It was no wonder he had a headache. He’d spent most of the day slamming around with his teeth clenched, wishing he could find and neutralize the sons of bitches who had kidnapped his sister.
He was just about to relax when the door opened violently; it slammed against the plaster so hard, some of it crumbled to the floor. A moving wall of SEALs entered with Fast Lane in the lead. He barreled over to the couch and grabbed Hemingway by his shirt front and whirled him around, backing him up and pressing him into the wall.
“LT,” Pitbull began, but the guy’s commanding officer shot him a look that told him he wasn’t in a cajoling mood.
His attention back on Hemingway, Fast Lane said, “Why did I find you in the fucking middle of my op!”
His shock wearing off, Hemingway grabbed Fast Lane’s wrists to break his hold and push him away, then realized he couldn’t. It would only make this bad situation worse. “I was meeting someone to get information about my sister!”
“The dead guy in the warehouse? That was your meet?”
“Yeah. I found him like that just before you arrived. He was your guy too?”
“I’m asking the questions here. You’re answering them,” he seethed through gritted teeth. “How the hell did you get to the dead guy?”
“Through the black web. I put out a message I needed information, and I would pay for it. He contacted me and set up the meeting. He knew who took Paige.”
“What would you have done if whoever took your sister and killed that guy had stuck around? How do you think your family would have taken that, genius?”
“I was careful. I’m not an idiot.”
“Not from where I’m standing.” Fast Lane let him go with a disgusted look on his face. He paced in front of Hemingway.
“You cannot be here. It’s covert, and it’s fucking classified.” He stopped pacing and ran his hand over his face, his features impassive and unreadable. “You’re going to collect your shit, settle your bill, and we’re going to escort you to the airport and put your ass on a plane back to San Diego.”
“No,” Hemingway said, knowing that his career was probably toast, his chance to go to BUD/S already jeopardized when he decided to fly down to Brazil to save his sister. A soft murmur passed through the SEALs, some of them shaking their heads. Others had their mouths open in shock. It was clear to Hemingway no one brooked Fast Lane’s authority.
“What did I just hear, sailor?” Fast Lane’s brows rose, and he paced over and pulled at his collar. His tone was ominously quiet when he spoke. “You see these fucking bars? It gives me the authority to tell your reckless ass just what you’re going to do.”
Hemingway lifted his chin, the muscles in his gut hardening. Images flashed through his head, Paige helping him with his homework, tying his tie for his prom, her prom missed because he’d had the flu, juggling college and teenagers, yelling at him when he was stupid, giving him advice on girls and being a man, praising him, raising him with all the love, generosity, and sacrifice she had in her beautiful heart. The only reason he was fit to serve as a SEAL was because she had sacrificed her own childhood to raise her three brothers.
If he turned away from this, he would regret it for the rest of his life. If anything happened to her, it would haunt him for eternity. He’d never be able to look Ashe in the eyes.
“I’m not going, and if you do force me, I’ll come back. She’s my sister.” They were simple words, but there was a wealth of meaning in each one.
His mouth compressed and his eyes narrowed, Fast Lane said, “Do you realize that you will lose everything by involving yourself in this situation?”
“Everything?” Hemingway asked, his voice raw and strained. The fear and the pain broke loose in him. His vision blurred, and he leaned toward the man who could make or break him in this moment. Somehow, he had to make him understand. Somehow. His throat got so cramped that his jaws ached, and he took a deep, unsteady breath. “Do you think I care about that?”
His voice broke completely, and he had to wait for the nearly suffocating swell of emotion to pass.
“My sister raised me when our mother left.” He took a fortifying breath and said fiercely, “She gave up everything! Do you think I would do any less for her? I don’t give a damn what you say. I’m not leaving her here alone to face whoever took her.”
Mak stood there as the past rushed back at her. Hemingway was in the same position she’d been in two years ago. She had listened and hadn’t acted then, and she’d lost everything that had mattered.
“She’s not alone,” Mak said just as fiercely, her tone almost defensive. She hadn’t meant for it to come out that way, but her overreaction was tied to the guilt and agony she still harbored. It was as if everything was hitting her at once, sending her whole body into shock. The emotional jolt that Hemingway had given her with his heartfelt and defiant words touched a raw nerve in her so deep, she could barely catch her breath. She had been that way too and she had relented, and her husband and daughter had died right before her eyes all because of her and her commitment to finding, fighting, and stopping terror in any form.
Her dedication had cost her family their lives, and she had to live with that every day. She’d lost her job because she’d gone against the Shadow Wolves and gone out on her own to try to save her family. But instead, she’d been captured, tortured, and her baby…God…her baby.
Carlos Pena, that sadistic bastard, was the monster who hid in the back of her mind and lunged out of the muddy darkness of her memories to sabotage her. It gave her such comfort to know he was dead, and it was her bullet that had ended him. But it hurt. It alw
ays hurt, but she rarely panicked. She never panicked over reality and what she had to do for her job. Her past was never going to go away, not completely, not ever.
Pena wasn’t the only monster to hide in the dark recesses of her mind—there was regret, guilt, and sorrow. All those monsters had only grown, devouring her for two years.
But she knew how to survive: just keep all the monsters at bay by never talking about them, never acknowledging them, and never giving in to them.
She didn’t want to remember the horror of that desperate day. Her heart went out to Hemingway and his family. She understood his reasons, and by opening that door, she let the monsters out.
“Lieutenant, may I have a word with you?” She was reacting to emotion, and it felt strange, like a limb that had been numb and was now getting the feeling back…God help her. She cared about Paige Wilder and Chris Vargas. Somehow, she’d let them both in, and her loyalty to them as NCIS agents paled in comparison to her love for both of them as friends. She’d missed it because she’d been so caught up in keeping her distance. They had slipped in under the radar just like Kai had. Just like Pitbull had.
She moved to the farthest reaches of the room and lowered her voice, shaking inside and hating it, close to tears after watching Hemingway argue so emphatically for his sister’s life.
“I understand that you’re in charge of your men, but in this case, may I make a suggestion?” She wasn’t normally this polite. Normally she would tell Fast Lane exactly what he should do, but that was before she’d worked with SEALs. He deserved her respect. The anger he displayed only just recently to Hemingway was a result of a leader who cared about the men he led. That control was given to him by the Navy, and she had no doubt in her mind that he’d earned every bit of it.
“What’s on your mind?” His tone was clipped when he responded. But she understood who he was…a lot like her. She could only imagine what he’d seen in his life…how much blood and death.
“We would be better off keeping Hemingway here, with us.” He opened his mouth and she cut him off. “What would you prefer? Him gunslinging around the Triple Frontier as a loose cannon, taking you and your men off the mission to track him down? Or here under our watchful eyes?” She paused for effect. “Don’t you agree? Here we can keep an eye on him. Although, I will say, he’s been quite resourceful.”
“He has,” Fast Lane agreed with a grudging respect. He rubbed the back of his neck and motioned Pitbull over. “What do you think about keeping him here? The brass will have my balls, if they find out, but we could keep it on the downlow.”
“I suggested it,” Mak said, so desperately aware of Pitbull and his scrutiny. He saw more than she wanted him too. But after having kissed him three times and remembering the irresistible feeling of him comforting her, she couldn’t seem to shake how much she wanted his arms around her again, the delicious weight of him, and that delectable mouth yet again.
“It would keep him close and safer.” Pitbull nodded his head and folded his arms, watching her with an oddly intent look. She stared at him, then looked back at Fast Lane, her mind not connecting with anything.
Fast Lane jerked his chin toward Hemingway. “He’s a tough kid, plenty of grit. I’d hate to see a promising career get tanked.”
“He is a top-notch SEAL candidate. It would be a serious loss to have him not even get a chance to go to BUD/S,” Pitbull said. “He’s Kid Chaos’s brother-in-law. We owe it to our brother to keep his family safe. Hoo-yah.”
There it was. What she had heard about, read about—their brotherhood bond, and she felt it to the very deepest part of her soul for Paige and Chris. She was going to bring them home no matter what happened.
Fast Lane sighed, rubbing at his beard stubble. He walked back over to Hemingway, who stiffened as if he was ready for a fight.
“Who here objects to Hemingway staying?”
“I have a brother, and I get it. No objections,” 2-Stroke said quietly, his deep, raspy voice full of affection.
Mad Max leaned against the wall, his deep blue eyes flashing. “I have five sisters and I’d kill anyone with my bare hands if they touched a hair on their heads.” He crouched down. “But Jugs outranks me. What do you say, buddy?” Jugs barked, then trotted over to the couch where he had left his favorite Kong. He picked it up and trotted over to Hemingway, nudging his hand. Max laughed softly. “Jugs is okay with it.”
“Any of your sisters dating, mate?” Dodger asked, weathering Max’s narrowed eyes without flinching. The guys chuckled, relieving some of the strain in the room. “I have a brother and a sister. Let him stay.”
“Shoot, I have three sisters and a slew of cousins in West Virginia. I don’t know how I’d act if anything happened to them. He has my vote,” Saint said, his accent thick, then he grinned. “You play Call of Duty?”
Hemingway smiled softly. “I dabble.”
“He dabbles,” Dragon mocked. “We’ll see about that. After thinking I lost my brother to violence and finding out he didn’t die, yeah, I say hoo-yah. Let him stay.”
Fast Lane set his hands on his hips. “Looks like you stay, but get this, kid. I say what goes. All these guys say what goes. If you step out of line, you’re going back to the States…period.”
“Copy that,” Hemingway said.
Fast Lane grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook him. “I don’t have siblings. I’m an only child, but I have a grandpa, and if anyone ever threatened him or hurt him, they’d never find the body.
“Now hit the showers all of you and get some food.” He looked over at Dragon. “Get the kid some water and show him his rack, the showers, then get some grub. We brief in an hour.”
“Got you covered, LT,” Dragon said. “C’mon, Hemingway, let’s go get your stuff and get you settled.”
Hemingway hesitated before he followed Dragon, turning to give Mak a dark and unreadable look, then he tipped his head in silent acknowledgment. She didn’t know why but hope for Paige and Chris’s safe recovery intensified.
Fighting against the new wave of feelings jamming up in her chest, Mak looked away, right into Pitbull’s eyes, fresh tears stinging. His face was expressionless, the steadiness in his eyes making her think of a hunter’s eyes, the angles of his face accented in the overhead lights. He was as still as night.
Her chest felt painfully full. Afraid she was about to cry, she struggled with the tightness pressing down in her chest. The inscrutable expression and the starkness in his eyes made her heart contract. He recognized her pain, and she saw in him his terrible aloneness. Abruptly looking away, she stared unseeingly toward the windows, feeling that she’d stumbled onto something so special with him, it was making her system overload.
“I should go fill Kai in,” she murmured. She went to go past him, but he curled his hand around her arm, stopping her in her tracks. God, when had he become so important to her that she couldn’t shrug him off and get the job done?
“Do you need…to talk?”
She shook her head, rejecting the mere thought of spilling all her secrets to this man who would swallow her whole if she let him. “I’m fine.”
“Fine is what people say when they want other people to think they’re okay.”
She turned to look at him, into his very intriguing face, a face that touched her in the most profound way. It was full of character, an inner strength, and also revealed invulnerability that had been carved by sacrifice, hard work, and hard living. The face of a man who had done what was necessary when it was necessary, a man whose sensuous mouth had been hardened by grim determination.
And there was a bond that she had forged in their brief acquaintance that she had rarely felt for another human being. Her keen awareness of him as a man had an immobilizing effect on her, and she was conscious of nothing except the warmth of his touch and his unwavering gaze.
She found the willpower to shrug off his hand and forced herself to smile. “I’ll see you later at the briefing,” she said. Their ey
es clashed, and for a split second his guard dropped, and Mak experienced a sudden rousing rush that set her heart hammering wildly against her ribs. Beneath that electric undercurrent of sexual chemistry there was another, less pleasant feeling.
She wanted very much to get closer to this man in every way she could.
And with all the monsters she had to deal with, that one was the scariest of all.
She headed for the command center, but Kai wasn’t there. She asked one of the techs, and he told her she was hopped up on adrenaline and had gone to the second-floor balcony to work off some of that rush.
Mak found her hitting the bag with a vengeance, her hands covered with black fingerless gloves and her feet with black sleeves, the edge of the tape showing near where the gloves were velcroed at her wrist.
She was dripping with sweat, her long red hair pulled back. She hit the bag with a flurry of punches followed with several kicks until Mak cleared her throat. Kai turned, saw her, and smiled. “Hey, how did it go?”
“We’re going to brief in an hour but suffice it to say we got unexpected surprises.” Mak filled Kai in, the sympathy on her face making Mak’s throat constrict all over again.
“Poor guy. I have two sisters, and I can’t imagine. Sounds like your hot SEAL knows how to do a takedown.”
“He’s not my hot SEAL,” Mak said, but her voice was weak.
“What? I know you think he’s hot. C’mon, all those guys are crazy gorgeous, ripped, and strut around like the military rock stars they are.”
“I thought you were all about business.” Mak had no idea why Kai was as dedicated to NCIS as she was, but she suspected Kai had as rocky a past as Mak. It was an unspoken rule that neither of them talked about it.
“I’m not against taking care of my physical needs once in a while. Pitbull fits the bill. That’s for sure. Thanks for filling me in, but I’d better hit the showers and get something to eat. I think we’re going to get exhausted again with another grueling shift.”