Fast Lane (SEAL Team Alpha Book 16)

by Zoe Dawson

  Framed in the illumination from the window, she stared at him, her expression stricken. Her total emotional honesty gave him the courage he needed to take the first steps to reconciliation. He wanted that with every fiber of his being.

  She held his gaze for a moment, then came back to the chair and sat down. Leaning forward, cupping his face in both her hands, she gave him a slow, comforting kiss. “That’s from your eyes, Ford. Not from where we all were standing.” Her breath caught, and she gripped his face tighter. “You and your team fought like wild men to get us back to safety. You did everything right and it still turned out wrong. As a SEAL…as a leader, you have to know it happens all the time.”

  He just felt he’d been let out of a dark, tight space, and he closed his eyes and hugged her hard, feeling as if he could take his first deep breath in three years. He pressed a kiss against her brow, then hugged her again. His chest expanding with a deep, uneven breath, he said, his voice gruff, “The best-laid plans.”

  She nodded. “You were amazing. Then, it all went wrong with us.”

  He dragged her out of the chair and onto his lap. Tightening his hold, he moved his mouth ever so softly against hers, the sweet scent of her filling his senses. Releasing an unsteady sigh. “That was my insecurity.” He closed his eyes and drew her deeper into his embrace, his chest tightening. The truth needed to come out. He would bare his soul if it would make a difference. “I was terrified of losing you, and I couldn’t see my way out of it. I was in the thick of my mental breakdown. I was demanding and unreasonable. I’m sorry, Solace. I never meant for us to fracture.”

  She closed her eyes and tears seeped from between her lashes. “It was a two-way street.” Her voice was thick. “I didn’t understand, and I was dealing with my own insecurities. Control is important…was important to me back then. I didn’t want to be like my mom and lose myself in my dad’s own needs. I wanted my needs to matter. I wanted to be strong enough to stand up for myself. I got angry when you wanted me out of Special Forces. I worked as hard as you had. It struck a terrible nerve, and I reacted.”

  Fast Lane struggled with the pain in his heart and the burning in his eyes. He dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “Did I give you the impression that your needs didn’t matter?”

  “No.” Solace released a shaky sigh, her tears cleansing him of that moment in time where he’d lost everything. “Again, that was my projection and, in our anger, and sorrow, we broke the cardinal rule and forgot our vows. We should have been there for each other no matter what, and in our despair, we stumbled, and we fell.”

  Cupping his hand against the angle of her jaw, he stroked her skin and brushed another soft kiss against her forehead. Smoothing down some wisps of hair, Fast Lane rested his head against hers. He stared off into space, then said, “So, what are we doing now, Solace?”

  “We’re picking up the pieces, reconnecting, Ford. We’re finding what we had together, and it was so good. Maybe we can find our way back. Maybe we can be…together again.” At his stunned silence, she swallowed hard, her eyes glazing with a dark pain. “Is that something you want to try?”

  His throat suddenly closed up on him, and he tightened his hold on her face, hugging her head against the curve of his shoulder. He had to wait for the tightness to ease. A kind of joy he never thought he would feel again washed through him like a tidal wave. “Fuck yeah,” he whispered, his voice husky with emotion.

  A sob caught in her throat, then a spill of laughter as she leaned into him. A memory filtered through his mind, a very special recollection, and he smiled a little, the details still crystal clear in his mind. He leaned back against the wall, bringing her with him. “Babe, do you remember the first time we met?”

  A warped smile appearing, she smirked. “When I thought you were an arrogant, egotistical SEAL operator, and I gave you a hard time.”

  “Yeah. You unequivocally told me that you would rather go out to dinner with a baboon who ate with his feet. We went back and forth with texts for what was it?”

  She laughed hard, throwing her head back. “Four months. I do remember that I couldn’t keep my hands off you once we started kissing and then fucked each other’s brains out.”

  “No regrets then?”

  “No. Never.”

  “You were a tough cookie,” he said. He pressed his thumb against her mouth, trying his damnedest to maintain the trace of a smile.

  Her voice was laced with amusement when she responded. “I didn’t stand a chance against all your charming badassery.”

  Fast Lane grinned and gave her hip a little pinch. “I wasn’t charming, babe. I was a desperate man.”

  “You were sufficiently pushy enough,” she said, her tone dry.

  He gave her another little pinch, and she caught his hand, dragging his arm around her waist. He drew her closer, brushing a soft, sensual kiss against her ear.

  A shiver coursed through her, and she turned her head toward his caress, her voice weak and breathless when she said, “God, it was so hot.”

  He’d never forget it. He had been gone for four months, and he hadn’t hesitated. As soon as he was on leave, he headed for Kentucky. He had parked in front of her house. He’d been running so high in overdrive, and she had been so sassy, they never even made it to her bed. It had been one hell of a first time. The memory turned his pulse thick and heavy, and he closed his eyes and trailed his mouth across her ear and down her neck, his breath suddenly erratic. Solace whispered his name, and everything receded.

  He had her back in his arms. This time he wasn’t going to fuck it up.

  13

  Max was feeling desperate and frustrated and angry. Shaking from adrenaline. He could still smell the blood—a strong metallic tinge, like copper—an odor he didn’t think he would ever forget. The horrors of war had a way of changing something inside of those who fought. Words simply can’t explain, and those who never experience it will never be able to truly grasp the pain. Emotions tore at him from the inside, trying to find their way out at the expense of his sanity. He would rather die than have any teammate go into battle without him. Yet the thought of having one of those men suffer horrible wounds or die in front of his eyes was killing him.

  More than ever, he needed Renata. He needed to hear her voice, reaffirm the life he had with her, soothe himself with her beautiful presence. But they were in communications blackout until Shea Sinclair, Makayla Ballentine, and…his sister, Dodger’s wife Anna Graham were notified. He couldn’t imagine how his sister was going to take the news that Dodger was critical with an abdominal wound. Even if he could talk to her, he wasn’t sure what he could say to help with her pain and anxiety. He could barely deal with his own. He might rib Oliver “Dodger” Graham, but he loved him like a brother. He was aware that the trauma that they had just gone through could get them all pulled from the field and sent home. That would leave them all feeling like crap for failing at their mission of either capturing or killing Zasha. One thing he knew for sure. That wasn’t going to happen. The target on her back was going to be a bullseye for one of them. There was no way she was getting away with her reign of terror. Her life was coming to an end. Soon, Zasha. For Hemingway, Pitbull, and Dodger. For Shea, Mak, and Anna. For all the sorrow and death you’ve wrought, may it come back to you tenfold. We’ll see you soon.

  Saint’s main concern wasn’t just for Dodger, Hemingway, and Pitbull, but for their LT. All of them were torn up inside over their buddies’ wounds, but Fast Lane was their leader, and leaders always seemed to have a way of blaming themselves. Fast Lane had made all the right decisions. His orders had saved their lives. Saint would make sure he understood that. Now if he could only apply that logic to himself. There was always one fear that lurked inside him whenever he went out with his teammates. He was the corpsman. He was responsible for their well-being. He feared losing any of his teammates and felt as Fast Lane probably did, that he had to bring them all home alive. He’d managed that with his three wounded
brothers, but logically, he knew it was an impossible burden to bear. He also wasn’t the only medic who had such fears. It was the nature of the beast, and that Hippocratic oath. But that oath didn’t stop the fury flaming inside him from them missing their chance at eliminating Zasha. He wouldn’t stop until he killed her or she killed him. There was no place she could hide.

  Dragon always did what was needed. Not once did he lose sleep over the people he killed behind his scope. He knew it took courage and dedication to look into a man’s eyes and pull the trigger ending his life. He’d done everything he could do during that battle. His only regret was not getting Zasha behind his scope. Each of them always thought they could be the difference. He knew he was. It wasn’t arrogance or ego. It simply was an unwavering belief in them and in himself. It was part of the internal drive that got him through training and those times when the odds were stacked against them. Like on that mountain where he’d almost lost three of his brothers.

  He was numb, shell-shocked, reeling with the enormity of what had happened. That helo ride with the sound of his brothers writhing in pain, the agony of their wounds beyond his ability to help or fix, would be memories that would forever haunt him. He was sure, as he looked around the silent room, he wasn’t the only one. There was only one burning need inside him. Hunt down Zasha Vasiliev and end her. All he craved was getting her fucking head behind his scope and the only thing that would satisfy him was pulling the trigger on that target.

  Professor was plagued by the sound of Hemingway grunting and in pain as each time his foot hit the rock face and he pushed off again. But he faced the pain without flinching. Professor couldn’t stop the guilt that engulfed him. His swim buddy, his brother, his teammate had thrown himself over him and protected him from the blast and the shrapnel. If he hadn’t, who knows what would have happened to him. During the fight, there hadn’t been time to react to the terror or even to recoil at the blood and gore. Now, it all sank in. There were only four of them left in the barracks, and the impact of their number made Professor settle on his bunk and drop his head into his hands. There was no preparation for this. Not from their BUD/S, their training, or the understanding that death was a real thing, mortality was real. Yet serving his country, being close to his brothers, fighting alongside them. All of it made him feel more alive than sitting in a fucking classroom using his big brain to figure out economic problems. Here he made a difference. He knew he had to go home and make sure his parents understood why he was doing this, even though there was no way he could make them understand how he felt now. No one could ever understand what it was like to have someone he cared deeply about that had become family risk his life to save him. There was nothing—not a goddamn thing—anyone who wasn’t in combat could grasp. The guilt punched him again, and the tears he had held back in the shower poured down his face as he sobbed unabashedly, releasing the tension in his gut. Then they were there all around him, squeezing his shoulder, the back of his neck, rubbing his back, and giving him the kind of comfort he could find nowhere else. There was only one thing he could find that fueled him, gave him strength and purpose. Find Zasha and make sure she never plagued his team again.

  Through his pain, he heard a knock on the door and footsteps as one of the guys went to answer.

  Dragon’s deep voice said, “Hello, Chaplain. Come in.”

  Chrysanthe Steele wrapped her arms around Mouse as she opened the door to the foyer. Vlastislav “Mouse” Mach was a MI6 watcher. He manned listening and intel gathering stations for the covert British agency. He was also a premier hacker. He had helped Dodger during the team’s time in Prague where they had discovered that Kelly Sparks was really Zasha Vasiliev, a rebel whose father had been killed by 2-Stroke and Dodger’s LT, Fast Lane.

  Now, all hell had broken loose. Zasha wanted Chry, her fiancé, 2-Stroke, Darko’s nephew, Alek, and the cousin who had taken him in dead. She was gunning for the whole team.

  That was how Preacher came to guard them, and the CIA had sent two of the most elite operatives—Karasu, whom Chry had gone to the Farm with, and her tall, dark and scary sidekick Volk.

  She’d heard vague things about the Shadowguard. When they had shown up, she’d contacted her boss, Kat Cross. She’d confirmed that it was another layer of defense as Zasha was hiring the most elite assassins on the planet.

  There was a feeling, a whiff of danger in the air, and Chry expected there was going to be another attempt on their lives. She and her friends would be ready.

  “Thank you for coming. I never wanted to put you in this kind of danger, but we have some seriously elite guards.”

  Mouse nodded, his mass of black curls dancing. His hair was even more unruly. His cobalt blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’m okay with it.” He leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “I’m packing heat.”

  She laughed softly. “You are such a nerd.”

  He joined in, then sobered. “I’ve already been doing some digging. Is there somewhere I can set up?”

  “Yes, in the dining room.” She led him across the expansive foyer through a doorway that opened up to the living area, the kitchen, and a beautiful formal dining room with a mahogany coffered ceiling, the lower half of the room matching the pattern.

  “Wow…this is some house.”

  She nodded and sat down at her own laptop station. He hooked a chair around his foot and pulled it out, then settled down into the seat.

  She turned on her laptop. “I’ve been combing communications from the CIA to outside sources, and I found some that correspond with the timeframes where we believed classified information was leaked. I’d like you to do your magic and see if you can narrow down who it could be coming from and to whom.”

  Mouse cracked his knuckles and pulled her laptop toward him. She knew the moment she lost his attention as he began to manipulate the data.

  She grabbed her phone to pass the time, thinking she could catch up on some of her emails. She worked steadily through some of it, then her heart took a little lurch. Something was missing. What was it?”

  Then she realized. It was the Navy’s network. She took a hard breath, trying not to jump to conclusions. As a CIA officer, she knew what a blackout meant. Someone was either dead or injured. Her love’s team had been going into a dangerous mission to get to Zasha to shut her down once and for all. Her gut clenched and she bit her lip.

  “I’ll be right back, Mouse,” she murmured. He gave her an absentminded nod, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

  She ran into Preacher who caught her by the arms. “Whoa there.” She looked up as she almost smacked into his hard-muscled chest. “You okay?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Yes. Do you know where 2-Stroke is?”

  “He’s in the gym playing basketball with Alek.”

  “Thanks,” she said as she headed away.

  Preacher called after her, “I want everyone in the living room for safety. Gather them up and meet me there in ten minutes.”

  She waved at him and walked briskly through the huge house until she came to the gym. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  Her beautiful, sleek, and powerful man was going for a layup. Alek working to stop him, but with 2-Stroke’s speed and agility, it was a done deal.

  “That was sick, man,” Alek said, and they high fived with wide grins.

  2-Stroke turned, and the smile melted from his face when he met her eyes. “Babe?” Her face crumpled, and he was at her side in seconds. “What is it?”

  She showed him her phone. “There’s a communications blackout.”

  His mouth flattened out, and he headed for the side of the gym where his athletic jacket lay in a heap. He reached down and pulled out his phone, tapped, and scrolled for a few seconds. He took an unsteady breath, and she watched him place a call. He waited for several minutes.

  His stricken eyes went to hers. “Fast Lane isn’t answering.”

  “Oh, God,” Chry said. “What happened?” Alek came
over and slipped his arm around her shoulders.

  “Nothing good,” 2-Stroke said, his voice subdued, his blue eyes filled with concern. “There’s nothing we can do until it’s lifted. We just have to wait.”

  She nodded and swallowed. “Preacher wants everyone in the living room. He sounded intense.”

  “Means he’s getting the same vibe I have been getting. Let’s go.”

  As soon as they got to the living room, Chry saw that Volk, Karasu, Mouse, who was still rapidly working on her laptop, and Alek’s cousin were there. As she ushered Alek into the room, 2-Stroke right behind her, the lights went out.

  “Get down!” Preacher shouted and dropped as the windows imploded. Glass sprayed, a second later two men dangling from ropes swung into the house from the roof.

  Preacher fired, taking one out. He dangled lifelessly from the nylon rope. Then glass shattered behind him, and six men came through the two sets of French doors like a battalion, riddling the place with bullets, never aiming.

  Preacher dove, hitting the floor hard and rolling behind a chair. He popped up and fired, clipping one in the thigh. In his line of vision, he saw Volk slumped against the wall, and he finished the job on the wounded merc. Four of them were already moving toward Alek, but Karasu came out of nowhere. Two of the mercs tapped off shots to keep Preacher busy, and he watched in slow motion as Karasu flipped so fast they couldn’t take aim. Then she flung knives in rapid motion and took all three of them down.

  Then she ran at the fourth as he worked to reload, and it was all over in a heartbeat as she used one of those deadly knives she kept on her sleek body. The other two were after him, knowing they had to eliminate the threats before killing their objectives.