A SEAL Never Quits

by Holly Castillo

  “Oh, thank you so much. But I really need to get back to the clinic. I’ve taken up too much of your hospitality as it is.”

  Stryker stepped toward her then, and the eyes she laid on him were cautious and wary. What did I say? What did I do? There’s no reason for her to look at me like this. “You need your rest,” he said firmly. “You don’t have to work today. Stay here and get the rest you need.”

  She smiled at him, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I have too much to do back at the clinic. And I feel rested, truly. It’s time for me to get out of your hair. I’m sorry I caused so much trouble as it is.”

  “You’ll hurt my feelings if you don’t eat my breakfast,” Snap said, doing his best to get her to stay.

  She laughed softly. “I think it takes more than that to hurt your feelings, Snap.” Her genuine smile appeared, the one that reached her eyes as she looked around the room at each one of them. “Thank y’all for your kindness. I’ll be back to check on the cattle soon and will be sure to stop in and say hello.”

  “We’re going to hold you to that,” Brusco said. He was frowning, his eyes on Stryker.

  She nodded and turned to go, and Stryker followed her to the door. “I’ll walk you to your truck,” he said softly.

  “Oh, that really isn’t necessary,” she said in the same hushed tone as his. “Thank you, for taking care of me.”

  “Anya, this morning—”

  “Was incredible.” She stood on tiptoe and placed a kiss on his cheek. “You made it wonderful for me, and I won’t ever forget that.”

  “Anya…”

  “I’ll be back in a few days to check on the calves and new mamas. Call me if you need me before then.”

  Stop her. Stop her from leaving you. Let her know just how special this morning was for you as well. “Be careful, Anya.”

  She smiled again, and again it didn’t reach her eyes. He felt as if he had broken something delicate and precious, and no matter what he did, he wouldn’t be able to put it back together. And yet he didn’t know what he had done wrong.

  Maybe I should have reassured her, said sweet nothings in her ear—something to let her know I care. And I do care. I just can’t give her more than that.

  He couldn’t think of anything else to say before she turned and left. He stood there at the open door and watched until her truck disappeared around the dirt road.

  I’m a fucking idiot.

  Chapter 10

  Anya drove home and started working on paperwork immediately, eating a bowl of cereal, and diving headlong into numbers and documents. As she sat alone, remembering every moment with Stryker and wondering if he would call her, she realized she had to talk to Elena. Otherwise, she’d be left examining the previous night over and over again and getting nowhere.

  Elena answered her phone on the third ring. “Hi, girlie,” she yawned.

  “Sorry to call so early. I didn’t look at the clock. What are you doing?” Anya shoved a spoonful of cereal in her mouth as she waited for her friend to respond.

  “I’m attempting to sleep in on a Sunday morning. What about you?”

  “Working on a spreadsheet while eating a bowl of cereal. And no, I do not have ice in my cereal like some weirdos I know.”

  “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Now, I know you didn’t call me to talk about a stupid spreadsheet and the way I like my cereal. What’s going on?”

  “I think I’m falling in love with Stryker.”

  Elena’s bark of laughter hurt Anya’s ear and made her head pound. “I could have told you that was coming. Is that it? That’s what made you call me so early in the day?”

  Anya remembered the feeling of Stryker’s strong arms around her and groaned, putting her head in her hands. “Oh, Elena, I think I really messed up this time.”

  Elena fell silent for several seconds. “Oh, crap,” she said softly. “What happened?”

  “I think I’m falling in love with him, and he doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “What would make you think that? Anya, you are a prize! He’d be the luckiest guy in the world to have your love.”

  “I don’t think he feels that way. He seemed really uncomfortable around me this morning.”

  “This morning? What were you doing with him… Wait, isn’t that what you wanted? I’m confused.”

  “I thought it was what I wanted. Hell, who am I kidding? It’s what I wanted. But I also wanted there to be something special about it. As soon as it was over…it was awkward.” Anya swallowed hard. It had been the best and worst morning of her life.

  “So, you want me to take revenge on him? I can go out there and slash every tire on every one of their trucks.”

  Anya couldn’t help but laugh as she pictured tiny Elena slashing tires. “You probably wouldn’t even be able to puncture them.”

  “I’ll give it my best try.”

  Anya could tell Elena was serious, which only made her laugh harder. “No, no, you can’t. I should have known a man like him wouldn’t want to cuddle afterwards.” But they had lain in bliss together until she had said they’d “made love.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Elena made a sound on the phone, and Anya pictured her blowing her curly hair out of her face. “I’m still ticked off at Stryker for making you feel this way,” she grumbled.

  “You warned me not to let him break my heart.”

  “No, I told you I would hunt him down if he did. Now, you aren’t letting me. Not fair.”

  “Oh, Elena, what would I do without you?”

  “Find a friend who really could slash their tires?”

  Anya laughed again. “There’s no better friend than you. Now, I’m going to get back to work. Thank you, Elena.”

  “Don’t work too hard. Sounds like you could use some rest.”

  Anya felt better after talking to Elena and powered through her day, finishing most of her invoices and accounting before tumbling into bed, past the point of exhaustion. She was able to get two full hours of sleep before the first call came in from an anxious rancher. She was ready for calving season to be over.

  * * *

  Las Lomitas Café was quickly becoming the guys’ favorite place to go in the mornings when they had to head to town for supplies. With incredible coffee and some of the best Mexican food Stryker had ever tasted, it also gave them a portal to the locals. The café always seemed busy, with ranchers coming and going, and even hunters leasing out some of the ranch land to catch exotic game like gazelles, buffalo, zebras, or their native wild turkey.

  Ritz Feed Store was their usual destination, especially now that they needed a little extra feed and mineral blocks for the new mama heifers. Usually Snap joined them and asked to be dropped off at Lowe’s Market so he could stock up on provisions. None of them had known of Snap’s passion for cooking, and none of them were complaining.

  “Been a bit busy the last couple of weeks,” Snap said quietly, his cup of coffee hovering at his lips so no one would be able to tell what he’d said.

  “Been noticing that,” Stryker commented, also sipping at his coffee.

  “Think they’re all local?”

  “More than likely,” Phantom said. With his back to the room, he didn’t have to worry about covering his lips to mask his words. “I think there are people here who are curious about us. We stick out like sore thumbs if you haven’t noticed.”

  Stryker nodded, his eyes scanning the room quickly. No one was looking in their direction except a young Latina woman sitting catty-corner to them, who flashed him a bright smile when his eyes passed over her. He sighed heavily, thinking suddenly of Anya’s beautiful eyes.

  “Why don’t you ask her on a date?” Phantom said to Snap, his face deadpan.

  “Fuck off,” Snap grumbled, and both Phantom and Stryker chuckled. It was obvious the wo
man had caught Snap’s attention. But he was just as loyal to the SEALs as the rest of them, if not more so, and had decided not to have a relationship with a woman for years. In fact, Stryker couldn’t remember him being with a woman the entire time he had known him, which was well over six years.

  But Stryker quickly turned serious. “I’d like to know more about these people. I don’t want us to be caught unawares.”

  “Already on it,” Phantom said, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll make sure we know more about them than they do about us.”

  * * *

  Stryker appeared at Anya’s clinic the day after he had introduced her to pleasure she had never known possible. She was overwhelmed, but just seeing him had brought lightness to her heart and a smile to her face. He smiled back at her, hesitantly, almost nervously. She tried to restrain her reaction to him. More than anything, she wanted him to gather her in his arms and kiss her, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  He removed his cowboy hat as soon as he stepped through the door and raked a hand through his dark hair. She’d just finished with a dog that needed its vaccines and had been telling the customer goodbye. A horse had been brought in that she needed to check for potential colic next. She’d already sedated it and had it in a stanchion, so there was no chance it would roll and twist its intestines, as horses with colic were known to do.

  She needed to tend to the horse, but she had a few moments, and she would give them to Stryker in a heartbeat. She came from around the counter and approached him slowly, almost desperate in her need to touch and be touched.

  “I came to ask you something.”

  She paused at his words, and her smile faltered. Did he have business to conduct with her? Or did he want to discuss their personal life? “Come to the back,” she said softly, glancing at her clients in the waiting room. If he had come to talk about their personal life, she didn’t want the rest of the town speaking about it.

  He followed her into the back room where she treated the smaller animals, and she turned to face him, holding her breath. She couldn’t hold back her smile, even though she didn’t know his feelings. “How are you? I mean—how is the heifer and the new calf? There aren’t any complications, are there?”

  A genuine smile appeared on his face, and excitement coursed through her veins. “The heifer and calf are fine. Thanks to you. How are you feeling? I wanted to check on you yesterday, but I thought… I wanted to give you some room to breathe.”

  “I’m fine. A mild headache, but I’m sure it will pass by tonight or tomorrow.”

  “You’re working too hard.” He took a step closer to her, and her heart raced in her chest. Yes. Come closer. Hold me. Kiss me. Let me know it was more than a simple conquest for you.

  She shrugged. “Calving season will be over soon. Then I’ll be able to rest.”

  He drew a deep breath. “I wanted to ask—I came to ask if you have any time available next Wednesday?”

  It was only Monday. Next Wednesday was nine days away. “I’ll have to check my schedule, but I don’t think it will be a problem. What do you need?”

  “You. Time with you. I don’t need you to come out to the ranch. I want to pick you up here next Wednesday evening and take you out for dinner. We can even go to another town if you don’t want to be seen with me. I totally understand the small-town gossip.”

  Her heart had lodged in her throat, making it difficult to breathe. He was asking her on a date. She could barely contain her excitement. “Yes,” she managed to say. “Yes, I’d love to go to dinner with you.”

  “Wednesday night. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty. Will that work for you?”

  All she could do was nod. Her mouth had gone dry. His lips had lifted into a grin, and he leaned forward, giving her a quick but firm kiss. “Try to rest, bella. I want us to enjoy our time together on our date.”

  He smiled and pressed one more quick kiss to her lips before leaving her to the rest of her work. She leaned against the counter and sighed contentedly. He had come to see her in person, which itself was far more than she had hoped for, though she had certainly wished for it. Next Wednesday couldn’t arrive soon enough.

  * * *

  The Scorpions were relatively new to the drug cartel world, only on the scene for the last five years, but they already had a well-formed structure, with oversight into various areas of production, distribution, and selling. The halcones, or falcons as they were called, were the eyes and ears on the streets. Even though they were the key points in gathering information for the cartels, they seemed invisible and next to impossible to find.

  They were the lowest rank within a cartel, but from the intel the team had been given, there were at least seventy-five falcons in operation for the Scorpions, which could make it difficult for the team to break in. Finding them was only the beginning of their problems. They then had to make it convincing that they were interested in becoming part of the cartel and weren’t part of the policia.

  It was late in the afternoon, and they had been poring over the information for a couple of hours already. Sitting around the conference room table inside their communications room, they were all tired and tense. The more they dug into the life of the Scorpions, the more repulsed they were. They wouldn’t just be bringing down a drug cartel. They would be bringing down a pack of wild beasts.

  The sicarios, or hitmen, were next in the pecking order, and there were more than thirty hitmen in operation. Then came the lugartenientes, or lieutenants, the second highest in command in a cartel. The fifteen lieutenants supervised the hitmen and falcons within their own territory and could even carry out low-profile executions as they saw necessary. All of them ultimately answered to the capos. From the intel they had, there was only one capo in the Scorpions, and he made sure they all understood the direction he wanted them to go.

  “How can this cartel be so young and yet already function at the level of the Gulf Cartel?” Brusco said with disgust, staring at some of the gruesome photos that had accompanied their intel. The Gulf Cartel was the oldest cartel in all of Mexico, with roots going back to bootlegging during America’s Prohibition era.

  “They have to have backing from someone very wealthy.” Santo sighed. “You don’t just start off as a cartel and immediately do the things they’re doing. They have to have financiers. They need pathways for laundering the money. This usually takes years upon years to set up. From what I’m reading here, these guys were up and swinging their dicks around before they were even a full year vested.”

  “Santo is right. Something isn’t adding up. We need to dig into everything we can before we head into Mexico.” Stryker’s frown deepened the more his mind processed the enormity of the task they were taking on.

  “That’s what I’m trying to say, Stryker. We may go in there and remove a few top lieutenants and maybe even get the capo, but they’ll all be replaced within forty-eight hours. If our mission is really to destroy this cartel, we have to cut them off at the knees. We need to take their infrastructure down with them.” Santo was also frowning.

  “Let’s keep in mind that bringing down the cartel is not our only objective,” Phantom spoke up from the corner of the table. Phantom wasn’t much of a talker, so when he had something to say, they all paid attention.

  “That’s where I play my role,” Buzz said, reviewing data uploaded from the admiral. “Am I the only one who finds it odd that there’s a communications hub at their headquarters sending out encrypted data at an alarming rate?”

  “We know the cartels have been using technology for a long time. The corrupt corporations have been buying in for years now. It was only a matter of time before they started using the dark web to outsource some of the work their men didn’t want to mess with.” Unlike the rest of the team staring at their laptops, Santo was deftly sharpening his KA-BAR fighting knife.

  “But isn’t that the point of
having sicarios? They will do the dirty work no one else will touch.” Buzz frowned.

  “Only up to a certain point. With the war on drugs being waged by the Mexican police and military, they’ve had to go somewhere else to take out people in stations higher up.”

  “So, you think this encrypted data is for hired assassins and that type of shit?” Brusco asked Santo.

  Santo paused his sharpening and looked at all the men seated around the table. “No. I think there is something much deeper going on here, and I think some key information has been left out of our intel. When was the last time we received intel that had redacted lines?” He grabbed Brusco’s computer and turned it to face everyone, gesturing to the screen. There were several blocks blacked out so they couldn’t read the information. “Anyone want to tell me why we’re being sent into a war with one hand tied behind our back? Which means we may be in for a difficult fight. I agree with Stryker—we need to do some more recon of our own.”

  “If I’m hearing you right, it sounds like you’re doubting who we can trust on both sides of the border.” Stryker was tense. The same thoughts had crossed his mind when he’d first reviewed the information, but he’d thought he was just being extra paranoid.

  “I always doubt who I can trust,” Phantom said, talking around a toothpick. “Don’t you?”

  “Not when it comes to the five of you. You’re my brothers in every way that counts. I know you’ll have my back the same as I’ll have yours.”

  “Hoo-yah!” came the resounding reply around the table.

  “So, boss, what are you going to do about the info being redacted?” Phantom twirled the toothpick on his tongue.

  “Let me worry about that,” Stryker replied, his tone shutting down further discussion on that topic.

  Buzz cleared his throat. “Now, with that out of the way, how do you propose we go after these sons of bitches?”

  “We start making them hurt where it counts the most. We target their supply line. We do some major infrastructure damage, and then, when the timing is right, we approach a lieutenant. We’ll be able to do most of that remotely. Buzz, I need you to start finding out their sources.”