Finding the Way Back: A Stealth Ops Novel

by Sahin, Brittney

  “I’ve accepted for a long time we’d remain friends. Only friends. It was safer.”

  Safer?

  “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t contemplated various ways of killing every guy you’ve dated.” A smile slipped to his lips. “Now, tell me the truth, since I’m being so honest. Did you, or did you not, want to bang me in the back of the Suburban earlier?”

  A laugh bubbled up in her chest, and she let it free. “Knox, you’d been shot.”

  “Maybe the rush of emotions got you hot and bothered.”

  A fluttering sensation of goose bumps erupted over her skin.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” Before she knew it, he had her back to the wall, his palms over her shoulders.

  But he didn’t kiss her. He didn’t make a move.

  He simply stared at her. A touch of fear coloring his eyes. A battle of restraint she didn’t want him to win.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “Are you serious about the date thing?”

  His eyes dropped to her lips. “We have a lot to make up for. You gotta let me do this right, Addy. I owe you twenty years of right.”

  “You don’t owe me anything except for maybe your cock inside of me right now.”

  “Fuck,” he said as his mouth took hers.

  Owned her yet again.

  The sound of a palm hitting the wall had her eyes opening, and he pushed back. “Damn you,” he said. “But I’ll take my time if it kills me.” Emotion cut across his face, deep and hard. “You’re not just anyone. You’re the one. The one I thought I couldn’t have, and I plan on giving you the entire world.”

  Her heart may have exploded in her chest, but she couldn’t resist—“The whole thing, huh?”

  He lowered his hands to her face and held her there. “The whole fucking thing.” Then he kissed her again. Kissed her so hard she was going to lose her mind.

  “Okay,” she murmured against his mouth. “We’ll wait.” She lifted her hand between their now parted bodies. “Two dates, though.”

  “Two?”

  “And tonight counts as the first.”

  He angled his head, his brows pulling together.

  “It’s that or eight hundred and somewhere along the lines of never,” she repeated his earlier words.

  “You’re a tough negotiator.” But he’d give in because she could see that, like her, he was barely hanging on.

  “Now let me get dressed while you go get changed and then meet me in Jessica’s suite,” she rushed out before she changed her mind and dropped to her knees, bringing his pants with her.

  She lowered her eyes to the tie on the floor and crouched to grab it. She hadn’t noticed it fall. She pulled the material through the loose circle of her hand, maintaining eye contact with him.

  “Give me twenty minutes before you join us,” he said.

  “Why?” Her gaze fell to his hard-on as he took the tie from her.

  “Because I’m gonna go jerk off, so I don’t snap the arms off the chair in Jessica’s room, and so my balls don’t die.”

  “That’s all your fault.”

  He draped the tie around his neck. “I know.” He inhaled sharply. “Make that five minutes. It’s not gonna take me long at all.”

  Years of concealing her carnal thoughts now over, she leaned in and mouthed, “I’m really tight. Really, really tight.”

  Her back hit the wall again.

  Her arms above her head this time.

  “I hate you,” he murmured against her mouth before kissing her roughly.

  And when he tore his lips from hers, she added, “Go. If you’re not going to change your mind, I have a date with my vibrator.”

  He angled his head and took a quick step back, releasing her from her boxed-in position. “Since when do you own a vibrator? I know everything about you and—”

  “Apparently not everything.” Her lips rolled inward to suppress a grin when his phone rang.

  He grabbed his cell from his pocket. “It’s Jessica.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means no vibrator and my balls are gonna fall off.”

  Chapter Twenty

  He couldn’t stop staring at Adriana from across the room. Jessica and Luke had been taking turns talking. Something about Ike refusing to speak. But he barely heard a thing.

  His heart had been pumping too hard. Too fast.

  Adriana was all he could think about.

  That sexy mouth of hers. Those damn short shorts he’d finally been able to shift out of the way and touch the slickness between her thighs.

  He was thirty-seven and had wasted too many years denying himself, denying Adriana, of what they’d both apparently wanted for a long time. But he had to believe everything happened for a reason, or he’d lose his mind thinking about it.

  They didn’t need to find their way back to the night they’d first kissed. Because the relationship they’d built over the years was bedrock, solid, indestructible.

  In the SEALs, the plan was to track what you knew and could see to keep moving forward. And tonight, when he’d held her in his arms, what he saw was a future with her.

  And to know she felt the same had him on the edge of his control back in that room.

  At the very least, though, why hadn’t he stripped her naked and drank in the sight of her so he could get through the night?

  The only time he’d seen her naked had been years ago. He’d walked out of his bedroom to find her dancing naked in his living room. A heart-shaped ass swaying from side to side atop a pair of long legs. No tan lines, and he remembered losing his mind wondering if she tanned naked, and if so, did any guys see her? Hell, women, too. He didn’t want to share the sight of her with anyone.

  And as he observed her shake and shimmy, holding his remote like a mic and singing—he’d remembered, she wasn’t even his to look at.

  “Addy,” he’d said, finding his voice even though his cock strained against his navy blue shorts.

  “Dancing and singing naked. It’s so freeing. You want to try it?” She’d faced him, inviting him to view her tits. To let him see the evidence of the Brazilian bikini waxes she’d always mentioned getting as if forgetting he was a guy and not one of her girlfriends.

  He’d wanted to charge the room, to steal her into his arms and deposit her onto his bed and make love to her that night. But he was about to deploy, and he couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t have been the right time to test if they could have more than friendship.

  So instead, he’d insisted she sleep away her drunken state, and he’d scooped her into his arms and brought her to his bed, covered her up, and then left.

  “You okay, mate?” Liam snapped his fingers in front of Knox’s face, and he tucked the memory away where he’d kept it all those years. A giant don’t-fucking-look-into-that-box warning sign had been placed in front to prevent hard-ons and temptation.

  But he didn’t need that box or the warning anymore.

  He could burn the sign. Torch the box.

  New memories could be made every day.

  “What are we talking about?” He cleared his throat.

  Adriana shot him a shy look as she stood near Luke at the desk. She knew he was thinking dirty thoughts. But thank God, they were on the same page.

  “We’re discussing the Liberation Defense Force,” Liam said, probably knowing where Knox’s mind had gone. Everyone probably knew. Adriana’s cheeks would no doubt give it away. They were beet red.

  “Yeah, right.” Knox stood. “And who are they?”

  “You been daydreaming, buddy?” A.J. was on the couch across from him with a computer on his lap and a grin on his face. His ball cap was pulled low, so he tipped the brim to catch his eyes.

  “Tired.” Not a total lie.

  A.J.’s lips stretched, and Knox resisted the urge to throw something at him.

  “And what or who is the Liberation Defense Force?” He needed to focus. He and Adriana had time to figure everything out.

&n
bsp; “A private militia based in Texas and not far from Robert Lee. They have about a hundred acres of land there. From what we’ve gathered, it’s a small operation. Fifty or so men and women who’ve joined their so-called cause.” Luke pushed his black frames higher on his nose and scooted closer to the desk. “They have a website that explains their mission, and you need an account and password to access it.”

  “I got on to the server and found a list of accounts,” Jessica explained. “Chelsea and Ike are active members.”

  “Well, guess not Chelsea anymore,” Wyatt noted as he took Knox’s previous spot on the couch.

  “Chelsea became a member four months ago, shortly after her move from Colorado to Texas. And we think that’s how she met Ike, who then got her the job at the trucking company. He’s one of the founding members going back to twenty eighteen.”

  “Any chance Aaron was a member?” Knox asked.

  “An account was created for him in February, but it was deactivated two weeks later,” Jessica answered.

  Knox circled the desk and stood next to Adriana to share her view of the screen. His arm brushed against her body and that zap of electricity, the one she said only happened in books or romance movies—yeah, well, it was real, because he’d gotten a jolt right now. “And, uh, what’s their mission?” He swallowed and did his best to remain focused.

  “To form a private armed militia to protect themselves against tyrannical rule, but they’re pretty anti-government in general, from what I can tell,” Luke answered. “They believe the government can’t be trusted. Spying. Secret operations.”

  “Only two of their people actually have military training, and one of those was Ike, who failed out of BUD/S, so . . .” Jessica pushed away from the desk and stood. “It doesn’t feel too organized, and I’m honestly not sure how Ike even managed to hack the security cameras at the hotel. His background isn’t very impressive. Someone had to have walked him through the steps.”

  “Regardless, from what I can tell, most of these guys in the compound are harmless. It’s more like a club of guys hanging out and hunting,” Luke said.

  “So why the change? Why get into the business of assassinations?” Knox asked.

  “Money is always a motivator,” A.J. reminded him. “And maybe the group saw Aaron’s departure as betrayal, so they decided to use him as a fall guy.”

  “There’s been no communication between Ike and Aaron since Aaron moved to Charlotte. Well, not on their personal cell phones or by way of email,” Adriana announced, “but when we checked previous records, they talked on the phone regularly before he moved.”

  “He moved in February right after he quit the group, which can’t be a coincidence,” Asher said, sitting next to A.J.

  Jessica began pacing the room, walking back and forth between the two couches. Her mind was working. Wheels spinning. “Someone hired the militia to kill Bennett. Ike had the most experience, but they recruited Chelsea in hopes she’d have the best luck getting hired at the hotel.”

  “They had their pick of cities to choose from, though—my dad has a lot of scheduled events—I guess they settled on Charlotte because Aaron lived here. And if Ike knew Aaron well, he’d know about his PTSD, his weapons collection. Hell, even the type of woman the man liked.”

  “But why choose a fall guy that could link back to your group?” Liam scratched at his jaw. “If they were smart enough to come up with the tenth-floor distraction and evade the FBI the way they did, wouldn’t they realize the risk of setting up a man who had once been a member of their militia?”

  “Something doesn’t jive,” Jessica said. “I agree.”

  “Unless the Liberation group was the intended fall guy and they didn’t know it,” Luke commented.

  “Someone else is giving the orders, structuring the plan, and the militia are following along,” A.J. remarked. “Most likely promised a big payout.”

  “Would Ike kill Chelsea because he was told to?” Adriana asked. “Why would a militia turn on their own? Doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Unless Chelsea had a change of heart and wanted to confess,” Knox said to her, “and he killed her not to tie up loose ends but to cover his own ass.”

  “Anything is possible at this point,” Luke noted. “We really need to focus on finding Aaron to see what the hell he knows. Whoever is truly behind all of this will be working on another plan to assassinate Bennett.”

  “Well,” Adriana began, “my team didn’t find any abnormal funds in Ike’s or Chelsea’s accounts. So, I’m betting whoever is funding this thing has yet to pay, or never planned on it.”

  “Because whoever hired them had every intention of killing them all after the job was done,” Liam added.

  “What do we know about the leader of the militia? If someone got to him, I’d like to know how. I get money is a motivator, but there’s often more to it than that.” Knox brought his focus Luke’s way.

  “His name is Darius Hilton. He’s fifty-five. Has a wife. An eight-year-old daughter,” Luke read from the screen. “He quit his job at an oil company when his wife inherited a ranch in late twenty seventeen. They converted the ranch to the compound a year later. ATF sent a few drones up to check them out last year to make sure they weren’t trafficking arms, but they didn’t find anything.”

  “Why would this guy up and start a militia in the first place? Something or someone had to have been the trigger, right?” Knox asked as Jessica took a seat next to Asher.

  “Darius has been arrested a few times for participating in government protests that turned violent. He was very opposed to boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Luke said. “Burned a few flags before. And, well . . .”

  “What?” Knox crossed his arms.

  “His dad was in the military, and he died during the Persian Gulf War leaving his mom to raise him,” he responded.

  “Could be why he didn’t want more troops on the ground. He doesn’t trust the government to run the military, so he created his own militia,” A.J. proposed.

  “We need to try and talk to Darius,” Adriana said. “And get Ike to confess.”

  “If we approach Darius, we might spook him,” A.J. grumbled.

  “What if we send someone in as a possible recruit?” Knox suggested. “Get a look inside the compound. See what we can find out.”

  “That could work, and in the meantime, I can keep looking into things.” Jessica nodded in agreement.

  “It’s too risky for any of you to go,” Adriana said, worry coloring her tone. “We don’t know if anyone else from the militia is in Charlotte who may have gotten a look at your faces.”

  “She’s right,” Jessica replied.

  “Chris, Finn, and Roman can go with Harper,” Luke suggested.

  “I’d prefer to be with my team if they go,” Wyatt said while standing.

  “Your team?” Adriana’s brow furrowed.

  “We, uh, work in two teams. Like the old days,” Luke was quick to reply.

  The lie was still there. Hanging hard and heavy on a thin line, which was close to snapping. Damn it. He needed to tell her the truth.

  “I should go as well,” A.J. said. “But Wyatt and I can hang back and out of sight.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Luke focused back on the screen. “Fly in to Dallas. Get what you need from our site in Fort Worth. It’s a three- or four-hour drive to the compound from there.”

  “I’ll call Harper.” Jessica went into the connecting room, and Asher followed her.

  “Maybe I should head back to the office and look over everything again.” Adriana gripped the back of her neck. “Find out what else Sarah Reardon heard or may have seen.”

  “Didn’t Rodriguez demand you take the night off?” Knox raised a brow.

  “More like a firm request,” she said with a smile.

  “And when do you leave with my dad for Atlanta?” he asked.

  “Wheels up at three tomorrow. Before you suggest you come with us, I think it’s better if
you stay. You need to find Aaron and try and get Ike to talk. Secret Service won’t let anything happen to your parents.”

  She wrapped a hand over his injury-free arm. He’d forgotten about his wound and was surprised it hadn’t started bleeding again during their make-out session. Then again, most of his blood had been running south.

  “You can trust me,” she said softly.

  Trusting her had never been a problem. It was worrying about her that was going to do him in.

  Maybe Secret Service could protect his dad, but then who’d be protecting her?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Adriana rapped at the door, her heart pounding in time with the two knocks.

  When Knox swung the door open, she whispered a quick, “Hi.” She’d been unable to find her voice with his eyes locked onto her mouth as if he wanted to kiss her.

  She still couldn’t believe what had happened between them last night. Apparently, it took working together and a bullet for them both to admit the truth that’d been dangling above their heads like mistletoe, taunting them for years.

  His eyes moved north to hers, and he lightly shook his head as if scolding her for the bulge he was now sporting in his pants. And yeah, she noticed.

  His smile converted to an I-want-to-spank-you kind of smirk. Okay, so she’d made that part up, but the thought, even if inappropriate, made her hot. Everything about this man drove her wild, though, and she could finally scream the truth from the rooftops if she wanted.

  “How’s Sarah?” he asked but didn’t move out of the doorway yet, and it was probably because he was trying to “de-tent” his faded denim jeans.

  She’d visited Sarah at the hospital, took a detour to Ike’s room after—still no luck with him—then worked at the field office for a few hours before coming back to the hotel. She wanted a chance to see Knox before she flew to Atlanta.

  “She’s okay. The doctors gave her something yesterday to flush the drugs out of her system. She’ll probably be leaving the hospital this afternoon. She doesn’t like being there with Ike in the building.”

  “I don’t blame her.” He brushed her hair off her tense shoulders, studying her neck. And . . . he spotted the hickey he’d given her.