Carnal (Se7en Deadly SEALs Book 4)

by Alana Albertson

  “Nah, man. I mean he was a bit taller than me, ran out fast as fuck covering his face. Probably an athlete. It was a fucking frat house.”

  Who else was at the party? April? Dara? Someone had to have seen him.

  “Did you find April? Did she see anything?”

  “No, that’s the thing. She wasn’t there. She was home by the time I stumbled in after I had Shane clean me up back on base and give me stitches. She said some guy gave her a ride. I bet. Fucking Jody.”

  “Some friend. She just left Mia there that night? Drugged? Did you even tell her what happened to Mia?”

  “No, of course not. April and I were barely speaking, and I didn’t want her to think I’d raped Mia. It was just so fucked up. I wanted to tell you, but you would’ve killed me. I told Joaquín, and he agreed with me that I shouldn’t tell you.”

  Joaquín knew? A raw gnawing feeling grew in my throat. Who else knew? “You fucking told Joaquín and not me? I was her man.”

  “Yeah, her man who was laid up in a damn hospital bed almost dead. He is her brother; I figured he would take care of her while you couldn’t. Like I said, by the time I figured you should know, she was gone. I didn’t feel like shoving more salt in the wound.”

  “You’re a fucking cocksucker.” I turned around and started my jog back toward base. I knew he had a point, but I couldn’t see past myself right now. I had to find April and Dara. Talk to them and find out who else was at the party. Maybe they saw someone and just didn’t tell Mitch.

  Mitch caught up to me, refusing to shut the fuck up. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t my story to tell, and I didn’t know she was pregnant until the other night. I just thought she left you. Joaquín said—”

  “Fuck Joaquín. This wasn’t about him. She’s his sister not his woman. She was mine! You saw me drinking myself into oblivion at The Pickled Frog night after night.”

  “I’m not a damn mind reader, Grant. I did what I thought was best. How was I supposed to know it wasn’t the same old song and dance, huh? There is a reason SEALs have a ninety percent divorce rate. I finally accepted that and let April go. I’ll never see my kids. Some other man will raise them, and there is nothing I can fucking do about it. It fucking kills me. The Teams own us. We’re deployed nine months out of the year, and even when we’re home, we’re training. You were stupid enough back then to think you could have a wife and kids while on the Team, but that was never going to happen . . . it never happens.”

  “Fuck you, man.” It was another fucking thing he was right about. Either Mitch was turning into the rational one of the group or I needed to pull my head out of my ass. After Mia had left me in the hospital, she cut off all contact with me. If I had known what happened . . . if she had told me the truth back then, I would have gone after her. I would have found out she was pregnant and married her, regardless of that whether that baby was mine. But what then? Would we have ended up just like Mitch and April or any one of the other countless couples that the SEALs drove apart? Maybe. In a twisted way, I understood why Mitch never told me. Joaquín should have said something, though, and that was unforgivable.

  “What are you going to do about Mia?” Mitch asked, daring to break the pregnant silence between us. “I mean, I know we’ve stayed out of his case on orders of the command, but we owe it to her to at least try to figure out what the fuck happened to Tiffany.”

  “I’m going to do what I can to find out what happened, but fuck her. She’s been using me and fucking around with you. Once this is all said and done, I’m done with her too.” I said the words, but I knew I didn’t believe them. I still hadn’t considered what the fuck was going on with Julián or what she knew about him. If she didn’t know her son could possibly be alive, and if that little boy was mine . . . the possibilities were endless.

  “I don’t understand what she expects us to do. It’s not as if we are cops. We can’t just go walking into the station and demand to see the case files.”

  “You’re right. We can’t. I’d been over it a hundred times, and all I can come up with is there were drugs at the party that night and no one said shit to the cops about them. So that’s where we should start. Who’s your dealer? Is there any connection there? To Tiffany?”

  Mitch was silent for a beat. “I don’t think so. I’ll check it out.”

  “No. Don’t fucking ‘I’ll check it out’ to me. Tell me.”

  There was another beat of silence, and I stopped to turn to him.

  “Mitch.”

  “Fine. His name is Rafael, he’s actually one of Joaquín’s buddies. I’ve never had a problem with him and seriously doubt he was involved.”

  “Joaquín introduced you? I thought he never got high.” Where did Joaquín meet this guy? I’d known that motherfucker for years, and I’d never heard the name Rafael.

  Mitch laughed. “No, he was just smart enough never to get high around you because he thought you’d tell his sister. Joaquín used harder than I did.”

  Joaquín did drugs? Fuck. I guess I never knew him at all. There had been a rumor going around a few years back that Joaquín was caught up in some drug smuggling, but he used to laugh when I brought it up, and I never believed it because I never saw him use drugs. I hadn’t really thought about it until the other night when Autumn mentioned that Tiffany said Julián’s dad was a drug dealer. I’d racked my brain trying to think of any other connection between Joaquín and Tiffany, but the only thing I could think of was that Tiffany had brought the drugs to the party. It was thin, but it was all I had right now.

  “Yeah? Real smart. He just ended up in jail for murder instead of drugs. How did the two of you never get caught?”

  “I hook Paul up. He hooks me up.”

  Oh, Jesus. Paul was in on this too? Paul was the polar opposite of Mitch. He wasn’t a bad boy, a womanizer, or an asshole. Granted he was cocky as hell, but he had every right to be. Paul was a ring knocker, an Annapolis graduate, and a second-generation SEAL officer. As the commander of the squad, if something shady was going on, he had to know about it.

  Plus, the party had been at his in-laws’ house.

  No wonder they always pissed clean.

  “When can I meet Rafael?”

  “I’ll invite him to The Pickled Frog tonight. I doubt he’ll talk to you, though. Maybe he’ll hit on Ksenya.”

  Great. Just what I needed. Another shady motherfucker sniffing around her.

  “Fine. I’ll make sure she shows up to work tonight, but she doesn’t need to know who he is. With our luck, she’ll try to drug him and interrogate him at gunpoint, too. She wants answers, but I don’t want her anywhere near this. In fact, I don’t want you calling her, either.”

  He laughed. “I thought you wanted to be done with her? I mean fuck it man, she’s fucking hot. Always has been, but now man, she’s perfection. I know we aren’t supposed to take a Team guy’s girl, but if you want nothing to do with her, I’ll gladly take her off your hands. Technically, she’s a new woman now, and she’s just my type. Hot, dangerous, and crazy as fuck.”

  Fuck this dude. I got up in his face and stared him down. “Stay the fuck away from her or I’ll kill you. It’ll be over when I say it’s over. I fucking hate her right now, but she’ll always be my girl.”

  I left him in the sand and ran past him, letting the rhythm of the waves guide me. I had hoped that confronting Mia would help resolve this mess, but talking to Mitch made me realize I had just begun to scratch the surface of all the secrets and lies that surrounded my Team.

  5

  Mia

  I woke the next morning and, for a few minutes, thought that last night had been an incredible dream. It only lasted a second before the haunting realization that last night was no dream settled into my stomach. It wasn’t a wonderful dream; it was the beginning of a nightmare.

  At least I didn’t need to pretend to Grant anymore. I fought the urge to dash out to the drug store and buy hair dye. Going back to my natural colo
r or ripping out my hair extensions would not bring back the real me. One glance at my surgically enhanced figure was all the reminder I needed for how I had permanently and irrevocably changed my body. I would be able to drop the act, but the old physical me was gone forever.

  “Grant?” I slid out of bed and listened for any noise in the house, but there was only Hero, who was barking at the door.

  “So, you’re the one who gave me up, buddy?” I rubbed the scruff of his neck and then let him outside. Grant had made coffee, and next to the pot, there was a folded piece of paper. Scribbled in all-too-familiar handwriting was his dictation for me to stay in the house. He hadn’t even signed it. I sighed and dropped it back to the counter. It had been fewer than twelve hours since he found out, so I’d play by the rules.

  For now.

  I had so much to do. I needed to see Joaquín, alone, and I needed to pick up a new phone in case Daniel was tracking mine. I needed to check if my former Russian teacher, Roman, received the second set of DNA results comparing my hair to Julián’s. I needed to get back on track. I felt like I’d lost my focus, narrowing in on Mitch and pursuing him because I thought he raped me.

  The last night I had gone to The Pickled Frog as Mia, Kyle told me that he, Pat, Vic, and Joe left the party before the strippers arrived, which was what was in the police reports. That didn’t mean they were being honest, though. There were a number of reasons they would have lied to the police, not the least of which was because there was a dead stripper. I had taken their words as truth, but maybe I should verify it. Autumn would know, or hell, so would Grant.

  I still needed to look into Paul. The party had been at his in-laws’ place. Did they still live there? Had they sold it?

  Hero finished his business, so I opened the door for him and made myself coffee. I was supposed to work the night shift at The Pickled Frog. Until then, I would take a much-needed break. I turned on the television and settled for some old sitcom.

  I needed to laugh.

  Two shows and three coffees later, my phone rang.

  “You’re not mad at me?” Autumn said in lieu of a greeting, and I forced myself to switch to Ksenya’s accent.

  “No, I am not mad with you. Why it is you think that?”

  “Oh. It’s silly really. I just hadn’t heard from you since we went to Tiff’s mom’s house, and I didn’t see you at Diamond, so I thought you were mad at me because I had coffee with Grant. I wasn’t trying to hook up with him, I swear.”

  When the fuck did she have coffee with Grant? “I have not worked at Diamond yet. I do not know if I am going to. It is no big deal about Grant. He told to me.” The lie was bitter on my tongue.

  “Oh, thank God. I didn’t think you were, but I wanted to make sure. You’re so nice to me and all.”

  God, I hated myself. She was way too nice to be wrapped up in this mess. I wanted to drop the accent and come out to her, but I couldn’t. Yet.

  “I am friends together with you. I work tonight at The Pickled Frog. You can meet me, and I buy for you drink if you like?” I would also get to see her interact with the other SEALs. Maybe I could learn something.

  “Oh, that sounds fun. I’m off tonight. Maybe Grant can introduce me to one of his hot friends.”

  “The bar will be full of the SEALs.”

  “Okay, great. I’ll come by at eight. Did you guys find out anything about Julián? When I showed Grant a picture of him, he said he looked like he could be Joaquín’s kid.”

  Oh my God. What the fuck!

  “No, nothing yet. Did Tiffany ever mention his father?”

  “Barely. Just that he was a drug dealer.”

  I gulped and a hint of sadness hit my core. I would have known if Joaquín ever used drugs. Roman had already told me that the DNA didn’t match Joaquín and that running them against mine wasn’t likely to give us different results. I had to accept that I was grasping at straws, hoping to find a connection when there wasn’t one. At least I wasn’t the only one who had been suspicious about who Julián’s father was. Grant obviously considered it too. We were probably both just trying to eliminate Joaquín as a suspect. Even I could understand that if Joaquín found out she had hidden his kid from him, he could’ve snapped.

  “That is very bad. I see you tonight, yes?”

  “Yes. I’m excited. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  I hung up the phone with a dozen different emotions twisted inside me. As usual, I had more questions than answers, but until I heard back from Roman, I would hold out the faint hope that the little boy who had eyes that looked like my father’s could somehow be related to me and could fill the hole in my heart that had been ripped open when my own son died.

  6

  Grant

  I checked my phone again to see if the DNA results of my hair against Julián’s straw had come in—nothing. I still couldn’t believe I had even submitted the damn DNA test, but there were too many coincidences for me to ignore. Julián was probably conceived around the time I was in the hospital, Mia gave birth to a son she thought was dead, and the kid looked just like us. But it made more sense that he was Joaquín and Tiffany’s son. That would have meant Joaquín met her around the time we came back from deployment, which was within the realm of possibilities. The rational part of my brain knew that there were hundreds of kids born a day, and the odds that Tiffany’s son was really my and Mia’s son were astronomically slim. I felt like a fool for even considering it. But astronomically slim didn’t mean nonexistent, and as long as there was a small chance, then I would keep asking questions. It absolutely slayed me that I could have a living child out there and not know about it.

  I left the base and headed back to my apartment, finding Mia still there sitting on my sofa. She was wearing nothing but one of my old T-shirts and was watching some trashy television show. For a second, it almost seemed normal—like a flashback to another time when Grant and Mia were solid, unbreakable. But one glance at her implants, her platinum hair, and her trout pout, shattered that image.

  “Hey.” She brightened when she saw me.

  “So, I talked to Mitch. Seems you omitted parts from your story about why you told him who you were. You pointed a gun at his head? You thought he raped you?”

  She cast a downward glance. “Yeah, it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t think he raped me anymore. I kind of . . . lost it.”

  Understatement of the year. “No shit. Do you know how betrayed I feel? You not only didn’t tell me you were raped, but my friends knew and didn’t tell me either? Joaquín knew?”

  Her jaw dropped. “What are you talking about? Joaquín doesn’t know. I never told him. I swear!”

  “Yeah, but Mitch told him. I’m just trying to figure out why Joaquín never told me.”

  She shook her head rapidly. “No, you must be wrong. Joaquín doesn’t know. He couldn’t have. If he knew, he would’ve asked me about it. He would have fucking killed the guy.”

  “Why are you so shocked? Do you really think there were never secrets between you two? You didn’t tell him you were raped—that was a secret. You didn’t tell him you were pregnant—that was another. It makes me wonder how many more secrets and lies you’re hiding.”

  Her voice grew shaky and her bottom lip trembled as she spoke, “How could I possibly tell you that I’d been raped when you were recovering in the hospital? You almost died, Grant.”

  I took a deep breath and sat next to her, caressed her hair, and inhaled her scent. I wanted to hold her and tell her that being raped wasn’t her fault and it didn’t change the way I felt about her. “That’s the thing. It was never your problem; it was our problem. You were mine.”

  I leaned in and kissed her like I used to. Her lips were sweet and soft, and I could almost taste her love for me in them. Emotion flooded my body, and I had to break the kiss before I lost my resolve to stay away from her. Sex was one thing. But loving kisses with Mia were too intimate, too painful.

  I wasn’t her boyfriend any m
ore. I refused to comfort her or allow her to soothe me. She’d lost that right. I stood up and put some distance between us.

  “We’re meeting Mitch at The Pickled Frog tonight.”

  Her brow furrowed, and she let out a deep sigh, obviously upset that I had closed the door on whatever was almost happening between us. “Okay. Does Mitch have any leads about Tiffany’s murder?”

  “Maybe.” I paused, refusing to tell her that he was bringing Joaquín’s dealer. She was such a loose cannon at this point that she would probably blab to Joaquín. And Mia wasn’t aware that Joaquín did drugs. Hell, I wasn’t aware until tonight.

  “Maybe?” She stood up and walked over to me. “What are you keeping from me? I’m trying to free him. I ruined my life to help him. What do you know?”

  “I know that Mitch is meeting us at Picked Frog tonight, and that’s all you need to know. Now, go take a shower and get the fuck out of my clothes.”

  I leashed up Hero and left her standing alone in my apartment. It had only been fifteen minutes since the last time I checked my phone, but I did again for the DNA results. Where were they? I wanted answers so I could make a plan.

  A plan to get the boy I thought was my son back.

  7

  Mia

  Grant drove me to my place so I could get the rest of my clothes and move out. The lady I was living with was out of town, so I wrote her a letter giving my thirty-day notice, and Grant left her cash for another thirty days of rent. I was almost sad leaving my private apartment of secrets behind for my new prison with Grant as my personal guard, but I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t look back when I left.

  I was too consumed by Grant’s confession that Joaquín had known this whole time that I had been raped. I couldn’t think of a single reason why he wouldn’t say anything to me. Had he been waiting for me to open up to him? Was that what set us down the path of keeping things from each other?