Storm

by Alana Albertson

  Storm

  Se7en Deadly SEALs: Episode 10

  Alana Albertson

  Bolero Books

  Storm

  The Se7en Deadly SEALs Series

  Episode Ten

  Copyright © 2019 by Alana Albertson

  * * *

  Cover Design: Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

  www.gobookcoverdesign.com

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  * * *

  Bolero Books LLC

  11956 Bernardo Plaza Dr. #510

  San Diego, CA 92128

  Bolero Books

  * * *

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For my four angel babies. Forever in my heart.

  In the souls of people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage

  John Steinbeck

  Contents

  1. Ash

  2. Mia

  3. Mitch

  4. Ash

  5. Mia

  About the Author

  Also by Alana Albertson

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Ash

  JOAQUÍN CRUZ COULD BE INNOCENT.

  Joaqúin Cruz could be innocent.

  I repeated those words over and over again in my head, trying to understand the ramifications of the possibility of Joaquín being not guilty. It would throw everything into question. If he hadn’t raped Mia, had he really killed Tiffany? The party had been at Paul’s house. Had Paul killed Tiffany? Had Paul raped Mia? Had Paul kidnapped Julián? And if so, then why, why on God’s earth, would Joaquín cover for that monster? What did Paul have over Joaquín? If Paul had done all these horrific crimes, did he really kill himself? I never thought he killed himself—and these crimes would put his suicide ruling even more into doubt.

  There had to be a rational explanation for this.

  Mia gripped my arm, her hand shaking. “Ash. Don’t you dare lie to me right now. What did he say? Did Joaquín leave the base that night? Tell me the truth.”

  I studied Mia’s face. A beautiful, flawless, surgically enhanced face. She had changed her life, her body, her face to find out the truth about Joaquín. She deserved to know everything I did.

  But I didn’t want to tell her the truth.

  I couldn’t tell her the truth because I didn’t even know what was true and what was false. I had spent the last few years of my life convinced Joaquín was guilty, convinced Joaquín was behind all of the shadiness of the Se7en Deadly SEALs. And that Mia was involved in covering up his crimes. That she was somehow in cahoots with him and not the victim she pretended to be. I’d always felt that I was close, so close, to figuring out the depths of the crimes of the Se7en Deadly SEALs. But if Joaquín was innocent, if Paul was the one who’d raped Mia, then that meant I didn’t have a clue what was going on. And even if it was Paul who had committed the crimes that Joaquín had taken the fall for, there was still trouble lurking around the SEALs. I believed someone killed Paul. And, though I hadn’t shared my suspicions to Mitch, Grant, or Mia, I believed there was a chance that there was a possibility that Sienna’s disappearance was linked to these shady SEALs.

  If Joaquín was innocent, I was horrible at my job. And worse yet, that I had let a killer go and had convicted the wrong man.

  Some NCIS agent I was. I could kick myself for not checking the base logs when the Joaquín Cruz case was under investigation. That fatal error was on me. I had no one to blame but myself.

  Grant had been right when he’d accused me of being a shitty agent. Maybe if I had cracked the code of the Se7en Deadly SEALs back during the Cruz case, then Sienna would be safe now. I wasn’t sure how these crimes were linked, but I just knew they were.

  I didn’t want to share my suspicions with Mia. To have her cling to the hope that her brother was innocent. She was my partner, and, for once, I needed to push my suspicions about her past behavior aside and be a true friend.

  “Look, Mia. Meeks said the records indicated that Joaquín hadn’t left the base, but you know your brother. He’s smart. He could have doctored the logs.” I didn’t believe a word I was saying, but at the moment, I had no other answers to give.

  “Doctored the logs?! Do you realize how fucking ridiculous that sounds?”

  I nodded rapidly. “Yes. But it is in the realm of possibilities.”

  Mia shot me a dirty glare. “Who left that night?”

  A lump grew in my throat. “Mitch. And Paul.”

  Mia’s eyelashes fluttered, and her lips began to tremble. Within minutes, tears came rushing down her face. She held her knees close to her chest, in the fetal position, rocking back and forth like a baby. And I actually wanted to comfort her.

  I reached my hand out to her, but she pushed it away.

  “Ashley, what does this mean? If Joaquín is innocent, it makes no sense that he would lie and take the blame for something he didn’t do. Especially something so horrific as raping his sister and kidnapping my son! He told me to my face he had raped me. He told me that he’d been in love with me all his life. I refused to believe it, but I had finally accepted it. Why would he admit he rap—”

  She couldn’t even complete her sentence. Her jaw shut. “I need to go to him. I need to ask him why he lied. Now. We can’t even interview Paul because he’s dead!”

  Paul. If Joaquín hadn’t left the base, then Paul could most definitely have raped Mia. And April could’ve covered for him. Implicating Joaquín to Mitch. But why?

  “With Paul dead, April in a coma, and Joaquín lying, we may never know the truth. I’m so sorry, Mia. Do you think you can get Joaquín to tell you the truth?”

  She shook her head. “No. Clearly not. He has his own agenda. An agenda worth confessing to a horrific crime that he didn’t commit and ruining the relationship with the only family member he has left. Why would he come clean now?”

  Well, he wouldn’t. “We can figure this out, Mia. We’re smart.”

  “Now. I need to nip this in the bud now. I need to go to him. I want to confront him and see his face when he lies to me again.”

  “And what will that accomplish? This is of utmost importance, and I vow to move heaven and earth to help you figure if he lied and get answers. But Joaquín isn’t going anywhere. There’s no rush. Sienna is missing. We need to go to April’s house and focus on finding her.”

  “No. I can’t wait. And he could know something about Sienna. He’s going to have to come clean if we have proof of the base logs.”

  “Mia, he will deny it like he’s already done. Either one of two scenarios is true: he either raped you, kidnapped you
r son, murdered a stripper, kidnapped you, and then tried to rape you again at gunpoint, or this entire time he confessed to crimes he didn’t commit. He told you he was guilty. Why would he do that? He has given up his career, he’s stuck in San Quentin, for Christ sakes. There is no sane, rational reason why he would be innocent. The only thing that makes sense is that he’s guilty, and maybe he used Paul’s ID.” But I knew there would be trail if he had done that. At some point, Joaquín’s ID would have to have been used to get off base.

  But I couldn’t focus on that now. I needed to focus on Sienna.

  “Well, we could figure it out. Grant was injured that night, so he wouldn’t know. Mitch had already left. Maybe another member of the Team would be able to tell us.”

  She was correct, but there was a fatal flaw to her logic. Some of the SEALs could verify who was there and who wasn’t, but they couldn’t be trusted to tell me the truth.

  “Mia, I could interview the rest of the Team, but who knows if they’ll tell me the truth. These men cover for each other, no matter what. You know that better than anyone. I know that you were snooping around at The Pickled Frog, and they shut you out. That is why you became Ksenya, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But this time it would be different. Who would they be covering for? Paul is dead. If Joaquín was innocent, they should want him free. Right?”

  She had a point. But nothing was a certainty with these men.

  We really needed to get going. Cars whizzed by on the freeway.

  “Mia, I know you are upset. But let’s get to Vegas, and we can talk about this more on the way.”

  She clutched my hand. “I have to go to Joaquín. He’s my brother.” She looked out the window, and her voice dropped. “You don’t even know what it’s been like for me the past couple years, believing that my brother, the one person who loved me my entire life, the one person who was always there for me, even more so than Grant, could possibly have done this to me. I can’t tell you how many times I’d tried to will myself to believe that he did this. Tried to find some proof or reason to understand why.”

  My heart broke for her. And for the first time since I had met her, I started to truly believe everything she was saying.

  But I had to remember one thing always—Mia was an actress.

  I kept my suspicions to myself. “Go on.”

  “Joaquín had told me this story about our father screaming at him because my dad found Joaquín looking at me, but that didn’t ring true. I’d never seen any inappropriate behavior, and that’s not how I recall that fight. Papa yelled at him about the friends he was keeping and later told me that Joaquín had been bullied at school and joined the Navy. It had nothing to do with me. I have to go to him now.”

  I grabbed Mia’s hand and looked at her. “I will help you figure this out. We can’t go see Joaquin right now. He confessed to this crime. Right now, we need to focus on Sienna. She’s only a little girl. We need to find her. We need to go straight to Las Vegas. We have to find out who this ‘grandpa’ is. Please, Mia. I need you here with me. I need you fully present. Think about how much you wanted to find Julián. Think of Sienna. Think of Mitch.”

  Mitch. Saying his name brought back a flood of emotions. My relationship with Mitch had never made any sense. We’d gone from mortal enemies to fuck buddies to friends aligned on the same mission.

  Finally, Mia exhaled and looked out into the vast desert landscape. We were around two hundred miles outside of Vegas. The dry desert heat blew into the car.

  “Fine, Ash. You’re right. Finding Sienna is urgent. I will do anything possible for her. But you have to promise me that you will do everything possible to find out what really happened with Joaquín. Let me tell you this—I know my brother. If he had lied and taken the fall for a crime he didn’t commit, he would have a damn good reason to do so. He would not do this because he was afraid of blackmail. He would not do this because he was afraid of torture. Joaquín was afraid of nothing. No one. The only reason he would do this was to save someone he loved. Someone who was in mortal danger.”

  A raw ache filled my belly. Mia was surrounded by men who completely loved her. Would anyone ever love me the way these men loved Mia? I knew I pushed everyone away. But was I capable of giving and receiving love like Mia was? Grant would sacrifice everything to save her. And, if Joaquín was really taking the fall for this rape to protect Mia from something, Joaquín had proven his devotion to her forever. But she didn’t even realize what she had just said.

  If Joaquín was innocent, and I still had my doubts, he was protecting Mia from something far more horrific than being raped by her own brother. Protecting Julián from a fate worse than being raised by Lorraine, Tiffany’s mother.

  What was Joaquín hiding? And why?

  I placed my hand over hers. “Mia, if he is lying, then that is exactly what he did.”

  Her face contorted. “What do you mean?”

  “You just said he wouldn’t take the fall for anything. He wasn’t afraid of anyone. If he lied, he did it to save the only person he truly loved.”

  Mia pursed her lips. “And that person is me.”

  2

  Mia

  I WAS TOO UPSET TO focus on the road. I jumped out of the driver’s seat and tossed Ash the keys.

  “You’re letting me drive Grant’s beloved truck?”

  I nodded. “Yup. I’m too distracted to drive. Just don’t tell Grant I let you drive his baby.” Grant loved this hunk of steel. It had a state-of-the-art stereo system, huge rimmed tires, and a custom paint job. But Grant was such an amazing father and husband, he deserved to be spoiled.

  Ashley swapped seats with me. I reclined my seat back in the truck. I needed to take a deep breath and try to process this new information about Joaquín.

  Ash drove through the desert, the warm air blowing hot through the car. I felt as if I was almost suffocating, but it wasn’t from the heat.

  The pressure was internal.

  Joaquín.

  Could it have been a lie? Could I be right?

  And why, Dios mío, why would he have ruined his life and confessed to such an awful crime? A crime against nature. We may not be biological siblings, but we were brother and sister. Blood did not determine family. My first memory was of Joaquín. And I had only realized recently that we were not biologically related. It didn’t matter to me when I found out. It didn’t matter to me now. No matter what, Joaquín would always be my only sibling.

  And what on earth did it mean if he had lied? Ashley said it must have been to protect me. And I believed her. But who was he protecting me from? Joaquín was now a convicted felon doing hard time. He spent his days in a cold, dank cell, instead of living life up as a Navy SEAL in Coronado. And he never complained.

  I couldn’t even in my wildest imagination what would make him lie.

  But I would find out the truth.

  I had failed to free him once. This time, I would stop at nothing until I figured out what happened on the night I was raped.

  A hunger woke inside of me. One that had been dead since the day he had confessed. I would do anything.

  Anything to find out the truth.

  Anything to set him free.

  But first, I needed to focus on Sienna.

  Sweet Sienna. She was a firecracker and definitely had Mitch’s stubborn streak. Julián and Sienna were very good friends, and I watched her almost every time she visited Mitch. I prayed that wherever she was, whoever she was with wasn’t harming her. Maybe that person took her to protect her.

  Like Lorraine had protected Julián.

  Lorraine.

  What had ever happened to her? Last I heard, she had pleaded out charges and was released. NCIS and the FBI had interviewed her. But had they asked the right questions? What else did she know?

  Ash was mostly silent on the drive. My anxiety was at an all-time high. I had to call Grant.

  He picked up on the first ring.

  “Hey.” His sexy voice always s
oothed my soul.

  “Hey, any news on Sienna?” It was a stupid question. I knew damn fucking well that if there had been any news on Sienna, Grant would’ve already texted me.

  “None. Are you in Vegas yet?”

  “No.” I paused. Grant was my husband. The father of our son. After everything we had been through together in the last few years, I should be honest with him. I needed to be honest with him.

  Even so, something held me back.

  Grant hadn’t been there the night I had been raped. That was a fact—the man had been in a hospital. He had no way of knowing if Joaquín had left or Paul had framed him.

  Only one person put Joaquín at the scene of the crime. And that person was April.

  And unfortunately for me, she was in a coma.

  I inhaled a deep breath. This was not a suspicion I intended to keep from him. Not at all. But I didn’t want to tell him in the car. I wanted to tell him in person.

  “How’s Mitch?”

  “He’s a fucking basket case as expected.”

  My heart ached for Mitch. After I had accused Mitch of raping me, I had learned to see Mitch in a new light. He had been open and honest with me. And he stuck by me and protected me even when Grant was still treating me like shit. Mitch may have once been a jackass—hell, he was still a jackass—but deep down, he was a good man. A loyal friend. A great SEAL. And a loving dad.

  “Yeah, I bet. The not knowing is the worst part. When I thought my baby had died, I was destroyed, but in time, I had made peace with his death. But once I found out he was alive, and Lorraine had vanished with him, I learned a depth of pain that I had never experienced before. The pain of not knowing where he was, if he was safe if he was being hurt. So many horrific thoughts had raced through my head. I just can’t believe this is happening to Mitch also.”