I knew I couldn’t save the world and I wasn’t trying to. Right now, if I could save one girl from the horrors of being mistreated for the rest of her life, I’d be happy. If I could rescue all the girls in that terrible orphanage then I’d be able to sleep at night knowing I didn’t abandon them.
“You should start listening. I’ve spent time over the last twenty-four hours reading reports coming out of the region. The civil unrest has reached a boiling point. The defense force is outnumbered. The travel warning—”
“You have no idea what those girls go through.” I slid my chair back and prepared to stand. “I grew up in the foster system—in orphanages here in the States I know what I saw, things I will never forget, but my experience is a walk in the park compared to how they live. I don’t care about the travel warning. I don’t care my efforts may be for nothing. I’m still going to try. With or without your help.”
Declan’s icy fury directed my way stopped me from moving. “I know all about how the system fails the kids left in their care,” he growled. I’d obviously touched a nerve, one that was exposed and painful.
“If you know, then why are we having this conversation?”
“Because we’re not going over there on a suicide mission.”
“Obviously,” I huffed. “You may think I’m stupid but I’m not. I’ll listen to your concerns and follow directions. But I won’t be treated like I’m some idiot who doesn’t know how to take care of herself.”
“All Declan is trying to say is if we find ourselves in a situation, we need you to work with us, not against us. If we have to take time arguing with you about a decision then we could all get killed,” Kyle clarified.
“Then why didn’t he just say that?”
“Because he’s Declan,” Kyle said, as if that was an explanation I should understand.
“Maybe this isn’t going to work. I can—”
“It’s gonna work out fine, Anaya.”
My body tingled hearing him say my name, it was a bizarre and ill-timed reaction, but it was there. If I’d believed in love at first sight, or some such bullshit, I’d say there was a buzz of recognition. But I didn’t think there was such a thing as romantic love. My libido had simply picked the wrong time to wake up.
“I have aerial images of the area,” I offered. “Once we’re in Dili, we’ll meet with my contacts. They’re ready to move the girls as soon as we can get them out.”
“Your contacts?” Declan asked.
It sounded more like an accusation, and I didn’t remember him being this confrontational the first time I’d met with him and Kyle two days ago when they’d agreed to help me.
“I used to work for the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. I worked with Donny and Camilla Rivera. They’ve left the NCMEC and started working globally. When I told them about the orphanage, they offered their help and flew to Sydney. They’re there waiting for us now.”
“Have you met the Riveras?” Declan asked Ace.
“No.”
Declan picked his cell up off the table and after a few swipes on the screen he lifted it to his ear.
“Can you get me a full workup on Donny and Camilla Rivera?” he asked. “They worked at NCMEC. Anaya Baker said they now work privately.” Declan paused then continued. “Right. Thanks.”
“Did you just run a background check on my friends?”
“Yep,” Declan answered unashamed.
“What the hell?”
“Is there something you don’t want us to know?” Declan’s eyes narrowed.
“No. But it’s uncool. You could’ve asked me about them.”
“Anaya, I don’t think you understand how this works,” Declan told me. “First, I’m not risking my life or my team’s working with people I don’t have a full workup on. And I’m certainly not handing young girls to people who haven’t been vetted. I don’t care how well you think you know them, or that they’re your friends.”
“Did you investigate me?” I asked and held my breath praying they hadn’t.
“Yep.”
My eyes widened and anger surged. They’d know everything about me. Not that I’d ever done anything wrong, but the invasion of my privacy was unwelcomed. I didn’t offer details about my childhood to anyone. Not even my closest friends know what had happened to me growing up.
I couldn’t hide the fact I didn’t have a family, but I didn’t talk about it.
“So, you know,” I seethed. “Yet you still think my reasons for going back to Timor-Leste make me stupid.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Enough,” Ace cut in. “You all have a plane to catch and a mission to plan. Bickering isn’t going to help.”
“It’s bad, Declan,” Piper spoke. “So bad, that when Ace and I saw it we knew we couldn’t leave our girls there. Amisha was upfront—she sells the girls. She even told us how much money it would cost for us to buy one. Twelve-year-old girls are being trained how to please a man.”
Declan’s jaw locked and his eyes clouded. Maybe he was finally understanding.
“We’ll leave you to it. We have to pick up the girls from Rocco and Caite,” Ace announced and stood. After he was on his feet, he helped Piper up and they said their goodbyes.
Now what?
Were Declan and Kyle really going to help me or had I made everything a hundred times harder on myself asking them for help? When Ace had told me he knew a group of former SEALs who had worked human trafficking and could assist me, I was excited.
Now, not so much. Declan scared me and he was kind of a dick. Then there was Kyle. I could handle Declan being an asshole, but Kyle? I wasn’t so sure about that. I didn’t know what it was about him, or why after years of not feeling anything, suddenly there was something to feel.
Everything about this partnership smelled like a disaster waiting to happen.
Chapter 2
I scrubbed my hands over my face as I took my seat on the plane. This morning’s meeting hadn’t gone well. Declan’s normal gruff demeanor had taken on a hard edge. This case was too close to home for him. I’d tried to get him to go back to Maryland with the team and send Max to Timor-Leste with me, but he’d refused. And being the team leader, it was Dec’s call.
It was doubtful, but I hoped the twenty-plus hour flight would calm his short temper.
Anaya finished stowing her bag and sat in the seat next to me. “Would you like the window?” I offered.
“No, thank you. I’ll read for a bit then I’m sure I’ll fall asleep.”
Once again, I found myself studying the woman, wondering what it was about her that garnered such a strong reaction. From the moment I saw her walking across the lobby of the Hotel Del Coronado, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
It was more than her obvious beauty. She carried herself with strength and determination. Two things I admired. I’d thought the sadness I’d seen in her eyes was from the horror she’d lived through in Timor-Leste, the loss of her friend, but now I knew it was more than that. I’d read her file. I knew she’d bounced around from foster family to foster family and finally as a teenager ended up in several group homes. The last was specifically for troubled teens.
But after she’d aged out of the system, she’d turned her life around. Complete about-face. I admired that, too. She’d pulled herself out of the gutter, all by herself. Went to community college, then to UCLA on scholarship. She was also older than I’d thought. At first glance she looked to be in her early twenties, but she was thirty-two, same age as I was.
“Thanks again for coming with me,” Anaya said, pulling me from my thoughts.
“How long were you in Timor-Leste?”
“Almost six months. We were making good progress until the uprising.”
“Economic development, right?” I asked about her volunteer position.
“Yeah. It’s a pretty large umbrella. Some days I was teaching basic money management, but other days I was dr
awing up detailed business plans for entrepreneurs.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes. The Timorese are eager to learn, both men and women. The outlying villages were harder to convince they could trust our intentions. There’s a fine line between teaching them to improve on what they’re doing and teach them, and forcing Western culture and society norms on them. The Timorese don’t want to be Americans and they don’t want their beliefs and way of life trampled on. Sometimes it’s hard to find the balance. Improving someone’s life doesn’t mean changing who they are fundamentally.”
I liked how passionate Anaya was about her work. She came alive when she spoke about the Timorese people.
“I agree with that. Sometimes I think as a society we think our way is the best way and any country who doesn’t believe like us should be persuaded to do so.”
“It’s not my place to persuade anyone into thinking like I do. I’m a teacher, that’s it. And if I do my job well and the men and women can use the skills they learned to better their lives, hopefully they will go on to make the changes they feel their communities need to make.”
Her intelligence impressed me. But her thoughtfulness on the subject intrigued me. And surprisingly it fell in line with my own beliefs. Which made what I had to do next suck even more.
“Except when it becomes personal.”
Anaya’s body jerked and her pretty eyes squinted.
“This isn’t personal,” she snapped.
“Then what is this? Why are you going back?”
I was fairly certain I understood her reasons, but I needed to make sure. Personal vendettas had a way of ending poorly. When emotions clouded judgment, people died.
“Because what’s happening to those girls isn’t right.”
“According to you?” I pressed.
Anaya’s face went a deep shade of red and she was getting angrier by the millisecond. “According to human decency. We’re talking about girls being sold, and not marriage customs. Not only are the girls being sold to men who intend on taking these girls against their will and making them child-brides, they’re being sold to sex traffickers. They’re being used as prostitutes. Amisha isn’t running a private orphanage out of the goodness of her heart until a married-in relationship can be arranged. She’s running a brothel. Ace and Piper didn’t see half of what goes on there. Amisha kept them where she wanted them, in the clean living space, with classrooms, dorms for the girls, a kitchen. She may’ve told them she sells the girls into marriage and presented it in a way that, while cringeworthy, benefits the girls because they’ll have their basic needs met by their husbands, and the money is used for the care of the younger girls. But it’s bullshit. They didn’t see what really goes on.”
“What really goes on?”
I needed to know how much Anaya had seen. I’d read the report John “Tex” Keegan had put together on Amisha Alves. By all accounts the woman was a piece of shit and so far, everything Anaya had told them had been correct.
“There’s a second home, next door. There are almost the same number of children in that house as there are in the orphanage. Only it is not clean and there are no classrooms. Piper had told me she and Ace didn’t see any children over fourteen when they’d been given their tour. I didn’t have it in me to tell her why. She was right not to leave her girls there, not even for the day—they would’ve been gone. Three clean, untouched children from the mountains would’ve fetched a high price next door. And before you ask, yes, even the four-year-old.”
My stomach roiled and it had nothing to do with the plane gaining altitude. Fucking despicable.
“Have you been in the house?”
“No. I was in the city teaching a class when I overheard a man in a café talking about Amisha. He was excited because she’d brought new girls next door. So I discreetly started snooping around. Amisha doesn’t hide what she’s doing.”
“You speak Portuguese?” I asked, somewhat amazed.
“Yes, and some Tetum.” Anaya’s tone had turned frosty toward me and I wasn’t surprised by her next statement. “You don’t seem to share my concerns about Amisha.”
“I do,” I answered but kept the rest of my thoughts on the topic to myself, very aware ninety-nine percent of the population wouldn’t agree with my opinion on how to remedy the situation. Which would include bloodshed and a fair amount of torture.
“It doesn’t seem that way, with the questions you’ve asked.”
“I need to understand your motive.”
“Motive?”
“I can’t protect you if, when we get there you go off reservation trying to avenge a personal issue. I know what happened to you.” Anaya’s swift intake of air was painful to hear. “I’m not bringing it up to force you to talk about it. But I want you to know, I know, and to that end, some of this is personal for you. Our mission is to get those girls to safety and come home alive. There are things you don’t know about. Bribes that are being paid to the Defense Force. Amisha’s services are being used by the Minister of Justice. We need to tread carefully.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, I can’t go in and happily place a bullet between the woman’s eyes no matter how badly I want to. We go in easy, recon the area, see who’s coming and going, and figure out the best way to get the girls.”
I hadn’t taken my eyes off Anaya’s face as I waited for her to show some sign of disgust that I’d admitted to wanting to shoot the woman. But the revulsion never came. She simply nodded her head.
“I understand,” Anaya said.
“I think you understand that the rebels pose a different kind of threat than Amisha. We’ll have to stay on target and focused at all times.”
“I understand that, too.” Anaya’s bravery masked her sadness.
I wouldn’t bring up I also knew about how she’d escaped from the village she and Kalee had been staying in. I’d read her statement about hiding in a closet while the rebels had decimated the tiny mountain community and tortured the people, trying to get information from them. She’d been far luckier than most.
Her courage had outweighed her fear and it was damn impressive. Most people would never go back to the place where they’d endured the nightmare she had. Another thing that endeared me to Anaya, and I was not a man who was easy impressed or taken in by a woman. But there were so many layers to Anaya I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to peel them back. Every new bit of information I learned made me want to know more. And I certainly wasn’t the type of man who wanted to more. Yet I had an overwhelming need to know how she’d managed to pick herself up and move on. And that need had taken over all rational thought.
“I know you do, and I promise I won’t let anything happen to you,” I vowed. “But I need you to promise me, that when Dec gives an order you follow it to the letter, even if you don’t understand why he’s giving it.”
“I hate that word, order,” she grumbled, and I tried not to laugh at the way her face scrunched into a grimace. She was just as cute as she was beautiful.
“Most people do. But Declan has years of experience, he knows what he’s doing. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t trust him with my life, and certainly not yours.”
Anaya’s eyes flared at my admission, but she recovered quickly. “I don’t think he likes me.”
There was no way for me to explain Declan’s hostility about the situation without breaking confidence. Declan being separated from his twin sister Violet and then bounced around the foster system was not my story to tell.
“His attitude has nothing to do with you or the mission.” Maybe that was a white lie. His bad mood had everything to do with the mission. But not because he disagreed with rescuing the girls. “Declan’s…intense. He has to be. He’s our team leader. He makes the hard calls and his decisions may or may not end with someone dying. He takes that seriously. Dec’s former Force Recon and he spent years in the CIA. When shit hits the fan, you want Declan by your side.”
�
�What about you? Are you a Marine, too?”
My lips twitched and I couldn’t hide my smile at how she’d formed her question. She would’ve had to know a Marine or know something about the military to know there are no ex or former Marines. There are simply Marines. And I found it interesting she knew what Force Recon was to begin with.
“I lived with a Marine when I was a teenager,” she explained. “After…well you know, you read the background check on me. Anyway, I stayed with him and his wife for about three months, but he was changing duty stations and since they were only fostering me, I couldn’t go. It was the only place I’d ever felt safe.”
Well, that answered my question, but now I had a queasy feeling in my gut. Yes, I understood what she was referring to when she’d said “after” and it pissed me off that she’d only ever felt safe one time in her young life. But again, it brought my fascination full-circle. How could someone hold on to all the beauty she had after they’d been through hell?
“I was in the Navy,” I answered her question to avoid the other topic altogether.
“A SEAL?” she guessed.
While she was not wrong, it was interesting she’d gone there first.
“Now why would you ask that?”
“You look like one.”
So she was observant by nature or she’d been paying attention. And damn if I didn’t like the thought of her watching me closely. Normally it’d annoy the shit out of me if a woman asked if I was a SEAL. I’d run into my fair share of Frog Hogs who hunt around the bars in San Diego and Virginia gagging to get their hooks into a Special Forces Operator. And there was nothing sexy about a woman who was gagging for it, not even when she easily fell on your dick. No—especially when she did. There was not one damn thing intriguing about those women. Nothing special or unique. They were a dime a dozen and so different than all that was Anaya Baker, it wasn’t even funny.
I couldn’t picture Anaya aggressively pursuing a team guy just so she could brag she’d bagged one. Hell, I couldn’t see her aggressively going after any man. And she wouldn’t have to, not with her beauty. Men would flock, they’d pursue, they’d chase. All she’d have to do was smile and they’d be in her web. I had no doubt, because there I was trapped in the net she didn’t even know she’d cast.
Kyle Page 2
