December returned while they were doing final checks of their gear.
Darcy, Roxie, and Kara had brought their own tactical gear and weapons. When he and Tyson warned them the legal ramifications of participating in this action could be dicey at best, none of them hesitated.
“You think we’re going to sit by and let a little girl disappear into some underground black market, you’re crazy,” Darcy said.
Dante nodded. He’d have to apologize to December later for assuming these women couldn’t do the job.
“Let’s roll,” Dante said.
Lanore followed them to the door and pulled him into a hug. “Bring back our little girl.”
He squeezed her, then held her by the shoulders and looked her in the eye. “I will.”
Dante met the rest of their rag-tag team down at the street, where Tyson wore a shit-eating grin. He didn’t understand why until he glanced over his shoulder to see the bakery van parked at the curb.
“Jesus, December. You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Hey, it’s big enough for everyone to fit.”
“You could lose your job. I doubt your boss’ll be happy you stole her van to use in an off-book operation.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You really think I’m stupid, don’t you? Of course I talked to her. When I explained the situation and what was at stake, she told me to take the van. You need to have more faith in people.”
He didn’t know what to say. All these people were willing to risk injury or loss of property to save a girl they’d never met. It gave him hope and reminded him why he did his job. Jobs. Because both of them risked his life to protect others. Now he realized ordinary people were willing to do the same, however they were able. Heroes didn’t have to be trained by the military for elite units. They lived right next door. Or worked side by side with you every day.
“At least it doesn’t say ‘military invasion’,” Tyson said.
“Anyone who sees it is going to wonder what the hell a white van with a giant cupcake and the bakery name plastered all over the side is doing parked in that industrial neighborhood,” Dante said.
“Booty call,” Roxie said as they opened the back, slung their duffels in and climbed inside.
“Or cover for a drug deal,” Kara said, settling on a wheel well.
“Anyone in that neighborhood will mind their own damn business because they’re all guilty of something,” Darcy said.
December climbed behind the wheel and started the van as Tyson jumped inside and shut the doors behind him.
“Everybody good to go?” she asked.
The drive took a half hour, during which Dante and Tyson went over the plan one more time with the women, who’d become irritated that the men didn’t trust them enough to get it already. So everyone fell silent for the rest of the trip, psyching themselves up for whatever they faced at the other end.
“Almost there,” December said.
Dante clambered into the passenger’s seat, and Tyson leaned between the two of them, his elbows resting on both seats. “Take a trip around the block so we can get a good look,” Dante said.
She did as he asked, scanning the neighborhood while he and Tyson surveyed the target site.
Dante could only imagine how the van looked to anyone watching it circling the block. They may as well have flashing neon lights and be playing the ice-cream-truck-song, they stood out that much. It made his skin itch. He was used to being dark and invisible on missions.
They finally made it back around to the front, parking across the street and down the block.
“I like the front door better,” Tyson said.
“Same,” Dante said. “I think they use the back more often. I see one security camera and one light above the door. You think you can take them out from here?”
“Naw. If Beast were here, he could do it. I’m gonna have to get closer.”
“Beast can hit a bullseye from two miles.”
“Yeah. I can’t do that.” He slid silently out the back of the van. “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait, let’s talk to the team first. We may not have much time after you take out the light and camera. I want us to be ready to join you.”
The two of them squatted in the back with the rest of their makeshift unit. The women looked as serious and dedicated as the rest of his real team. He’d never given much thought to having women on SEAL teams, other than his gut feeling had always been it would be a bad idea. Looking at the steel in these women’s eyes, he wasn’t so sure.
“Okay, ladies,” he said. “You know the drill. We’re going in the front door, I’m taking point. There’s only one vehicle parked in back of the building, but that’s no indication of how many people are inside. I don’t know what kind of operation they’re working, but we have to assume it’s criminal, and that they’ll do anything to protect it.”
“Got it, boss,” Darcy said.
“Hold your fire unless fired upon. What we’re doing by assaulting this location is just as illegal, so I’ll take all the responsibility for it. But if someone shoots at you, fire only to defend your life, or the life of a defenseless civilian. Understood?”
A chorus of yes, sirs filled the back of the van.
He turned to December. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be. I know you don’t want to have to sit out here, but I need you to be ready to go when we come out. Being the driver and waiting outside sucks. I’ve done it. The waiting is torture. But it’s an important job, so I need you to think of it that way.”
“Of course I will,” she said, worry dancing in her eyes. “Just stay safe, keep my friends safe, and bring Tamera back.”
He leaned over and kissed her, a soft, gentle kiss of gratitude—thankful she understood, just thankful for her.
As he stood, she reached her hand up and caressed his cheek, then whispered, “I mean it. Stay safe.” She paused, then added. “I love you.”
No woman had ever told him that before. The shock was like the blast of an ice-cold shower, but then it settled hot and comforting into his heart and made him feel like he could do anything. It also made him feel like he was made of glass.
“I love you, too.” He said.
“That’s sweet,” Tyson said. “But can I go shoot some stuff now so we can get this rescue over and I can have a beer?”
“Do it,” Dante said.
Dante watched from the passenger window as Tyson crept a long route to the dark side of the building—the side with dark windows way up high, and no doors or lights. He slunk along to the corner, squatted, and peeked. Holding his arm steady against the building, he aimed and shot out the camera and light with his silenced pistol.
He twirled his finger in the air to signal Dante and the team to get moving.
“Go be a hero for Tamera,” December said.
He damn well planned to.
Taking point, he led them across an empty lot to meet Tyson, then crept around the side of the building and up the few steps. At the door, he sent up a silent prayer that it would be unlocked, but of course it wasn’t. They weren’t stupid.
Tyson—always well-prepared—drilled the lock in record time, and once inside they cleared the empty lobby. There was no way of knowing what purpose the building had served before, but now it looked like where old chairs went to die.
They snaked around the dusty old chairs and out into a hallway. Dante checked left, then right, and found it clear. He suspected most of their business was done in the back and in the basement.
He chose to turn right and follow the hallway. Both sides of the building probably mirrored each other, so one route was as good as another.
The closed doors on the main floor were all dark. The hall funneled them to a large vestibule with stairwells on both sides—one up, one down—and the back exit Dante had seen when he’d done his stake out. He cringed at the thought Shonda may have brought Tamera through there.
“Check both?” Tyson whispered.
&n
bsp; “Down. Up’s a bust.”
“Roger that.”
Dante turned and faced the ladies. “We’re going down. Be ready. And be quiet.”
He took the lead again, heading down the stairs on silent feet. He was impressed with how quietly the ladies followed. He couldn’t have asked for better.
The open space at the bottom of the stairs stood silent, restrooms to the right and left and one door straight ahead, the opaque glass lit from behind. Intuition prickled the hairs at the back of Dante’s neck.
“Something’s not right,” Tyson said right next to him, his voice low.
“Yeah.”
“They know we’re here,” Roxie said, expressing Dante’s thoughts out loud.
“Doesn’t change the mission,” he said. “Just makes it tougher.”
“True that,” Tyson said. “Let’s go take ‘em down.”
Tyson and the women stood to the side, their backs to the wall, while Dante crouched and opened the door, not sure what to expect on the other side.
It was unlocked and swung open easily. No flying bullets greeted them, but a voice full of contempt did.
“Come in and join us gentlemen. But don’t try any heroics. You wouldn’t want to hurt the children.”
Dante kept his weapon trained in front of him and stood, filling the doorway in front of him. What he saw took his breath away.
Peripherally he recognized a mid-sized room surrounded by other smaller rooms and scattered furniture. His focus was drawn to the man in the middle of the room—a nondescript white guy in a suit—holding a gun to Tamera’s head, and surrounded by his lackeys and about a dozen other kids in various states of messed up. One thing all the kids had in common—raw terror in their eyes.
He noticed Shonda off to the side. She didn’t look so cocky now. Dante still wondered what her involvement was.
His gaze riveted on Tamera. Tears spilled from her huge eyes, and Dante’s heart split into bits. But rage also fired in his gut.
December sat out in the van, a nervous wreck just waiting. Dante was right that it sucked to have to sit there and do nothing. She wanted to know what was going on, but she had no delusions of grandeur. The last place she belonged was inside in the middle of a dangerous rescue mission. She was a cake girl, not a gun girl.
A tap on the driver’s side window made her jump in her seat, but when she glanced over and saw the man from her walk with Rusty pointing a gun at her on the other side of the window, panic filled her guts and she thought she might puke.
He gestured for her to get out of the van.
She hesitated, but he gave her a stern look that said he had no problem dragging her out if he had to.
When she unlocked the door, he yanked it open and grabbed her arm. She tripped and stumbled as he pulled her out.
“Jeez,” she said. “I’m coming.”
“You and your boyfriend are a pain in the ass,” he said, pushing her across the street toward the building.
“Funny, I was going to say the same about you and your girlfriend.”
She should have kept her mouth shut. Antagonizing him was a stupid idea, but the words spilled out before she could stop them.
He gave her a shove with the muzzle of the pistol, his message clear enough without additional words.
Inside, he led her downstairs to a room full of people. He pushed her up beside Shonda who stood near a tall blond guy in a suit, surrounded by a bunch of kids. Whoever he was, he must be in charge of whatever this was. Looked like Dante had been right about the trafficking, which made her guts churn. How many kids had been funneled through here to horrifying futures?
Dante and his people stood inside another door, aiming their weapons into the room.
When Shonda noticed them arrive, she gave December a smug smirk, and all December could think was, what kind of human does this kind of thing?
“You’re a real piece of shit,” she said to Shonda.
The knuckle-dragging boyfriend slapped the side of her head. “Shut up, bitch.”
“Fuck you.”
She had no idea this side of her existed. If someone had asked her last week how she’d react with a gun pointed at her head, she’d have speculated on tears and begging. She was under no illusion she was made of courage, but there it was.
When Dante saw her, though, she thought he’d lose his shit.
“Gentlemen, if you don’t want me to start shooting children, you’ll drop your weapons.”
She saw Tyson’s lips move, but couldn’t hear what he said. Dante paused for just a fraction of a second, then nodded. It was enough time for a thought to flit through her head—they’re going to shoot.
Sure enough, just as the message shot from her brain to her muscles to duck, the bullets flew. One of them hit suit-guy in the head at the same instant Andre disappeared behind her tumbling to the floor with a bullet to the throat.
After that the room devolved into chaos. All the kids screamed and ran, scrambling to get out of the way.
December hit the deck, on her hands and knees. While Dante, Tyson, and the Wreckers took on the bad guy’s lackeys, December searched for Tamera.
She found her huddled behind a post, and wrapped her arms around her. Tamera turned and folded herself into December, sobbing and clinging to her.
The shooting stopped as quickly as it started, but December’s ears rang so loud every other sound was a muffled echo.
But when she opened her eyes it was to find Shonda standing in front of her, pointing a gun at her.
“Give her to me,” she said.
The words sounded like she’d spoken them underwater because of December’s muffled hearing, but she read her lips enough to understand.
“No.”
“Give up, Shonda.” Dante appeared at December’s side.
“She’s mine,” Shonda spat. “Dwayne stole her from me, and then you did.”
“Why do you want her so bad? You obviously don’t love her. What’s she worth to you?” Dante asked.
“I never wanted a husband, but I was tired of being poor and homeless. And I never wanted children, but Dwayne talked me into it. When he kicked me out, I hated him. I wanted to kill him.”
December felt the rage vibrating the air around Dante.
“Did you?” Dante asked.
“Kill him? Not personally.”
“Damn,” Tyson said.
Had she just admitted she’d played a part in killing Dante’s brother? Holy crap.
“I found Andre and Mr. Moon,” she gestured to the bodies of Boyfriend and Suit. “And I finally had a place to feel important. To have a purpose.”
“Selling kids into slavery?” Dante said.
“It’s a business,” Shonda said. “There’s a demand. We fill the need.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, lady,” Tyson said.
“Why Tamera?” Dante asked.
“Why not? Mr. Moon wanted to know he could trust me, so I told him I’d give him my daughter.”
“You’re nuts,” Tyson said.
Shonda’s face screwed up in fury, and she lifted her weapon to aim it at Tyson. At that moment, both Dante and Tyson shot her.
December and Tamera both screamed and squeezed each other tighter as Shonda’s body toppled next to them.
Next thing December knew, Dante was kneeling next to them with his arms around them. Both she and Tamera shifted to hold onto him. Though she trembled and tears rolled down her face, she’d never felt safer or more loved.
“Daddy,” Tamera whimpered, burying her face in Dante’s chest.
So maybe courage under pressure wasn’t December’s thing after all, if all her blubbering was any indication. But underneath all that, she didn’t want to let go of the three of them together. She loved June, but someday June would have her own family, and December may very well have found hers.
Chapter Twelve
Two months later December squatted behind the table at the cake design competition, putting the final
touches on setting up her wedding cake. She’d already set up her cupcake display—an elegant gold stand resembling a vintage chandelier with little crystal dangles hanging from each cupcake platform—filled with large and small almond, lemon, and mocha cupcakes, and her dessert cake display—a single round tier pistachio cake covered in chocolate mirror glaze, striped with an off-center band of thin pale-green piping and crumbles of pistachio nuts, but needed to prep for the real-time novelty cake decorating contest.
“Okay, Tamera. Hand me the last few flowers.”
December was taking some big risks in this competition, but after the last few months with Dante she figured go big or go home.
Her three-tier wedding cake was covered in black fondant on a black classic-style cake stand. On one side of the cake, slender, pale green stems and leaves beaded with tiny sugar beads bloomed with pastel pink, yellow, and blue butter cream flowers, with a few fuschia-colored flowers thrown in for pops of bright color. She’d used small pastel sugar discs and beads to fill in some of the open space.
She placed the last few flowers Tamera had given her on the cake stand, as if the flowers fallen from their stalks onto the stand.
“It’s beautiful,” Tamera said, her voice full of awe.
“Thank you, sweetie,” she said, hugging Tamera.
“It really is,” Dante said, joining them after a tour of the room. “And it stands out. The rest of the wedding cakes are really traditional-looking. This is the only cool one in the bunch.”
December’s face warmed with the compliment.
Since the mission to rescue Tamera, everyone’s emotions had been tender and raw. At first, they’d had to contend with cleaning up the legal mess. It had taken a lot of finagling from a quickly-hired legal team, Dante’s commanders, and the detectives and officers in Darcy’s department to clear it all up. It turned out, though, that in invading the building they’d uncovered and decapitated a child sex-trafficking ring that had gone unnoticed by the cops. Red-faced and repentant at their ignorance, the police were happy to spin the story and commend one of their own for her dedication and courage in joining with the covert SEAL operation to bring down such a heinous operation.
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: December Chill (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Sealed With A Kiss Series Book 4) Page 11
