She glared at the men again and the one she socked stepped back, trying to disappear through the wall. She gave Lo a look that said she wasn’t going anywhere and I couldn’t help but admire her guts. Pure trouble!
“Fine, let’s get to it.” Lo was still looking at her like he expected her to strike. Either that, or he was just plain studying the offspring of a legend.
“Yeah but I have to call my dad first.” She actually stared him down with her hand on her hip. The message that she wasn’t about to budge came through loud and clear.
“You sure?” Lo’s question was directed at me and I knew just what he was asking.
“One hundred percent.”
The groans started, as my brothers interpreted the little byplay. “That shit’s going to be trouble.” Ty grinned and walked over to us.
“Hi I’m Tyler, your new big brother. You’re mad-dog’s kid huh!”
“Yes sir, but you better not let him hear you call him that. It makes him rabid.”
The room cracked up and the tension eased slightly, but I realized that she hadn’t called Ty on his big brother crack. Maybe she doesn’t know what he’s getting at.
“Okay boys and girls, assholes to elbows. We still have that thing and then we have to leave.” Connor moved towards the room where the five young girls waited and the rest of us followed.
A cute Latina teenager jumped up from her chair as soon as we entered the room and made a beeline for Kelly.
“Oh thank shit, they said you were okay but I didn’t believe them.” She glared around the room with a look that in a few years was sure to make some man’s balls retract in fear.
The two women hugged and Kelly reassured the girl before she went to all the others and whispered to them.
She gave them the sandwiches and ordered them to eat, reassuring them in her words, that we were navy and they were safe now.
I noticed she didn’t get into too much about who we are though I knew she knew that we were more than that. Her daddy had really trained her well.
It took a couple hours to get the whole story from each of the girls. They were indeed all military brats, some marine and air force.
A pattern was forming. There was no doubt that these men had worked together at some point and whatever it was they’d done, Khalil was at the other end of it.
“Quinn I really need to call my dad.”
“I know baby but we have to make sure the call’s secure first.” When she became distressed I caved.
“I’ll make the call.” I kissed her temple and told her to stay there even though I was in no hurry to be separated from her.
My brothers followed me out of the room, leaving the girls and the kidnappers behind with Law’s crew.
Technically Lyon and Mancini shouldn’t be privy to the calls we were about to make but I’m pretty sure that my brothers, like me, knew they’d earned their place by our side.
Of course she followed us out of the room which was good because I’d already begun to feel like there was some shit missing.
It hadn’t even been a minute but already I knew, that it was going to be like this for a long time to come. That being away from her was always going to have an affect on me.
I’ll have to brush up on my memory of that part of the old legend, but I’m pretty sure it says she owns my ass now. Fuck me!
As long as Ty never learns about that shit I’m straight. “I thought I told you to stay put lil bit.” I took her hand and pulled her along with me, totally contrary to what I was saying.
We headed to the mansion for a secure line to make the call. I could see my brothers were still sizing her up, probably asking themselves some of the same questions that were running through my head.
Her hand was relaxed in mine as she walked silently beside me and I wondered how long it would be before she adrenaline crashed.
For now she seemed to be holding her own though so I’ll just keep an eye on her and be there when she falls. And she will fall, unless she’d inherited that hard core her dad was known for.
The women were at the windows of Zak’s place looking out but we didn’t even acknowledge them for now. Shit had escalated quick and we had to move. Right now the five women that we’d rescued, including her, seemed to be at the center of this whole mess.
We don’t know if there were other undesirables in the area or not, but I was sure my brothers and the others had secured our perimeter while I was tending to her.
She was already disrupting my shit, because I didn’t even have a chance to ask them what they’d found out so far. My mind was still wrapped up in her.
Is this what they all felt? It wasn’t so much that I was being pulled in two separate directions, but more like there was an internal shift.
Yesterday the Op would’ve been first on my agenda. In a few scant hours she had taken its place. Now all I can see is her.
I pushed her inside ahead of me and followed Lo into the secure Intel room with the others right behind us.
No one else was allowed in here but I guess we’d come too far with these guys to turn back now.
I reached for the modified SAT phone and tried to work out what the hell I was going to say to this man. He was no longer just a senior officer, but the father of the woman I’d claimed.
I guess Lo had decided to give me point on this one because usually he would’ve been the one making the call. But he just stepped back in line with the others and looked at me to proceed.
I realized then that we’ve been doing this same dance with each woman that came into our lives. It was his way of accepting that she was mine, my responsibility. Kind of like passing the torch.
“Put it on speaker Quinn.” Lo ordered as I dialed the number she gave me. It was snatched up on the other side before the first ring ended.
“McCullum.” That voice was commanding even through the phone. “Admiral sir, this is lieutenant Quinn….”
“You found my kid?” I squeezed her hand in mine.
“Yes sir.” He didn’t let me finish, but I realized he didn’t ask if I had her, but if I’d found her. He knew who I was before I said a word.
I looked at my brothers who’d also caught on. This line was secure, but it ran off the CO’s grid, the only way for anyone to recognize the frequency was if the two men had been in regular contact. We’ll save that for later.
“Who?” I didn’t need him to explain that he was asking me who had taken her, and from his tone I knew he was already whisky tango foxtrot.
“We think it’s Khalil with local help and someone high up on the inside, sir.”
“This motherfucker. Hang tight, I’m coming to get my kid.”
“Ah, you’ll have to hold off on that sir I’m taking her in.” I held up a hand to silence Kelly when she started to speak. Everyone else in the room was silent.
“Say what again?”
“I’m taking her to a safe place. I’ll call you when we get there and we can make arrangements for you to see her.”
There was a long pause on the other end before he asked in the calmest voice.
“What do you mean come see her? I’m bringing her home.”
“Negative sir.” There was another long silent pause on his end but I heard him loud and clear. He’s gonna kick my ass first chance he gets. That’s fine but he can’t have her. I took the phone off speaker when he started to get personal.
“Boy, what the hell are you talking about?” How can I explain to him that I knew his daughter on sight?
I damn sure can’t tell him that I was afraid if she was too far away from me I’d have a fucking meltdown.
Or that my dick hadn’t gone soft since I found her on the beach. Now was definitely not the time to have this conversation.
“She’ll be safe sir, my life on that.” Please don’t ask me for any more than that. I’d feel like a complete fucking idiot baring my guts in a roomful of men. Ty was already giving me looks, fucking heel and I was completely out of my dept
h.
“Give me the phone.” She took the phone from my hand before I could say yes or no.
“Daddy, I’m fine, Quinn’s taking very good care of me.”
She did that girly twirling her hair around her finger shit and even that sent a message straight to my dick. Is this shit for real?
“Quinn is it?”
“Well yeah, that’s his name. When we get to where we’re going I’ll call and you can come out to see me.”
Damn he’d raised her too well, she didn’t even question the Op. That or she trusted me. I prefer the latter.
But listening to her, it was obvious that she’d accepted that this thing didn’t end here, and she was giving her consent to stay and see it through.
Or, she felt the attraction and… For fuck sake it’s like walking a fucking maze in my head.
“Didn’t you two just meet? Why does it sound like you’re staying with him?”
“Daddy he’s a SEAL hello.”
“Shit.”
I couldn’t hear his end of the convo but I could imagine. She put the phone back on speaker I’m guessing at his direction. In the background it sounded like her mother came into the room.
“She’s safe Isabel.”
“Where is she?”
“They’re keeping her safe…”
“Kyle McCullum you take me to my child right this second.”
“Dammit woman I said she was okay.” There were some muffled sounds which made Kelly roll her eyes but the rest of us were in the dark.
“You’re at the CO’s place I see. We’ll be there in two. Be there or you won’t know hell until you’ve met my other half.”
He hung up and the rest of us just looked at each other. Kelly turned back to me and I couldn’t quite read the look on her face.
I got it when she leaned into me and whispered in my ear as the men filed out of the room.
“You better have a good story to give dad if you plan on keeping me with you.”
Again I was blown away by her easy acceptance.
“You know this is about more than keeping you safe right.” She looked me dead in my eyes. I can’t remember the last time anyone except my brothers had done that.
“I know.” That’s all she said before heading out of the room ahead of me. I shook my head and grinned as I walked out behind her.
18
Quinn
We headed back to the others each of us deep in thought. It was obvious we couldn’t leave right away like we’d planned to and we were fast losing cover of night.
We had to figure out what to do with the other girls and our new prisoners. Mancini went to his people who had been standing guard outside.
Back inside the cottage Law’s brother and his crew had shit under control. The females were in one room and the kidnappers in another.
I looked the men over until my eyes fell on my prey. I have to say, from what we’d learned thus far, they didn’t fit.
The men Cord had taken down a few weeks ago were pros. These guys looked like your garden variety scumbags that hung out on street corners looking for their next fix.
“Who the fuck are you working for?” I stood in front of the one who’d manhandled her on the beach. In this new light it was easy to see he was little more than a kid himself, and I’m pretty sure he never saw any action.
If Khalil and whoever he had working for him on the domestic end were using random assholes to carry out their misdeeds, then we were in serious shit.
“I don’t know, I already told them.” He wasn’t looking so brave now and I wondered what Law’s boys had done to put that look of fear in his eyes.
There were four of them and five females. I was trying to work that shit out in my head. When we questioned the girls earlier we learned that they didn’t all live in the same area, some not even the same state.
Some of them had been snatched the day before the others, but it had been done in a way that the alarm hadn’t been sounded.
That twenty-four hour window had given them the time they needed before anyone noticed a pattern. But four men to carry it out would’ve taken a lot of work and planning and there’s no way this kid had that kinda smarts.
He could very well be telling the truth, that he didn’t know who he was working for. I don’t see Khalil dealing with this bunch, he’s way more sophisticated than that. But somebody had given the order.
His cohorts were doing their best to become invisible, but I was sure they all had the same answer.
I needed to think, to put shit together in my head until it made sense. So far we’d dealt with enlisted men, the boys from Langley and a money laundering corporate skell.
Stockton had led us to the hate brigade in Law’s neck of the woods, but so far they were the lowest ones on the totem pole, until these clowns.
It was beginning to look like this shit was even bigger than we’d first realized. There were layers and tentacles that seemed to cover all four corners of the damn country. Just what the fuck had we stepped in here?
Just then Kelly yawned from some place behind me and I throttled back. I looked over my shoulder at her and saw the fatigue.
“I’m going to take her home and come back. Maybe I should get the others settled as well. Mancini, they can take a couple hours down before we head out right?”
He looked at his watch and nodded. “So long as we leave under cover of dark we’re good and we still have another few hours before daylight.”
I hadn’t even realized so much time had passed but he was right, it was already well past midnight. Lyon and the others hadn’t said a word since this whole thing started and I could only imagine what the hell was going through their heads.
“Come on Kelly.” I took her hand and led her into the other room where she rounded up the girls who also looked dead on their feet.
I should probably take them to stay with my sisters at Zak’s place, but I knew if I took them there she’d want to stay with them and I wanted her in my house, even though I wouldn’t be there with her.
I got them settled and just as I thought, they wanted to stay together. So instead of my bed, she spread some blankets on the floor in the living room and they turned on the TV for some normalcy.
After she’d got the others settled I took her hand and led her from the room to the sound of twitters and murmurings. At least they weren’t too traumatized to be annoying ass females. They really do start young.
“You sure you’re going to be okay?” I smoothed her hair back and read her eyes for the truth. She did that thing where she turned her face into my palm and even that small gesture went directly to my cock.
She nodded with her head still in my hand, her eyes staring into mine and it was as easy as breathing to lower my head to hers.
The kiss was electric, no other word for it. She zapped me as soon as my lips met hers. It felt as if some strange energy flowed from her to me or me to her, I’m not sure which. But whatever it was, it had me pulling her into my arms until our bodies met.
As with everything else since I found her, it felt like the most natural thing to have her in my arms. That strange tingling started again and my skin felt like it was on fire. “If I get inside you now, we’ll both go up in flames.” Shit, did I say that corny shit out loud?
I moved to pull back but she ran her tongue along my lip and I ended up hauling her in again. She sighed, I moaned as we deepened the kiss.
Everything about her was superimposed on my brain. The feel of her slight body under my big rough hands, the way she barely came up to my chest. So tiny, so precious.
A well of protective emotion welled up inside me and I was almost tempted to think that she wasn’t real, that this wasn’t real. Nothing in my life has ever been this perfect, this right.
Maybe I was still trapped in the dream from the night before and all this had been part of it. But I knew as I felt the warmth of her body under my hands, that it was real.
I also knew why a part of me
wanted to shy away from it even as I held her closer in my arms. The reason dad had been so against this ‘curse’ was because as he’d told it, it made a man weak.
He’d become almost a slave to my mother and nothing else had mattered but pleasing her. He’d lost interest in everything else around him and she had become the center of his world.
Funny that I remembered those words now, and sure they did make me think that maybe I should take a step back, assess the situation and come at it again when I had more control.
But I couldn’t stand the thought of letting her go. Besides, I was a stronger man than my father had ever been.
Only a weak man would’ve tried to destroy his own son and I don’t see myself ever being that guy. Shouldn’t that count for something?
In the end it was only because we needed air that I finally released her lips. I stood looking down at her in amazement, because no matter what, I knew I would never let her go. The die had been cast.
“What are you doing to me lil bit?” Were her eyes really that dreamy or was that too part of my imagination?
There was emotion in her eyes too and I wondered for a fleeting moment if maybe that would be the difference between us and them.
You see, my dad had been an over possessive prick who couldn’t bear to let mom out of his sight. But what made it worst, was that she was a jealous, insecure girl when they met and the two negatives fed off each other.
Add to that the fact that mom just never seemed to be in love as much as she stayed around for necessity’s sake after I came into the picture.
I don’t think dad was ever sure of her love and that added to his turmoil, which turned him into the man I knew. A man that I’d heard so many times had been nothing like the monster he became after I was born.
From the stories I heard he’d once been a fun loving hard working artist. A man full of light and wellbeing.
I can’t remember hearing anything but good things about him, but it all seemed to change when he met and married mom and had me.
For the first time in my life I was beginning to understand him. His own personal weakness had been part of the problem; I see that now.
SEAL Team Seven Books 6&7 Quinn and Devon Page 12
