SEAL INVESTIGATIONS: A 5-Books SEAL Romance Series

by Lola Silverman

Bones followed her gaze to the feds standing in a tight knot. He cocked his head as he watched them. “You have to wonder if they even know. The FBI has an entire unit dedicated to domestic human trafficking.”

  “Yet they aren’t investigating this?” Marina pointed emphatically to the tables filled with the remains of American woman who had deserved better.

  “This is on US soil, but it isn’t technically domestic.”

  “Then what agency is responsible for foreign trafficking of US citizens?” Marina felt annoyed with the excessive red tape that seemed to rule everyone’s lives.

  “Homeland Security,” Bones murmured thoughtfully.

  She got the feeling that something very particular had just occurred to him. “What? I can tell you just had a thought. Please tell me before I drive myself insane trying to figure out why nobody will claim responsibility for this investigation but us.”

  “Trapp used to liaise with that department at one time. There was an agent—I think her name was Rockwood. The two of them did some busts.”

  “Would it have anything to do with the princes’ operation?” Marina asked hopefully. “Because, if we find another connection, we might be able to understand why they seem so intent on messing with your commanding officer right now.”

  “I don’t know,” Bones admitted. “But it’s worth looking into.”

  Marina sighed as she turned in a slow circle and looked around at all of the bone fragments. Skulls were the most common item, but there were plenty of rib bones, femurs, and other, larger segments of the pelvic bones. She wanted justice for these women.

  “I could have been one of these,” she whispered to Bones.

  He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. She pressed her face to his chest and sighed as she inhaled the familiar scent of him. He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You’re strong, Marina. Not everyone could have done what you did. You adapted. You survived. Never sell yourself short on that. That adaptation is why you always carry a set of lock picks, isn’t it?”

  “I carry lock picks because there will never be another time in my life when I let someone lock me up. I won’t give that power away. Never again.”

  “Adapt. Survive. Learn from your experience,” he growled. “And that is why you will never be a pile of bones on a forensic lab table.”

  She pulled back far enough to look at him. “We’re not giving up, are we?”

  “Hell no,” he told her roughly. “We’ll call my team and tell them what’s happened. Then we’ll start pooling information. When Trapp gets home we’ll be ready to jump into action.”

  “This isn’t over,” Marina whispered.

  He tenderly cupped her face. “Not until it’s over.”

  Epilogue

  The room was so dark and so stuffy. Sometimes it felt as though each breath she took would suck up all of the oxygen left in the tiny space. She could not tell what material the walls were made of. The grain was wood-like, but there were no splinters that she could pry up in order to fashion a weapon or another tool.

  Outside her tiny prison, she heard the low murmur of men’s voices. She could not understand what they were saying, though she knew from their tone that they were simply chatting. There was no urgency or anxiety in the cadence of their words. All seemed to be quiet.

  Soon the men would come and dump crusts of bread and chunks of hard cheese through a flap in the top of her tiny prison. She anticipated this with an inordinate amount of eagerness. There would be light. It gave her hope to know that the world outside her tiny prison was not all darkness. There was still a sun and a moon. The world turned, and life went on quite normally in other places.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember what the sun looked like. The hazy memory of an apartment appeared in her mind’s eye. She recalled the way the sunlight would filter through the blinds in the morning. As the first hour of her day crept by, the sunlight would slant against the rich wood floor until there were no longer streaks of brilliant visible light.

  In the darkness of her tiny prison, she stretched out her hand and remembered what it felt like when the sun caressed her skin. She recalled the heat and the warm sense of security that this provided. Her mind spooled backwards, and she remembered being a little girl at the park. She thought of the swings. It had been her favorite place to play, once upon a time. She would climb up and pump her little legs while the sun warmed her cheeks. The swing would slowly start to go higher and higher. Back and forth she would go, until the breeze rushed in her face and her hair flew around her. She remembered the bumpy feel of the chains in her hands as she held tight and tried to go as high as she could.

  When she had gotten ever so high, she would lean back as far as she could until each trip to the apex would leave her nearly hanging upside down. How she would laugh! How she would wait for her older brother to see her and tell her to be careful. He had always been the cautious one.

  “Alex,” she whispered through cracked lips. “Why haven’t you come for me?”

  He would come! She had to keep telling herself that, because if ever she stopped she knew without a doubt that she would go insane.

  A door opened somewhere. Marina froze. She listened for the sound of boots. Not just any boots, but the boots. She would have recognized the tread of this man anywhere. She did not know his name. She only knew that he was responsible for keeping her here in this place.

  “Hello, Rachel.” His grating voice made her shudder with dread. “It’s time for your treatment.”

  She bit her lip. It would do no good to decline or distract or even to flat-out refuse. The other men approached. They had been the ones talking before. Now they were opening the end of her prison. The front slid up, and the light blinded her. Her eyes burned and watered.

  They pulled her from the tiny space and strung her up in the center of the room. She was stretched so tightly that her toes barely brushed the floor. Her shoulders screamed in agony, and yet she made no sound. Sound was what they wanted. They loved her pain. They thrived on it. She would give them nothing. Not now. Not ever.

  “Oh, come now, Rachel,” the man said mockingly. “You know you’re going to cry. You might as well just break now and be done with it.”

  She would have spoken, but she needed every bit of her strength for what was to come. When the first lash bit into her back, she bit her lip until it bled. Her mind scrambled to find the secret place, to retreat, to find safety. She sought that swing in a park so long ago. She found the joy of flight and remembered the sound of her brother’s voice.

  Alex. Alex would come.

  ~~~

  DESMOND

  Chapter One

  Jaipriya Bhatia made an attempt to surreptitiously rub the itchy spot between her shoulder blades on the corner of the doorframe. Her mother had been so intent on displaying what she often referred to as Jai’s “assets”, that Maa had asked the tailor to sew the choli of Jai’s sari super tight. Now it was not only preventing Jai from taking a deep breath, but the beading itched like mad!

  One of the beads popped off the back of her choli. The little bugger pinged off the nearby bookshelf and then bounced to the hardwood floor, where it rested as it spun in tiny circles. Jai could have sworn that every one of the thirty-five people in the room turned at the same time to stare at her. She wasn’t exactly certain that playing it off was going to work this time. Maa’s expression was murderous.

  Maa raised her hands. Considering the amount of jewelry she was wearing, all of the tinkling certainly garnered attention from the room. “There are refreshments for all of you in the drawing room!” Maa said graciously. “Let us move this way in order to continue our celebration.” Maa ushered everyone into the next room before throwing a truly evil glare over her shoulder.

  Jai snorted. Celebrate? Sure. Those people could celebrate all they wanted and Jai still wasn’t going to marry their idiot son—or grandson, nephew, brother, or insert term here. She hadn’t exactly figured out how to g
et out of the stupid nuptials just yet. But she sure as hell hadn’t given up hope.

  Her papa waited until everyone had left the room before he approached. “That was very rude, Jaipriya,” he admonished.

  She gazed up at him and wondered what was bothering him so much lately. “Papa, what are you afraid of?” Jai asked him. “This stupid choli is so tight I cannot breathe. How is it rude to try and get the thing to loosen up? It isn’t as if I planned to murder everyone with flying beads.”

  Papa laughed. He reached out and gently tugged a loose strand of her long dark hair. “My Jaipriya,” he said softly. “You have always been different from other girls.”

  “So let me continue to be different,” she pleaded. “I was supposed to return to university in the fall. I want to finish my degree in biology. I don’t want to get married to some dweeb who doesn’t even know what the quadratic equation is just so I can move to some Arabian city in the UAE.” She reached for the lapels of her father’s tailored jacket. “The United Arab Emigrates, Papa! Seriously?”

  “Hush.” Papa’s voice had more than a hint of irritation in it. “You have been spoiled all your life. Now it is time for you to do something for your family.”

  “What? By giving up the rest of my life?” Jai turned around and pointed emphatically at the people milling about the next room. “They are not even Sikh! They’re not Punjabi. They are Arabic! I don’t understand how marrying this boy will ‘bring honor to the family’.” She didn’t bother to hide her sarcasm. “He is stupid, Papa. You know he is.”

  “You will marry him, and that is that.” Papa frowned at her. “Now take my arm and smile before I lose my temper completely and say something I will regret.”

  Jai drew back in surprise. She gingerly took her father’s arm, but she felt as though she did not understand him. He had never spoken to her in such a way before. Most people would indeed consider Jaipriya Bhatia a little spoiled. She was certainly indulged by her doting father. But this obvious anger over her disagreement about her arranged marriage was unexpected. Of course, Jai hadn’t expected to have an arranged marriage at all, no matter what the usual traditions dictated.

  Jai listened to the conversations flying about her as she entered the drawing room on her father’s arm. It was hard enough to keep herself from trying to readjust her choli every thirty seconds. The brilliant hot pink fabric supposedly looked beautiful against her brown skin, but it was hot and it was tight and the only thing that kept her from focusing solely on her discomfort was the necessity of figuring out what her Papa needed from these Arabs.

  Asif ibn Armeen al Saud was only one year older than Jai. She had turned twenty-three only two days before, and Asif’s family was very concerned that Asif and Jai should be married before she turned twenty-five so that she could hurry up and begin breeding. The man’s mother had actually used that very word. Breeding. If that hadn’t been enough to freak Jai out, there were Asif’s two older brothers, Hasim and Jabar.

  They were watching her right now. She could feel the weight of their gazes even as she stood beside her papa. Then Jabar grabbed his younger brother’s arm and whispered something in his ear just before the young man was shoved in Jai’s direction. She gave an inward groan. She really did not want to suffer through another round of the idiot attempting to feel her up in some dark hallway. He’d already attempted to assert his manly power over her. Asif would soon find that he was going to be less successful this time than he had been before. Jai was not that kind of girl, and the fact that she was still a virgin at twenty-three had nothing to do with it.

  “Come, Jai,” Asif said imperiously. “I wish to speak with you.”

  Jai took a breath to tell him off and suddenly found her arm caught in a vice grip. Her father was glaring down at her. “Of course,” Papa told Asif. “Jai would love to have a private talk with you.”

  The feeling of betrayal was acute and complete. Jai looked over her shoulder as Asif grabbed her arm and dragged her away from her father’s side. Across the room she could see Hasim and Jabar grinning as though they had just pulled off the most marvelous prank.

  DESMOND SPARKS KNEW there had to be a catch somewhere on this stupid desk. He could tell that there was a false bottom to the desktop. Someone had concealed either hard copy files or a flash drive in this desk, and Sparks was going to figure out where.

  He let his fingers slide lightly over the underside of the desk. There was a difference in the wood grain that told him exactly where the drawer was most likely located. He just couldn’t get the damn thing to pop open.

  “Stop it!”

  Sparks immediately sank into a crouch. The words were coming from a young woman and not any of the house guards. That wasn’t good. Sparks hadn’t planned on getting caught. He was only here to do some recon and find out as much information as possible on the family. Now it sounded very much as though he had managed to stumble into the middle of a domestic squabble.

  “You are mine,” came the imperious reply to the woman’s request to cease and desist. “I can do whatever I want.”

  “Think again, creep!

  There as a thud, a sort of squeal, and then quick, light footsteps heading right in his direction. Sparks had no time to hide before someone burst into the office. He palmed his Ka-Bar knife and prepared to defend himself. Then he realized that the intruder was tiny—perhaps five foot four inches—and dressed in a hot pink sari heavily decorated with beads. Her long, straight, black hair was piled on top of her head and pinned with gold chains and yellow pieces of amber.

  Sparks felt as though the wind had been knocked right out of him. He’d never seen a more enchanting sight. The woman was thin with full breasts, narrow hips, and athletic arms and legs that gave her a very fit, muscular appearance. Then she whipped around to face Sparks, leaned back against the door, and shut her eyes.

  She was so involved in her own apparent escape that she hadn’t even noticed him yet. Sparks was a little at a loss. He was a Navy SEAL. They did not make a habit of harming women and children. In fact, his mission today was all about saving a lot of women. Yet here was a pixie-like creature that had stumbled into the middle of his investigation. She had a diamond stud in the right side of her nose and a red bindi in the center of her forehead, surrounded by chips of sparkling rhinestones that had been placed over the elegant arches of her eyebrows.

  Sparks finally gave up and cleared his throat. Her eyes shot open, and she gaped at him as though she had never before seen a man. “What are you doing here in my father’s office?”

  “Looking for something,” Sparks said mildly, waiting to see what she would do. “I would think that was a bit obvious.”

  “It’s also trespassing,” she pointed out reasonably. “And rude. But let’s go with trespassing for the moment. I could scream and bring the guards.”

  “Which would also alert the young man that you just kicked in the balls,” he reminded her.

  “How did you know…?” She sighed. “Never mind. How about you just leave and I won’t tell.”

  He cocked his head to one side. She was certainly unexpected. “Not without what I came for.”

  “What is it you came for?” She glanced over her shoulder, looking very worried about the young man. “I shouldn’t think my papa would have much that would interest you in here.”

  “You would be surprised.” Sparks wondered if she was clueless to the reality of her father’s business. “Your papa is the money man for a very important Arabian prince.”

  “You’re talking about Hasim and Jabar,” she said suddenly. Her beautiful features settled into a very thoughtful expression. “They are here right now, you know?”

  “No, I did not.” Sparks cursed his poor timing. What were the odds that the Arabian princes would be in the house when Sparks chose to break in?

  “There are three,” she offered.

  “Three what?”

  “Three princes,” she insisted. “The young one Asif is supposed to b
e my husband.”

  “But you don’t want to marry him?” Sparks found himself uncomfortable with the idea as well. This was not a run-of-the-mill woman. She was brave. She was smart. And she was going to be run right over by the selfish princes.

  “I’m not going to marry him,” she said stubbornly. “I will find a way.”

  Sparks decided to go for broke and follow his instincts. “I’m looking for information on a human trafficking operation.”

  “Human…” Her voice trailed off seconds before she looked faintly ill. “You think my father is doing this?”

  “No. The princes are doing the trafficking. You father is simply laundering the money.”

  “He wouldn’t,” she insisted, but her whisper suggested she wasn’t as sure as she could have been. “Why would you think that?”

  “We know the operation exists. We know that Hasim and Jabar are behind it. We know where they keep the woman, how they sell them, how they get them in the first place, and even how they dispose of the extras they can’t sell.” Sparks grimaced. He really didn’t want to talk about this with the poor girl, and he couldn’t even decide why.

  “Get out,” she whispered. One hand pointed out the window and the other pointed at him. “Just leave. Now. I am not going to help a man who tells such vicious lies about my papa. If the princes are selling women, my papa can’t know about it. He’s not that kind of man.”

  Sparks realized that his time was up. He backed toward the window. For some reason he took just a split second to memorize the big dark eyes and the incredibly beautiful features of this unusual woman.

  “If you ever change your mind, you can always find me. My name is Sparks. Go downtown to the Fox and Hound Pub and ask for Sparks.” He stepped out the window and disappeared into the dark night. He would find what he needed another night. Tonight he’d gotten a little more than he had bargained for.

  Chapter Two

  Jai quickly took the back stairs and returned to the party. She was hoping she would be able to pretend that nothing had happened. Unfortunately, her plan had some holes. Mostly she hadn’t taken into account the fact that Asif the idiot would actually go whining to his brothers.