SEAL INVESTIGATIONS: A 5-Books SEAL Romance Series

by Lola Silverman

  There was no question in his mind as to where she had gone. The overwhelming sense of duty she felt toward her family had been palpable. It pained her to think that her mother was going to lose status or support just because of her. Jaipriya truly felt that responsibility of a child to its parent. It was an honest emotion for her, and it was something that Sparks would not have changed for the world because it made Jaipriya uniquely herself. But for now he needed to mitigate what was likely to be some pretty serious damage.

  He drove much faster than was probably advisable. His truck barreled down the highway and through intersections and suburban streets until he returned to what was becoming the scene where it all began. He forced himself to slow down. It wouldn’t do either of them any good if he showed up banging on the door and demanding to see Jaipriya. He needed to do some recon first. He needed to know if she was still there, if the princes had been contacted yet, and whether or not her father was even going to try anything.

  Parking his truck, he got out and carefully closed the door with barely a snick. Then he ducked down low and headed for the same tree where Jaipriya had escaped only a few nights before. The branch wasn’t super low, but he could easily climb onto the fence and then use the tree to enter her bedroom. There was a good chance the door wasn’t locked yet. It was an entry point, and he was willing to use it.

  Scrambling expertly up the stone fence, he waited while perched on the top. It was quiet. There didn’t seem to be the same level of security as before. That suggested the princes were not in residence, which was a good thing.

  Finally he managed to leap for the tree branch. He slung his arm around, and then one leg. Finally he managed to get himself over to the window ledge. He had been right. It was unlocked. A quick flick of his wrist and he was inside. Now it was time to slow down and start using his brain. There was no reason to go barreling into a trap. He needed to know what was going on between Jaipriya’s family and the Armeen al Sauds. That would tell him everything.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jai swallowed back the fear she was feeling. This was her father—her family. She should not be afraid. He loved her. He had told her all of her life that she was the apple of his eye. Surely he would not betray her now.

  She stuck her chin out and tried to muster all of the confidence that she’d experienced when she was with Sparks. “Explain to me what it is that I’ve done to displease you, Pita.”

  Mami grabbed Jai’s arm and began dragging her up the stairs. Her father turned on his heel and strode down the hallway to his office. He opened the door, and Mami nearly threw Jai through it. Then her aunt shut the door with a slam, and Jai was alone with her father.

  Now he sat behind his desk and seemed to collapse into the leather. “You have brought such shame upon our family, Jaipriya!” her father moaned. “Do you have any idea what you have done?”

  “No.” Jai shook her head. “I’ve done nothing wrong. Please explain how it is that I brought shame, when it was you who invited the Armeen al Sauds into our lives.”

  Her father gave her an abrupt look of contempt. “Have you no notion of how much it costs to run this household?” He held up his hands to indicate the fine furnishings and the lovely home. “Your mother is used to a certain standard of living. It is her right. She was a higher caste than I, you know.”

  Jai shook her head. “Here in America there are no castes.”

  “Ah, but that does not mean there is not a certain degree of importance that wealth can buy. I was struggling to keep up before the princes approached me with a very small request. It was quite simple.”

  “But then there was another request,” she guessed. “And another after that. And before long they were your only customers because you had no time for anything but their illegal business ventures.”

  “I enticed other acquaintances of mine to invest in the Saud business holdings.” Her father spun in his chair and appeared to be staring out the window. “It was a sound way to avoid these ridiculous American tax laws.”

  “If you love this country, you must also understand that the taxes are what keep so many of the programs afloat that help people who cannot possibly live otherwise,” Jai reminded him. “I believe the phrase is ‘you must pay to play’.”

  “Perhaps,” he allowed. He glanced over at her as though he pitied her naiveté. “And then I discovered that the princes were trafficking in kidnapped American women.”

  “And you did nothing,” Jai said quietly. “I have never been as ashamed of you as I was when I discovered that file in your desk.”

  SPARKS CREPT ALONG the hallway. He could hear the timbre of voices inside the office where he had first met Jaipriya. Yet just as he was getting close enough to make out what they were saying, he heard the doorbell ring once again.

  Spinning around, he carefully approached the balcony railing and squatted down. His position afforded him a protected view of the front foyer. He watched with bated breath as Hasim and Jabar ibn Armeen al Saud entered the house. Both were dressed impeccably in custom-tailored suits and shoes that had probably been custom-made in Italy. They looked like a million bucks and were probably carrying around that much cash somewhere on their persons.

  Sparks pressed his lips into a tight line and wondered where to go next. He retreated back down the hallway toward Jai’s room. It was almost a sure bet that the princes were headed to the office. Perhaps he could get the drop on all of them if he waited until after they had already entered. Of course, he was lacking the sort of firepower that would allow him to truly hold all the cards. His only hope would be to somehow gain control of the room and attempt to get Jai out without shots fired. That was one big if as far as he was concerned.

  He got as close to the wall as possible and held Jaipriya’s door open just far enough to see the two princes striding down the hall. They were muttering to each other in Arabic, but he couldn’t make out their words. They paused before going into the office. He was surprised to note that they were actually primping. He filed that away for future possible use. The two of them were so concerned about their perfectly put together appearances that they stopped and exposed themselves in a hallway just to straighten suit coats, buttons, and cuff links and to smooth their thick black hair.

  Sparks pulled out his phone and texted Romero. He needed his team to know where he was and what was happening. There was a good chance this was all going to go south. If that happened he was going to need the team to beat the streets and find Jaipriya before it was too late. Sparks had been in plenty of bad spots before. He was confident he could find or fight his way out. He had no desire to see if Jaipriya could do the same.

  Slipping back out of her bedroom, he took a deep breath. It was now or never, and there was absolutely no point in wasting time wondering what the outcome would be.

  JAIPRIYA FROZE WHEN the office door opened behind her. Then she felt physically ill when she saw Hasim and Jabar step through the doorway. The two of them had grins on their faces that might have looked pleasant to anyone who didn’t know them. To Jai they appeared as evil incarnate. She pivoted to put her back against her father’s bookcases and retreated warily toward the wall.

  She glanced toward her father. “What are they doing here?”

  “They’ve come to retrieve Asif’s bride.” Her father’s voice was almost mechanical. “You know it is often the custom for a woman to live in her future husband’s household in order to learn their ways.”

  “No.” Jai’s tone was flat. “First of all? I’m not marrying Asif. Secondly, I’m not going anywhere with these two. They’re devils, and you know it, Pita!”

  “I know no such thing, you ridiculous girl.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. It was as though he had been overtaken by his shame and now could not even look her in the face. He cleared his throat and made a gesture of respect toward the two men. “Please, come in. I trust there will be no further inconveniences on my end of this agreement.”

  “I trust there will not be,
” Hasim agreed. “Asif was very upset that the little minx assaulted him.”

  “If your brother needs the two of you to fight his battles for him, then he’s not much of a man, is he?” Jai didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm dripping from her words. “He won’t be a match for me. I’ll grind him beneath my heels and have him eating out of my hand like a dog in a week.”

  Jabar’s eyes flashed fire. “Then perhaps I will have to take you in hand myself and teach you some manners!”

  “Or perhaps you need to find one of those beaten, abused, and downtrodden women that you are selling all over Asia and marry Asif off to her,” Jai retorted. “I know all about your little enterprise. It cannot last forever. I promise you that.”

  Hasim hissed. He looked so angry that she was surprised his head didn’t explode. “You need a lesson or two, foolish child!”

  Then, to Jaipriya’s horror, Hasim snatched at her hand. He dragged her over to her father’s sofa and sat down. He pulled her belly down onto his lap and started to try to pull her jeans down over her bottom. She squirmed like a wild thing. She was not going to let him spank her! That fucking bastard wasn’t going to touch her! She felt her face brush his thigh and took hold of him with her teeth. She bit down hard and actually felt the fine fabric of his trousers rip against her canine tooth.

  Hasim started cursing in Arabic. He was still trying to pull down her jeans, but now he was trying to keep her from biting and scratching him into the bargain. Her father was yelling something useless, and Jabar was actually laughing.

  SPARKS HAD NEVER felt such a rush of unfettered anger before in his life. He stood in the doorway of the office and watched Jabar laugh while Hasim attempted to give Jaipriya a spanking. To the woman’s credit, she was fighting like a cornered hellcat. Then she finally managed to kick out with her shoe and land it right on Hasim’s chin. His head rocked back, and he let out a bellow of anger.

  This was no time to sit back and watch the show. Jabar was alone and distracted. Sparks slipped in behind him and wrapped an arm around his neck. Jabar started to struggle, but Sparks increased the pressure. When the prince became absolutely still, Sparks knew that Jabar realized he was in a prime position to snap his neck if he wanted to.

  “Enough!” Sparks bellowed. “Let her go, or I’m going to remove your brother’s neck from his spinal column.”

  Hasim froze. In fact, the entire room froze. Jai managed to squirm away from Hasim. She swiped at her face and quickly took up position behind Sparks. Her breathing was ragged, but she didn’t seem any worse for the wear.

  The entire situation was explosive. Sparks could feel the rising tension in the room and knew they needed to make a quick exit. Then her father did something incredibly stupid.

  Yanking out his desk drawer, he pulled a gun and leveled it at Sparks. “Let go of Jabar or I will shoot!”

  Hasim was the one who started to laugh. “Is your aim truly that good, Bhatia? Because if you shoot my brother, I will murder you.”

  “I will kill him!” Bhatia’s voice was shaking, as was his hand.

  Sparks could see where this was going. “Jaipriya, leave. Now. Get out that door and don’t stop.”

  “Yes, Jaipriya,” Hasim mocked. “Go with this American Navy SEAL. He cannot give you anything because he does not even have two pennies to rub together, but surely that does not matter to a woman like you, who has been spoiled her entire life and promised all the best things.”

  Sparks couldn’t help it. He laughed. “You don’t know her at all, do you? Did you even ask what’s important? Or were you just looking for a way to lean on her father and gain a bride for your idiot brother all in one move? It was clever, but now it’s over. And I’d take that gun before the stupid fuck shoots us all.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Jai said stubbornly.

  Sparks grunted. “Jai. Please.”

  She made a grumpy noise, but he was thrilled to hear the door open. He saw her move toward the exit from the corner of his eye. Then the whole room exploded.

  “Jaipriya! Get. Back. Here!” her father shouted, waving the gun in the air.

  The .45 went off like a firecracker. The sound was deafening in the close space. Sparks’s eardrums screamed in protest, and his hearing receded to a muffled haze of noise that he could not decipher. He saw her father drop the gun in alarm, but the damage was done. Jabar flinched against Sparks and went down. Blood bloomed bright red on his chest.

  Hasim screamed in rage. He scooped the weapon off the floor and turned it on Bhatia. Two shots and Jaipriya’s father was dead on the floor. She screamed in agony and reversed directions to head for her father’s side.

  Sparks managed to grab her around the waist and fling her toward the exit just as Hasim turned the gun on them. “Go! Get help.” He flung his keys at her just as he heard more ear-shattering shots and felt the bullets enter his side. Grunting, he went down, but not before he saw Jaipriya dodging out the door on her way out of the house.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sparks closed his eyes and then opened them. His brain was moving at a slug’s pace, and it took him several blinks to realize that he was staring at a bookcase across the office. His face was smashed against the Persian rug, and the thick nap of the carpet was tickling his nose as air went in and out. There was a stabbing pain in his right side and a bone-deep ache that he was—unfortunately—intimately familiar with.

  An acrid stench rolled over Sparks, and it took him a second to realize that he smelled the heavy odor of men’s cologne. Then Hasim came into view, and Sparks realized that it was the Arab’s high-dollar perfume. The angry expression on Hasim’s face should have worried Sparks, but he was too busy being satisfied that Jaipriya had gotten away. It didn’t matter what happened to him. She was safe.

  “Do you have any idea how much you are going to pay for my brother’s death?” Hasim’s mouth twisted into a cruel smile.

  Sparks grunted. It was funny how he was getting blamed for Jabar’s death. He could have snapped the fucker’s neck but hadn’t even taken the chance. “I didn’t kill him,” Sparks managed to say.

  “Ah, this is true,” Hasim agreed. “But since my target is already dead, killing you slowly will compensate me for my brother and for my accountant.”

  Hasim had some seriously screwed up priorities if that was what he thought about the situation. Hasim and Jabar were close. Sparks found it extremely unbelievable that Hasim wouldn’t be more upset about his brother’s death. What was really going on here?

  Hasim grabbed Sparks’s arm and hauled him up off the floor. “Let’s go for a ride, Navy boy. We have a plane to catch.”

  “Not even bringing your brother’s body for burial?” Sparks taunted. “Seems like the two of you weren’t quite as close as everyone thought.”

  Hasim cursed in Arabic and smashed Sparks on the side of his head. Sparks saw his vision turn black and curl around the edges. He fought to stay conscious, but quickly lost as he gave in to the blackness.

  JAIPRIYA SAT IN the driver’s seat of Sparks’s truck and chewed her fingernail. She knew that Sparks had told her to go. She wasn’t stupid. His meaning had been clear. He wanted her to leave and then meet up with him later, probably back at the bar. But she wasn’t going to leave him.

  She was still reeling. In fact, she could not think about her father. She couldn’t acknowledge that he was dead—that she had seen him shot dead before her eyes. She could not go there right now. Sinking low in the driver’s seat, she started taking deep breaths to stop herself from panicking. That was when she saw a car whip into her parents’ driveway. It was going so fast that she heard the wheels squeak to a stop on the aggregate.

  Jai dropped as low as she possibly could into the seat. Peering through the steering wheel, she managed to just barely see out the front windshield. Three big hulking Arab men spilled out of the car. They headed for the front door of her parents’ house. She was dying to see what they were doing, but there was no way she was going
to try to sneak up there to find out. If she got caught there would be no one to help Sparks.

  Think. Think. Think.

  Then she recalled a half-remembered conversation between some of Sparks’s SEAL team about the possibility of taking Asif hostage as a way to put pressure on Hasim and Jabar.

  I could do it!

  No! She was out of her mind. It was a completely outlandish notion. She’d never done anything like that in her life. Plus, there was every chance that Asif was already on his way to the airstrip. The only thing working for her was the fact that playboy Asif loved clubs and hated following directions from his big brothers. Her one chance would be to catch the Armeen al Saud baby brother at his favorite hangout before he dragged his hung-over ass back to the airstrip where he was meeting his brothers.

  The three hulking men who had gone in only moments ago now came out with Sparks’s body suspended between them. Jai whimpered as she watched them toss the SEAL into the back seat of the car. Hasim wasn’t far behind. He actually straightened his suit jacket as he walked to the car that he and Jabar had driven earlier. Now one of the hulking guards got into the driver’s seat of Hasim’s car, as the other men were already driving off with Sparks.

  The sight of their taillights disappearing into the twilight evening decided Jaipriya. She could not just give up on Sparks. He would have never given up on her. What was left of her life had just come tumbling down around her head. She could not even imagine where Mami and Maa were inside the house. Had they found Pita’s body yet?

  She swiped at her eyes and started the engine. It was time to put on her big girl panties and prepare to fight for what was really important.

  THE NEXT TIME Sparks came to, his head was thumping against the armrest in the back seat of a strange car. They were flying along at a rate that suggested freeway speed. In the front seat he heard the chatter of Arabic mixed with English.