by Elle James
The only way they could have been surprised so thoroughly was if someone had prior knowledge of their meeting. Someone who’d set up an elaborate trap intent on killing anyone who could expose the shady dealings the contractors were pulling on the locals.
Someone on the inside had access to their coordinates and secret operations plans.
Inside the wire surrounding the camp, they had a traitor, and that traitor was responsible for Connolly’s death.
Chapter 2
A year later…
Life post-military couldn’t be more different.
Trevor lost his love for the fight after Connolly’s death and the funeral that had ripped out his heart. He’d begged Lana to let him stay with her until she got stronger, but she’d sent him back to his unit, saying they needed him more.
His brothers-in-arms were just as much family to Connolly as she had been, she said. Maybe more so. They needed him to help them through their loss.
Trevor had gone back to his position, but when the time came for him to re-up and sign on for more of the same had come due, he couldn’t put his name on the dotted line. Instead, he’d submitted his paperwork to exit the military.
Fortunately, he had a friend in Montana who’d heard of a start-up organization that provided protective services to paying clients and other worthy individuals. It was in his home state of Montana, and he could use some of the skills he’d learned in Navy SEAL BUD/S training. He’d signed up without hesitation.
Thus, began his employment with the Brotherhood Protectors, working for Hank Patterson, a former Navy SEAL.
He couldn’t have landed a more perfect job. After all, what else was he good for? All he knew was tactics, battle skills and weaponry. His cowboy skills were rusty from being dormant for so many years. But that, was just what Hank Patterson was looking for—the battle skills, coupled with a strong sense of honor and a solid work ethic.
Born and raised in Montana, Trevor had those two traits in spades. Except he feared he might be lacking in the honor area. His friend had died, and all he could think about was wanting to be with his friend’s widow. Guilt ate at him like a flesh-eating disease. When Lana had told him he didn’t have to stick around, he’d taken her at her word, choosing to leave her alone rather than risk showing his love for her. She deserved her time to grieve without being pestered by someone who was perpetually lovesick for her.
He’d been vigilant in checking up on her, calling her once a month and on her birthday to hear her voice and get a feel for how she was doing since her husband’s death.
Trevor had quit the Navy and returned home to Montana.
Life seemed to be settling onto an even keel, though the survivor’s guilt never seemed to dissipate. Trevor hoped, with time, the pain of loss would fade.
After his first assignment with the Brotherhood Protectors in Eagle Rock, Montana, Trevor went fly fishing with one of his new friends on the team, Chuck Johnson. While he’d been out, he’d received a call from Lana. He hadn’t been in range of a cell phone tower when the call had come through, but she’d left a message.
He and Chuck made it back to the Blue Moose Tavern in Eagle Rock before his cellphone pinged, indicating voice mail.
“Trevor, it’s Lana.” She paused briefly. “I might be in a little bit of trouble. I could use your help. But if you can’t make it, I’ll understand.” She paused again. “On second thought, don’t worry about me. I’ve got this. Forget I called.” The message ended abruptly. He stared down at his phone, frowning.
“What’s wrong?” Chuck lifted his beer but didn’t take a swig. “Girl troubles?”
“Not mine,” he answered automatically. “My former teammate’s widow.”
“She’s in trouble?”
Trevor nodded. “Sounds like it, but she ended by saying forget about it.”
“Huh. That’s when the trouble’s deeper than she can imagine, and she’s so deep she doesn’t want to pull you into the mess.” Chuck set his mug on the bar. “Call her back.”
Trevor tapped Lana’s number and pressed the phone to his ear. After seven rings, he shook his head. “No answer.”
“Man, you need to go,” Chuck said.
Trevor nodded. “Yes, I do. I made a promise to her husband I’d look out for her.”
“And that’s what we do. Special Ops guys look out for their own and the ones they love.” Chuck slid off his bar stool and stood. “Need my help?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to get down to San Diego ASAP and reconnoiter the situation.” Trevor slapped a bill on the counter and stood. “What’s the fastest way to get a plane out of here?”
Chuck grinned. “Talk to Hank. He has friends in all the right places.”
Trevor had to call Hank anyway to tell his new boss he’d be skipping town without a projected return date.
Hank had been more than understanding, offering to hook him up with a buddy who owned an airplane. All he had to do was help pay for fuel, and within five hours of receipt of Lana’s call, he was well on his way to San Diego.
Hank had even arranged for a rental car to be waiting at his destination airport. Darkness had long since cloaked the land, but the bright streetlights in California reminded Trevor of why he loved Montana. Here, every street corner had a brightly shining light while back home the moon and stars provided the only illumination needed. He drove through the streets, reminding himself to ease his foot off the accelerator. Getting a speeding ticket would only slow him down more.
When he finally pulled to a stop in front of the townhouse Lana and Connolly had called home, his pulse kicked up, and his hands grew damp on the steering wheel. He hadn’t spoken face-to-face with Lana since the funeral. Would he still feel the same attraction he’d felt since their first kiss? Would he be able to hide his feelings for the woman? Could he present a sense of friendship with no strings attached in his bid to help her with whatever trouble she’d run into? The last thing he wanted was for her to feel uncomfortable around him.
The only way he’d know the answers to any of those questions was to get out of the vehicle, march up to the door and find out for himself.
He glanced at the section of the building he’d visited so many times when Connolly and Lana had invited him over to dinner. A quick look at his watch indicated it was almost midnight. Lana would be in bed by now.
Trevor stepped out of the vehicle.
A light glowed from the upstairs bedroom he knew to be the master bedroom where Lana and Connolly had slept.
Did she sleep with the lights on? Was she that insecure since her husband’s death?
His chest tightening, Trevor took a step toward the door. He’d put off seeing her in person for far too long. She’d insisted she didn’t need him, but she might have been hiding her grief to spare him.
Trevor could have kicked himself for his selfishness. He shouldn’t have left Lana alone for so long. He’d made a goddamn promise to Connolly and had failed him.
As he strode toward the door, Trevor noticed a shadowy movement through the window of the first floor where the blinds were open but the room beyond lay in darkness.
A familiar prickly sensation tingled down the back of Trevor’s neck, alerting him. Something wasn’t right in Lana’s house.
He looked up at the window of the master bedroom and froze. A woman stood in front of the window. The drapes were drawn, but the light from inside silhouetted her figure. She tugged at her top, lifting the hem up her torso and pulling it over her head before tossing it aside.
When she turned, her perky breasts were nothing but shadows, but they had the same effect on Trevor as if he’d seen her in the flesh. His groin tightened automatically.
Then the shadowy figure on the first floor drew his attention back to the problem at hand.
Did Lana have a guest in her house? Or was the dark figure an intruder?
Not willing to wait until something awful happened to Lana, Trevor raced for the townhouse and tried the fro
nt door. It was locked. If the figure was an intruder, he had to have entered through a door or window at the rear of the structure.
The townhouse was one of several in a row. The only way to go around to the back was to circle four or five other townhouses. Trevor couldn’t spare that kind of time. The figure on the first floor had made it to the stairs.
Trevor studied the front of the brick townhouse. A polished bronze, metal trellis covered in colorful bougainvillea stretched up the front of Lana’s unit, almost all the way up to her bedroom window.
He didn’t hesitate. The person inside would make it to Lana’s bedroom before Trevor could think through any other alternative. He had to act.
Trevor placed his foot on the bottom rung of the metal trellis and tested it for stability. Then he was climbing, hand over hand, up the side of the townhouse to the top of the trellis. He couldn’t quite make it to the window ledge using the trellis. Reaching to the side, he gripped the brick ledge of the windowsill and pulled himself up then stared through the curtained window into the room inside.
Although his sight was blurred by the curtain, he could see Lana standing beside the bed. Her head jerked toward the window at the same moment the bedroom door exploded inward.
She emitted a scream and grabbed the lamp on the nightstand.
Trevor tried to lift the window, but it didn’t budge.
Inside the bedroom, a man dressed in black advanced on Lana, carrying what appeared to be a weapon in his hand.
“What do you want?” she called out.
He didn’t answer. Lana dropped to the floor a moment before the sound of gunfire rent the air.
Trevor cocked his elbow and slammed it into the window. The glass shattered inward. Trevor pulled himself as far to one side of the window as possible.
Another shot was fired, this time at the window, shattering even more glass.
Lana popped up from the floor and flung a pillow at the intruder, then ducked back down.
Knowing he had only seconds, Trevor couldn’t take the time to clean the jagged shards out of the way. He curled his body into a tight ball and rolled through the window onto the floor.
As soon as he hit the ground, he rolled behind the bed, landing close to where Lana hunkered low, wearing nothing but her bra and panties, her body shaking. She cocked her arm, ready to throw her elbow into him when he caught her around the middle.
“It’s me, Trevor,” he said.
More shots were fired. One pierced the bed and nicked Lana’s arm.
She gasped and lay flatter against the floor.
Outside the townhouse, sirens sounded.
A muttered curse sounded from the other side of the room, and footsteps crossed the floor, heading toward them.
Catching Lana’s wide-eyed gaze, Trevor pressed a finger to his lips, bunched his muscles and prepared to launch himself at the intruder.
When the man rounded the end of the bed, Trevor threw himself at the guy’s knees, knocking him off his feet.
The two crashed to the floor.
Trevor had seconds before the man regained his senses. He grabbed the wrist holding the gun and slammed it against the floor. The weapon went off twice before the man loosened his grip and the gun slid free.
Lana emerged from behind Trevor and dove for the gun. She came up on her haunches, pointing the weapon at the man.
Downstairs, someone banged on the door to the townhouse. The next moment a crash sounded below.
“It’s the police!” A man shouted. “Put your weapons down and come out with your hands up!”
“On the second floor,” Lana called out. “We have the intruder pinned to the floor. Please, come help.”
Footsteps pounded on the steps leading to the second floor of Lana’s townhouse. Moments later, two uniformed policemen edged around the doorframe, weapons drawn.
“Miss, put the weapon down,” said the first officer through the door as he pointed his weapon at Lana.
“She’s not the perpetrator,” Trevor said, pressing his arm across the real criminal’s throat. He dipped his head toward the intruder. “He is.”
“We’ll take over,” the officer said. “As soon as the lady releases the weapon.”
Lana laid the handgun on the floor and shoved it toward the officer.
He kicked it back to the second officer and shifted his aim toward Trevor and the man on the floor. “We’ll handle this.”
The man beneath him bucked, fighting to free himself.
“You want me to let him go?”
“Yeah, let him go. We’ll take it from here.”
“Lana, get back,” Trevor warned. He wasn’t sure what the man would do when he released his hold.
Taking a deep breath, Trevor rolled over and onto his feet, remaining in a crouched, ready position.
The intruder leaped to his feet and plowed into the first police officer like a lineman tackling the opposing quarterback, knocking him backward.
The officer went down, taking his partner with him.
The perpetrator raced out of the bedroom and down the steps.
Trevor leaped over the officers and went after the guy. He wouldn’t let him get away. Not after he’d tried to kill Lana. The man couldn’t be allowed to run loose on the streets. He could make another attempt on Lana’s life.
Not on Trevor’s watch. He’d promised Connolly he’d take care of Lana. It was about time he lived up to his word.
Lana stood in the bedroom, shaking from head to toe. Never in her life had she been shot at. Now, she had an idea of what Mason and Trevor had been up against every time they’d gone on a mission. Only they’d faced more than one adversary, each wielding a high-powered rifle or machine gun. Not one lone gunman with a pistol.
Trevor.
Oh, sweet Lord. Trevor had come just when she’d needed him most.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, and her cheeks flushed with heat.
Lana had loved Mason with all her heart. And she’d loved Trevor, too. But she’d married Mason, not Trevor.
Their friendship had suffered because of her choice, but she couldn’t marry both men, and she’d wanted a regular life with a family filled with children. She and Mason had talked about trying to get pregnant after he’d returned from his last deployment.
That same lead ball settled in the pit of her gut. No matter how much time passed, she still couldn’t think about the casualty assistance officer who’d showed up at her door to deliver the news of Mason’s death.
Trevor had arrived days later to hold her as she’d cried her heart out. He’d been there through Mason’s funeral and the week following, after which, she’d sent him away. She’d told herself she needed time to grieve alone, to get her head on straight, to learn to live without Mason.
That had been a year ago. A year she’d gone without seeing Trevor. A year she’d pushed him away with every phone call. And with one text, poof! He’d come.
Warmth spread through her chest, and she could finally move.
“Backup just arrived,” one officer said. “Will you be all right?”
She nodded. “Go. Help Trevor catch the bastard.”
The officers scrambled to their feet and ran after Trevor.
Lana dressed quickly in a T-shirt and shorts, left her room and descended the staircase, holding tightly to the railing, her legs feeling like wet noodles, refusing to work the way they were intended. She couldn’t fall apart. Not now. Not when she was obviously getting close to the truth.
Why else would someone come after her with a gun? She wasn’t stupid, thinking the attack had been a random break-in. The masked gunman had come after her, specifically.
She hurried to her purse and rifled through it, breathing a sigh of relief when she felt the smooth metal surface of her light-weight laptop.
Thank goodness, he hadn’t gone after it. She kept all the data she’d collected on that laptop. Fortunately, she also kept a backup on the internet cloud. If something happened to her�
�and if anyone cared—they could find what she’d discovered by going through her files.
Assuming anyone dug deep enough to learn why she’d been targeted in the first place. She hadn’t yet gone to the police or the FBI with the information she’d been collecting. In her mind, she’d been waiting for clear proof, beyond a shadow of a doubt, before she turned it over to any government agency. Only then would they believe her. But she was getting so close, she figured she was in way over her head.
So, she’d set up the meeting with the FBI. She hadn’t asked her coworker to join her in her big reveal. A couple months ago, Peter Bishop had happened upon her digging into a database she shouldn’t have been in. She’d felt obligated to tell him what she was looking for.
Peter had been shocked by her revelation that something illegal was going on inside their organization, and that someone might be plotting against the government. He’d promised not to tell anyone and had offered to help her in her investigation.
His computer skills were much better than hers, and he’d managed to hack into some of the more restricted government databases, revealing even more connections between the contractors working the reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and people stateside who had dealings with anti-government groups. Some of those anti-government organizations were loosely linked to several bombing incidents in the Pacific Northwest and in Boston.
Those groups with their coded conversations made Lana nervous when she lurked on their social media sites.
That’s when she’d decided the information she’d dug up was dangerous. But to reveal the data was a huge step.
She stood a good chance of losing her job over the information she’d ferreted out of the Department of Homeland Security and other government databases she had no business poking into. But what she’d learned was way too alarming to keep to herself. She had to let someone know.
Her biggest fear was that they’d chalk up her findings as belonging to a crazed conspiracy theorist. Who would believe her if she told them her husband’s death in Afghanistan had been to confuse and cover up a terrorist’s plot? A plot that involved a potential attack on American soil—an attack aimed at the ultimate overthrow of the US government? And that the effort was linked to a high-ranking official in an agency set up to protect the country from such attacks?
