RULES OF LOVE (A Navy SEALs Romance)

by Bella Grant

  “How does he know it was her intel?”

  Reinhart sighed. He looked old—very old—standing there, his eyes on Eddie. “That is a story Eddie will have to tell you herself. We move out soon.”

  “Sir? How do we proceed with this?”

  “You don’t,” Reinhart said stiffly. “Laon and her partner are on their way back from Milan with more intel, and the men downstairs will give us answers, one way or another. You are to do nothing. Same goes for Eddie.”

  “I can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Beau snapped.

  “You can and you will, Savage. This time, you’re the target, and at best, the bait. I hadn’t wanted to tell you any of this until it was over, but too late now.” He turned and left without another word.

  Beau’s jaw clenched as he returned to stand at Eddie’s bedside. Eddie Sage. That was her name. He’d found her ID on her after the medic left. She was part of the detail to protect him, along with Shane and Ted… Reinhart had said ‘Laon’—Jackie and Gareth, too? Beau ran a hand through his hair. All of it was a setup to keep him safe, and look where it got them. Reinhart should’ve just told him from the beginning.

  It was his job to protect everyone else, not the other way around. And now the woman he thought he was falling for—if she was even the same damn woman—nearly died to keep him safe. As much as he appreciated being alive, he was pissed at all of them for lying to him. The second she woke up, he would get the answers he needed, no matter what it cost either of them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hugh hung up his cell with a curse and chucked it onto the bed in the hotel room. Those bastards had failed him, and he had agents sniffing around his warehouse in Milan. West turned out to be the wrong man for the job, and Hugh was going to pay for it. His inside man was going to pay for it as well.

  He wanted his vengeance, needed it before he moved forward with his operations. Milan was only one of the many new footholds he’d created. For three years, they thought he was simply hiding out, ducking under the radar, but he’d been expanding his empire. His cocaine trafficking was a cover for the weapons he dealt. Soon enough, he would be the only man to stretch so far across the globe.

  Sage and Savage couldn’t stop him, but his need to kill them was too strong, had kept him going for so long. He wanted them eliminated for good. Then he and his new partner could get down to the real work.

  They would move the two agents to a new safe house, but no matter. Hugh controlled everything he needed to get to them. It was only a matter of time before he got exactly what he wanted.

  ***

  Reinhart watched as the four men were separated into interrogation rooms. He had a long day ahead of him, but he was going to get some damn answers from one of these men if it took him all night.

  “Sir,” Jackie said as she came up beside him. “Savage still alive?”

  “He is, Laon, but we have a new problem. Sage is also a target.”

  “Damn,” she whispered. She indicated the four rooms with a nod of her head. “Have they said anything yet?”

  “No, but they will soon enough. Milan. What do you have?”

  Jackie flipped open the folder in her hands. “The place was empty when we arrived except for the bodies of the missing agents. Executed, shots to the back of the head. There were also traces of cocaine found on the floor and several empty crates. They’re being analyzed now, but I’m guessing ammunitions.”

  “No new leads?”

  “We hacked into the old security feed, took some stills of faces. Tech’s working on cleaning them up, but there were at least twenty men there, sir. It’s going to take time.”

  “We don’t have ti—what the hell? Get the medic!”

  Reinhart rushed to the first interrogation room, Jackie right behind him, as the man’s mouth foamed and he fell out of his chair. His hands were still handcuffed behind him, but Reinhart knew what he’d done. Jackie called from the hall, yelling for the other doors to be opened, but as Reinhart reached the first man, he knew it was too late.

  The man shuddered hard before he died. Jackie appeared in the doorway. “Dead,” she growled. “All of them are dead, sir.”

  “Cyanide capsules,” Reinhart snapped. “I thought his men were checked!”

  Another agent rushed to Jackie’s side. “They were, sir. I don’t know how the pills were missed.”

  “I want to know who checked them in and I want to know now! Laon, I’m sending you as part of the new guard detail for Savage and Sage.”

  “Yes, sir. And Milan?”

  “The second the techs know anything, I’ll pass it along. Do not let Savage or Sage do anything reckless,” Reinhart ordered. “They won’t like it, but they’re the targets and will remain in that safe house.”

  Jackie nodded and took off down the corridor of the base they currently operated out of in Italy. It was small and deliberately undetectable, yet Reinhart was sure Coleman knew where they were. This place had not been established until after the incident, but that didn’t seem to mean anything. If West was compromised, then who was to say another of his men wasn’t? Reinhart wanted to place the whole base on lockdown, but if there was another turned agent, he needed to find him without setting off the alarms.

  The idea of using Savage and Sage as bait looked more appealing by the second.

  ***

  When the time came to leave the old safe house for a new one, Beau refused to leave Eddie’s side. Her vitals were better, but she still hadn’t woken up. They loaded her onto a gurney in the back of an unmarked van, and Beau demanded he ride with her. He made sure his weapons were secure, and they left the old, stone house behind.

  He asked where they were headed, but the agents simply told him the fallback house. Beau didn’t know where that was and didn’t give a damn. His mind was in turmoil, roiling from being pissed at Eddie for lying to him and anxiously waiting for her to open her damn eyes so he could yell at her and kiss her… but maybe not in that order.

  “We’re here,” the man driving the van stated. “You will have agents posted around the perimeter, and Agent Laon is on her way to give you an update. Shane should be on his way soon, too.”

  Beau nodded and got out of the back. The house was smaller, set back in the trees and from what he could tell, well hidden from any major road. Cameras were attached to the roof with several more in the trees that he could see from a glance. Hell of a lot of good it did them last time.

  Eddie was taken upstairs to one of the bedrooms, her IV switched out, and Beau was told once again he should change and get some rest. He flat out refused and growled at the men to get out.

  That was over an hour ago, and he refused to sit still. Beau paced the room, his eyes on her face the whole time, willing her eyes to open. He needed to know she was going to live, and watching her twitch, her breathing ragged and hollow, he wasn’t sure if she would pull through as the medic had promised. He was considering putting her in a damn vehicle and hightailing it to the hospital when she coughed and her eyes fluttered.

  “Eddie?” He was at her side instantly, holding her hand and resting his other on her forehead. “Eddie, can you hear me? Open your eyes, damn it.”

  Her lips twitched as she coughed, and her eyes opened one at a time. “Savage?”

  “Right here,” he said, his voice rougher than he thought it would be. “Been right here.”

  Her face scrunched as she tried to sit up and winced.

  “Stop it, you’ll hurt yourself. Just lie still.”

  “Ordering me around again?” she whispered and let her body sink back down onto the bed. “What happened? Why does my head feel like I’ve been hit by a truck?” Her eyes widened more. “You called me Eddie.”

  He bit his cheek to keep the brunt of his anger at bay… for now. “I did. Afraid the game’s up.” Beau’s hand tightened on hers. “You were given an overdose at the house.”

  Her eyes widened, and she blinked a few times, looking around the room. He
r eyes glanced from the IV to Beau’s hand holding hers, and he knew the second they landed on his bloody shirt. “Is that mine?”

  He nodded. “Your heart stopped. I got it going again. You were coughing up blood.” He licked his lips and moved his hand up to cup her cheek. An emotion he couldn’t read crossed her face, but she didn’t flinch away from his touch. Instead, she leaned into it.

  “You saved my life, Navy?”

  “I’m not letting you leave me that easily,” he whispered. “No matter how many times you threaten me.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead, her cheek, and finally, let his lips brush against hers. She sighed, and Beau’s gut twisted. She had died. For that minute, she’d been gone from his life and everything was dark. No matter what happened to him, Eddie was not going to die again.

  He sat back on the edge of the bed and watched her closely. She was alive and that should’ve been all that mattered, but when she’d screamed in the bathroom, what came out of her mouth told him that whatever Naomi Veri said she’d gone through, the truth behind Eddie Sage was much worse. Reinhart had hinted at that much.

  “I know that look, Savage. You can be pissed all you want, but I followed my orders,” she told him, her eyes taking in the room. “Fallback safe house?”

  “Yeah, for both of us.”

  Eddie’s eye twitched. “What do you mean, both of us?”

  “You’re being targeted, too. We’re stuck in this safe house until Reinhart catches the bastard.”

  “I knew he was going to overreact,” she muttered.

  “You nearly died… You did die,” Beau snapped. “I don’t think he’s overreacting. That would be when he thought I needed to be set under guard.”

  Eddie forced herself up to a sitting position, and he watched as she yanked the IV from her arm. “Your house was blown up. They told you that, right? Hugh wants you dead, Savage.”

  “Clearly I’m not the only one.” His eyes narrowed as he walked around the small bedroom, his hands clenching and unclenching at his side. She seemed so nonchalant about lying to him like she had.

  This woman had manipulated him since the first day he’d arrived. Now, as he stared at her—at who she really was—he remembered why he never got involved with women. The time they spent in each other’s arms seemed a very far-away, distant past and with an entirely different woman. His anger rose to the surface again, and he fought the urge to storm off. Despite the way his stomach twisted to think of her in pain, he couldn’t put aside his anger that easily.

  “If you’re going to yell at me just get it over with,” Eddie snapped. “I have shit to do.”

  “According to our new orders, we are to do nothing,” he said flatly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She glanced at him and frowned. “That is my blood?” He nodded once, and her face paled. “You should go change.”

  “Eddie, I’ve been lied to since I left home. All I want are some damn answers. Tell me, why was I kept in the dark?”

  “I wanted to tell you from the beginning, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter. Not like I play a good civilian.”

  Beau crossed his arms over his chest. “No, you just play one hell of a liar.”

  She shot him an icy glare, and he straightened as he watched her lever herself off the bed. His first impulse was to help her stand, but he forced himself to stay put. He didn’t know this woman.

  “Tell Reinhart you make one hell of a great distraction.”

  “Distraction? You think everything that happened was just a distraction?” Her laugh was harsh as she muttered, “Unbelievable. You fucking arrogant jackass.”

  He blocked the doorway when she tried to leave. “Just tell me the truth, Eddie.”

  “No. Get out of my way, Savage. I don’t have to protect you anymore. And where the hell is my damn cane?”

  “By the bed. Answers, Eddie. Now.”

  She limped back to the bed, grabbed her cane, and turned back to face him. She leaned on it harder than usual, and he knew her leg must be killing her after the attack. She’d jumped that man with the knife to save him. She’d killed him and been poisoned in the process. A shot of guilt coursed through Beau, but he didn’t move.

  “You’re three seconds away from getting whacked over the head,” she warned.

  “I don’t care.” He moved closer, and this time, when she flinched at his sudden closeness, he smirked.

  And she decked him, again. “You asshole! You sit there and get mad at me for tricking you? What the hell was all that bullshit about caring, huh? You just wanted a damn good lay. Get out of my way or when I hit you this time, you won’t get back up.”

  Beau stretched his jaw at the pain but still didn’t move. “I meant what I said. I did care about you—about Naomi—but you’re not her.”

  “No? And why the hell not? I haven’t changed.”

  “You expect me to believe you’re not just bitter over some old war injury? A mission went south and you got shot, so now you’re pissed off at the world? Was it Coleman’s men? Did they get to you?”

  “I’m not answering your questions,” she said, her voice lower, and she didn’t meet his eyes.

  He stepped even closer. “Yes, you are. Tell me, damn it! What happened to you that was so godawful?”

  “You think I want to wake up screaming?” she yelled, her voice shaking with so much pain that Beau paused. “You think I want to be haunted by the shit I went through? You think that’s all fake? You think this injury is fake, or the scars you kissed? I have been through hell! I am not going to stand here and have you accuse me of faking any of it to be a distraction!”

  Beau watched her green-eyed glare, and the anguish there was real. It hit him hard, as if she’d decked him again. “Eddie—”

  “No. You want to know what happened, I’ll tell you what happened.” She gripped her cane as she slammed it into the floor before she spoke again. “Three years ago I was on a recon team with five others, one of which was my fiancé. Gabriel Willem. We thought we’d be in and out and done, get what we needed so your team could move in.”

  Beau remembered the plan for the mission. They’d finally caught a lead on Coleman and were moving in on his main base of operations, but the intel never reached them. He and his team were sent in for a rescue instead. His brow furrowed as he glanced at Eddie’s stance and her clenched jaw.

  “Two of our team were compromised,” she said quietly. “They’d been so from the very beginning. Most thorough identities I’ve ever seen.” She laughed sharply. “One of them was my fiancé.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Gabriel Willem was Hugh Coleman. No one saw his face and he checked out, passed all the backgrounds and in-depth searches on Willem. We didn’t know until he turned on us and… and…” She couldn’t get the words out. Her body faltered, and Beau lunged forward to catch her.

  He guided her to the bed and set her down, squatting down in front of her. “Take a deep breath. Probably still from the overdose.”

  Her lips twitched in anger, eyes filling with tears he knew she’d never let fall. “No, it’s not.”

  He watched her closely, the screams from earlier replaying in his mind. “When that man injected you, you started screaming for them to stop touching you and to kill you instead?” Eddie sank back farther into the pillows and avoided his gaze. “Eddie, what really happened to you?”

  She pushed her tongue against her lip like always when she was thinking too hard, and Beau thought she’d tell him off again.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said gently. “Your screams are enough.”

  She looked at him long and hard, her face blank except for the overwhelming hatred and sadness in her eyes. “No, they’re not.”

  Beau’s hand tightened protectively around hers as every muscle in his body tensed. Not caring about this woman was hopeless at this point. He was still pissed at her, but he wasn’t going to let her suffer like this, not alone.

&nb
sp; “They took us to Coleman’s underground warehouse in a bunker, and we were held there for two weeks. Food maybe every couple of days, and hardly enough water for the three of us.”

  She closed her eyes tightly, and her free hand gripped the bed hard. Beau thought he was ready for what she said next. He was wrong.

  “We were tortured for information. They wanted to know what knew about Coleman. I’ve never bled so much in my life. They liked to see how much pain we could handle.” Eddie shook her head, rubbing her wrists as if she could feel their hands on her now, and her lips twisted into a leer. “Never thought I could be raped by my fiancé. It’s a good thing I didn’t marry him before the mission.”

  Beau’s entire body stilled. She’d been raped by a man she trusted to protect her and watch her six. How she acted around him when they first met—everything fell into place as a white hot rage filled him. “You were his fiancée and he… he did that to you?” There were no words for this. Fury filled him along with the desperate need to take it out on the one man who deserved it. “I’m going to rip his head off.”

  “Wait in line. I get him first,” she snapped, and when Beau’s eyes met hers, he knew she wasn’t lying. If she found him again, she would kill him—painfully and very slowly. He knew because it’s exactly what he would do.

  “Your leg… That’s from a gunshot,” he stated, barely able to form words around his newfound hatred for Coleman.

  “Two, actually. I made a break for it—nearly found the door, but they caught me. If your team hadn’t been on their way to get us, I’d be dead.” She laughed darkly. “So that’s two times you’ve saved my life.”

  The woman they’d brought out on a stretcher all those years ago… Eddie. His fingers traced the edge of her face, then lower to her neck. Scars lined it, scars he’d been told were from a car accident, but now he knew. She’d stayed strong, told them nothing, even during the torture. Coleman and his men received no answers that day. He saw it in the fierceness in her eyes. Beau’s hand moved lower to her arms, tracing each individual scar. He waited for Eddie to pull away, but she didn’t. Despite what he said about not trusting her, she—finally, it seemed—trusted him.