Today was the day.
Homeland, the CIA, all the letter agencies had waited over a decade for this scum to stick his head out of a cave so they could bring justice down on his sorry ass. As a hunter, Bella had waited over two years. As a Marine, she’d waited almost a decade.
But as a daughter? Oh…as a daughter, she had waited thirteen long years for the bastard to pay for killing her father.
“You speak Pashto?” Heydar’s tense voice drifted to her as she retrieved two parachutes from a compartment behind the cockpit and secured one to the duffle bag full of their money.
“Yes. And three other languages.” She kicked off her shoes, slipped a jumpsuit on over her uniform, then shoved her feet into her sneakers.
Heydar muttered an oath.
A smile tugged her lips. His aha moment. Sucks to be him.
Donning her backpack in front and the other chute on her back, Bella snickered. “I know. I’m a bit of a slacker. Still, you’d be surprised what you pick up when you hunt terrorists.” Winking, she grabbed her headgear and the duffle/chute combo from the floor and headed toward the emergency lever.
“Wait! What are you doing?”
She turned to face them and shrugged. “I’m getting off this bird. It’s going to crash, and you’re all going to die. There’s no pilot, remember?”
Okay, it was probably childish to taunt them back, but…damn, it felt good.
“But what about the autopilot?” the man across from Heydar asked, swallowing audibly while his gaze darted to the closed cockpit door.
She snorted. “Dude, autopilot flies, not lands. But it doesn’t matter. I programmed the plane to fly right into the ocean—after I leave, of course. So, I guess, technically, it is going to land,” she said, digging one of their phones from her pack to glance at the time. “In about four minutes.”
Her rendezvous on the carrier was now in two.
“Who are you?” Heydar asked, sweat now running down his face.
Shoulders back, she stood at attention. “Staff Sergeant Isabella Monroe, United States Marine Corps, but most terrorists know me as Banshee.”
Right before they died.
Adrenaline coursed through her body, heating the blood in her veins. Time to finish her mission. She grasped the duffle bag tight, then opened the door. The cabin immediately depressurized, and the plane tilted, causing the men to jerk out of their seats.
Holding onto the door frame, she glanced back at the screaming men. “This is for the Mosul women and children. Enjoy the rest of your flight. It’s gonna be a short one. Hoorah!”
With a salute, she jumped out, already eager to start her next mission. It had to be Rasheed. Just the fact his name was spoken, no doubt, already started chatter amongst the agencies. She yanked the ripcord on the duffle bag, releasing the chute two seconds before activating her own.
At the end of the day, though, Bella didn’t care who made Rasheed pay, just as long as he did. Obviously, she prayed her agency was green lit to take out the sorry excuse for a human. Her commander already knew if the file fell into his hands, there was no way he was keeping her off the mission. In fact, he’d already told her she was his first choice.
Unlike the police force and other agencies that didn’t allow an agent to work a case if they were personally involved, her agency embraced it. There wasn’t a weapon more powerful to bring down a terrorist than a personally motivated agent.
The ruthless hunting the ruthless.
Truer words.
If she was given the mission, nothing and no one would stop Bella from taking down Rasheed.
Chapter One
“Two small cokes, and a large supreme, hold the anchovies.”
Making pizza wasn’t exactly using Matteo “Reaper” Santarelli’s skillset. Holding back a grimace, he started on the pie while one of his employees handled the money and drinks for the young couple who ordered on the other side of the L-shaped glass counter in front of Santarelli’s Pizza.
A former Navy SEAL, he was a highly trained special operative tossing dough in a small boardwalk pizza shop in Atlantic City, instead of grenades on a mission on foreign soil with his brothers. It wasn’t right, and it ate at him every minute of the twenty-eight days, seven hours, thirty-five minutes, and twelve seconds since he left the teams. Forced out because of an injury was one thing, but to walk away from his brothers when he was still able and capable was another. It caused a burning knot— the size of the ball of dough he flattened on the flour covered counter—to twist his gut tight.
“Hi, Matteo.” A gust of cold December air followed his father’s old friend and business neighbor, Omar Gupta, inside.
Like many of the boardwalk shop owners, the middle-aged man was an immigrant. He came to the U.S. from India with his family when he was fourteen, and took over the corner sundry shop next door after his father passed two decades ago.
“Hey, Omar.” Nodding, Matteo tossed the stretched dough high, using his pizzaiolo skills from his many years working in his family’s three shops up and down the Jersey coast. Some things you never forget. Catching the dough with his fingertips, he immediately sent it spinning again without letting it rest. “The usual?”
“Yes, thank you.” Omar closed the door in the fogged-up glass partition separating the shop from the cold wind whipping down the boardwalk.
During the warmer months, the partition was open, allowing people to walk right up to the counter from outside. It also allowed heat from the ovens behind Matteo to escape, although during the summer, it mixed with the hot, humid ocean air, creating an almost unbearable workspace. Air conditioning wasn’t an option. Not with the front wide open in the warm seasons. Ceiling fans and two huge oscillating ones in the dining area behind their workspace kept it tolerable.
Little had Matteo known, working in the suffocating heat growing up had conditioned him for missions overseas.
God, he missed them.
Missed the action. Helping others. The sense of purpose…his brothers.
Clenching his jaw, he set the flattened dough on a tray then slapped another ball of dough onto the floured counter and pounded it with his fist.
“How is your father?” Omar asked, yanking him out of his well of frustration and guilt.
He blew out a breath, and in an instant, all the tension digging at his shoulders and spine dissipated. Instead of having their six, he now had his dad’s.
A month ago, Angelo Santarelli suffered a stroke in the very spot Matteo now stood. He’d been working alone, and was damn lucky to survive. At fifty-five, he was also way too young and stubborn to remain partially paralyzed.
“He’s okay.” With the help of physical therapy, he was already starting to show some movement. “You know my dad, he’s obstinate.” After adding toppings to the pie, Matteo shoved it into the oven, before making Omar’s spicy turkey wrap. “Pretty soon, he’ll be steady enough on his feet and walking with a walker.”
Omar nodded, a slight tug to his lips. “Stubborn is his middle name. What about speaking? How is that going?”
He sighed, and an invisible weight settled heavily on Matteo’s shoulders. “Still garbled and slurred.”
Like his writing.
Early on, Matteo got the impression his dad was trying to tell him something. Each day he visited the rehab center, he slid a pencil in his father’s curled fingers, but so far, his dad only managed to scribble. It frustrated the man. Matteo could tell by the clenched jaw and the way he snapped the pencil in half.
Some of that anger and frustration bit at Matteo’s spine as he set the turkey wrap on the counter with a thud. He’d never felt so damn helpless in his life.
He couldn’t help his brothers. Couldn’t help his father.
Omar reached for the plate, warmth and understanding softening his expression. “You are a good son to give up your career to take care of your father.”
There wasn’t anyone else. A few years ago, Matteo’s mother died from a heart attack, a
nd his sister Nina lived an hour away in Cape May with her husband Joe, two-year-old daughter, and infant son. He never gave it a second thought.
“My dad needed me.” He shrugged. End of story.
It just sucked he had to give up one family to take care of the other.
That didn’t mean he completely ruled out returning to his unit, though. Thanks to physical therapy and a can-do attitude, his father’s prognosis was good. It might take some time, but he felt confident his father would eventually lead a fairly normal life.
Thank God.
But even if he didn’t return to the teams, there was no way he’d take over supervising the shops for the rest of his life. It didn’t spark adrenaline, or fulfill his need to help people. Joe managed their Wildwood location, and was more than capable of taking over the supervision of all the shops if needed. The only reason Matteo hadn’t suggested it in the first place was because something about his father’s situation niggled at the back of his mind. He wasn’t entirely convinced his father’s stroke had been brought on by natural causes.
There was a head injury, too. No one was certain if it happened during his father’s fall, or was the reason behind it. When questioned, the doctors couldn’t give a definite answer. So, Matteo left the teams, moved into his dad’s shore house, took over the shops, and was waiting for his father to recover enough to communicate with him.
And just in case his suspicions were correct, he wanted to work the Atlantic City location. Walk in his father’s shoes. Study the clientele. Get a feel for the place. But most of the people who came in were neighboring shop owners, some Matteo had known his whole life. And the one’s he didn’t know never raised any red flags.
Maybe he was just jaded, having witnessed the dark side of human nature for too long. Perhaps he was reading things wrong. Projecting his mistrust. It was possible his dad really had suffered a stroke and hit his head when he collapsed to the floor. An accident.
God, he hoped so, because otherwise…his father’s attacker might’ve been someone he knew.
If there was even the slightest chance that was true, Matteo had no choice but to suspect everyone. And he did. For weeks now, he studied each person who walked in the door, noting their demeanor, what they wore, ordered, who they spoke to, where they sat. Nothing, and no one, was above suspicion. Even Omar.
“Tell your father I was asking about him,” the man said, taking his usual table up front. “I tried to visit, but only family was allowed.”
He regarded Omar, noting a slight tightening to his lips and eyes. Was concern for his father the cause? Or concern for himself?
Matteo’s gut knotted tight. Christ, this fucking sucked.
“I’ll tell him.” He nodded, wishing it was all a bad dream. That his father never suffered a stroke, and he was still a SEAL with his buddies in some God-forsaken country on a mission he couldn’t talk about. Not home, scrutinizing every damn person who walked through the fucking door.
Lack of adrenaline was making him paranoid. Nuts. He was bored. Used to operating at three hundred miles an hour. He wasn’t cut out for normal speed. He needed a mission. Something other than stretching dough.
Back in his teens, he enjoyed showing off those skills, talking to customers, smiling at the girls, watching his sister and her best friend laugh as they sat at the corner table in the back. Shifting his gaze to the now empty table, he visualized the two girls there, plain as day. Eyes twinkling, heads thrown back laughing, gaining the attention of every teenage boy in a two-mile vicinity.
Warmth spread through Matteo, easing the tightness from his chest. There was something about Bella Monroe that had always made him smile. The daughter of his father’s Gulf War buddy, she was from New York City, but spent summers here at her grandmother’s, until her father died and mother moved them here permanently.
Her vivacious personality could fill an empty room. Even now, his lips twitched at the memory of the girl whose smile used to rule the beat of his heart. A cute daredevil he watched mature into a spirited beauty, with long brown hair and gorgeous green eyes that always warmed at the sight of him.
His dad—also Bella’s godfather—had given him the task to watch over her like a sister. But once she hit her teens, Matteo realized he had no brotherly feelings for her whatsoever. They were strong. Protective. Passionate. Not brotherly.
Keeping the horny teenage boys from her hadn’t been a problem, he’d been more than happy to warn them off—because he’d been one of them. The fact she reciprocated his feelings only made things harder. Literally. Cold shower became Matteo’s middle name. For years, he resisted her without incident, until the night of her graduation. Oh, he still resisted, but he broke her heart in the process, then flew to Illinois the next day to start Naval Special Warfare Prep school. They’d only crossed paths once since then, at his mother’s funeral, five years ago.
“Have you seen Bella yet?” Omar asked, as if reading his mind.
He smiled, pulse kicking up at the possibility of seeing her again. “No. Not yet.” He’d heard she’d moved back into her late grandmother’s house a few years ago, but so far, every time he glanced out his father’s kitchen window he saw no signs of her next door.
Omar swiped his mouth with a napkin and nodded. “I thought I spotted her at the airport about an hour ago. It’s hard to keep track. She’s always flying off to do work for that travel magazine.”
He frowned. “Airport?”
Why was Omar at the airport?
“Yeah, I was picking up my son and thought I spotted her,” Omar informed between bites. “She deals blackjack part time at the Capris, too, so I’m sure you’ll run into her soon.”
A smile tugged his lips. Bella never could sit idle.
And he’d read about the newest casino when he first got home. With major backers from the west coast, the Capris was built at the north end of the boardwalk. It was nice to see the large resort brought in major headliners, concerts, conventions, and sporting events that gave a much-needed boost to the city’s economy. It boggled Matteo’s mind the number of casinos that came and went since he left home.
“I should get back to work. When you see your dad, tell him I was asking about him,” Omar said, tossing his garbage in the trash on his way to the door.
Matteo nodded. “Will do.”
The first few days, after his dad had been transferred from the hospital to the rehab center, Matteo had stayed for hours, but his father appeared agitated, grunting and fussing. Then it’d dawned on him that his dad probably wanted him to cover down at the shop. The second he’d made the suggestion, his father settled down, and since Matteo had wanted to investigate anyway, it’d worked out. Now, he visited twice a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon.
A quick glance at the clock on the wall confirmed the dining room had thinned out because the lunch rush was over. He also noted it was almost time for the two teens on co-op from the local high school to come in for their shift, along with Russell, the afternoon manager, who’d worked at the shop for nearly two decades. Their arrival would free him up to visit his dad.
As he pulled a pie from the oven and set it on the counter to cut, Matteo was wondering what kind of mood his dad would be in today when the door opened and a familiar awareness trickled down his spine.
Without even glancing at the door, he knew it wasn’t Russell or the two teens that walked in. No. Only one person sent blood rushing through his veins and his pulse thundering in his ears as if he were running an op.
Bella.
She was the adrenaline fix he craved. Hell, she was a whole lot of things he craved.
Bracing himself for the onslaught of awareness he knew was coming by making eye contact, he glanced at the woman who ruled his heart. A zing instantly ricocheted through his chest and knocked his heart back into place.
Damn, he hadn’t realized it was out of place until that moment.
“Matteo…” Dressed in jeans, black boots, and matching
leather jacket that looked as soft as the green sweater hugging her ample curves, she had a black backpack slung carelessly over her shoulder and an expression dialed to “I don’t care.” She was trouble. A major threat to his self-control. If he thought her an unstoppable force before, then the adult Bella was now a damn force of nature.
Her hair was still a warm brown like melted chocolate, and eyes a deep mesmerizing green that could stop waves from crashing into the shore, but the confident tilt of her chin and the lethal grace in her steps awoke something primal deep inside him.
He was in big trouble, because despite the adult changes, she was still the daughter of his father’s best friend. Still his father’s goddaughter. Still Matteo’s surrogate sister.
Still forbidden.
“Hello, Bella.” He set the pie cutter down and turned to face her fully, gripping the counter to keep from jumping over and pulling her close.
The shock rounding her eyes disappeared, leaving her gaze dark with concern. “What are you doing here?”
He chuckled. “Nice to see you again, too.”
“Of course, it’s good to see you,” she said with a shake of her head. “But why are you here? You’re a SEAL. You don’t just come home to sling pizza, especially when your duty station is over a five-hour drive away.” Her chin tilted. “Unless you flew in from Norfolk.”
The fact she knew those distances sent a ripple of surprise through him. Why? Had she thought about him? Thought about visiting him? That ripple turned into an unexpected flood of warmth. Shit. Yeah, he was in trouble.
He opened his mouth to respond, but she narrowed her gaze and searched his face.
“No.” She shook her head again. “You didn’t fly in. Where’s your dad? What happened to him?”
Matteo felt her fear before he watched it drain the color from her face.
“He had a stroke. But he’s okay,” he rushed to add.
Grinch Reaper: Sleeper SEALs Book 8 Page 2
