“I started going out more and studying less. My grades slipped, and when they did, I didn’t care. I only wanted to have fun. I had sex with more guys than I can remember. Most of them drunken one-night stands. About three months before I was taken, I woke up in a stranger’s bed and was disgusted with myself that I didn’t know his name. I stopped sleeping around but didn’t stop partying. The night I was taken, I was at a club drunk. A man was flirting with me at the bar, bought me a drink. After I drank it, I started to feel sick. I went to the bathroom, and the last thing I remembered was him catching me before I passed out. Me being kidnapped? That was my fault. I was alone and drunk. I’ll have to live with the knowledge that my stupidity almost got me killed.”
“I went through BUD/s when I was eighteen. After graduation, I was assigned to Group ONE Team Three in Coronado. After I finished that six-year enlistment contract, I reenlisted and transferred to Group TWO Team Eight. I finished my career with the Eightballers. I’ve been on more tours than I want to remember. I decided not to reenlist when my second contract came up because my second to last tour I had to kill three ten-year-old kids. After that, I was done. Having to put a bullet in a kid’s forehead fundamentally changes a man. And the change was not that I felt remorse over having to kill a child, it was because I had none. Pulling the trigger that time felt no different than any other time. That’s when I knew I was done.”
“What was BUD/s like?”
I had watched the documentaries on cable, even had met a few SEALs while visiting my mom or Mr. Anderson at the White House. However, I had never actually known one.
“Unexplainable. Every day the instructors beat you down physically and mentally to see how far you can go before you ring out. And every time the bell is rung signaling another man has quit makes your ass pucker thinking you’re next. And anyone who tells you differently is either full of shit or wasn’t really there. There is not a man who has completed Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL school that didn’t at one-point question why he was there and ringing the bell for the beer the instructor promised. That is the point of mentally beating you down, to see if you’ll break. When every single part of you hurts and you don’t think you can push on, what then? The movies and TV shows will tell you that SEALs are the physically strongest men in the military. That’s good drama but not true. My height and weight hindered me. It was the shorter, lean guys who had less trouble on the run and swim quals. SEALs are mentally tough. We are trained to think around a problem. We don’t shove a square peg in a round hole with brute strength we figure out, on the fly, how to make our peg round.”
I had never thought about the mental aspect of being a SEAL. The movies show them all as supermen, with super-human abilities. None of them mention that they are really MacGyver’s on steroids.
“Do you miss being a SEAL?”
“I am a SEAL. There is no such thing as an ex-SEAL. Do I miss active duty? No. I think I do more good now than I ever did while enlisted.”
“When you learn to trust me, will you ever talk to me about your cargo ship of boxes?” That was the question that was weighing on my mind.
We had both admitted we were attracted to each other. I wasn’t naive enough to think we’d get married or anything, but I was interested in seeing where this could go, at whatever speed he wanted to go. However, I knew myself well enough to know I could never be with someone that shut me out of the important parts of their life.
“I do trust you, but probably not. Some things are better left put away. You know more about me than any woman I have ever been with. Hell, my brothers don’t even know the story about why I left the Navy.”
“I asked if you would talk to me about your boxes, not let me help you unpack them. Those boxes are yours. If you need to keep them stacked in the corner, I’ll make room in my closet. What I don’t want is to have to navigate around them. Without knowing where they are, I will inadvertently knock one over. I get why you keep things locked up. I won’t push the issue.”
As the seconds ticked on, my heart sank. I thought I’d pushed too far and lost him. As much as I wanted to get to know Leo better, to use his words, this was non-negotiable for me.
“Okay, tesorino. But on my time,” he conceded.
He agreed. I couldn’t believe he actually said okay. My heart pounded in my chest and butterflies fluttered in my belly.
What now?
Chapter Fifteen
Leo
Something had woken me up. I didn’t hear anything except Olivia’s soft exhale on my chest. Call it a sixth-sense or years on the battlefield. Something wasn’t right. I had left the closet light on when we went to bed. I could still see the light under the door, so I knew the power had not been cut. I slowly rolled Olivia to her side and sent Z a quick text.
I tagged my pants off the floor and slid my feet into my boots. I pulled back the blinds in the bedroom just enough to check the front of the house, nothing. As I let the blinds gently fall back into place my phone vibrated in my pocket.
Zane had alerted the team, and they were on standby.
“Olivia,” I whispered, “wake up.” I waited for her eyes to open. “I need you to get up and get in the closet. All the way to the back.”
I really wished she knew how to shoot. It was too dangerous to give her a weapon without her knowing what to do.
Olivia didn’t ask questions as she got up and quietly made her way into the closet. Right before she stepped in I pulled her back and softly kissed her lips. I couldn’t wait another second. It wasn’t a long passionate kiss, it was a light touch of our lips. The type of kiss a man gives the woman he loves before he gets out of bed in the morning.
I was so damn proud of her when she slipped in the closet and shut the door behind her. I needed Olivia hidden away so I could search the house.
The living room was completely dark giving me enough freedom to move around and check the windows. I was at the back door when my pocket vibrated. I pulled my phone out and read Zane’s text. What the fuck? Before I could reply, Zane, Jaxon, and Colin came through the front door, flipping the lights on as they entered. Each man had their guns leveled at Gomez and one of his men.
“You thought it was a good idea to bring him in the house?” I asked Zane. “You know I promised Abe we wouldn’t get blood on his floors.”
Gomez grunted at the same time Zane rolled his eyes. He thought I was joking, I wasn’t. I was ready to get this over with and take Olivia home.
“Where are the other two he came with?” I asked as Garrett joined the team.
“Abe and Wolf are currently having a chat with them at the bottom of the hill,” Z told me.
Zane pushed the men farther in the room. At least their hands were zip-tied, but that still didn’t mean shit. How did we know that Gomez didn’t have a whole army of cartel members on standby?
“We’re gonna have a little talk with Gomez before we dispose of him. He seems to think he has some information we want,” Zane explained and guided Gomez to the kitchen table. “Have a seat.”
Jaxon followed suit and shoved the man in front of him to the table.
“What information might that be?” I prompted.
We didn’t have time to fuck around. Olivia was in the closet upstairs, and we had to move as quickly as possible.
“You have a traitor in your ranks,” Gomez spoke.
Well, no shit Sherlock. We knew that, and we knew he knew that.
“You don’t say?” I quipped.
“And you thought you needed to come all the way to the US to impart that wisdom on us?” Z asked.
“In Bolivia, men do business face to face. We do not cower behind a screen. I prefer to look a man in the eyes if he is going to threaten my life.” Gomez sat back in his seat with a smug look crossing his face. This man had balls.
I walked around the table and pushed the muzzle of my Sig to his forehead. “How’s this for looking you in the eyes. I’m going to put a bullet in your skull. You don’t
have shit to tell us.”
“I did not take that pretty young girl. None of my men have been in the US for some time. You Americans are so stupid. If I had the girl, I would’ve killed her. I do not play games and take and release. There is no release. Never release, if I want to take, I do it. Then they die. You have a traitor. And not the idiot Clark who was merely a boy trying to keep up with men. You found him dead, yes?”
I was struggling to keep my cool. Though something he said struck me as the truth. Gomez’s work up did show that he was ruthless. He always killed his enemies. He never even tortured them.
I glanced at Zane who seemed to be contemplating the same thing I was. Zane pulled his phone out, when he spoke to Gomez, he didn’t lift his eyes from the screen. “Yes, and we got your note telling us he was a gift from you.”
Gomez threw his head back and laughed. “Do I strike you as an altruist man? I do not give gifts.” Gomez’s demeanor changed when he looked up at me with fire in his eyes. “You think you are the only ones who have the capability to track information. I am here as a courtesy. I will tolerate the gun to my head for only so long before I take it as an insult. Siles is not who you think he is. He was planning a coup. Do you not think I knew that the sweep was fake? The American’s only hit my smallest territories. If they had information of my operation, they would have gone to my largest warehouses. Siles is a traitor to me, an informant. I did not contact the Americans wanting him back. His men did.”
“And we are supposed to believe you?” I asked.
If what Gomez was saying was true, Siles had outsmarted the Attorney General. Nothing like having the Americans take out the leader of the cartel so you could slide into his place. After we killed Gomez, Siles would no longer need to be in protective custody. He would be free to go back to Bolivia.
“Of course not. I know better than that. If you’ll take your gun off my head and take my watch off, you’ll find a chip in the back with all the information you need. Minus your traitor.”
“What does that mean, minus our traitor?” If this motherfucker thought he was taking Olivia as a trade, I blow his head off, floors be damned.
“It simply means I didn’t waste my time looking into your problem. Simple deduction tells me that someone is feeding Siles information and passing information back to Bolivia. I don’t much care who it is. That is the American’s problem. My time is worth money. If I cannot make money, I do not bother with it.”
I lowered my gun and shoved it into the waistband of my jeans. I removed Gomez’s gold diamond encrusted Rolex and had to force myself not to roll my eyes. How cliché. Once the back was off, the chip was removed, and I passed it to Garrett. He wasted no time slipping it into a reader and inserting it into his computer.
The room remained silent as Garrett’s fingers flew across his keyboard.
“Should I play the audio?” Garrett asked.
Zane nodded and the room filled with Olivia’s screams. What the fuck! I had zero interest in hearing Olivia being beaten.
“Please.” Olivia’s pleas could be heard in the background.
“It’s almost time. The message has been sent. Leave the girl behind tomorrow and be far away when they come.” A man’s voice came on the recording.
“Yes, sir.” A second man came on and acknowledged the order.
“Please, stop,” Olivia screamed in the background.
“Awe, what a beautiful sound. Capo will go down fast once they find the girl, and all will work out.” The first man was speaking again.
The recording stopped, and Garrett continued to type furiously on his keyboard.
“Voice confirmed,” Garrett announced. “Jose Siles. The second man cannot be confirmed.”
“Fuck,” Zane exploded. “I really fucking hate when scumbags try to double-cross each other. Do you know the extra paperwork that goes with this shit?”
The vein in the side of Zane’s neck was pulsing, a sure sign he was close to losing control.
“Where did you get that recording?” I asked Gomez.
“You don’t think you’re the only ones that have information dealers, do you?” Gomez smiled and looked at the man next to him.
“Timestamps authenticated matching the call logs from tango one to the Scotland address. Though the recording from the holding block has been deleted on their end,” Garrett announced.
Gomez’s information checked out. Siles did make a phone call. All prisoner calls are recorded, but miraculously the recordings from the prison had all been deleted. Isn’t that special. Now we had to track who deleted those calls and who allowed a witness in protective custody to make a call. This was a cluster fuck.
“What do you want?” Zane asked Gomez.
“For you to get out of my business,” he replied.
“That’s it?” Zane inquired.
Something seemed off, it was too easy.
“And I have one small request. When you slice that motherfucker’s throat, tell him I say hello.”
“I can do that,” Zane agreed. “And you won’t mind if my men escort you back to the airport?”
“I thought we’d sightsee for a day or two.” Gomez smiled.
“Not gonna happen. I’ll have my plane on the tarmac in one hour to take you home.” Zane was back on his phone tapping out a message.
“And we have a deal?” Gomez asked.
“We do.”
I didn’t wait for Gomez to be escorted out of the house. Instead, I took the stairs two at a time needing to get to Olivia as quickly as possible.
When I opened the closet door, she was huddled in the corner with a metal hanger in her hand waving it in front of her. I wasn’t sure what she thought she was going to do with it, but she looked damn adorable doing it.
“Come out, tesorino. It’s safe now.” I reached my hand in to help her to her feet.
“Are you okay? I was so scared; you were taking so long.” She catapulted her body into my arms and cried.
“I’m so proud of you for staying in here. I’m sorry it took so long. Everything is fine. We can go home soon.” Every muscle in her body tightened. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just happy you’re okay,” she whispered.
“You’re happy so your body locked up? Tell me,” I demanded.
I pulled back so I could look at her. Something was definitely wrong.
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
“I told you, everything is fine now. We’re okay to go home.”
“That’s not what I’m scared of.”
I didn’t understand. I thought she’d be happy to go home not scared. Maybe she didn’t want to have to face the situation with her mom.
“Then what?” I asked.
“What happens when we get home? Now that you don’t have to babysit me, will I see you again?”
“I was not babysitting you. I was protecting you, and happily.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to lose you, and I just found you.” I pulled her back, hugging her tight. “I can’t lose you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, tesorino. We’ll figure it out.” She sniffed a few times and wiped her nose on my tee. “You’re mine, Olivia. I don’t plan on letting you go. And I hope you’re ready for me. If you’re not or you need more time, you need to speak up now.”
“I’m ready.”
“For both our sakes, I hope you are.”
There was no more denying that I was falling for this girl. This slip of a woman did what no one else had ever been able to do. She made me think about the future.
Chapter Sixteen
Olivia
I was exhausted. Leo and I never did go back to sleep after he came and got me out of the closet. Even though we could hear the guys downstairs talking, we stayed in bed and talked. I told him more about college and growing up. He told me about his family and what a pain in the ass his sister Arabella was. Though when he complained about her, he did it with a smile on his face. He adored his baby sister.
His family sounded wonderful, and I hoped I’d get to meet them. His brothers sounded a lot like him, just not as badass. He wasn’t joking when he said he was a mama’s boy. I loved it. He told me about his father passing away when he was sixteen and how he and his brothers all stopped playing sports so they could take care of their mom and sister. At that moment, I knew I was falling in love with him. It was silly and too fast, and downright ludicrous. But it was happening.
Shortly after dawn Zane knocked on the bedroom door and told us the plane was ready to take us back to Maryland. I couldn’t help that I was so nervous. I knew what Leo told me, he didn’t want to let me go, but I was still scared. Even without the threat of a crazy man wanting to kill me, my life was still a mess. Most of which was my doing. I had to sort out school and figure out what I wanted to do with myself now that I had all but failed out of law school.
Then there was my mother. I didn’t know where to begin with her and Peter. Was he still mad at her, too? Would he want to get to know me, or would he be too mad at my mom and not want anything to do with either of us. I wouldn’t blame him if that was the case.
I guess what had me so worried was there was only so much crazy a man can deal with before he runs. I was afraid I was pushing the line.
All the way to the airport Leo kept his arm around me. He was constantly touching me in some way. Which did wonders to calm my nerves. When we boarded Zane’s private jet, Leo walked us straight to the back and buckled us in. I figured he’d need to go and talk with his team, but he didn’t leave my side. I told him I would be fine if he needed to work. He said that he would work later.
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