Off the Grid

by Monica McCarty

  When he thought of how he’d held on to it like some sort of precious talisman, refusing to sell the Easter egg–sized diamond even when he desperately needed cash as he made his way out of Russia . . . it made him want to slam his fist through the table and turn the fine mahogany into kindling. Scott was an expert at controlling his emotions, but right now they’d been pulled too close to the surface and stretched taut to the snapping point. His pride hurt worse than the patched-up shoulder where he’d taken a bullet a few hours ago.

  For the first time in his life, a woman had made a fool of him, and Scott didn’t know how to handle it. It was a bitter pill for any guy to swallow. For a SEAL officer whose job it was to see things like this coming from a mile away, who was supposed to be smarter and savvier than everyone else, it was the worst kind of humiliation.

  Kate had tried to warn him, but Scott hadn’t wanted to believe it. He’d defended Natalie, even when the coincidences piled up. Russian birth and adoption that she’d kept secret? So what? There were thousands of kids adopted from Russia—were all of them suddenly suspected spies? Phone contact with the same guy who’d targeted the reporter writing stories about the “Lost Platoon,” and who also happened to be born in Russia and came to America via the same adoption agency as Natalie? Not enough. But when that same guy, Mikhail “Mick” Evans, kidnapped Brittany in an attempt to capture and kill John Donovan, all Scott’s doubts had been put to rest. Brutally.

  He could still hear the bastard’s taunts as Scott tried to question him. “She played you like a fool. How long did it take for her to get in your bed? A few hours? And you never suspected a thing. Man, it was almost too easy.”

  Scott had wanted to kill him. But Donovan had done it for him after Scott had been shot and Mick had turned a gun on Kate.

  For almost three months, while his men had been forced to scatter across the globe and go dark, Scott had been busting his ass, trying to figure out what had happened out there and how their mission had been compromised. He’d looked into everyone who could have known about the mission, followed leads that went nowhere, searching for motives or anything suspicious that could lead him to figuring out who was responsible for the deaths of eight of his men and the woman he’d loved.

  But the person responsible for feeding the information to Russia about their mission had been right there in front of him the whole time. One of their own hadn’t betrayed them; the leak had come from a Russian mole. His Natalie. No, Natalya—and definitely not his.

  Maybe he should be relieved. He had an answer. The Russians were responsible. There wasn’t anyone on the inside waiting to take them out. His men could come out of hiding.

  But nothing could lessen the bitter sting of betrayal that filled him with anger and shame.

  Sucker.

  “If you won’t go the hospital, at least let me call my doctor,” Kate said. “I’m sure he will be discreet.” She paused, staring at him in earnest. “You don’t look good, Scott.”

  Not surprising since he felt like shit. But the pain from the gunshot was the least of it.

  He and Kate had known they were brother and sister for almost three years, but it was still strange having someone worry about him. Scott had been alone for a long time. His parents had been killed in a boating accident when he was in his first year at the Naval Academy. Actually, his father had survived for a few days, which was how Scott had learned that he wasn’t his biological father. He’d needed blood and their blood types had been incompatible.

  Scott’s seemingly idyllic family and happy childhood had been built on a bed of lies. The man whom Scott had loved and admired more than anyone in the world—who’d left Scott the family fortune—hadn’t been his biological father. The discovery had devastated him. Scott had been angry at everyone—at everything—but especially at his recently deceased mother. How could she have betrayed his father, her husband like that?

  He’d never given much thought to the man she’d cheated on his father with or the fact that Scott might have half siblings somewhere. He never would have known if Kate’s ex-husband’s jealousy hadn’t led them to the truth.

  “I’m fine,” Scott assured her. “This isn’t the first time Colt has had to patch me up.”

  But rather than reassure her, the mention of her ex-husband’s doctoring made Kate look even more upset. But she didn’t need to worry about Colt using his old corpsman’s skills for bad. Whatever reason Colt might have had to want to kill Scott was gone. The only person Colt looked like he wanted to kill right now was himself. Which was good. After what he’d done to Kate, the bastard deserved to suffer.

  Colt had thought Scott and Kate’s unusual closeness was because they were having an affair, and he’d only just learned that they were actually brother and sister. For years Colt had hated Scott—blaming him for the destruction of his marriage—but now Colt was facing the truth. There was only one man responsible for the mess Colt had made of their lives, and it wasn’t Scott.

  “What now?” Baylor looked at him, asking the question that was foremost in all of their minds.

  The six survivors had been in hiding since their mission had gone bad, and Scott knew how anxious the guys were to get back to the land of the living and the frogman work that they all loved.

  “Now that we know where the leak came from and who was behind it”—aka Russia and not someone inside—“we don’t have to play dead. I will contact command and explain what happened. They can decide how they want to handle our sudden reappearance.”

  In an attempt to quiet the public interest roused by Brittany’s “Lost Platoon” articles, equating the missing platoon of Navy SEALs with the famous Lost Legion of Rome, the navy had recently announced that a platoon of SEALs had been killed in a training exercise.

  Baylor and Donovan looked relieved by Scott’s decision.

  Colt not so much.

  “You sure that’s a good idea, Ace?” Colt asked with that lazy drawl that belied the savvy operator whose mind was always working every angle. Colt wasn’t a part of their team anymore, but he still worked for the military in some kind of clandestine unit that Scott didn’t know much about—didn’t want to know much about, as he was sure it was of questionable legality.

  It was the first time Colt had used Scott’s call sign in over three years, but if his former friend thought Scott was going to forgive and forget all that had passed between them, he was out of his mind.

  Colt had been the senior enlisted man in Team Nine when Scott had joined as a young lieutenant. Colt had shown him the ropes and taught Scott everything he knew about being an operative. To most people their friendship didn’t make any sense. Scott was by the book and believed in rules. Colt didn’t. But somehow they’d gelled. Scott had looked up to him as an older brother, which made Colt’s accusations and turning on him even more unforgivable. How could Colt think Scott would ever do that to a Teammate and a friend?

  Scott and Kate hadn’t betrayed Colt; Colt had betrayed them.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Scott said. “Technically we’ve been AWOL since the explosion. Without a good reason not to come forward, we could have a hard time explaining ourselves.”

  Or defending themselves against a court-martial.

  “I wouldn’t be so ready to make a reappearance,” Colt said. “Not until you learn the extent of the damage done by Mick and Natalie. We don’t know what Mick was able to pass on to his superiors before he was killed. We also don’t know the extent of their cell here in Washington. I suspect it was a small one since the guys Mick had with him when he took Brittany were more hired mafia thug than professional. But that isn’t to say there isn’t someone else out there. Who else knows there were survivors? Mick found out about Donovan but how about the rest of you? You guys are safer dead than alive.”

  “You think they might come after us again?” Donovan asked.

  Colt shrugged.
“I don’t know. I just think it will be easier to find out why they went after you in the first place if you all stay dead.”

  “They went after him to shut him up,” Baylor said. “The Russians don’t want any survivors showing up to ruin their nice little story about what happened out there. Ivanov won’t want to appear to be avoiding the war that he vowed to start if there were any more ‘incursions.’”

  But if that were true, coming out would be the safest thing for them.

  Scott watched Colt’s face. His expression didn’t give anything away, but Scott could guess what he was thinking. “You think there’s more to it?”

  Colt met his gaze for the first time since learning that he was Kate’s brother. “I think it’s worth not jumping to any conclusions too quickly. Not until we know all the facts.”

  “Which could be easier to find out with help from the inside,” Scott pointed out. He was close to his direct superior in the chain of command, the commander of SEAL Team Nine, Mark Ryan. Scott wasn’t looking forward to explaining why they hadn’t come to him right away.

  Colt guessed the direction of his thoughts. He didn’t have much regard for the brass in general. “Ryan might be your friend, but he’s an officer first, and he’ll do his duty even if he doesn’t like it.”

  The same thing could be said about Scott. Once. But look at him now: scruffy, AWOL, and definitely not by the book, unless it was called “how to look like a lowlife.” He didn’t even recognize himself.

  “What are you getting at Colt?” Kate asked.

  “The government is going to be looking for someone to blame, and right now that’s Taylor. They’ll want to know exactly what and how much he told her.”

  Scott felt his spine go ramrod stiff and his shoulders turn just as rigid. Blood surged through his veins at a boil. “It sounds as if you are accusing me of something, Wesson.” Colt didn’t shy away from Scott’s fury. Scott looked around the table at the other blank faces staring at him. “Is that what you all think?” He swore. “I didn’t tell her a damned thing!”

  The sound of his voice reverberated in the oval room, shaking the floor-to-ceiling windows, which were there to take advantage of the river view.

  Suddenly, memories came back to him. Images. Snippets of conversation and clumsy questions when they were lying naked and twisted in sheets after she’d just brought him to his knees for the God-knew-how-manyith time.

  When he was at his weakest.

  I heard there is trouble brewing in Syria again. . . .

  When all of his defenses had been shattered.

  You’ll tell me when you have to leave . . . and when you’ll be back. . . .

  When she’d fucked every ounce of sense from his head—both of them. The one he was supposed to think with, and the one that had been at her mercy from the first moment he’d seen her at that Capitol Hill bar.

  Unlike most Teamguys, bars weren’t stomping grounds for him. He didn’t do drunken hookups or one-night stands.

  But he’d made an exception that night. An accidental bump—at least he’d thought it was accidental—that led to a drink, a flirty conversation that had gotten closer and closer until somehow their lips were touching, and a scorching kiss that had lit his blood on fire. They’d barely made it out of the cab and into her apartment before her legs were wrapped around his waist, and he was sinking into her for the first time. The first of many times that night.

  His face heated with some of that pounding blood. How could he have been so stupid? How could he not have seen it?

  He’d been too damned bewitched by tilted green cat eyes, long, fluttery lashes, pouty red lips, high, sharp cheekbones, long, tousled blond hair, and a body that could have sold lingerie to a Mennonite.

  But it hadn’t just been her beauty that had attracted him. She was smart, and she knew it. She’d walked into the bar with the cool confidence of a woman who knew she could handle anyone in the room—man or woman. That had been freaking irresistible.

  Which, of course, was the point. She’d been chosen to deceive and entrance. And like a damned glutton, he’d taken a dive right into the honey.

  Over and over. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her. He’d been utterly captivated, out of his mind with lust, and, for the first time in his life, head over heels in love.

  As much as he hated to admit any of that, it was the damned truth, and he’d own it even if it made him the world’s biggest sucker.

  But he wasn’t a complete fool. He’d never forgotten his job or what that meant. He hadn’t told her a damned thing about what he did or where he went. He’d never told her anything that could be considered confidential or secret. His job was all he had left; he’d be damned if he let her take that from him, too.

  Whatever information she’d passed on, it hadn’t come from him, and he dared anyone at the table to suggest otherwise.

  Colt didn’t seem inclined to argue—a rarity for him. Instead he shrugged. “They won’t believe you even if it is true, and you’ll spend the next few weeks in some small room, trying to convince them otherwise.”

  Scott cursed; Colt was right. Scott would be the scapegoat, and proving that he hadn’t told Natalie anything would take some time. Assuming he could persuade them, that is.

  “Wesson is right,” the senior chief agreed. “The way it looks now, they’ll hang and tie you from the nearest rafter first and worry about right or wrong later.”

  “Maybe,” Scott admitted. “But I’m not going to let you and the rest of the team face AWOL or desertion charges just to save my own skin.”

  “I never try to second-guess better minds than mine,” Donovan said sarcastically, referring to command. “But I’d wager charges against the rest of us will be the last thing on their minds. There’s going to be all kinds of spin going on, but trying to punish us for not coming out right away, given everything that happened?” He shook his head. “No way.”

  “Dynomite is right,” Baylor said. “They won’t be looking at us when they have a nice fat target to aim at.” Aka Scott. “We’re safe. But if you want to avoid time in that small room, you’re better off getting your facts lined up first. Besides,” the grim-faced Texan reminded him, “we’re a team. We do this together, and you aren’t going to be much help to us if you are locked up somewhere or spending all your time defending yourself.”

  “What difference is a few days going to make?” Colt pointed out.

  But Scott still wasn’t convinced. They might be right, but he had a duty as an officer not only to come forward but also to protect his men.

  It was Kate who came up with the solution.

  “How about a compromise?” she said. “My godfather is already involved. We could go to him and get his take. You’ll have technically reported in to someone in the chain of command”—Kate’s godfather, General Thomas Murray, was the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the handful of people who’d been in the loop about their mission—“but we minimize who knows for a little longer.”

  It was a great suggestion. Two birds with one stone. Scott looked around the table, and the three men nodded their approval.

  Kate made the call.

  She returned a short time later. “He was shocked, but when I explained everything, he agreed with Colt,” she said in a way that suggested that didn’t happen often—if ever. “He thinks you should lie low a little longer. Your survival is miraculous but inconvenient, as it makes a delicate political situation with Russia even more precarious. The US is already on the brink of war, and if this comes out, it will only get worse. You aren’t going to be popular with those in the administration who don’t want war. Some in the White House will wish that you’d just stayed buried, and the secret of your mission along with you.”

  They all knew that, but somehow hearing it from someone in the general’s position made it much more sobering.
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  “He offered to help in any way he can,” Kate added apologetically, understanding the downer cast by her relayed message. “I told him I would keep him in the loop.”

  Scott nodded. He might take the general up on it. He was determined to do whatever he needed to do to clear his name. He might have fallen in love with the wrong woman, but he hadn’t betrayed his country or his men.

  He stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Colt asked.

  “To make some calls. I need to tell Spivak, Miggy, and Travis to hang tight.”

  But not for much longer. One way or another this was all going to end soon.

  Scott had no intention of letting Natalie rest in peace. He could kill her for what she’d done. Too bad someone else had gotten to her first.

  About the Author

  Monica McCarty is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical romances, including the Highland Guard series, the Campbell trilogy, and the MacLeods of Skye trilogy. The Lost Platoon is her first romantic suspense series. She is published all over the world.

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