The Complete Delta Force Shooters Page 7

  When the guards finished and moved around to load the other side, he slipped up and unlocked the rear hatch.

  “Where’s Alejandra?”

  “Hector?”

  He clasped a hand over her mouth to silence her, then repeated his question.

  “Miguel took her,” she whispered carefully. “You have to save us. You must—”

  “Shh. Too many guards here. I’ll come for you later.” Before she could protest, he lowered the hatch and relocked it.

  And there wasn’t time to stop the shipment—he had another priority now.

  A quick drop-and-roll beneath a black Chevy Suburban was all that saved him from discovery.

  He had the beginnings of an idea and began putting it in place as he slipped deeper into the shadows.

  7

  Miguel seemed disappointed that she wouldn’t scream. His hard slaps only served to piss her off and make her jaw hurt. Fine, as long as he didn’t break it—so that she could chew off his face if she got the chance.

  He made all sorts of threats and boasts—most having to do with fucking her to death just to teach her a lesson. Apparently rejecting his now-dead son, as well as his job offer to be a shooter for Miguel’s illegal operations had really pissed him off. It was hard to tell which had made him angrier.

  Too smart to risk freeing her hands or ankles, Miguel used a steak knife to slice away her clothes.

  “First me. Then the knife,” he wielded it down near her waist. “Don’t worry, Alejandra. It will be fast. I have other business to see to tonight as well.”

  He stripped and knelt above her. Alejandra braced herself for the worst. She wasn’t going to cry or beg, not for Miguel’s benefit. There had to be more horrid ways to die, she just couldn’t think of what they were. She wouldn’t cry for him, but inside, where her heart ached, she would cry for what she and Hector might have had.

  She closed her eyes as his hot breath landed between her breasts.

  “First, I’m going to—” then he squeaked.

  Alejandra opened her eyes and couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.

  Miguel’s eyes were wide with shock.

  In the mirror above the bed, she had a bird’s eye view of the baddest, angriest warrior she’d ever seen.

  She’d thought Hector had looked heavily armed and badass this afternoon. Now he was something else. A pair of night-vision goggles had been pulled up onto his forehead. He wore a vest that hung with two pistols, dozens of magazines of ammo for both pistols and rifles, as well as grenades and flashbangs. His puppy-dog eyes now belonged to a full-grown Doberman—a really pissed one.

  And she couldn’t see his rifle, not all of it anyway. The muzzle appeared to be jammed well into Miguel’s ass. The angle was such that if Hector fired, the round would miss her, traveling up through Miguel’s body and out the top of his head. She might get splattered with his brains.

  She was fine with that.

  “Lose the knife.”

  She thought she knew all the moods of Hector Garcia, but she’d never seen him so angry, so focused in her entire life.

  Apparently, neither had Miguel. The blade clattered to the floor.

  “Sideways, slowly, until you’re lying facedown on the bed. You so much as brush against Alejandra and you’re a dead man.”

  Miguel edged carefully away. The rifle moved with him.

  “You okay, Alej?”

  Ah-lay. A name she hadn’t heard in far too long. She couldn’t say all of the things that welled up inside her, didn’t dare let them out in the world yet. Digging deep, she found something else. “Could do without the goddamn ropes.”

  Keeping his rifle shoved someplace dark and nasty, he pulled out a big military knife and slashed her bonds.

  Her clothes were in tatters. She went and found some others stashed in a dresser: women’s, a wide variety, some close enough to her size. Bastard.

  She came back and picked up the knife Miguel had dropped to the floor and shifted around until he could see her holding it close by his nose.

  “How would you like to fuck a knife, Miguel? Be glad to hold it for you. I’ll put you down just like I did your rabid dog of a son.”

  8

  “I need information first,” Hector had to slow her down. Not that he could blame her. He felt the same way.

  To find Alejandra after all these years and then to come so close to losing her again made him sick. What Miguel had planned for her…the fury rose in a wave that threatened to choke him.

  But the 75th Rangers had taught him how to rechannel fury, saving it to focus on the battle moment. Then Delta had taught him how to turn hot fury into cold, until it was a finely-honed weapon.

  It didn’t take long to get Miguel to spill everything: hierarchy, contacts, combinations to safes, and passwords to his computer. He’d tossed Alejandra a recorder and she’d held it close to his mouth to make sure they didn’t miss a thing. How she didn’t rip his face off in the process was one of the most impressive displays of restraint he’d ever seen.

  Before he let Miguel get dressed, he yanked his rifle free, and shoved a small breaching charge for blowing open locked doors up the guy’s ass.

  “See this?” he held the remote up close for Miguel to see. “One press of the button and you explode from the inside out. We clear?”

  Miguel nodded hurriedly.

  Hector tossed the control to Alejandra who caught it one-handed, then looked at him thoughtfully but didn’t say anything.

  On their way back to the garage, the three of them walked as if everything was okay, Miguel imperiously waving guards aside. They made a few stops along the way. A small knapsack was soon filled with the contents of Miguel’s safe, though Hector didn’t bother with the cash. Instead he left an incendiary for whoever opened it next. They picked up Miguel’s laptop and smartphone along the way, dropping them into foil bags to avoid anyone tracking them.

  In the garage, the bus and most of the SUVs were gone.

  “Tell me you have a plan, Hector,” Alejandra had picked up several weapons along the way until she was almost as heavily armed as he was. It looked damned good on her. “My sister’s out there somewhere.”

  Hector loaded Miguel and his files into the trunk of the Ferrari—thankfully he wasn’t a big man. Then Hector hit him with enough morphine from his Delta med kit to keep a horse down for a day.

  He and Alejandra slid down into the soft, black leather of the bucket seats.

  Yes, he had a plan. But he had a mission to finish first.

  9

  From the start, Alejandra decided that she was really glad that she was on the same side as Hector. He definitely put the bad in badass. And then he kept getting better.

  In the Ferrari—which was one of the coolest rides she’d ever had (it grabbed low and yanked her ahead like a sexual shot)—they’d caught up to the bus and the escorting SUVs close to the border station.

  Hector had simply waved a hand out the window as they passed, for the SUVs to keep following the bus. He’d slipped in ahead of them all just at the border.

  Whatever ID he showed the border guard had certainly gotten his attention. After a few whispered instructions, the guard let the Ferrari and the school bus roll through.

  Hector stopped the car before the bus was fully out of the border crossing control lane, trapping it there.

  The SUVs had hung back at the last moment, truckloads of armed guards didn’t just roll through border crossings.

  Hector pulled out a remote control just like the one he’d tossed to her earlier. He had trusted her—trusted her to not kill Miguel unless they needed to, and to do it in an instant if it became necessary. He’d been right on both counts. No one had ever known her as well as he did.

  “I didn’t want to risk getting them mixed up,” then he flipped up the cover on the activation switch of the one he held, offered her an evil grin, and pressed down on it with his thumb.

  The three SUVs still on the other s
ide of the border thumped hard, brilliant light shining out all of their windows. Remote control flashbangs.

  In moments, the Mexican border patrol, rifles raised, had everyone out of the vehicles and lying on the asphalt, along with a big enough stack of weapons to make sure they spent a long time in prison.

  The next moment, their own vehicle and the bus were surrounded by the US Border Patrol.

  INS agents gathered up all of the women and children. A very small team in an unmarked black SUV emptied the still-unconscious Miguel and his files out of the Ferrari’s trunk. Their eyes had gone a little wide when she handed over the remote trigger on the breaching charge, and told them exactly where it could be found. Then they were gone.

  She and Hector turned to watch as the INS began reassuring the frightened women and children. One was handing out blankets, another with water bottles, and even a few stuffed animals for the youngest to cling to.

  “Should I give your sister a contact number? Though I’m not sure if someone that sexy should be allowed into the US.”

  “You are a bastard, Hector. I’m the one you’re supposed to be calling sexy.” But it was hard to put any real heat behind it with the way he was smiling down at her.

  Then she thought about it.

  Hector was offering to give a contact number to Marina. It would be his contact number, to call if Marina wanted to reach Alejandra. That meant that whatever happened next, she herself would be with Hector. Discovering that the tiny shred of hope that had nearly died during the evening wasn’t so tiny after all just blew her away. That was way better than being called sexy.

  “Sure,” Alejandra managed after a deep breath to make sure her voice was steady. “She is my sister after all.”

  He pulled out a slip of paper, wrote his name and a phone number on it and then handed it to her. At his nod, Alejandra stepped into the crowd of women being corralled onto the bus by the INS agents, this time into the seats rather than the hidden compartments.

  She couldn’t think of anything to say. Some fit of Marina-jealousy had cost her five years of being with Hector. But it would have been five years in the hell that was a Mexican town on the wrong side of the border. Now she was on the north side of the border next to a top US military soldier. It wasn’t up to her to understand how this screwed-up world worked, but she would absolutely make the best of it.

  Alejandra handed the slip of paper to her sister. Marina might be a sex-crazed maniac, but she immediately understood what it meant for both of them.

  Marina’s “Sorry” was the only word that passed between them as they hugged, but it was a long hug and her little sister’s smile wished her joy.

  Alejandra waited until they were loaded and gone, waving as the bus disappeared into the night.

  She turned and saw Hector leaning against the hood of the Ferrari, his big arms crossed over his chest. He’d shed his weapons into the trunk. The black t-shirt that had been under his vest showed just how wonderful his chest had become over the years.

  Alejandra stepped up until she was standing between his wide-braced feet.

  “What’s next?”

  “East or west? Your choice, Alej.” His deep voice was as soft as the darkness.

  “What’s waiting for us?” He didn’t flinch at the us. Instead he unfolded his arms and slipped his hands onto her waist. It was the first time they’d touched in five years and it felt as if they’d never been apart.

  “To the east about a day’s drive is Fort Bragg, North Carolina. If you’re interested, my unit is starting a testing course for new inductees in a couple days. I already called in and got you clearance while you and your sister were talking. I swore up and down that you’re a shoo-in. Which is a safe bet because you are. The test is brutal, but I got no doubts.”

  Alejandra leaned up against him and his arms came up around her. It was the best place she’d ever been.

  “And to the west?” she could barely speak past how tightly he was holding her.

  “About a ten-hour drive out of our way is Las Vegas. They’ve got these twenty-four hour wedding chapels. Again, if you’re interested.” She couldn’t see his smile because she had her nose buried against his chest, but she could hear it.

  Once more that surge of everything she wanted to say to him shot through her. She dug down and sought for something that would keep his ego in line. That would let him know that she wasn’t that easy. That he couldn’t just sweep back into her life after five years and change everything in a day.

  Except he already had. A job, the best lover, a team to belong to. A home. He had changed things; he’d made a dream she hadn’t even known about come true.

  “One question.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  She looked up into his beautiful eyes, knowing now it was something she’d get to do for the rest of her life.

  “Ten-hour drive?”

  “Uh-huh,” he sounded pretty damned pleased with himself at her response pointing them west.

  “But isn’t that in, like, a normal car? That is a Ferrari you’re leaning against.”

  This time he smiled along with his grunt of satisfaction.

  She didn’t bother answering yes before she pulled his face down and kissed him.

  Their love was so big that it didn’t need to be said.

  What the Heart Holds Safe

  The round that took out the man behind Delta Force sniper D.K. “Deek” Davies missed him by inches. The problem? The man behind him had once been a friend—a friend with an inspiring sister who changed his future.

  Cindy Borman’s lifetime practice of shutting away her heart means nothing when faced with the one man who knows her past.

  Only together can they face What the Heart Holds Safe.

  Introduction

  I love second-chance tales almost as much as I enjoy the themes of triumph and true love. This is definitely another one of those.

  One of the things I loved about this story was Delta Force’s reputation as the “silent warriors.”

  It runs deep.

  There’s a saying among Delta of something to the effect, “If you didn’t want anyone to know, why did you send a SEAL?”

  Delta operators are notorious for how little they say. I’ve heard regular Army helicopter pilots refer to, “Oh yeah, we occasionally carried a load of those guys who don’t talk. No insignia, but that told us they were Delta.”

  All of the tell-all books that are published by former SEALs just make Delta operators laugh. They may respect them as warriors—after all, SEAL Team 6 (DEVGRU) training is probably just as deep—but as blabbermouths? SEALs just piss off a Delta operator.

  I wanted to explore that silence. Where does it come from? Why do they hang onto it? And…what happens if they fall for a woman who is just as tight-lipped for reasons of her own?

  The rooftop setting of the opening has two details from the books and action reports that I read after seeing 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi and American Sniper—the surreal ornamentation of Libya’s rooftops and the helmet trick, respectively. The rest of it is all me.

  I spent thirty years working as a project manager in seven different industries, ultimately volunteering as a certification trainer as well. And one thing that’s drilled into our heads is that ninety percent of a project manager’s job is making sure that communication occurs.

  So, I set a hero and heroine who have no skills for communicating outside of battle. I saddled them with no ability to talk about feelings—until the very ending.

  Then I sat back and watched the story unfold.

  1

  The round that took out the US Army Ranger behind D.K. “Deek” Davies passed less than six inches from his ear. Not worth even noting except for the harsh supersonic snap as the bullet rushed by. Then the Ranger collapsed against him which screwed up his next shot, sending it high and to the right. Guy shouldn’t have been hovering so close that he collapsed forward when hit.

  Deek shrugged, the Ran
ger slid off his shoulder and collapsed to the ground.

  “Shit!”

  It was Jimmy Borman. His eye was gone, blood dripping through the squeezed-tight eyelid, the other eye staring wide. A straight-in brain shot. Going home in a box.

  “Shit!”

  Jimmy had no more home that he did. Certainly not one to go back to.

  Deek forced his breath to steady and put his eye back to the sniper scope.

  “Shit!” Not Jimmy. Please. It couldn’t—

  Deek had a shooter out there that he had to stay focused on so he didn’t allow himself to look down and confirm what he’d already seen. All he knew was that this goddamn Libyan sniper was going to go down and go down hard.

  The question was, where had he gone?

  The target couldn’t be dumb enough to stay in the same spot as his last shot, but Deek had to check anyway. Nope. Now he’d have to wait for their sniper to try for someone else before…

  “Brand, get up here.”

  While he was waiting for his fellow Delta Force operator to belly crawl across the roof from where he lay with the rest of the Ranger protection squad, he did look down. And cursed himself for doing so. He’d been thrilled to see Jimmy after eight years—the closest Deek ever had to a childhood friend. Embedded one fucking month and…this. Deek reached over and flipped open Borman’s heart pocket—the left breast pocket of his inner vest. (For now he’d just think of him as Borman. Keep the wall up, at least until this was done.) No letter, just the slick feel of a photo. Deek tugged it out to see who he’d left behind. Guy was real close-mouthed about whether or not he had a girl.

  Deek had meant for it to be just a quick peek, praying there wouldn’t be a photo with kids. There wasn’t. It was Jimmy’s sister Cindy—so stunningly blond and happy. Oh Christ! If there was ever a woman he didn’t want to see again it was her. No such luck. It would be up to him to make The Call. Then the obligatory visit next time he was stateside. Some decent act—and that was a whole lot of suck. So much for keeping the fucking wall up.