Sweetheart for the SEAL Read online

  Sweetheart for the SEAL

  Alexis Abbott

  © 2018 Pathforgers Publishing.

  All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  This book is intended for sale to Adult Audiences only. All sexually active characters in this work are over 18. All sexual activity is between non-blood related, consenting adults. This is a work of fiction, and as such, does not encourage illegal or immoral activities that happen within.

  Cover Design by Wicked Good Covers. All cover art makes use of stock photography and all persons depicted are models.

  More information is available at Pathforgers Publishing.

  Content warnings: kidnapping, attempted sexual assault (not by hero), natural disaster

  Wordcount: 54,000 Words

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Duncan

  2. Crystal

  3. Duncan

  4. Crystal

  5. Duncan

  6. Crystal

  7. Duncan

  8. Crystal

  9. Duncan

  10. Crystal

  11. Duncan

  12. Crystal

  13. Crystal

  14. Duncan

  15. Crystal

  16. Duncan

  17. Crystal

  18. Duncan

  19. Crystal

  20. Duncan

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  Duncan

  I feel the guard’s thrashing slow down as my sleeper hold chokes the consciousness from him, and soon, he goes limp in my arms. As he does, I kneel down and lay him flat on the pristine, tiled floor of the balcony overlooking the lush Colombian jungle. Even through my face mask, I can feel the hot, sticky air as oppressive as ever. There’s no escaping it. Not even in the middle of a mission.

  I check the guard’s unconscious body and take the keys off him. If all is going according to plan, I have about thirty seconds to hide the body somewhere that won’t get checked for another couple hours. According to our floor plan of this drug lord’s estate, that would be the laundry room just inside the doors to my right, second room on the left.

  Off in the distance, I hear the sounds of shouting and gunfire. Right on time. The rest of my team is staging an assault of the estate from the south side, along the road between two densely jungled mountains that pour a steady stream of mist onto the drug lord’s massive estate grounds.

  They’re going to draw the bulk of the fire, and I’m going to make my way through the manor and deal with the target.

  I’ve been out in this jungle for weeks, long before the rest of my squad showed up. It’s all part of the plan— I have to be a specter, a shadow that can’t be so much as suspected out here while the rest of the operation goes according to plan. I memorized the lay of the land so closely that it might as well be my hometown back in the Appalachians. I know its rhythm. I even know some of the drug lord’s patrolmen by their first names. None of them so much as dream that I’ve been lurking in the woods this whole time, scoping them all out and learning their schedules. They didn’t suspect as much when I smuggled myself into the compound in a bag of rice, and they don’t suspect as much now that my squadmates are raining fire down on them at the front gates.

  I’m a Navy SEAL. Perfection is my job.

  After checking it, I slip into the manor through the doorway. Like clockwork, the hallway is empty, as expected. I carry the body to the laundry room and slip it behind one of the machines, where he’ll be out cold for a long while yet. Long enough for me to do what I need and get out of here.

  But from here on out, things will get messy. I can get all the way into a drug lord’s compound without raising the alarm with no problem, given enough planning. Getting into his bedroom during a full-scale assault is another beast.

  I only have a short time in private, and I take advantage of it. I take the weapons out of the bag strapped to my back and assemble them — two pistols and my submachine gun — guns that I know so intimately that I could assemble them in my sleep. I don’t have the benefit of an assault rifle like my squad does.

  Fortunately, I won’t need it.

  The same training was drilled into each and every one of us. Nothing short of perfection is expected, and we aim to deliver. It’s all to protect the ones we love back home.

  I don’t have much of a family back home. Dad’s gone, and Mom keeps to herself these days. That would be more than enough to keep me going, but there’s one other face that hasn’t left the back of my mind since the day I shipped off. As I finish loading my weapons, the thought of seeing her again crosses my mind for what must be the millionth time. It’s what keeps me comforted at night, keeps me pushing myself to my limits and beyond every time I train.

  The funny part is: I don’t even know if she remembers me.

  That doesn’t matter right now.

  I have to stay focused.

  I get low and make my way to the door again, putting my ear to it. I hear heavy footsteps outside, as expected. I wait for them to pass just a couple steps by, then slide out of the doorway. Quiet as a shadow, I see the guard’s back, and my body moves with machine-like precision. I wrap my arms around his neck and give him the same treatment as the other guy stashed behind the washing machines, then put him in the same hiding spot.

  I’m on borrowed time now.

  Because the second the other guards out there realize the patrolman isn’t coming back out of the hallway, there’s a chance they’ll catch on to what’s happening.

  Sure, it will be too late for them by then. But it would be a lot messier.

  Submachine gun on my back, suppressor on my pistol, I leave the safety of the hallway and use a hand mirror to check around the corner of the hall into the staircase it leads to. My pistol is out, and I’m poised to fire as quickly as I need to.

  I’m taking what are essentially servant’s passages up the manor. The rich crime lords this place entertains don’t want to see the staff any more than is necessary, so there are discreet passages built into the infrastructure to let them move around without being seen much. That makes these halls a huge security risk, and most players who have survived the game long enough to understand that lesson have the routes well guarded.

  Even so, there’s no cleaner way up to my destination, so it’s a chance I have to take.

  Around the corner of the first staircase I get up, I hear footsteps coming my way, and I ready my aim. An old man rounds the corner carrying a basket of laundry, and his face goes white at the sight of me. I step forward, putting a finger to my lips as he stands aside for me. I don’t kill civilians, period.

  But I can’t just let him go free, either — I can’t take any chances. I gesture for him to drop his laundry, then I turn him around and bind his wrists behind his back before proceeding upstairs.

  This time, I hear heavier boots heading my way. I drop to one knee and ready myself.

  A moment later, two guards round the corner on the stairwell I’m heading toward, and I fire two bullets. The men hit the ground without so much as a word, guns falling from their grip, and I hear someone shouting behind them in Spanish. The time for caution and the element of surprise is gone.

  I take out my submachine gun and race forward, diving just in time for the third man to pop a
round the corner. I tackle him to the ground and twist his gun out of his arms while I take aim at the fourth man standing above us, who’s midway through raising his gun. With a quick burst of bullets, I drop him, then use my elbow to knock out the man I’m grappling with. My heart rate has barely increased by the time I stand back up and proceed.

  Someone has probably heard the fighting by now. I have even less time to work with. I have complete faith that my team will pull through for me. If they don’t, I’m already dead. But I don’t need to worry about that. If I didn’t have total confidence in them, I wouldn’t have agreed to do this.

  That’s just part of being a SEAL.

  On the last flight below the floor where my target’s office is located, I stop climbing the stairs and move out to the hallway. There are three more guards moving away from me, but as soon as I step into the hallway, they turn and see me. They don’t have time to react before a few quick, precise bursts of fire from my gun put them down.

  I breeze by them to the nearest window, the one I studied in excruciating detail from afar. I climb out so smoothly that it looks like I’ve been practicing for months, and I start climbing the stonework up to the next floor. My target probably has guards in front of his door by now, as well as around him — it’s my job to find the weak point.

  I make my way up to the balcony jutting out from the rear exit of his office, and I can hear men speaking in Spanish, asking each other if they have word on the identity of their attackers. Maybe the element of surprise isn’t totally gone, yet. If my target knew the SEALs were after him, he might already be trying to make his escape.

  My target is an odd one. He’s not even Colombian — his name is Steven Bennett, hardly the type you’d expect to be running a drug ring in the heart of Colombia. He’s an American former DEA agent who went rogue and used his connections down south to climb to the top of a kingdom of cocaine and blood. His associates call him El Cocodrilo.

  I climb to the edge of the balcony and watch the guards from below. If one of them looks down, I’m dead. It’s a risk I have to take. The moment their idle, anxious strolling makes their backs turn to me, I hoist myself up and over the edge of the stone railing.

  The two men turn to me immediately, but I’m already mid-lunge on one of them. I tackle him to the ground and wrestle him into my grasp while the other aims his gun at us, hesitating. I twist around and use the man as a human shield, which distracts him long enough for me to get a shot off at him. The moment he falls, I knock out the man in my arms and head for the door to the drug lord’s office.

  I take out a stun grenade. I don’t want a bloodbath, no matter how vicious the men inside are, and even though I could choose to mow down as many as possible with my guns. That’s just not how I operate.

  Unless there’s another gun pointing at me, I don’t fire.

  I pull the pin on the grenade and toss it into the door. I hear a number of shouts from inside moments before it goes off with an ear-shattering bang, accompanied by a blinding flash. It’s my cue.

  I move in, submachine gun out, shouting in Spanish at the crazed, confused group of people inside. The room is lavish, furnished with elegant desks and couches that I haven’t seen the likes of in the houses of admirals in my own branch of the military.

  “Weapons down! Hands up! Everyone!”

  There are three guards by the front door, two flanking me, and El Cocodrilo himself not far from where I’m standing. I have options here, once again.

  In my experience, the best solution is the simplest.

  Steven ‘El Cocodrilo’ Bennett is about five paces in front of me, wearing a designer suit that doesn’t do much to hide how physically weak of a man he is. I lunge forward, grab him, and I have a gun to his head before the rest of the room can get its bearings.

  “Fuck-” Bennett has time to curse before I yank him back, moving toward the door. The guards start to raise their weapons, but I make it clear that one wrong move on their part means Bennett dies. It’s a bluff, but one that no bodyguard is willing to take.

  “The men attacking your compound are US Navy SEALs,” I shout in Spanish as I move back with my target. “Bennett is ours. You have nothing left to fight for.”

  “Kill him, you fuckers!” Bennett orders them through gritted teeth. They hesitate, and for one heart-stopping moment, it’s a very real possibility that the room is about to get very chaotic and bloody.

  Finally, I make it to the door back to the balcony, and nobody stops me. I shut it, and I’m alone with Bennett.

  “Cock-suckers,” he groans.

  “Arms up,” I order him as I pat him down, stripping him of a couple of hidden weapons on his person before binding his wrists behind his back. He’s a doughy man with gray hair at the temples and not a scrap of remorse in his eyes.

  “How do you plan on getting me out of here, boy scout?” he chuckles at me. “You’re better off putting a bullet in my head right now.”

  “I could leave you here and let one of your subordinates do that for you,” I reply matter-of-factly. “Somehow, I don’t think letting your compound get raided is a good look for a drug lord. You’ve had your fun, Bennett.” I take out the climbing gear I brought with me and show it to him before harnessing him to me. “It’s my job to take you to justice, not the reaper. There’ll be time for that later.”

  Hours later, I’m sitting in the back of a black transport helicopter with the rest of my squad, getting airlifted out of Colombia and back home. Spirits are high — I can’t keep a smile off my face at seeing the other three of them after so long, even though all our faces are concealed by our masks. We clap hands together firmly, half-laughing as we talk to each other.

  “Was starting to get worried about you up there, Anderson,” says Walker. “Didn’t want your four-year anniversary to be your last.”

  “I’ll be damned if some pencil-necked turncoat takes me down,” I chuckle. “How’d things go at the front door?”

  “Cooper took a bullet to the shoulder, but otherwise good,” he says.

  Cooper gives me a thumbs-up, and I nod.

  “And that wraps up the operation,” I say, nodding. “Bennett neutralized, his lieutenants dealt with, and his contacts scattered. Well done, everyone.”

  “Until they sic us on the next handful of crime lords down here,” Parker grunts, and Walker nods.

  “Maybe I’ll take the role of the guy stuck surviving in the jungle for a couple weeks. What do you say, Anderson?”

  “On the contrary, you might not have a choice,” I say, and they all look at me, perplexed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Being in the jungle a couple weeks gives you a lot of time to think things over,” I say, leaning forward. “But I won’t get all sentimental on you. Short version is, I’m taking some personal time. Hopefully not long, but I’ve got some business I need to take care of back up north.”

  “Damn, well alright,” Walker says. “No complaints from us — God knows you’ve earned it, if any of us have.”

  “Agreed,” Cooper and Parker say at the same time.

  “What is it, though?” Walker adds. “Family?”

  I crack a smile.

  “Something like that.”

  Her face is still in my mind, fresh as the day I left her. Crystal-clear.

  Crystal

  “Mommy, Mommy!”

  I look up from the bagged loaf of bread in my hands, squinting and straining to listen for what sounds like my little daughter’s sweet, plaintive voice from across the house. I set down the bread and put a hand on my hip, turning toward the kitchen entryway and focusing in.

  It’s one of those many, many quirks of motherhood everybody failed to warn me about: that I would become so overly-sensitized to the sound of my child’s own voice that sometimes, I just might imagine hearing it in the breeze or mixed in with the songs on the radio.

  When you’re a mother, you grow very, very accustomed to picking out your own child’s face,
her voice, even her own particular giggle out of a crowd. Ever since she was a tiny baby whose only communication was to scream and cry, I have been able to so easily distinguish the meaning and intensity of every screech and whimper and coo.

  She’s nearly four now, so I’m pretty damn good at deciphering what pitch of her voice means she’s excited or happy and which tone means she’s hurt or upset and needs my attention ASAP.

  Her innocent, lisping voice is constantly in my mind, as she tends to take up at least ninety percent of my thoughts at any given time. Not that I’m complaining. My daughter is an angel, the best three-year-old best friend and coworker I could have ever imagined.

  That’s right: coworker. I know how silly that sounds to most people, but considering the fact that my job is to run a small daycare center out of my home, it makes a tad bit more sense. Yes, Dakota is one of the kids I spend my days watching, teaching, feeding, and snuggling with alongside other people’s children, but she’s also my little helper a lot of the time.

  Which is partly why I’m listening so intently for her voice right now; because it’s a quarter ‘til nine and that’s our usual prescribed breakfast time, and Dakota usually helps me with the food prep.

  Not that I even have to ask her to.

  She’s always been a strangely helpful, thoughtful child. If I’m doing chores around the house, even gross things like scrubbing a toilet or taking out the garbage, she jumps right in to help me however she can

  I love spending time with her, especially one-on-one, since occasionally I do worry that it might hurt her feelings having to share her mom’s attention with other children at the daycare. But she’s always so upbeat, so even-keeled, that from time to time I have to wonder if she might even be more mature than some of my parent friends.