Delta Salvation (Phantom Force, Book 1) (6 page)

“Buck up girl. You can get through this like you’ve always done.” What she needed to do was get a cat or a dog and quit talking to herself, she laughed at the image of herself surrounded by animals. That would top it off as the last on her loser status. A single woman with no friends, save for her pets.

A bar and grill drew her attention, its neon sign with the brightly colored fruit had her turning the wheel sharply, making a vehicle behind her honk. Her new motto was to quit apologizing, so instead of raising her hand in apology, she kept driving into the lot and pulled into the first available space. She wasn’t going to drink, but she was going to get something that wasn’t premade.

The only seat available was at the bar. Again, a new resolution meant not cowering. Thanking the young lady, she took the barstool, ordered a water and asked for a menu. After she ordered she sat watching the others gathered around, cheering on their favorite team on the big screen above the bar. Alexa didn’t follow sports, but their energy was infectious. She found herself enthralled in the excitement.

Her five cheese pasta arrived, the yummy noodles drenched in creamy goodness had her salivating on her first bite.

****

“W
hat the fuck do you mean you lost her in traffic? Did you put a tracker on her vehicle?” JoJo cursed.

“Not enough time. I thought you were gonna keep her inside longer.” Blake answered.

JoJo shook his head, knowing his partner was kicking his own ass. “Shit, I thought she’d crash, too. Damn, Kai is gonna kick our asses. Back track and find her. She has to come back here some time if all else fails. However, we won’t know if she makes contact with Tyler or not. I’m gonna step up security here.”

“Sorry man. She literally shot through a stop light and turned without signaling, almost causing an accident.”

“Go back where you lost her and do a perimeter search. Who do you have with you?”

“Mad and Dex.” Blake named two of the SEAL team members.

Groaning, JoJo pounded his head on the counter of the front desk. Kai was so gonna beat his ass. The two men with the worst reputations with women were with his partner, and now he was relying on them to search and find her, probably seduce her. Fuck, his life was just a ball of cotton candy. Not!

“Tell them Kai said to watch, protect, and report. Not, and I repeat, not fuck her.”

Blake’s deep chuckle came over the line. “They said it’s been a long dry spell and aren’t making any promises. Something about a petite woman was just what their doctor ordered.”

“Yeah, well tell them the doctor will be ordering bone scans and splints if they disobey the captain.”

He hung up before he heard anymore, knowing the two with his boyfriend would do as they damn well pleased, Kai be damned. He’d noticed Alexa had taken her bag with her, and the surveillance footage showed she’d not unpacked a damn thing. If the rest of the mission continued, he was going to need to take up a hobby, or he and Blake were going to get into all kinds of trouble.

The vibrating of his cell had him jerking back to the desk. Seeing no caller id had him tensing. “Yes?”

“We got a problem. Where’s the woman?”

JoJo’s throat tightened at the deep timbre of Kayan Swift’s question. “She’s out scouting the area. Something about wanting to familiarize herself with her new town.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Damn! “Nothing. Blake, Mad and Dex are trailing her.” Truth. Kai would hear a lie even thousands of miles away.

“Seems Jase had his eyes on her, and maybe even now has her in his sights. Tell the three stooges not to let her out of theirs or they’ll answer to me.” The threat wasn’t an idle one.

“Got it.” JoJo took a deep breath.

“We’ll be back on U.S. soil in less than eight hours. Have a detailed report for me, and JoJo...don’t lose the woman.”

As the line went dead, JoJo was sure his heart stopped beating. “And JoJo, don’t lose the woman. Like I’m some sort of keeper or some shit.” Punching his security code into the keypad, he let himself into the office behind him. Pulling up the video feed on the monitors of the cameras outside of the apartment building was like taking candy from a baby, and from there he spent the next few minutes following Alexa as she drove around town. He zoomed in on her face and grimaced at the tears streaking down her cheeks, watching as she dashed them away. A few more turns and he saw when she ditched the team, pulling into a restaurant.

“Damn, girl, you hungry or what?” JoJo grabbed his cell and dialed Blake. “Have you found our girl?”

Blake growled. “No, damn it.”

With a laugh, he told him where Alexa had gone, then waited to hear they’d found her car before telling them about Kai’s call.

“Dude, you should’ve opened with that one.”

“Sure, then the three of you would’ve headed to the hills. PS. He’ll be here in less than eight hours, so don’t fucking lose her again.” JoJo hung up, then leaned back in the chair. “This job is going to give me a damn heart attack.”

****

T
he back of Kai’s neck itched, which meant the SEALs back at home were hiding something from him, or something else was going on. He didn’t like the unknown, and having an ex-team member like Jase Tyler one step ahead of him made his teeth ache. He unclenched his jaws, figuring at this rate he’d be needing replacement molars in no time.

“What did they do to put that look on your face, boss.” Oz’s red brow quirked.

“I think they lost Alexa, and more than likely, Jase Tyler has her in his sights as we speak.” Kai hated the fact he couldn’t reach her right that second. A ridiculous notion. He was a man with no ties except to his team. No liabilities was a motto they all lived by.

“Dayum, that is just so fucked, man. He’s not that damn good. You’re giving him too much credit. Yeah, he’s got a head start on us, but give us some credit, too. We are not without some skills. You want us just to step out and put a target on our chest, and shout we’re right here?” Coyle crossed his arms over his chest.

He knew his team was better than Jase was, but the other man had been with a group of unknowns for some time, and Kai wasn’t sure what he’d become, wasn’t sure what he’d do to survive. No, he knew what his ex-team member would do. He’d kill each and every one of them if he could. However, he was a coward and would use someone else to do his dirty work, just like he did on their last mission, along with this latest trip into Mexico.

“I know each and every one of you are worth ten of that asshat. But,” he raised his hand. “He has the element of surprise, not to mention we don’t know his agenda. I feel like we are chasing our tails, while he’s playing with his balls.”

Tay laughed. “I’d rather chase some tails, than play with my balls any day, boss.”

A round of laughter followed Tay’s comment. “I’m sure y’all have had some fun watching others play with balls on that farm out in middle America, but I can honestly say the only licking I do is on the female variety.” Sully waggled his tongue.

Kai left the team to work on finding Jase. Pulling out his phone, he searched through the encrypted info for anything that looked suspicious. He glanced at Tay, waiting for more info to filter through. The technical guru of the team was working away on the phone they’d taken off the dead man, his fingers flying across the laptop. Every once in a while Tay’s blond head would bob or he’d run his hand over his jaw. A sure sign he wasn’t having much luck.

A few more hours and they’d be on home soil. Kai pictured the woman named Alexa. His worry for how she was settling in had him rethinking his plans to be the one in charge of befriending her. Many times they’d portrayed themselves as single and willing, but it didn’t sit well with him to try that angle with the damaged woman. All her protests aside, she had been hurt more than she’d let on. Her hospital records showed the near death experience she’d suffered at the hands of an ex-lover, yet an air of innocence surrounded her. Kai couldn’t find any remorse in knowing the man who’d tried to kill her was no longer breathing.

He pulled up the records he’d requested on the Reed family, finding Mrs. Reed had perished in a house fire. Reading on, he was shocked to see they’d found several barrels with what appeared to be human remains in them. Kai shook his head, nausea roiled in his gut at what could have happened if Alexa hadn’t escaped when she had. “Crazy fucking family.”

“What’s that, Cap?” Tay looked up from his computer.

Unable to explain why he was captivated by a woman he shouldn’t be, Kai pointed at the screen in front of his team member. “You get anything yet?”

Tay narrowed his blue eyes. “Actually, I just did. Check it out. Our boy has been talking to some old friends, and when I say old, I mean as in our old buddy, Rowan.”

“Bullshit. Was it a one-way call? Can you tell if it lasted more than a couple seconds? Where was the call placed from?” Shit! Kai couldn’t let himself believe they had two traitors in their midst. Especially not Rowan. It would take a hell of a lot more than he and his team to take out what Rowan was into now with the Iron Wolves MC. Besides, the man had been the one to call them in to help destroy the compound where Jase had been hiding out. It didn’t make sense. Kai wouldn’t believe a red herring again, but he also wouldn’t allow evidence to be pushed under a rug either.

“Looks like it was a call made several months back, one-way and lasted no more than a few seconds. So, either he didn’t reach Rowan, or Rowan told him to go fuck himself.” Tay’s fingers began tapping on the keyboard again. “Now this is interesting, though. You know our boy, Dex, right?” When Kai nodded, Tay continued. “Dex has a second phone, one he says is just for his hookups. There’s not been any reason to tap it, but I’ve always kept the number in my files. I just cross referenced all our numbers in the database with every number that has been called from Jase’s phone, or has called Jase. Guess who calls on a weekly basis?”

“Fucking Dex,” Kai growled.

Oz and Coyle stopped talking, while Sully cracked his knuckles.

“Do you think JoJo and Blake are compromised as well?” Kai looked at his team, the men he trusted with his life.

Sully shook his head, then stopped. “We can’t take the chance they aren’t. Fuck, this shit just keeps getting better and better. What the hell are they getting out of fucking over their country?”

Oz looked down at his hands. “A one-way ticket to hell is my guess, or maybe my answer, cause when I get my hands on either of them...”

Kai understood and agreed, but he couldn’t say it. “We land in a few hours. I suggest we all get a couple hours rest. It may be the last we get for another long stretch.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. They’d all learned to take what snatches of sleep they could, where they could.

As the altitude changed his body became alert almost instantly, along with the rest of his team. Tay had his computer held against his chest, rubbing his eyes with one hand, while Coyle stretched his legs out in front of him with a grunt. Oz’s eyes stared straight ahead, the anger still burning in the blue depths.

“Want to jump out of a perfectly good plane again, Oz?” Sully asked.

Oz lifted his middle finger, but a ghost of a smile appeared on his face.

“When we land, we are going to get two rigs and head straight to the apartment building where Ms. Gordon is staying. I’m assuming Tyler has a reason for having Dex on her ass. I’m also assuming she’s still alive since we haven’t heard from anyone otherwise. Tay, when we get a signal, I want Rowan on the line. Oz, Coyle and Sully, you take one vehicle and head to the office where the woman is working. I want you in the office, and I want you to find out what, who and where she’s gone today. Tay, you and I will go have a talk with JoJo. It’ll be great fun to see our old pal again.” Kai smiled, watching his team smile in turn, knowing they all wanted a piece of the action and would soon get to kick some ass was always a win.

“What about Dex?” Tay asked.

“Leave Dex to me.”

“You realize he’s gonna run, or worse, try to kill us right?” Tay looked around the group.

Oz laughed. “Yeehaw, that’ll be great. Can I play with him first, before I rip his arms off and beat him with them?

“Such a barbarian, Oz.” Kai winked. “That’s why you’re on my team. However, I think we have to let him live. Beat him senseless, but he will have to live to see another day, my friend.”

Coyle raised his hand. “May I point out we haven’t given him a fair trial. I mean they may have been discussing Jase turning himself in, or returning some dishes or shit. Whatever it was, we might want to find out what Dex was talking to the bastard about, before the beatdown.”

“Damn, when did Coyle become the sane one of us?” Sully punched Coyle in the arm, then flinched when Coyle punched him back.

“I’ve always been the level headed one, y’all were just too screwed in the head to realize it,” Coyle joked.

The pilot indicated they needed to fasten their seatbelts. Kai sent a prayer up to the heavens as they made their final descent into Ellsworth Air Force Base.

“We got a meeting at the U.S. Defense Department with Commander Lee in forty-eight hours. I want to have something good to report, boys.”

“Do we all gotta go, or just you? That man scares the crap out of me.”

Coming from Coyle, the statement should’ve made Kai laugh, but Commander Lee was a man not to cross. “For right now it’s all of us. I’ll see what I can do to get you pussies out of it.” He looked at the members of his team, all SEALs, yet they’d each been plucked out of their original teams and brought together. “We train for war and fight to win, we get knocked down and get right back up stronger. Yet you’re scared of an old man behind a desk?” Kai shook his head. “I’ll let you hide behind me.”

“Thanks, dad.” Sully put his hand over his heart, while the other guys flipped him the bird.

Kai waited for the plane to touch down, then dialed Rowan’s number. Hearing the phone ring on the other end, he worried the other man wasn’t going to answer.

“Yo, what’s up, Kai?” Rowan answered a bit breathlessly.