RULES OF LOVE (A Navy SEALs Romance)
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Authors: Bella Grant
RULES OF LOVE
(A Navy SEALs Romance)
By
Bella Grant
Copyright (c) 2016. All Rights Reserved
THREE YEARS AGO
Beau Savage crouched in the humid air and tropical fauna as sweat dripped down his face, blending his camouflage face-paint. Three more men did the same close by, all waiting for the order to move in.
His legs cramped from not moving in over an hour, but his resolve didn’t break. A team was in there, and he was part of the rescue to get them out. Too damn long, it was taking too damn long and Beau knew it. He didn’t know if any of them were alive, but he was going in that bunker.
“Two targets, three o’clock,” a gruff voice came over the com in his ear.
“Roger,” he replied quietly, his eye going to the scope on his rifle. The bunker was heavily guarded on the outside, and they had no solid eyes past the door.
“Team Alpha, moving in,” the voice hissed. Beau’s grip tightened on his rifle as he prepared to fire as cover. “Take out hostiles… Now.”
Beau fired a shot as the man beside him took the other. The two armed men outside the bunker fell to the ground. “Two hostiles removed,” he said, chambering another round.
Through his scope, he saw Team Alpha move forward—six SEALs dressed in black tactical gear. They busted through the door and disappeared inside. Beau heard the shots from his com and through the bunker.
“Hostiles engaged. Cover exit.”
Beau waved his left hand, and his team pushed slowly forward through the trees, their eyes trained on the bunker entrance. A tense few minutes passed before figures emerged from the bunker, sprinting away with guns in hand. Beau gave the order, and his team took them out one by one. The next few who came out tossed their guns aside and flattened themselves on the ground, shouting their surrender.
“Team Leader… Team Alpha, we’ve found our men,” another voice announced through the com, and Beau sensed the rage in the man. “We need immediate e-vac.”
“Helicopter on its way, Team Alpha. How many survivors?”
“Three.”
Beau’s jaw clenched. A six-man recon team had entered, and only three survived.
“We have gunshot wounds… The bleeding is bad,” the man said over the com.
Beau motioned his team forward again as the sounds of a helicopter sounded in the distance. “This is Team Bravo, moving in.”
“Take inventory, Team Bravo,” the first man giving orders said. “We have confirmation of Hugh Coleman on site.”
“Where is he, sir?”
“MIA. Keep your temper in check, Savage. We all want him dead.”
Beau replied shortly and gave the order for his team to advance. Coleman. The man they could never get a visual on. He was determined to find the man, but by the time they cleared out the bunker, he was nowhere to be found. Beau lowered his rifle to the ground and stayed out of the way as medics removed the three survivors from the bunker. They were all carried out on stretchers, and only two were conscious, talking quietly with the man who first found them. The third, a woman, was beaten and bloodied from multiple knife wounds and gunshots. Beau couldn’t even make out her face in all the blood, and a vein throbbed in his neck as his hands tightened around his gun. How she was still alive amazed him.
“What’s the report?” Beau asked as he approached the other team leader.
“Not making sense,” he muttered. “I don’t know, Savage. This shouldn’t have happened.”
“We have enough of his men. We’ll find him, and I’ll be sure to beat the shit out of him before we kill him.”
***
Barely a month later, Savage and his team located Coleman in a safe house hidden deep in the Chilean mountains. Beau eyed him through his scope as the man paced back and forth in front of his windows.
“Do you have a clear shot?”
Beau shifted for a better visual of Coleman. “Roger, clean shot.”
“Green light to take out the target.”
Beau aimed, his finger resting lightly on the trigger, and he fired. The shot hit Coleman in the chest, and he dropped. “Confirmed hit. Move in for body retrieval.”
After a few minutes to take out the security detail around the house, Beau hurried into the room only to find a puddle of blood rather than a dead body.
“Damn it!”
His commanding officer, Reinhart, came over the com. “You got him, Savage. If he doesn’t die from that wound, we’ll find him again.”
Beau, gritting his teeth as he glared down at the blood, wanted to believe him, but his ire at the man escaping again didn’t dissipate. Unless he saw Coleman dead for himself, he would never stop hunting the man. Coleman had caused enough damage. The recon team he’d taken captive had suffered at his hands—badly—and Beau was out for revenge, one way or another.
No matter how long it took.
CHAPTER ONE
His beeper vibrated furiously on his bedside table, luring him from the only real sleep he’d had in weeks. Hoping it was just part of his dream, he turned over until it vibrated again and nearly fell off the table beside his bed. Reaching a hand out of the covers to find it, he pulled it up to his eyes, the code blinking at him in the darkness. The code… The letters instantly forced his mind to wake and snap to attention, his hand reaching for his Sig Sauer tucked beneath his pillow. But his hand stilled at the last second, and he frowned. No life or death this morning, just a message to expect an incoming call. He forced himself to relax, muscle by muscle, and set the beeper down. He rose from bed, still partially dressed from coming home late the night before—no, tonight—and sought the duffel he’d dumped somewhere.
Walking carefully across his room, his six-foot-two frame stretching in the darkness, he scratched at his bare chest, wincing at the soreness there. The last target landed a solid kick to his sternum, and though he put the man down hard, the bruise remained. He cursed as the rest of his body protested, each cut and battered muscle screaming for rest he would not get. He found his duffel and pulled out the secure cell ringing shrilly at him. He rolled his eyes at the number showing up on the tiny screen but answered it.
“Rick’s all-night club—” he started when the other person cut him off.
“Savage, we have problems.” The voice belonged to his commanding officer, Orsin Reinhart. “We have a situation that, unfortunately for you, requires your attention—immediately.”
Beau, part of a special ops team for the US Navy which specialized in rescue and undercover protection missions—along with a few side hits never mentioned again once the order was given—gripped the phone tighter in his hand, fighting the temptation to break it in half. He wanted to scream at his captain that he’d just returned from a four-month mission in Brazil that consisted of taking out yet another cocaine-dealing drug lord, being knee deep in stinking mud, and swatting incessantly at mosquitos the size of his hand, but bit his tongue. He glanced at the clock on his table. Four a.m. It had been midnight when he had collapsed on his bed. Four freaking hours of sleep. Again. “Yes, sir. Where am I heading, Skipper?”
“For now, I want you to head over to that hotel down the road from you.” Papers being shuffled along with low voices sounded in the background. It must be important if his captain wasn’t alone. “Ask for a Bill Henderson, and tell them it’s for a contracting deal.”
“Not the base, sir?”
“No, this requires delicate handling, Savage,” he said tightly and hung up without another word.
Beau threw his cell into his duffel before stalking to the bathroom to throw some water on his face. He found a clean shirt to pull on and prayed the job would be an easy one. The frustration of having no time for himself was really starting to eat at him, and he was edgier than normal. He needed a month, a week, when he wasn’t called on in the middle of the night to head off into the darker parts of the world. Hell, there hadn’t been a woman in his life for over four years because of all the times he took off unexpectedly.
Thunder rumbled, making the house shake as he entered the kitchen, and he eyed the coffee pot longingly. There was no time for coffee. No time for anything resembling normal.
The mountains in the distance were barely distinguishable in the darkness from the storm. Rain came down in sheets, battering the windows as lightning streaked across the sky. He grabbed his leather coat off the chair where he’d left it four months before and walked out to the garage. His motorcycle sat in the middle, his helmet resting on the handle, as always. A few minutes later, he was speeding through the rain on his way to the hotel.
There were hardly any cars in the parking lot when he pulled up and parked his bike. He walked slowly through the rain, getting drenched but not really caring, and into the lobby. At the front desk, a nightshift worker perked up at the sight of a new guest and smiled brightly at him.
Overdosed on caffeine
, he thought.
“Hello, sir. What can I do for you this morning… Checking in?”
“I’m here for a meeting with Mr. Bill Henderson… About the contracting deal.” He waited impatiently as her bright red nails clicked on the keyboard, searching for the name.
“Here we are. He’s in room 356 on the third floor. Would you like me to call him to let him know you’re here?” she asked, but Beau was already at the elevator, willing the doors to open faster.
A few minutes later, the door dinged open on the third floor. He stepped out and shook his head at the gaudy decorations and too bright colors. The storm raging outside caused the lights to flicker as he strode down the hall, checking room numbers. 356 was a corner room with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ tag hanging on the handle. Beau knocked hard three times with his fist and waited, glancing up and down the hall. He heard the clicking of locks being opened a few seconds later, and Captain Reinhart appeared as he pulled the door open a crack. Once he saw Beau, he opened the door all the way and pulled him inside before re-locking it.
“Nice to see you looking so awake this early, Savage,” Reinhart said, shaking Beau’s hand.
“Wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee, sir, if there’s any.”
Reinhart pointed to a half-filled pot sitting on the counter. Beau walked to it, taking note of the others in the room with them. Occupying the table which had been dragged to the middle of the room were four men he didn’t recognize. They muttered quietly about the maps and files lying before them, looking now and then at some pictures of men tacked up on a wall. He recognized some as drug lords or weapon traffickers and assumed they were his new targets.