Saved by a SEAL (Hot SEALs Book 2)

SAVED BY A SEAL

Hot SEALs
, Book 2

Cat Johnson

Zane
Alexander was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but the rebellious bad boy traded it, along with his share of the family fortune, for a Navy SEAL trident and freedom from his controlling father.

Ten years later, Zane’s teammates are depending on him to secure the startup capital they need to open their security company and he’s gambling on his skills at covert operations to get it. For a million dollars he’ll fake interest in Missy Greenwood, the senator’s daughter his father wants him to date in exchange for the investment.

When Missy is kidnapped and Zane and his team are sent to Nigeria to rescue her, there’s no more faking when the danger and the emotions turn very real.

Don’t miss
Night with a SEAL
, also in the Hot SEALs series from
New York Times
bestselling author Cat Johnson. More at
CatJohnson.net
. Sign up for the mailing list at
bit.do/CatsNews

CHAPTER 1

Zane Alexander watched as his teammate Jon strode across the bar toward him.

“Good. You’re here
.” Jon dumped a binder on the table.

The papers inside were
heavy enough to make the beer in Zane’s pint slosh when the binder landed.

Zane raised a brow as he picked up his glass. “Whatcha got there, bud?”

“That’s the completed business and marketing plan, all put together.” Jon pulled out a chair and sat. “Rick and Darci looked it over and then both Ali and I proofread it twice, so it should be ready to present to your father.”

Grateful he’d been left out of that
incredibly boring stage of this project, Zane eyed the tome. “Nothing else? That’s all?”

Frow
ning, Jon flipped open the front cover of the binder. “I think so. Brody’s artwork for the logo is in there, along with a complete company branding section. I also cited and included all the materials I used for research to back up the idea. You know, as proof there’s a need for this kind of operation—” Jon glanced up, and then scowled as his shoulders slumped. “You’re fucking with me.”

“I am.”
Amused that Jon had finally figured it out, Zane raised his glass in a toast to his gullible friend. Apparently, Jon was a little slow in detecting sarcasm today.

Zane
took a swallow of the brew that was already getting warm. He’d arrived early for this meeting with his current teammate and soon-to-be business partner.

Truth be told
, he’d needed the drink. Zane had faced the enemy with less trepidation than he felt now on the way to see his father—and the enemy had been carrying automatic weapons with the intent of killing him at the time.

His father utilized
weapons that were more subtle than machine guns and explosives, but no less destructive. Zane should know. He’d been dodging his father’s verbal shots for as long as he could remember.

He still had yet to figure out how his mother, bl
ess her heart, had survived so long married to his father. By keeping her head down and remaining below the radar, most likely.

Zane had a tendency to get right
in his father’s face, or he had until that day he announced he was joining the Navy and walked out with nothing but what fit in his bag.

Thank God for the trust
fund his maternal grandfather had set up. Zane’s father could—and had—cut him off from the family wealth and support, but even he didn’t have the power to take away the trust fund in Zane’s name or the monthly allowance it yielded him.

Not that Zane’s expenses were huge—l
iving in the bachelor barracks when not deployed was cheap—but Zane did like having nice things. Big trucks. Fast cars. Hot women. That all took a good amount of cash. More than he made from his military pay, so the check was surely welcome when it appeared in his account each month.

“
Do you want to take a look at what I put together?” Jon looked a little disappointed. Almost crestfallen that Zane hadn’t jumped to devour the binder page-by-page.

Even with the kickass winged anchor logo and company name they’d come up with on the front of it, the binder looked too much like the schoolwork he’d always hated.

Zane knew he should review the material before he met with his father later that day, but it could wait. “I will. Later.”

Procrastination was one of the many things Zane excelled at.
He took another sip of his beer and ignored the book Jon had nudged toward him.

He’d be drinking whisky if he didn’t have to get behind the wheel and
leave for his drive to the capital region in an hour or so.

When
Jon looked ready to crawl out of his skin, Zane decided to relieve his friend’s pain. “Look, Jon, I know you and you are incapable of giving less than one hundred percent to anything you do. I trust you that everything I’ll need is in that thing, plus some. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter what’s in your plan. My father is going to give us the money for this company.”

Jon pressed
his lips together and looked unhappy. “I wish I could be so sure.”

“
You can be. Trust me. When my father sees I’m willing to leave the Navy for this, he’ll jump on investing as much money as we need to start GAPS.”

GAPS—
Guardian Angel Protection Services—was Jon’s brainchild and it was a great idea. A company comprised of a group of men with the best training the Naval Special Warfare Development Group had to offer. As combat-seasoned SEAL operatives, they would be experienced experts-for-hire at a time when precision security was a growing need in so many areas around the globe.

With their friends and former teammates Chris and Rick already out, and with Jon and Zane’s current contracts about to expire, they had a four-man team to staff GAPS out of the gate
, with the promise of more of their teammates joining them in a few years . . . if they could make a go of it.

Zane traced the tip of one finger
over the letters of their tagline printed on the paper slipped beneath the clear plastic front of the binder.

We cover your six when God’s too busy.

Was he covering his friend’s six now, or leading them all down a path of fruitless hope?

Nothing was certain when it came to his father. Well, nothing except the fact that the one thing
George Zane Alexander, Jr. could never get over was his son joining the Navy against his wishes. And Zane hadn’t stopped there. He’d taken it one step further by trying out for the SEALs. Then, as soon as he’d proven himself, he went for DEVGRU’s Green Team selection and training—the infamous
Seal Team Six
the media liked to shout about.

Even if those actually in the elite unit
didn’t like or want the fame the media had thrust upon them after the Bin Laden raid, Zane was indeed among the best of the best, in spite of his old man’s wishes. The problem was that once he’d reached the top, there was nowhere left to go to piss off his father.

Zane saw Jon’s vision for GAPS
as the right opportunity at the right time.

To be able to take their skills and use them a
s they saw fit
and
be their own bosses was tempting. A dream come true.

Of course, that was only
if
Zane got through this meeting with good old George without taking a swing at the man, which was what had almost happened the last Christmas he’d tried going home to play at being a happy family. You don’t talk badly about the troops or make disparaging remarks about the war to a man who had watched friends get blown up. Zane clenched his jaw and pocketed the anger that memory raised.

If nothing else, Zane knew he
should see his mother. Thanks to his recent six-month deployment in Afghanistan it had been too long since he’d visited her.

It
wasn’t her fault the man she’d married had turned out to be a dick. Georgie probably had some charm back in the old days that hid the asshole beneath. Zane had to believe that, or else it meant his mother was an incredibly poor judge of character.

“Where’s the waitress?” Jon glanced ov
er his shoulder and then back at Zane. “The one time I really need a beer to calm my nerves, she’s nowhere to be found.”

“N
erves?” Zane let out a snort. “I’ve seen you face down the barrel of a gun without blinking an eye.”

“True, but dying
is easier than failing. At least for me.”

Zane knew exactly how important this company was to Jon, and starting it was contingent upon him getting the startup capital out of his bastard father.
After that thought Zane needed another beer as much as Jon did.

He pushed his chair back from the table and stood. “I’ll go up to the bar and get us a round.”

Jon braced his palms against the edge of the table. “No. Sit. I can go.”

Zane held up a hand
to stop Jon. “Nope. I got it. The waitress is probably ignoring us because of me anyway.”

Jon raised his brows high
. “What did you do now?”

“I k
inda ditched her the other night and went home with someone else.” Zane lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Not my fault. I never promised her anything more than a good time.”

“You n
ever do.” A smile quirked up one corner of Jon’s mouth. “You really shouldn’t commit to your fallback lay if there’s a chance you’re going to take someone else home.”

“
I didn’t expect to. This redhead came in, close to closing time, looking smoking hot and ready for action. What was I supposed to do? You know a new girl will always take precedence over one I’ve had already.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Jon shook his head.
“So you keep saying, but I’m perfectly happy with the same girl night after night so . . .”

Jon dismissed that with a sweep of his hand. “You and Ali don’t count. You’ve only been dating for what?
A couple of weeks? Less than a month. That’s still the honeymoon period when you’re just happy to be getting regular sex without having to work for it. You’ll move past that stage quickly enough. You’ll see.”

“Thanks for the prediction
and the vote of confidence.” Jon rolled his eyes. “And, yeah, you can go up and buy me a draft since you pissed off the waitress. Thanks.”

“You got it.”
Zane pivoted toward the bar. Thankfully, the bartender was male and didn’t seem to give a shit who his customers left with at night.

Beer
Zane could easily deliver to his friend. A million dollars start-up money contingent upon his father’s generosity? That was going to be a little more difficult, but he’d do anything he had to do to get that money. He just hoped it didn’t cost him a piece of his soul.

Unfortunately, deals with the devil generally did.

CHAPTER 2

The drive wasn’t incredibly long
from base to where Zane had grown up in the outskirts of the Washington D.C. suburbs. The affluent county his family resided in was commutable to the capital, but far enough away to allow for large homes on even larger properties, appealing to the rich and the politically inclined.

T
hough traffic could easily double the length of the trip, wouldn’t you know it, the one time Zane had been hoping for some good traffic delays it was smooth sailing all the way to the parking structure for his father’s building.

Zane pulled off his dark sunglasses as he entered the dim lot, easing his convertible to a stop. He reached for the ticket the machine spat out and grabbed it as the
mechanical arm rose to allow him access. He cruised up one level and found a nice spacious corner spot to safely park his pride and joy.

Each step brought him closer to the dreaded meeting.

Setting up the meet had been easy. His father’s assistant, Amy, had handled it all. Zane hadn’t had to even hear the old man’s growl on the phone.

As the time ticked on, h
e found himself hoping that maybe old Georgie had been pulled away for some other business. Then he could hand off Jon’s precious binder to Amy and go.

H
e knew that wouldn’t be enough anyway. There were negotiations involved. His future in exchange for his father’s investment—God help him.

Zane worked to keep his breathing slow and steady in the elevator ride up to his father’s floor. Of course
, the man chose an office up high. Better view. More prestige. Whatever. Being closer to heaven wouldn’t make George Alexander’s soul any less black.

All too soon the brass sign next to the door heralding the company’s name faced him.
Alexander Investments
. As he reached for the knob, he couldn’t help notice that he’d entered known insurgent dwellings with less trepidation. He wrote that off to the fact he’d been up against his father for many years before the Navy had given him the tools to deal with adversity.

That Zane didn’t recognize t
he first person he encountered, the girl at the front desk, was proof of how long he’d stayed away. Then again, he wouldn’t be surprised if there was a revolving door of lower level staff in this company.

“Zane Alexander
. I’m here to see my father.”

She glanced at the day’s schedule, still kept in an old fashioned calendar on the desk rather than the computer
. Typical of his father’s never changing ways. The girl ran a finger down the list of appointments and finally nodded. He felt a moment of relief that he was actually on the list.

There were layers of personnel to get through before he’d reach the inner sanctum. At least he’d cleared the first one.

“Yes, sir. You can go on back. It’s straight and then a right down the hall until—”

He raised one hand to stop her
from giving him directions to the office he’d visited with his mother since before he could walk. “I know. Thanks.”

Zane made his way through the labyrinth of
Alexander Investments, taking note he only recognized two people from among the many new fresh faces he passed.

His father’s assistant,
Amy, glanced up from her desk as he stepped into her open doorway. Her smile was warm enough to soothe his rattled nerves.

The worst
part of the whole situation was that SEALs didn’t get rattled. Not in combat. Not when facing death. He’d trained long and hard to ensure that, yet one visit to his father seemed to undo all those years of training.

“Zane. Good to see you.” She stood and walked around the desk.

“Good to see you too, Amy. There are so many new faces around here. . .”

“That y
ou’re happy to see my
old
one?” She hugged him and then pulled back to shoot him a grin.

He couldn’t help but return her smile. “You’re not old.”

“Well, I’m certainly not young.” She laughed. “You look good.”

“Thanks.” He’d felt good, until this visit. Zane glanced at the closed door behind her. “Is he here?”

“He is, and expecting you.”

The binder
seemed heavier in his grasp as he felt less prepared for this confrontation than he should. If this had been a mission, he would have devoured and memorized the contents in their entirety.

As it was, he’d barely glanced at the thing.
It went against everything he did on a daily basis.

What the hell had gotten into him that he was walki
ng into a situation unprepared? One more look at the door sent his pulse racing and Zane realized his father had gotten to him.

Amy moved back to her desk and hit the intercom button
on the phone. “Zane is here to see you.”

“
Send him back.”

Just hea
ring his father’s voice through the speaker upped Zane’s stress level. “Thanks, Amy.”

He
swallowed and moved toward the door. Instead of the weight of the kit that contained his equipment and the tools of his job, today the binder was Zane’s only backup.

At the moment he’d give anything for his team to back him, but this was his fight and his alone.

After one bracing breath, he turned the knob and swung the door in. “Father.”

“Zane. What brings you here after so long?”

Dig number one, and he’d barely cleared the door.

“I have an opportunity you might be interested in.”

“You mean you need something from me.”

Zane noticed with petty satisfaction that his father had put on weight, which only added to the size of his jowls as
the corners of his mouth turned down.

He felt his jaw tense and tossed the binder onto the heavy wooden desk before sitting in the leather chair opposite his father.
He took his time, forcing himself to move slowly to unnerve the man with his nonchalance.

“Well of course,
Father, the proposal would require capital. What investments don’t require buy in? Surely none worth anything.”

The older m
an cocked a brow. “Don’t try to talk business, boy. It doesn’t suit you.” He eyed the binder’s cover and frowned. “
Guardian Angel Protection Services
. What the hell is that?”

“It’s all outlined in there
if you’d like to take a look.” Zane would rather have his father read Jon’s precisely thought out and edited words, than wing this on the fly.

He knew the concept like the back of his hand. Hell, he lived the procedures for his job. But to explain it here and now, out loud and in words good enough to impress his father? No. That would be setting himself up for failure.

After a deep sigh, George flipped open the front cover. Zane knew the first page contained their mission statement. When his father looked as if he’d actually taken the time to read what was written before turning to page two, Zane allowed himself to feel a modicum of encouragement.

In silence, the man flipped through more pages until he finally halted at one.

“
The God Plan
?” George’s snowy brows that looked as if they needed a good trim rose high.

Zane leaned over and saw the page header—
Guardian Operational Defense—the GoD Plan
.

Damn, Jon had g
otten creative with this shit, and in depth, outlining all the potential services GAPS could provide and even naming them with catchy acronyms.

He
probably should have read it all over better before this meeting. Time to tap dance. “The specifics aren’t as important as the concept. The point is that too many corporations think they’re immune to attack, when in reality no one is. Do you think Maersk ever thought their container ship
Alabama
would be boarded and taken by four untrained Somali’s in a skiff and carrying nothing more than a handful of old weapons?”

The reminder erased a bit of the skepticism etched into George’s face.

Even if they’d somehow missed the media reports of the event when it had happened back in 2009, most knew Captain Phillips’s name, thanks to Hollywood’s dramatized version, inaccuracies and all.

Cautiously encouraged, Zane continued.
“Same thing for the bank taken over and blown up by a single armed hostage-taker wearing a suicide vest a few weeks ago. Did you see that in the news?”

“I read
something about it in the paper.”

“Well,
I was there. On site. I saw firsthand the police and S.W.A.T. team screw up because those in charge weren’t prepared for the situation they had on their hands.”

More than just being on site
, Zane, Rick, Jon and Chris had been the first men inside the bank after the blast. Before the first responders, even before the dust had settled, because Rick’s sister Darci and Jon’s girl Ali were inside when it exploded.

“
Dad, I stood by and watched that building blow knowing my teammates and I could have prevented it from happening
if
we’d been allowed to.”

“And that has to do with this how?” He tipped his head toward the open binder.

“Our hope is that GAPS can prevent attacks from ever happening just by our presence. But even if we’re not there prior to an attack, we can be called in and act as a quick reaction force to resolve the situation before it blows up—literally.”

George flipped back to the front page
where the names of the principal partners were listed, Zane among them. “And what role would you play in this?”

“I’d be part owner as well as an operative.”

“An operative?”

“Yes.” Zane nodded, happy to answer his father’s questions. His interest was a good sign. “I’d work on any jobs we’re hired for.”

“And the Navy would allow this?”

“They’d have no say
in it after I turn in my separation papers.”

His father
’s brows rose again at that revelation, his usual poker face failing him. “So you’d be leaving the military?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When?”

“At the end of my current contract.
A few months from now.” Zane watched for a reaction, but after his initial surprise, his father had tamped down any emotions showing in his expression.

“
And why haven’t you gone to a bank for a loan?”

“You know I don’t have the kind of collateral we’d need for a loan this size. My
partners and I have been living off military pay for the last ten plus years.”

Zane hoped that zinger struck a cord with the man who had cut him off from the family holdings with one call to the lawyer a decade ago.
Though, given he’d come groveling to convince him to fork over a million dollars, he should probably be a little less confrontational.

“Why are the startup costs so high
?” Georgie frowned down at one page.

Zane let out a laugh. “Did you see
the breakdown of the equipment costs just for each of our basic kits? That’s over half a million right there for only four of us.”

“And all of this
supposedly necessary equipment is currently provided to you by the US Navy?”

Zane didn’t consider weapons, ammo or ballistic plates a
supposed necessity
, but he nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“So perhaps you should stick with them.”

His ace in the hole had been his willingness to quit the Navy. If his father didn’t go for that, he had nothing. Heart pounding, Zane tried to play it cool. “I thought you wanted me to quit.”

“Honestly, after all these years, I don’t care what you do.”

“Don’t you?” Zane reeled from his father’s one-eighty, but he’d been too well schooled in hiding his thoughts and emotions to let it show.

He reminded himself that George was a master at playing the game himself. Hiding what he
really wanted was what had made Alexander Investments a success. His father was bluffing. If he could do it, so could Zane.