SEAL Team Seven Tyler: Book 4 (11 page)

Tyler

“Let’s go.” My brothers followed me out of the house and headed for the old man’s place. Davie tagged along with Cord and I guess that’s just the way it was gonna be from now on. The kid was part of us now.

I waited until we were all settled and I could talk without wanting to put my fist through the fucking wall. “Right, he’s part of it, whatever’s going on here he’s in it. She overheard him on the phone talking about shipments and missing money.”

“They knew she was connected to me, to us anyway. He beat her to get her tot talk but she couldn’t tell him shit because she didn’t know anything. He asked about the layout here among other things. She thought it was because he was jealous, she still doesn’t know that she was almost raped and killed because we got caught up in some shit…”

“Ty none of this is your fault brother.”

“The fuck it isn’t. How long has she been sending out signals? How long have I left her out there knowing that there was something foul going on around here?”

“This is all on me no matter which way you look at it. Now what did you find out when I was knocked the fuck out like a little bitch?” I glared at of each of them in turn and the dumb fucks grinned at me.

Quinn threw a packet at me. Inside was what looked like a portfolio of the fuck. There was a shitload of information, as I knew there would be.

I read through it fast enough to get the pertinent points while the others waited. “So he’s their henchman. Why did we think he was a local? Did anyone ever tell us that he was a transplant? I thought in these small southern towns you had to be here for at least fifty years before they accepted you as one of theirs?”

“It says there that he came into town a year before we did, right around the time the old man…yeah. Anyway it looks like they sent him here to have eyes on their interests, which tells us a lot about the set up.” Connor looked through his own copy.

“We know someone on that post is involved, now we have another piece to the puzzle. As far as I’m concerned this shit is coming together. Now we just have to decide how we’re going to deal with what happened today.” Logan was finally speaking my language.

I kept reading. “He was a small time crook up until about ten years ago? How did he get in with this family? I don’t see them slumming for a hired gun.”

“No you’re right and that’s what we’re trying to find out.” Cord rapped his fingers against the keys of the computer. “Near as we can tell, he was small time, Penny-ante stuff, scams and shit like that. Then he graduated to knocking off banks, but something happened ten years ago that changed all that.”

“Now he’s part owner in a casino, has small interest in some other things but it seems like he’d mostly into running girls.”

“How did he fly below the radar this long if he’s done all this, and why are they still in bed with him? I can’t imagine that it would look too good for them if this association was to be made public.” I glossed over the papers in my hand trying to make sense of it all.

“Because if you look him up through regular channels all you will get is his interest in the casino and some small time business ventures. I guess that’s the front to explain the money and the flashy cars.” Logan continued the explanation.

“I’m not sure they know that he’s been showing his ass here, seems like he’s one of those blowhards who can’t help tooting his own horn. We did a deep and thorough on him using the special equipment, that’s how we came up with this.”

“It begs to reason that if we found it then it’s common knowledge to someone so why is he still on the streets? And why hasn’t anyone questioned his affiliation with one of the leading families of our nation?

I was getting heated again. This is the kind of shit I hate, blatant injustice taken against the weak by the strong. They had the money and the pull so they got away with shit the average Joe would do twenty-five to life for.

“That’s not all there’s more; here are the blueprints to his house outside of town. He had it built before moving here on a ten acre spread.”

“It seems he hired one company to do the building, then another to come in and build secret rooms and yet another to build underground passages. No one knew what the other was doing. Now I don’t know about you but that shit smells fishy as fuck.”

“They’re smuggling something through there. How far is it from the waterfront?” My heart picked up speed for a whole new reason. As a techie I like shit to make sense, like fitting shit into slots and seeing it come together.

For too long now we’d been going around in circles, barely fitting the pieces together. It looked like now we’d stumbled upon a big piece of the puzzle.

“Not far and when we took a look with Quinn’s new tech shit something pops that wasn’t there before or that we couldn’t see with the other. There’s a faint outline in the earth that seems to lead from the boardwalk to somewhere on his land.”

“What the fuck are we really dealing with here?” I followed the outline with my eyes.

“Whatever it is we’re gonna put it to bed brother. Now since you’ve got confirmation that he is involved with this shit, we have a decision to make. I know because he went after your woman you wanna put one in his head, I’m with you on that, but would it make more sense to get what we can out of him first?”

“We’ll have to wait on that Lo, our bird has flown the coop.”

“What?” I was out of my chair and across the room looking over Devon’s shoulder. “What the fuck am I looking at?”

“While you were asleep, Cord and I ran a little Op, we tagged the fucker’s car and his landline, still trying to find a way into his cell. Speaking of which we figured you’d want this.” He passed me the little piece of jewelry that held a special device that matched the ones Con, Lo and Zak had given their women to wear.

It just hit me that Lo had called her mine and now Dev was giving me this. They had accepted without giving me a hard time for being such a bitch. “Thanks guys, for this and for getting the info together so quickly.”

“It’s what we do little brother we’re family we stick together.” Connor clapped my shoulder as I moved back to my chair.

We spent the next few hours brainstorming and coming up with ideas to deal with the enemy. I missed her like hell and worried that she was okay, but this I had to do.

We finally broke it up around midnight because the women weren’t gonna let us hide ourselves away much longer. I was sure my baby would be sleeping because the last time I checked in by text there was no response.

Lo and Con were kinda over protective of their pregnant women who’d been on their feet all day helping me out, and Zakira was probably knocked out by now. Speaking of which, I hadn’t hardly spent any time with her since leaving her this morning.

I’ll have to find a way to make it up to her but I still didn’t want her seeing her aunt like that. “I’ll see you fuckers in the morning, I guess I’ve got the girls again tomorrow.”

“I think we’ll all stay close to home for the next little while brother, just in case any of theses assholes start feeling jumpy.”

“Sounds good to me Lo, but what about the site?”

“It’s pretty much done and we gave Rob a promotion, he and the team can start the other job. One of us will go by in a few days and look shit over make sure we’re straight but we know who we’ve got working for us so there should be no problem.”

The only thing wrong with what he just said was, I wish these fuckers would get jumpy. I was tired as fuck of the cloak and dagger bullshit, and the fact that they always seem to be going after our women.

***

Tyler

That night when I climbed into my bed beside her sleeping form I knew there was a possibility it would happen. I gave serious thought to sleeping elsewhere but couldn’t pull myself away, besides what if she got up in the night needing me?

Everyone had gone to their respective homes and it was only her and I left here alone. I made sure the place was secure before grabbing a quick shower to wash off the day’s grime. Too bad it wasn’t as easy to wash away all the fuckery that had transpired.

Now I’m standing over her wondering if I was going to sleep peacefully or if dreams were gonna follow me into the night. I took a deep breath and tried to find my balls as I climbed in beside her.

I tested her for fever and checked her bruises. The rest was doing her some good and it looked like the swelling had already started going down. Extra strength military grade shit would do that.

I couldn’t resist pulling her into my arms as carefully as I could. Somehow I didn’t think I would be able to fall asleep without the weight of her in my arms. “Sleep tight baby.” I kissed her hair and settled down to sleep. I must’ve been tired as fuck because I fell off immediately.

***

The room was dark and cold. There was a dripping sound coming from somewhere but he couldn’t move knew he daren’t more like it. A strange scent reached his nose, it was almost sweet but he knew it was bad though he was too young to understand quite why.

The shadow moved again and he felt his pulse race in fear as he huddled in the closet beneath the mountain of clothes. The light from the street lamp reflected off the flash of silver as it was raised high in the air before coming down.

The gurgling sound ended and now instead of the drip there was a steady stream of something hitting the stone cold floor. He wanted to close his eyes, somehow he knew he wasn’t supposed to be seeing this, but he couldn’t look away.

“Where are you-you little fucker? I know you’re in here.” His bowels seized up in fear as he tried to make himself smaller without making a sound. He needed to pee so badly, but her tightened up his little muscles and held it in.

He tried to control the shaking that started in his limbs as it made the clothes move. Just as the shadow moved towards him he heard a pounding at the door outside. “Fuck, noisy bitch woke the neighbors. I told you I was gonna do for you didn’t I?” He looked back towards the closet and the child squatted in fear that he had been found out.

“I’ll come back for you later.” He turned and climbed out the window and down the fire escape.

Victoria-Lyn

“Tyler wake up, Tyler can you hear me?” This wasn’t like before but it was. It was as though he was trapped in a dream. I could see his eyes moving rapidly beneath his closed lids even as his body shook and flailed around on the bed.

I threw my body over his when nothing else seemed to work, holding him as close as I could while whispering directly into his ear. “It’s okay Tyler, you’re safe now, come back to me, everything’s okay, you’re safe.”

He would settle a little and then start again, and still he didn’t awaken. I could feel his body jerk and spasm intermittently as I ran my hands soothingly over his limbs, trying in vain to calm him. Was this about me, about what had been done to me? I couldn’t be sure but I thought I heard him scream for his mama.

That’s the sound that had awakened me in fact. But now I wasn’t sure. I’d never heard anything about his other family. In fact come to think of it, none of these guys ever seemed to talk about their lives before they met.

I stayed on top of him listening to the erratic beating of his heart willing him to open his eyes and look at me. There was a knock at the door and I wondered if the others had heard him scream before I woke up. That would’ve had to be really loud though.

***

Zak

“What the fuck? What’s wrong with my kid?” I had jumped out the bed running at her first scream. In her crib she was standing holding onto the bars with big fat tears rolling down her face. The only light was the little nightlight I’d left on and the moonlight that came through the window.

A quick look around showed that there was no one in the room, no danger. “Baby what’s wrong?” She lifted her little arms up to me as I crossed the room with her mother hot on my heels tying the robe that she’d hastily thrown on to follow. I had just pulled out of her when the first scream rent the air. This kid and her timing, gotta love it.

“Da-da.” Aww, her poor little voice was sad.

“Yes baby daddy’s here what happened did the princess have a bad dream?” She put her head down on my shoulder for a second before picking it back up again. “Unca Ty.”

No fucking way. “Did she just…” I grinned like an ass, don’t ask me why, because this would just mean my brother will be more of a pain in the ass now, but he could use some happy shit in his life.

In my excitement I thought that was it. I guess I had forgotten the screaming shit, but when I tried putting her back to bed since it was bum fuck o’clock in the damn night, she stiffened up on me, screamed like I’d gut punched her and started asking for her Unca Ty on a loop.

“I think she wants him.”

“Nessa you see what time it is?” she shrugged her damn shoulders at me and headed back to the bedroom. “You know how those two are and Tyler didn’t have any time for her today, if you wanna get any sleep I suggest you haul ass soldier and get her what she wants.

This was some bullshit, like seriously, what the fuck? Tyler and his shit. I should knock him the fuck out for doing this shit, now my kid can’t go to sleep without seeing his ugly ass. I looked down at her pitiful little face and rolled my eyes. I know that look, no fucking negotiating. I followed her pain in the ass mother into the room and sat the baby on the bed.

I threw on some jeans and gave Nessa the stink eye while she grinned back at me from the comfort of our bed. “You think this is funny do you? Guess what I’m doing to you when I get back? You know that thing you’re afraid to try?” I grinned evilly at her ass before heading out the door with the kid on my hip.

“Zak…” Uh-huh I closed the door just as she came running, let her ponder that shit. I hope Ty was in the middle of something really good; it’s what the fuck he deserves for fucking up my program. Nah I doubt it, his girl’s banged up pretty bad. With any luck he’d be in the middle of a deep sleep then. I had another evil grin working when I banged on his door.

Vicki answered and the look on her face soon dispelled my humor. “What is it what happened?” I moved past her into the house and looked around for my brother.

“It’s Ty he’s having a bad dream or something.”

“Shit, call the others.” I tried passing the baby off to her but Zakira took that moment to start her screaming shit again. Her eyes were dead set on her uncle’s room as she kicked and flailed her arms and legs around. I don’t know how, or why I knew, but whatever was going on with him somehow she felt it.

I didn’t have time to ponder that hoo-doo shit I just took her in there. My brother was thrashing around the bed like he was caught in the deep grip of horror. Zakira reached out her little hand her fingers opening and closing.

I was thinking what kind of asshole would put his kid in the middle of that shit even as I was lowering her to his chest. The others were coming through the door not long after. I could hear Vicki giving them a rundown before I felt them come into the room behind me.

As soon as she touched him, like fucking magic, he calmed down. Now you’ve got to understand, we’ve all seen Ty in the grips of this shit before, and nothing, and I mean nothing brings him out.

We usually hold him or tie him down until it passes. It’s the equivalent to one of his rages when he’s awake only these happen when he’s asleep and are usually brought on by trauma. I guess seeing his woman all beat to shit would do that.

“Zak what the fuck are you doing?”

“I don’t know Cord.”

“Get her the fuck outta there.” He moved towards me where I was leaning over the bed holding the baby in place.

“I don’t think so Cord, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I looked over my shoulder at all of them; even the women had joined us. “She woke up screaming for him, and look, when has he ever calmed down like this without being drugged or just letting it run its course?”

We all looked on as she babbled away at him in her baby speak and clapped his cheeks and anywhere else she could reach. His eyes fluttered open and he looked at her as she lectured him or at least that’s what the fuck it looked like to me.

As soon as she knew he was awake she sat up on his chest, my hands were no longer needed to hold her in place. She did her little bouncy thing on his chest as she told him what’s what and he stared at her at sea for a minute. “Unca Ty.” The jackass got the biggest grin on his face before he looked around and noticed all of us in the room.

It was always like this, he never remembers shit after one of these episodes. It’s almost like he’s coming out of a coma or some shit afterwards. “What?” That’s all he said before his eyes found Vicki, and the look that came on his face then, if anyone in the room had had any doubts about his feelings before they were gone now.

“Did I hurt you?” She ran to him and hugged both him and the baby. “No you didn’t hurt me.” I don’t want to say anything but Zakira was giving her the death glare. That’s Ty’s fucking problem I’m staying out of it, that’s what he gets for being a damn baby thief.

The whole room broke out into laughter when my little girl pushed Vicki away from her Unca Ty. Just like her dad, she don’t share for shit.