Chapter 4
Marshall
“I’ll go,” Brock told me as we sat in the living room of his home in Cherry Cove. “Nate and I can handle this, Marshall.”
Gage and Seth were currently on a trip in the Caribbean to help a friend who was opening a dive shop there.
Nate was occupied with checking all the gear they’d need for Lania.
I’d never been to Cherry Cove, and I’d only gotten a brief look at the town on my way from the airport in Traverse City.
The only things I’d really noticed were that it was on the coast of Lake Michigan and that it was a way smaller town than I was used to.
I shook my head. “Not happening. You and Nate are going to be needed to do the rescue.”
“You realize your plan is absolutely insane,” Brock mentioned from his seat in a recliner. “You’re really going through with this? You’re going to give yourself up to become a captive with Emma?”
I shrugged. “They want Prince Nick. That’s not going to happen. They’ll have to take me instead. He’s going to convince them that I’m someone close to him that they can take instead of him…for now. Someone who can negotiate terms for his surrender.”
It was total bullshit, but I was hoping they’d take the bait.
I continued, “Wyatt will track me from headquarters, get my location, and send you two in to recover both of us. It’s the quickest way for us to get an exact location on Emma.”
Conventionally searching for her could take a lot longer, and I highly doubted that they were bothering to feed her or give her the necessities. I also doubted that her captors had any intention of releasing her alive.
These enemies of Nick’s were obviously going to try to hurt Nick in any way possible. Especially if they couldn’t get to him themselves.
I’d discovered from Nick that the assassination attempt had been very real, and that Emma had been taken from a remote location in Lania that Nick and Emma had been visiting.
No doubt they were holding Emma for leverage because they could use her to get to Nick.
“I’m counting on you and Nate to get us out of there once Wyatt has a location,” I told Brock.
Brock answered soberly, “You know we will, but what you’re doing is risky, Marshall. And you’ve never been a leader who takes unnecessary risks. What’s up with that? I think we can find Emma. I know you can do it without taking these risks.”
I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. “Emma needs someone to be with her right now. I’m not willing to wait for days or weeks until we can locate her. You know that time is everything when it comes to hostages. This is the quickest option. I’m willing to take that risk to locate her.”
To his credit, Nick had offered to trade himself for Emma, but that would be certain death for a prince whose country needed him.
I also knew Nick, and I didn’t want to see him get dead.
I’d convinced him that his surrender would be certain death for both himself and Emma. There was no way in hell either of them would leave wherever they were holding her alive.
Nobody was going to die in this rescue mission.
It was already bad enough that they were holding Emma in fuck knew what conditions right now.
“Why?” Brock persisted. “It’s not like you know and care about Emma like we do. Hell, I’m grateful for what you’re doing. But I’m torn. I want Emma out of there as quickly as possible, but I don’t like you putting your ass on the line for someone you don’t even know.”
“I do know her,” I admitted. “We met fourteen years ago in Virginia Beach. I won’t go into how we met or what we did there, but she’s not a stranger to me. We haven’t seen each other in fourteen years, but I’m not risking my life for someone I don’t know.”
I knew Brock well enough to know he wasn’t going to let this go until he had an explanation and telling him the truth seemed to be my best option.
His eyes widened. “You and Emma were together?”
I lifted a brow. “I didn’t say that we were together. I just said that I know her. Our acquaintance was brief. We spent some time together in Virginia Beach when I was active military.”
“Then you already know that she’s special,” he commented. “She’s like an older sister to us. Emma was the first one to befriend us here in Cherry Cove when we settled here after Delta, and we’ve all been like family ever since.”
The woman hadn’t been like a sister to me, but I did understand that Emma was special. “She has a way of getting under your skin,” I told him.
Brock grinned. “And once that happens, she stays there. She tries to mother all of us, and she hates it that she usually can’t. I kind of hate that our frequent disappearances worry her, but we’ve never told her about Last Hope.”
“She’s going to have to know now,” I informed him.
There’s no way that Brock and Nate could show up in Lania to rescue her without Emma knowing the truth.
“Honestly,” Brock said. “It will kind of be a relief for her to know. You can trust her, Marshall. I don’t know how well you two were acquainted, but she’d die before she’d let that secret out to anyone else. Especially if she knows that lives depend on her keeping that secret.”
I nodded and checked my phone just like I’d been doing for the last fifteen minutes since I’d arrived at Brock’s home.
I was waiting impatiently for a final confirmation from Nick that everything was a go.
“Did your time with Emma end on good terms?” Brock questioned.
I looked up at him. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”
He shrugged. “I guess I was hoping this would be a good surprise for Emma to see you and not a bad one. Obviously, you didn’t stay in touch.”
Talking about Emma had been difficult for me with Wyatt, and I’d worked closely with him for years.
There was no way I was completely spilling my guts to Brock.
I liked and respected the whole Michigan team, but our entire relationship had always revolved around Last Hope business.
I knew almost nothing about them personally.
I knew that Brock was a popular author of suspense novels in a fictional special forces world.
I’d read every one of those novels.
But that was the extent of my knowledge about his personal life.
“No hard feelings between the two of us,” I said vaguely. “We knew the time we spent together would be brief. I was a SEAL commander, and she was a tourist on a short vacation.”
“I don’t suppose you want to expand on that explanation,” Brock said drily.
“I don’t,” I told him. “I liked Emma and for some reason she seemed to like me. I’m not the same man I was back then, but I don’t anticipate that she’ll be unhappy to see me.”
Brock held up a hand. “Okay, enough said. Just…take care of her, Marshall. She means a lot to all of us.”
“That’s my plan,” I assured him.
“Has anyone ever told you that getting anything personal out of you is nearly impossible?” Brock questioned.
“I don’t have a personal life,” I said honestly. “My priority is and always will be Last Hope.”
“It’s kind of ironic that we’ve been working with you for years and never knew that you’d met Emma,” Brock mused. “Wyatt has mentioned your name before when he was visiting here. She obviously didn’t recall hearing that name before or she would have asked questions.”
“She wouldn’t,” I said offhandedly as I glanced down at a text that had just come in from Nick. “She didn’t know me as Marshall.”
For some reason, that had been one of the rare times that I’d used my first name.
“Have you gotten word from Prince Nick that this crazy plan is a go?” Brock asked.
“Yeah,” I confirmed as I finished reading the long text Nick had just sent.
“His officials didn’t give the kidnappers much of a choice if they want to talk about Nick giving himself up for Emma.
They even cleared me to bring a pack with me.
That’s not negotiable. I want to make sure that Emma has water, food, and something to keep her warm at night.
They can search it. They won’t find anything. ”
My tracking device would be extremely tiny and undetectable, and the last place I’d put it was inside a backpack.
“I still think I should go in your place,” Brock offered. “Gage and Seth are trying to get a flight back from the Caribbean as soon as possible. One of them could go with Nate. Marshall, it could be a long hike if they’re really remote.”
I shot Brock a scathing look. “Are you trying to say I’m too old and too lame to handle a long hike?”
He shook his head. “You don’t really talk about what you’re capable of doing when it comes to your leg. I know you’re in shape. That’s pretty obvious.”
“I’m going. I’m capable of doing whatever needs to be done,” I said gruffly.
“If I didn’t think I was up to the job, I’d let someone else do it.
Emma’s safety comes before anyone’s ego.
We can’t count on Gage and Seth making it back before we need them.
I’m flying tonight. I’m going to ask Jax to send his private jet here so it’s on standby for you and Nate. ”
I couldn’t really blame Brock for questioning my physical abilities. I did, in fact, have a limp. We very rarely saw each other in person, and I wasn’t as close to the Michigan team as I was to Wyatt. We communicated a lot, but not ever about anything personal.
“That’s all I need to know,” Brock answered abruptly. “We won’t be far behind you, Marshall. Wyatt will let us know once you’re in place and we have your location.”
Brock was all business now that we had a mission in process.
I could tell that he was still worried about Emma, but his training would keep that under wraps while he carried out this rescue.
We both stood.
“Do you need supplies?” Brock asked.
I shook my head. “The pack is ready and already on Wyatt’s jet.”
“I wish I had some peppermints for you to put in that pack. Emma doesn’t eat a lot of sweets, but ice cream and peppermints are her weaknesses.”
If I was the kind of man who ever smiled, I probably would have grinned at his comment. “The ice cream isn’t going to happen,” I told him. “But I have a bag of peppermints in the pack.”
Maybe some things never changed.
Emma apparently had the same preferences as she’d had fourteen years ago.
Brock sent me a quizzical look. “You still remember a small detail like that from a short acquaintance all those years ago?”
“Photographic memory,” I grumbled as I moved toward his front door.
There was nothing I didn’t remember about Emma.
Her laugh.
Her smile.
Her voice.
Her smell.
Her taste.
Every single preference I’d discovered about her during our time in Virginia Beach felt like it was permanently imprinted in my brain.
Hell, photographic memory aside, there was no way I’d forget a single thing I’d learned about her.
Every single detail I knew about her had been haunting me for years.