Chapter 1
1
Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Virginia Beach, Virginia
It was times like this when he questioned whether he was as sound as the doctors had said he was. He was working the obstacle course, or as they called it, the O-course. He’d only been back to work for a couple of weeks. After their mission in Haiti and the earthquake had shaken half of the embassy free and it had fallen on him, dislocated his shoulder, and caused a small bleed inside his torso that had almost led to his death, he’d dealt with shortness of breath, dizziness, fatigue, anxiety, and sweating for no goddamn reason. He’d lost almost thirty percent of his blood volume, and his body had been working ever since to get back to his healthy normal.
He’d been sliding into hemorrhagic shock. With that kind of blood loss, his organs had been laboring on their way to shutting down, his heart working overtime, increasing his blood pressure. His limbs had been clammy and cold because all the blood had been siphoned from his extremities to feed the heart and keep his organs viable. Recovery from that type of situation took time. But with the administration of intravenous fluids, plasma packed with red blood cells, and a transfusion of platelets, he was feeling ready to get back to operating.
His recovery had seemed slower than was necessary until he tried to do a little more and had almost passed out. It was a good thing that Dagger had been there when he’d thought he could walk farther than was prescribed.
That had been so fucking frustrating. He was a medic, a combat medic, no less, yet he couldn’t seem to give himself a break. What did they say about medical professionals? They made the worst patients.
He’d been saved by men closer to him than he’d ever thought possible. Lieutenant Michael “Tex” Penn had gone to bat for him, making sure he got the treatment he needed. His other brothers, Master Chief Angelo “Bondo” Zane, Matthew “Easy” Hitchcock, Kade “Dagger” Hollis, Christian “Brawler” Beckett and their military working dog, Beast, and Jae “Flash” Shaw, had braved an earthquake-devastated country to get him to a chopper to take him to the nearest military hospital, which happened to be on the tip of Cuba—Guantanamo Bay to be exact. His remaining brother, Bale “Shark” Maddox, had been captured by criminal Haitians at the behest of their rogue minister. In the end, Shark had been shot multiple times, but he’d survived. The minister had not.
Most of the course had been routine—bunny hop, tires, cargo net climb, the crawl through loose sand covered with a wood-pegged barbed wire box. Then there were the balance logs, monkey bars, the Burma Bridge, and the wall that was an eight-foot climb. Once those were completed, it was the weaver, a swing over the water obstacles, then more tires, and finally the tube where he was currently getting ready to hit.
The run from the tires was an easy jog, nothing that taxed him even after the challenges he’d just been through, but all of a sudden, he felt a strong surge of fear. His heart accelerated, and he started sucking air and trembling. The closer he got to the tube, the worse it got, but he powered through until he got about halfway through the obstacle. Those feelings overwhelmed him as pain exploded in his shoulder, and he felt pressed to the ground, the ceiling of the narrow tube feeling as if it was crushing him. He squeezed his eyes closed, working at getting his breathing under control.
“Twist?” came Dagger’s voice behind him.
Snapping out of the strange mental state, he made himself move, crawling slowly at first, then with a harder purpose, needing to get out of here as quickly as possible. He cleared the exit and dropped into the wet mud at the end. He couldn’t catch his breath for a moment. He was well aware that Tex and Bondo were watching him.
Wading out of the mud to solid ground and slicking off the excess, he worked at getting back his equilibrium.
“Hit the showers,” Bondo called out, marking something down on a tablet. Twister didn’t want to be paranoid about his performance. He looked down at his dive watch and took a hard breath. Fuck, he was off by at least thirty seconds. How long had he been stuck in the tube?
He rose and started for the showers, telling himself it was an anomaly.
Dagger watched his buddy sprint away from the mud pit as he climbed out. Before he could even slick off the cloying mud, Tex was by his side with Bondo.
“Twister is off his usual time of six eighteen.”
“What did he do?” Dagger asked.
“Six forty-eight.”
Dagger frowned. “That’s at least thirty seconds. He smokes me easily on this course. He knows it like the back of his hand.” He watched as Twister disappeared around one of the buildings. “The doc cleared him, right?”
“What’s going on?” Easy asked as he came up to them, the rest of the team following.
“Yeah, said he was better than one hundred percent…physically.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Bondo met Dagger’s hard gaze. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything?”
“Shark’s faster, and he was shot.”
“Well, he’s also in love,” Bondo said, and Tex’s eyes flashed, and he nodded.
“Watch him,” Tex said, then he and Bondo moved off.
“Dagger?”
He turned to Easy, Flash, and Brawler. Shark had outdistanced them from the beginning and was already in the shower. “Twist was off his time by thirty seconds.”
The guys shifted, looking at each other. Dagger knew why. It was significant that their brother was lagging behind his normal time. It wasn’t like Twister to be slow at anything, especially after coming off a long leave.
“He’s just getting his sea legs back,” Flash said. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Slow start, maybe.”
Dagger looked down, then nodded. “Maybe.” But maybe not. He’d do as Tex asked and watch his buddy. After the very real fear that they were going to lose him back in Haiti, it was almost unbearable to think that he had been so affected by it that he was struggling. And if he was struggling, Dagger wanted to fucking know about it.
When he reached the showers, Twister was already out and drying off. Everything about him was honed down to heavy bisecting muscles. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He looked more ripped than he had before his injuries.
Twister wrapped the towel around his waist and tucked it.
He started for the sink and Dagger stripped down and washed as quickly as he could. By the time he got out, still dripping, he entered the bathroom as Twister finished trimming his dark beard and mustache.
“Hey,” Dagger said, a pool of water gathering under him.
Twister looked over and frowned. “What the hell, bro. Someone is going to slip. Wipe that shit up.”
“I will in a minute.” He stared at Twister, and he shifted.
“What?”
“How was the obstacle course?”
“It was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said, and Dagger thought he sounded more tentative than his teammate had ever sounded in the past. Twister shrugged, tucking his utensils into his kit. He ran his hands through his close-cropped hair, and Dagger noticed how they trembled. Dammit.
“You’d tell me if anything was bothering you, right, man?”
Twister grimaced, then laughed. “Of course, I would.” He started out of the bathroom, but before he headed to his locker, he pointed at Dagger’s feet. “Wipe that shit up.”
Dagger watched him go, then took care of his own grooming and hygiene. As he dressed, he wondered if he was being too hard on Twister. The guy had almost died back in Haiti. That had to affect anyone. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about that. Maybe that was weighing on his mind.
Dagger got to his car and his cell phone chimed. He grabbed it and saw that it was his half-brother’s widow, Quinn. He was so surprised he fumbled the phone. Brian Cole’s death had been close to eighteen months ago. The pain of losing his brother was still aching inside him, and as he stood there, a tsunami of grief washed over him. He’d made a point of following up with her as much as possible, but Quinn had totally shut him out, making him feel that he had also lost her and the boys. That constant ache had become part of his life. Her once vibrant smile was almost nonexistent, especially when she saw him. Deep down, he knew he was a trigger that set her off remembering her husband’s death. His team had made the call, he had been on the team as his backup, and they had failed him.
Brian had been a former SEAL, Dagger’s reason for going to BUD/S and following in his footsteps. Dagger’s mom had married Brian’s dad, and when he’d come along, Brian was just turning ten years old. Their father had traveled a lot for his commercial pilot’s job, and Brian had taken over when he was absent. It was Brian who had thrown baseballs for him, protected him from bullies, and given him the stability he’d always relied on. It was another thing his brother had bestowed on him that led to Dagger becoming a SEAL. There wasn’t anything as unshakable in the world as the steadfast brotherhood.
After getting out of the Navy, Brian joined the US Department of State in their Overseas Criminal Investigations Division as a Diplomatic Security Service special agent, specially trained Foreign Service security professionals. He had posed as a State Department official to secure the release of Astraea “Jack” Devers, now Easy’s wife. These days she went by Hitchcock.
Dagger was concerned about Quinn all the time, even calling and telling her countless times that if she ever needed anything, all she had to do was let him know. Dagger was aware, just from his experience with Quinn, that she would have to be in a tough place for her to call. But unless she asked for help, his hands were tied. He sensed something was wrong, and that unease never left him. All the while, even though it was through no fault of his own, he felt as if he was letting Brian down. That particular guilt never went away. He’d spent plenty of nights thinking on how he could get through to her but had to be resigned to her silence.
He answered the phone. “What’s up, Quinn?”
“Uncle Kade?” The tiny voice made him sit up straighter, an uneasy feeling unfolding in his gut. He looked at his dive watch. It was still way early, and if he remembered correctly, the school bus wouldn’t be rolling past until another hour and a half. His hand tightened on the phone.
“Hey, buddy. Ezra, right?”
There was a brief pause, then, with a funny catch in his voice, the boy said, “You can always tell us apart, Uncle Kade. Anyway, you told Mom that if she needed anything, you’d be there. That’s right?”
“Of course. Where is your mom?” Just then, Easy and Brawler were walking by. Easy stopped and looked concerned. He raised his brows. Neither he nor Brawler moved.
“She’s in bed, and she won’t get up. She usually makes us breakfast before we go to school. She cries sometimes when she thinks we can’t hear, and she’s really busy and sometimes grumpy. Me and Elijah are scared.”
That uneasy feeling turned to something sharper, and suddenly, Dagger’s heart stalled.
There couldn’t be anything wrong with Quinn. Not Quinn. “Is she breathing?” Dagger asked, his whole body tense, forcing himself to a quiet tone. That’s when Twister stopped, followed by Flash and Shark.
“I’ll drive,” Twister said as he maneuvered Dagger to his car, and his other teammates piled into Easy’s vehicle.
“We’ll follow you,” Easy said.
“I don’t know.” Ezra finally answered, his tone wobbly. His voice went distant and muffled as he directed a question to someone else. Then after a few agonizing moments, he came back on the line. During his pause, Dagger gave Twister the address, and they started moving.
“Elijah says her chest is going up and down,” he whispered into the phone.
Dagger made himself relax his jaw. “That’s good, Ez. You and Elijah are doing great. I’m coming over with my friends. Okay?”
“Yes, okay.” There was an odd sound, as if the boy was having trouble breathing, but the hope in his voice was unmistakable. “We’re really scared,” Ezra said in a watery voice.
When they got there, Dagger used his key. The place looked like it’d been ransacked. Mail was piled up on the side table, burying her keys. The dining table was covered in blueprints, her laptop, and the beginnings of a model. In the living room, toys were scattered everywhere, laundry haphazardly thrown onto one end of the couch, with dishes stacked on the coffee table.
Quinn had gone back to work full-time as an architect. She had been a rising star when she’d met and married Brian, and before their children had been born, she’d solidified herself firmly as a stylish and innovative professional. She’d been peripherally involved in the business, choosing motherhood over career for the formative years of her children’s lives, and that had been cut short with Brian’s death.
“Uncle Kade,” Ezra said from the kitchen. It was also a wreck. The sink was full, and remnants of former meals were still strewn on all available surfaces, including the stove. He set Quinn’s cell phone down and ran to him, wrapping his arms around his legs. Kade cupped the back of his small head and rubbed it. Elijah peeked behind the doorframe, eyeing his teammates.
“It’s okay, Elijah. These are my best friends.” His voice gruff, he smiled. His nephew ran to him.
He grabbed the boy in a strong hug and said, “You’re safe, buddy.”
“I got him,” Brawler said. “Come on, kid. You want some of the fluffiest blueberry pancakes on the planet?”
“On the planet?” Shark murmured with raised brows.
“Hey, don’t rain on my parade, man,” Brawler growled.
Elijah, who was the carbon copy of his brother Ezra, nodded. His fine dark eyes were wide, but when Brawler smiled, Elijah returned it with a tentative one.
“Mommy?” he said in a fierce whisper as Dagger transferred him into Brawler’s arms. He pointed up the stairs.
“I’m going up there now to check it out. Twister”—he touched Twister’s shoulder—“is going to go with me. He’s a kind of doctor.”
“Are you going to give her a shot?”
Twister crouched down to Ezra and ruffled his hair. “No, we’re going to see how your mom’s doing. She’s in good hands.”
With a bend of his knees, Brawler offered Ezra his crooked arm, his biceps bunched. “Jump on. I’ll give you a ride.” Ezra didn’t hesitate. Brawler started for the kitchen, setting Ezra onto a bar stool and deftly handling Elijah with one arm as he gathered the stuff he needed for flapjacks.
“After you feed them, could you get them ready for school?” Dagger asked Shark as he passed. Shark nodded.
Easy headed into the living room and started gathering dishes, and Flash was already starting in the kitchen. The guys will have this place ship shape in no time , Dagger thought as he led the way upstairs.
His throat got tight as he walked down the hallway toward their…her…the master suite. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open, his breath trapped in his chest. Slipping inside, Twister right behind him, he found another room in shambles. Work clothes everywhere, spilling out of the hamper, thrown on the end of the bed. The closet was open, revealing slashes of muted colors in the darkened room.
“Quinn?” Dagger called, but she didn’t even stir. Yet something stirred in him—a strong protective impulse that went above and beyond the call of duty. This unfamiliar feeling was far more possessive, and it set off warning signals he pushed aside in order to deal with the current issue at hand.
He approached the bed, and she looked so small. He sure didn’t want to scare her, but he and Twister needed to know if she was all right. They had no choice. He reached out and shook her. She stirred sluggishly.
“Quinn,” he said more forcibly. She turned away from him. He sighed, came around the bed, and crouched down. “Quinn!” he shouted, and her eyes snapped open. She stared at him for a few seconds, panic in her eyes.
“Dagger?” she squealed and bolted upright. “Oh, my God. My boys! Where are they? What time is it? Why are you here?”
“Boys are eating breakfast downstairs. It’s seven-thirty and I’m here because Ez and Elijah tried to wake you up.”
She closed her eyes, the muscles in her jaw working, then she let out a sigh of relief and looked at him. “I’ve got this huge job, and I’ve been working a lot,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion. He listened to her as he took in her appearance. She looked like hell. Her beautiful curly hair had lost its luster, there was a hollowness to her finely sculpted features, and her beige skin looked dull. There was an unhealthy energy in her. But regardless of the fatigue drawing on her features, that pinched look around her mouth and those dark circles under her beautiful hazel eyes, she still had that air of class about her. She was a beautiful woman.
That realization mingled with just how personal and inappropriate that thought was. She was his brother’s wife—had been his brother’s wife. He swallowed hard. Don’t go there, Kade.
He followed her into their bright, spacious kitchen. This room was Quinn through and through, especially now that it was spick and span. There were splashes of bright colors and lush, healthy plants everywhere, and the granite countertops were comfortably cluttered. The stainless-steel fridge sported an array of Post-it notes, notices, and what looked like the twins’ artwork, and the ceramic pot next to it was stuffed with a variety of pencils and pens. Her eyes widened when she saw his teammates around her kitchen table and bar eating pancakes. Then she scanned the decluttered and clear area around her with a dumbfounded look on her face. “What the hell?”
“You remember the guys,” he said. Easy’s wife Astraea had taken over folding the clothes, and her close friend and business partner, Rosa, was helping her. They were placing them in a wicker basket, and Shark’s wife, Maddy, was wiping the dishes Shark had rinsed. When had they gotten there?
Quinn turned to look at him, her eyes saying, how could I forget them?
“And—”
“I remember their names, Dagger,” she said, her tone just a little snippy. “Astraea and Maddy.” She looked at Rosa. “I’m sorry I don’t know you.”
“Rosa Montoya. I work with Astraea.”
“Thank you for coming, and—” she said grudgingly, waving her hand around. “—for the help.”
“I wanted to mention to you that if you need additional help, my sister Maria would be available for housework, cooking, and being here for the boys.”
Quinn took a hard breath, her chin lifting, showing him that gutsy, defiant spirit that never failed to impress him. His jaw tightened in growing aggravation. All of a sudden, he was having a hard time not getting tied up in knots on so many levels. His chest felt tight. She said, “Can I speak with you privately?”
“We should get going,” Easy said, walking up to her and, without asking, hugging her tightly. “I’m glad you’re okay.” One by one, they all hugged her.
When it was Twister’s turn, he said, “I’ll wait for you outside, Dagger.” Then he looked pointedly at Quinn. “Get some rest, lady.”
After the door closed behind them, he said, “There’s fresh coffee in the pot.”
He expected she was going to dress him down. He was ready for it, and he was going to counter her every step of the way.
Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin and marched over to the cupboard, yanked a mug off a shelf, slammed it on the counter, and slopped coffee into it.
He always believed that a good offense was better than a defense. When she opened her mouth, he said, “Sit down, Quinn.”
He hadn’t ever used that tone with her, and her head came up and she looked at him as if he’d slapped her. Her eyes flashed hot, but he gave her a warning look. “Quinn,” he said, then pulled out a chair. Sit.”
She mustered some attitude and gave him a sour look, but she did sit down, plunking her mug on the table.
“I can save you some breath. I don’t need your help.”
He laughed without mirth.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. You’re being unnecessarily stubborn. This house was a wreck, and you scared the hell out of your sons and me and the guys for good measure. Running yourself ragged isn’t doing any good for anyone. Not you, not your kids. Take Maria’s offer, unless you need finan?—”
“No,” she snapped. “I have plenty of money.”
“Maria doesn’t have any ties to Brian’s death.”
She gasped softly, her hands curling around the mug, and her reaction tore through him.
“She’s a lovely, capable, and compassionate woman. She’s bored out of her skull. Her son, Hugo, is in high school and self-sufficient.”
He watched her try to recover, not wanting to give an inch. Clearly struggling with a whole bunch of emotions, she tipped her head back, wrestling with her choices. Dagger watched her, his gut in a knot, waiting for her answer. “Okay, you made your point. Leave me Maria’s number.”
Satisfied, he turned and started for the door, feelings of genuine affection and respect rolling through him. By the time he hit the front door, he was floored, and as he stepped out onto the porch, the realization hit him like a ton of bricks.
He had feelings for Quinn—strong and unbreakable feelings of attraction that went beyond the platonic.
Oh fuck, he couldn’t be falling for his brother’s wife.
Somewhere over the South China Sea
High Altitude, Low Opening. Insertion and extraction.
The A part of the SEAL acronym stood for air—their bread and butter.
“ETA ten minutes.”
Twister nodded and checked his watch, then his oxygen, the familiar feel of his throat mic snug. He pulled the thermal hood down over his head, the throat mic and the mask, shifting the oval eye holes into place before tucking the free edge in the high neck of his black jumpsuit.
Two days after their intervention with Brian’s widow, they’d been tagged with a mission off the coast of China. The US wanted to see what was going on with a buildup of warships. It was purely surveillance, but if they were caught in Chinese territorial waters or on Chinese soil, it would be a huge international incident and grounds for war. So, the simple thing was…don’t get caught.
Hah. That was part of their particular magic.
Dagger was still wrestling with what had happened with Quinn. Twister could tell he was twisting himself up into knots. Brian’s tragic death had hit them all hard, but, of course, no one harder than Dagger and his family. The fact that Quinn blamed them for Brian’s death had never been verbalized, but it was clear she was holding that bitterness in her heart. He was no shrink, but he figured she needed someone flesh and blood to blame. He understood how she felt.
They were jumping into the South China Sea in the dead of night, their sights set on strict coordinates. There wasn’t any margin for error.
There never was in anything they did.
“Lock and load, ladies,” came through his earpiece, the heads up that they were nearing their coordinates. Tex was the king of this mountain.
Grabbing his helmet, he pulled hard to settle the custom headpiece over his head. The guys started lining up, their features hidden behind helmets and oxygen masks, his night vision goggles strapped against his chest to the left of his rebreather before he stepped to the hatch. All conversation ceased as he dropped the transparent black shield down over his eyes. Seconds later, the belly of the plane started to descend, the hard suck of air pulling on their eardrums.
Icy wind filled the cabin, whipping around them like unseen blades. Adrenaline pumped into his system, mixing with his own violent, daring tendencies. Tex waited for the light to go from red to green. The moment it switched, he saluted the flight boss and disappeared into the dark maw.
Bondo, Shark, Easy, and Flash cleared the way in their own leaps of faith, and Twister waited a beat, giving Flash a moment to clear the airspace. They didn’t want any mid-air collisions.
Below him lay an endless sky, a vast ocean, risk, and uncertain fate. “Hoo-yah,” he growled, then jumped.