Chapter Eleven
Okay.
So.
This was happening.
And what was happening was five million, three hundred thousand and seventy-one times worse than the time I was caught by my boyfriend’s mom with her son’s hand up my shirt.
I was seventeen, and no seventeen-year-old boy or girl wanted to be caught by their parents making out.
Adding to that, Braden’s mom was a teacher at our school.
The rest of the year, even after we’d broken up, I thought I’d die every time I saw her in the halls.
It was a teenage calamity.
However, I found that getting caught banging one of my bosses by three of my other bosses was a seventy-two on the Richter scale.
Of course, I didn’t know if the scale went that high—I was thinking it didn’t, seeing as a ten pretty much destroyed a whole city and demolished freeways and bridges, so a seventy-two would be end-of-days devastation.
And right then, sitting on Ryan’s couch with Pete, Fallon, and Gavin in the room, that’s what I was experiencing—a seventy-two-point-one earthquake. My only hope was that a fault line would open up right under Ryan’s house and I’d fall into it.
Because plummeting to my death into a pit of molten lava sounded better than facing the mortification.
“You said you’ve never met Cynthia,” Pete started.
My gaze swung to him, and I instantly regretted it. I was positive the heat that had crept up my neck was visible.
I shook my head.
“Was she ever on shift with you while you were working?”
The good news was, Pete didn’t sound angry I had a second job, just oddly curious about this Cynthia woman. Which was nice he cared. I mean, a missing woman was something everyone should care about, but I didn’t understand his deep interest in whether or not I knew her.
“No.”
Pete looked at Fallon. Fallon dipped his chin in some weird silent communication.
I didn’t ask about it, because, really, I’d used up all my courage coming out of my hiding place around the corner from the living room.
I hadn’t meant to listen—well, I had, but only to ascertain what Gavin was saying and if he knew I was there.
I didn’t think I’d find Pete, Fallon, and Gavin in Ryan’s house talking about Poppy being upset and Cynthia missing.
Like I’d told the guys twice now, I’d never met her, but Poppy talked about her a lot and liked her very much.
Said she was cool people. She also told me she’d lost both of her parents.
I couldn’t remember how that came about, but I did know she’d gone out to Las Vegas with Poppy last Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with her family.
So they were friends—good friends—and if Cynthia was missing, Poppy would feel that . . . acutely.
I needed to call her to check in and see if she needed me to come over tonight after work. Which was another issue: I needed to get to the Plank.
“I should . . . um . . . get to work.” I voiced my thoughts, pretending I wasn’t seriously weirded out that I’d been caught at Ryan’s. “Would one of you mind taking me in?”
No one answered me, though Ryan didn’t need words to convey what he thought of my question.
His scowl said it all. I just didn’t understand why he’d be pissed I needed to get to work.
I was still contemplating and dissecting his response, but even if I weren’t, his question would’ve taken me off guard.
“Do you know what me and the guys do?” Ryan strangely asked with a jerk of his head in the direction of said guys, who had all sat down.
Fallon and Gavin on the couch. Pete in a chair he’d dragged over from the kitchen table.
The very table his friend and co-owner of the bar I worked at had fucked me on.
Leaving Ryan to sit in a brown leather recliner.
Though he wasn’t reclining; his ass was on the edge of the seat, and his elbows were resting on his knees.
This felt like a trick question. Even so, I answered, “You own and run a bar.”
Ryan nodded. “And before we owned the bar?”
“You all were in the military,” I told him, still not understanding where he was going or why he was asking. “The Navy.”
Ryan leaned forward, laced his fingers together, and nodded. The position and the stiffness in his shoulders confused me more.
“Did I get that wrong? Were you Marines?” I asked, remembering a friend’s brother who was a Marine and would get positively pissy if someone mistook him for a Sailor.
Sluggishly he shook his head. “Navy. We were all Team Guys.”
Growing up in San Diego, I knew what a Team Guy was.
Before I was of legal drinking age, I’d heard all the stories about women hitting bars to pick themselves up a Seal.
When I was of age, I’d witnessed this firsthand.
I was proud to say, I was not a Frog Hog, nor were any of my friends, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t had my fair share of run-ins with guys stationed at the Naval Special Warfare Command.
It wasn’t that I was on the lookout for them.
It was that you couldn’t miss them—they were normally the loudest, rowdiest, and cockiest.
Which made the news that Ryan had been a Seal a shocking discovery. But in hindsight it shouldn’t’ve been that surprising.
“The Plank,” I muttered, putting two and two together.
A huge slice of live-edge wood hung behind the bar. A Trident was burned into the far right side; on the left, Big Navy’s anchor insignia. Between the symbols, a rusty rectangle of metal was screwed into the wood, with the words Here I Am. Send Me. engraved on it.
Stupid me thought that the Trident was paying homage to the area. Coronado was home to four Seal Teams—which meant there were a lot of them roaming around and a lot patronized the Dirty Plank.
“How did I not know this?” I asked, unable to keep the hurt out of my tone.
Did everyone but me know?
“Quiet professionals.” Fallon recited the old adage, which had me rolling my eyes.
“You do know, I’ve lived here my whole life, so I know Team Guys live large and in charge. There’s nothing quiet about them.”
One side of Fallon’s mouth hitched up. “You got me there.”
I knew I did, which invited the question, why the secrecy, especially when none of them were active duty?
Or . . .
Wait.
“Are you still active?”
It took a moment for Ryan to answer, which left me enough time to filter through memories.
There were times when some of the guys would disappear—well, not disappear, per se, but they’d leave to go camping or fishing or skiing or float a river somewhere, always leaving behind one of them to manage the bar.
These trips weren’t very long, definitely not long enough for a deployment, but long enough they could be gone for training.
And to be fair, there were some Team Guys who didn’t broadcast they were Seals.
But normally they told you they were garbage collectors, or something else equally lame, which really was their way of broadcasting they were a Seal without sounding like a douche.
So, bringing it back to the camping, fishing, skiing, and whatnot, that totally sounded like code a Seal would use for a training mission.
“Not in the sense you’re thinking, no.”
I waited for him to say more, to give me some clue as to why he was telling me any of this when he was very obviously uncomfortable.
“I don’t get it, what does this have to do with work?”
Ryan unclasped his hands, sat upright, and scrubbed his palms over his stubbled jaw.
Of course that drew my attention not only to his strong features but to the five-o’clock shadow that would look amazing if he allowed it to grow into a full beard. It also made me shift on the couch, remembering how close I’d gotten to feeling those whiskers between my legs.
Stop.
Reboot.
No more thinking about Ryan’s face between my legs.
Not ever.
Not after we’d been caught. I’d never, ever again fantasize about his amazing body, or his fabulously good looks, and now that I had proof of his big dick and the mastery he had of . . .
Stop.
“There are things you see on deployments that are beyond the scope of the mission,” he started and glanced at Pete.
“Horrible atrocities that even though you’re there—you know they’re happening, you witness them—you cannot step in and intervene.
For men like us, that’s not a kick in the gut, it’s a mark on the soul.
Knowing you walked away without helping.
Knowing you left someone who needed you behind because they didn’t fit into the parameters of an op.
” Ryan paused, and before he could blink it away, I saw the depth of his guilt.
“People talk about the horrors of war, and what they’re talking about is the shit servicemen and women do on the battlefield.
The carnage, the death, the destruction.
What they don’t talk about is all the shit we see that we don’t stop even though we can.
That’s what haunts you. Seeing the little girl being sold.
Standing feet from her, wanting to snatch her up and save her, but having to walk away.
Knowing that women are being brutalized, seeing it firsthand, but instead of rounding these women up and taking them to safety, we roll out and leave them to their fates. ”
My stomach churned at the images Ryan was conjuring up. It revolted when Ryan’s guilt turned into pain that saturated his every feature. But it was the sorrow I saw in his eyes that made my heart squeeze.
“Ryan,” I whispered.
It was like he didn’t hear me when he went on, voice now devoid of any emotion—flat, desolate, empty. “We knew we had to leave the Teams. So we did.” He again indicated the guys with a tilt of his head.
My gaze followed, and I wish I would’ve kept my eyes planted forward.
Pete looked enraged. Fallon the same. But it was Gavin who made me wince.
He looked positively wrecked. Like shame was eating at his innards.
Which made this whole conversation seem cruel.
Obviously, Ryan felt guilt and no small amount of it.
He was close with these men, so he knew they felt the same.
Why he was bringing any of this up I didn’t understand. Especially in front of them.
When he continued, he told me, “Pete’s sister Mia joined our new mission.
Instead of leaving behind the people who needed us, we saved them.
But once we did, they had nowhere to go.
We sank all of our money into the safe houses.
But it wasn’t enough. We reached out to people with deep pockets who would help fund our operations and more safe houses.
We’ve expanded since those early days. Mia no longer works with us.
We’ve taken on government contracts. We’ve broadened our network, made the right contacts. ”
By the sound of it, he’d helped a lot of people, which made his blank stare all the more confusing.
“I don’t get it,” I cautiously told him. “I mean, I don’t get why you sound like you’re telling me something bad.”
“What we do is dangerous. It’s ugly. It leaves you with more scars than it does relief. For every woman, child, and man we save, there are hundreds more we couldn’t. We play Whac-A-Mole with traffickers—we take one out, five more pop up.”
That squeeze in my heart was back. This time, it was at the knowledge Ryan and the rest of the guys put themselves in danger.
Which, duh, rescuing people would inherently be unsafe, but I didn’t like knowing people I liked and respected were in harm’s way.
But the thought that, unbeknownst to me, Ryan was out there putting himself in danger, which meant he could’ve gotten hurt—or worse, not come home—made me sick to my stomach.
I could’ve lost him.
Not that I had him, not really, but he could’ve been gone in a forever kind of way.
“Is that where you go?” I asked, already knowing the answer but for some twisted reason needed to hear him confirm. “When you’re supposed to be camping or whatever.”
“Yes.”
My stomach revolted. I’d been home in my comfy bed, thinking of all the dirty things I wanted him to do to me, while he was somewhere in danger.
I’d torture myself with that knowledge. Instead of sexy time with my fictional Ryan before I went to bed, I’d now think of what a horrible person I was.
“Why are you telling me this? I mean, why now?” I carefully asked.
Ryan’s lips flattened into two thin lines that formed an epic frown that rivaled his earlier scowl.
Apropos of nothing he announced, “You need to quit the Vault.”
Not this again.
“I’m not quitting.”
“You are, Chloe,” he demanded.
His steely tone should’ve had me immediately backing down. Instead, it flared my rebellious side to life. “I’m not, Ryan. Not that it’s your business, but I need the money.”
“We’ll switch your base pay to a manager’s salary, and you’ll still make tips,” he told me without conferring with his business partners.
I had no idea what the manager’s salary was, but it could be double what I made at the Vault and I’d still decline the offer.
I turned to Pete. He was less approachable than the others, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a fair boss. “I don’t take handouts—”
“First,” Ryan interrupted. “It’s not a handout. You’d be working for it. Second, and more importantly—is the money you make at the Vault worth putting your life in danger?”
I rolled my eyes at his dramatic outburst.
“Driving down a canyon at night is hardly putting my life in danger.”
“Think about everything I just told you. Then ask yourself why we were at the Vault.”
“What?”
“We own a bar,” he unnecessarily told me. “Why would Pete, Mason, and I spend our night off sitting at a table drinking someone else’s booze?”
I glanced back at Pete. His clenched mouth gave his jaw a more chiseled appearance. His brown eyes were darker than Ryan’s, but right then they didn’t look a shade deeper, they looked murky, shadowed with something I couldn’t read.
That alone should’ve curbed my sarcasm, yet it didn’t. The nerve of Ryan to think he could tell me to quit—no, demand it. Thus, I couldn’t keep my snap out of my tone when I replied.
“I don’t know, Ryan, scopin’ out the competition. A change of scenery. A new place to pick up chicks.”
“No, Chloe, we were there to follow up on a lead.”
“A lead?”
He didn’t answer, or he did, he just didn’t elaborate. “A lead,” he said firmly, like I was a dim bulb.
That didn’t piss me off, it infuriated me.
“You’re going to have to use more words, Ryan, if you want—”
“The Vault is under investigation for possible human trafficking. And that was before we knew three employees have gone missing. Two out of those three have been gone over a year. So with that, I’d say it’s safe to strike out the possible part and just say we’re investigating the Vault for trafficking women. ”
Human trafficking?
Human.
Trafficking.
And just like that, my tired brain snapped.