Chapter 17
The Black Hawk’s rotors carved through the air as it settled into the kill house’s landing zone, the downdraft kicking up dust and grit.
SEAL Team Volcano barely waited for the first touchdown bump before Reaper was out and moving.
The rest of SEAL Team Volcano spilled out behind him, a well-oiled machine, each man slipping into his role without a word.
Viper’s chin jerked toward the breaching shed, his voice cutting through the rotor wash. “Twenty minutes. Full kit. Run it like it’s live.”
He added a sidearm to his loadout and stuffed extra mags into the many pouches on his flak jacket. Breach charges and flashbangs joined the mix. He patted his waist, his fingers feeling for his blade.
Got it.
After doing another check on the safety of his weapon, he grabbed his helmet, settled it onto his head, flipped down the NODs to make sure they were working, and flipped them up again.
The steady, familiar buzz of adrenaline that came before a mission was already starting to build.
It hummed under his ribs, familiar and comforting as he worked up his loadout gear.
It wasn’t the clean, sharp edge of mission focus, yet.
But he knew by the time they hit the skids of the helo to spin up live, it would be.
It better be. Fucking up could cost them their lives.
His hand slid in behind the stock of his weapon again, and he cocked his head to one side.
Something is different or funky.
Anything weird or funky before a mission was never a good thing. He tried to pinpoint where the unease was coming from.
Cian.
The name flickered through his mind like a ghost, and he shoved it down hard.
No. Not now.
Getting his head back in the game took more effort than it should have, but by the time they were geared up for the training run through the kill house, he was mostly ready to rock.
Juice slapped a schematic onto the hood of the nearest Humvee, his finger stabbing the blueprint. “Three entry points. Primary here. Secondary egress through the kitchen if we get pinned. Intel says tangos are holed up in the east wing, but assume they’ve got eyes on all approaches.”
Kaze cracked his knuckles, rolling his shoulders. “I’ll take point on the roof. Give you eyes and cover fire if they’ve got snipers.”
Zero shoulder-checked him. “And if they don’t, you’ll just be up there sitting on your ass, enjoying the view.”
Reaper tuned them out, his gaze locked onto the squat, concrete bastard of a structure, rigged with enough traps and pyrotechnics to simulate a warzone.
It was as close to the real thing as they were going to get.
Close enough to make him forget the chaos that reigned in his life right now, if only for a little while.
“Stack up!” Viper ordered, and they moved into place.
Reaper took second position behind Juice, his pulse steady, and his breath even.
The breach charge went off with a concussive whump, smoke billowing into the air.
They flowed inside, weapons up. Targets snapped into view—hostiles, friendlies, civilians.
His finger hovered over the trigger, his brain processing faster than thought.
Shoot.
Don’t shoot.
Move.
A crackle in his earpiece. “All Stations, Three, contact left.” Kaze fed them intel from his position as Overwatch.
Can that fucker see through walls now?
He pivoted, squeezed the trigger in short bursts, his M16 barked twice, and the paper target’s head snapped back. Relieved that his body had gone into muscle memory and he wasn’t second-guessing shit, he moved through the kill house, clearing rooms with Juice as he went.
This right here is the reason for all the training and discipline.
They cleared the first room, then the second, and moved onto the third.
The world exploded around them as a pressure plate triggered under Zero’s boot.
The flashbang light from the training mortar seared Reaper’s vision, as the shockwave slammed into his chest like a freight train.
He dropped to a knee, disoriented, but his weapon never wavered.
His ears rang, the world muffled, but Viper’s voice cut through the white noise, distorted but clear. “—Move, move, move!”
Reaper surged forward, blind but trusting his team.
A hand yanked him up from his knees. “I got you,” Juice muttered. “Good?”
“Good.”
They pressed on, clearing the final room in a storm of controlled violence, and he dropped to his knees to the left of the door they exited from. “Zero, you bastard. Watch where you’re fucking walking. You just got my ass killed.”
“Just tryna make that ugly mug of yours pretty for your dude, bro.”
“Run it again.” Viper’s order was sharp, brooking no argument. “Rodriguez! You’re up. Door’s hot.”
He snapped back into focus, and the team was moving again.
This time, Trace and Juice stacked on the left, Reaper and Zero on the right, Viper at point.
His mind was a locked box, every thought, every distraction, buried deep.
He set the charge and moved out of the blast radius, then counted that puppy down until she blew.
Gunfire cracked, lighting up the room around him.
Pinging his laser a couple of times to avoid friendly fire, he cleared his sector, double-tapped a target, and pivoted to where Juice was dragging a dummy hostage toward the extraction point.
Trace covered their six, his movements fluid and lethal as he covered his Grá Croí’s ass.
At least they get to go to war together.
The thought came out of nowhere and he stumbled, but managed to shove it down and locked it away.
Later.
“Contact quadrant One B,” Zero barked.
Reaper swung his rifle, acquired his target, and fired two rounds into the center mass. The target dropped.
“Clear!” Viper called the halt.
The team regrouped, breathing hard, with sweat slick coating their skin. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were going somewhere sweltering, hot, and sweaty, given how the conditions of the training were set.
“Sloppy,” Viper said, his gaze sweeping over them. “Rodriguez, you hesitated on that last engagement.”
Reaper’s jaw clenched. But even though the criticism stung, it was fair. His mind hadn’t been fully in the game. “Won’t happen again.”
Viper studied him for a long beat, then raised his hand and circled it in the air. “Again. From the top.”
Fuck me.
Three more times, Viper made them run through the kill house before he decided they were as ready as they were going to be.
The buzz in Reaper’s skull didn’t fade as they fell back to the team room.
He stripped off his gear, ignoring the ache in his muscles and the way his shirt clung to his back with sweat.
“Nice dance moves back there!” Kaze’s voice cut through the clatter of gear being stowed, his grin lopsided. “You missed your calling in ballet, man!”
Reaper rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “Right. I’ll moonwalk next time. Take out a few targets while I’m at it.”
“Please don’t.” Juice tossed his helmet onto a bench, running his fingers through his sweat-damp hair. “If you fall and break your neck, Cian will kick our asses.”
Viper’s presence loomed, even in downtime. “We’ll schedule more runs. Just in case you want to hone those dance skills.” His tone was dry, but there was something underneath it—approval, maybe. Or at least the absence of disappointment.
Zero snorted, tossing a towel at Reaper. “Focused? Nah, man. You’re moping. Plain and simple.”
Crap. They all thought he was off his game because of Cian. If only they knew. Reaper caught the towel and wiped his face. “Just focused.”
Juice leaned back in his chair, his smirk knowing. “He’s got a point, Reaper. You’ve been brooding ever since we left the house.”
Reaper shot him a look that would hopefully shut this shit down before it got off the ground. “Not brooding.” He knew better than to give them an inkling that something was wrong.
You should have told them before now.
Or at least told Viper.
Trace cut in. “Then what’s eating you?” He leaned back in his chair, trying to look all kinds of casual, but his eyes were sharp, and the freaking wolf never missed nothing.
Reaper hesitated. The weight in his chest pressed harder, and for a second, he considered keeping it to himself.
But these were his brothers. They’d bled with him.
They’d die with him. More importantly, they’d die for him without a second thought.
With how fucked his head was right now, he couldn’t justify not telling them any longer.
“How much do you know about my life in Coronado, before I moved to the East Coast?” he asked.
The room went still, as his brothers in arms glanced at each other. Even the wind that had been howling for the last hour picked that moment to decide it was done for the day.
Viper grabbed a bottle of water and downed half of it. “I just saw your records, and the shit I needed to see. Why?”
It was too late to stop now. They’d only bug the shit out of him if they tried to. “I was in—uh—a pretty full-on relationship before I moved.”
Trace’s expression darkened, and his eyes narrowed. “Are you still in it?”
Now I know what the tangos feel like when they see us coming.
“Hell no.” His fingers tightened around the edge of the bench, and he squeezed until his knuckles went white.
“It wasn’t exactly the best of shit, ya know?
I’d been looking for an out for a bit. It’s one of the reasons I pushed myself as hard as possible.
A transfer to another team might have kept me on that side of the pond.
But DEVGRU… that was an East Coast transfer and an ‘I’m just going where the Navy sends me’ thing. ”
Juice’s chair scraped as he leaned forward. “What’d ya mean it wasn’t the best of shit? Lay that out for us.”
His jaw worked as he tried to keep his voice even. “Remember the broken ribs on my record?” He directed the question at Viper, but couldn’t quite force himself to make eye contact.
“Vaguely.”