Dragon (SEAL Team Alpha Book 9) Read online

  At the partially broken door, not proving too much of a barrier, Dragon kicked it down and found several tangos in the room. He shouted, “Get down,” in English, and the couple in the corner folded down over their child.

  Gunfire erupted and all the tangos went down except one who had been in the bathroom. He shoved the wife off her daughter, scooped up the little girl, ran for the window, and was gone.

  Dragon sprinted across the room and stepped out onto the rusted, swaying fire escape that felt as if it was held to the building by two flimsy bolts. The man was already down one floor, and Dragon started to follow as he heard gunfire explode in the room he’d just left.

  “Daddy!” The little girl screamed. Dragon swallowed, pushing back at the immediate memory of his dreams and how they had ended. The memory of the agony of hearing Speed’s daughters’ screams in his mind fucked him up. This was so unlike him. He kept everything neutral and in balance, not letting the scales move one way or the other. It was his way of handling things.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” the little hostage screamed again, and that was no reason for him to have a heart-stopping flashback. The fiercely intense feeling of the news of Speed’s death had him sweating, his hands shaking. Flashbacking SEALs were dead SEALs.

  He was losing it, and now was not the time and this was not the place to be losing anything.

  He knew, in that moment of understanding, he had to get his shit together before he was deployed again. It took everything he had to drag himself back to the present, to focus on what was happening now.

  He started moving down, regardless of the unstable fire escape. There was no clear shot as the guy bobbed in and out of his sights. If the kidnapper fell, the girl went with him, and that wasn’t fucking happening.

  He jumped down the stairs from the landing, and the whole structure buckled, swaying, the sound of metal breaking away from brick. The little girl screamed, high-pitched and terrified, but he’d gained on the bastard. He grabbed the back of his collar as he tried to elude him, but Dragon hauled him up, and with a couple of elbows to his face, he got him to release the sobbing child.

  Dragon clutched her to him, booting the man away. He lost his grip on the slick metal and tumbled, plummeting to the ground where he lay still.

  The child wrapped her arms around his neck in a panicky choke hold, and he hauled butt for the window as the structure started to fall away from the crumbling wall. He couldn’t reach it in time and started to drop, but at the last minute, someone flew out of the window, and snagged Dragon around his middle. The three of them fell to the side of the wall as the whole damn thing crashed and tumbled to the ground.

  He looked up to see Max, hanging upside down, grinning like a fool.

  “Gotcha,” he said. “Hello, there, sweetheart,” he murmured to the girl, flashing his grin again. Miracles on miracles, she smiled back at him. “You and I have a date with some caramel candy. You up for that?”

  Only Max would hang off the edge of a building and speak to a little girl like they were having a day at the fair.

  She nodded.

  “You crazy son of a…gun,” Dragon mumbled as whoever was at the end of his rope started to pull them up. Hands grabbed for them as they met the sill, and he released the girl to Fast Lane, who then, with Pitbull’s help, hauled him through the window. The couple, both of them crying uncontrollably, looked at him briefly with the kind of gratitude that transcended words. They enclosed her in their arms as Max offered her a hard candy wrapped in brown with twist ties on each end.

  Satisfaction rolled through him at the same time as his gut clenched. The Marine stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thank you,” he said, then turned and followed Agent Littlestar out of the room. In the distance, he could hear choppers. His emotions were as distant and indistinct as that sound. He felt dizzy and uncoordinated.

  Thank yous weren’t necessary. He didn’t need to know them to lay his life on the line for them. It was his job, whatever line Uncle Sam drew, whenever and wherever he drew it.

  Once they were out of the building and heading toward the choppers, his knees buckled, and he went down to one, but Pitbull was there, supporting him. The spike in his adrenaline kept his emotions at full throttle, and he closed his eyes against the sound of their voices.

  Daddy! Daddy! Where are you!

  “I’m okay,” he said as they helped him to stand, his skin tingling, his heart still pumping hard.

  “He’s got a buzz the size of California,” Max said as Jugs licked Dragon’s gloved fingers. “Head rush city. Taking a nosedive off a metal death trap in the middle of the night from ten stories can be…daunting.

  “Were you going to say fun, mate?” Dodger asked.

  Max looked innocent. “No, of course not.” He grinned. “Taking a swan dive out of a ten-story window to catch a guy and a little girl so they won’t go plunging to their death with nothing but a rope around my ankles and a bunch of yahoos on the other end…now that’s what I call fun.”

  “That takes some big, brass ones,” Saint said.

  Max, Dragon, and Dodger reached the landing choppers, Dragon’s legs wobbly. “Wait, Dodger said, “Do you hear some clanging?”

  There was a chuckle through the comms and one heavy sigh. Agent Littlestar wasn’t amused by their banter, but for Dragon, it was like music to his ears. They’d had his back, and trash talking was just to release surface tension. Dragon wanted what Ruckus’s team had…cohesion and something real. They really needed to stop side-stepping the whole Speed issue.

  Pitbull came up alongside him as the choppers set down and they headed toward them. “You okay, man?”

  “I’m good,” Dragon said automatically. Then he frowned and ducked his head as he climbed through the door. Okay, so maybe they weren’t gelling as well as he’d thought. Opening up made him feel too vulnerable, especially about the possibility of botching a mission as important as the one they’d just successfully completed.

  He needed to get his head screwed on tight, and he absolutely refused to be a weak link in the chain of this flailing team.

  Airport Hotel

  Cartagena, Colombia

  Pitbull stood outside the hotel where they’d taken the couple and their daughter. The next stop would be the airport where the SEALs would board their C-130 ride, and the NCIS agent and the family would fly commercial.

  The couple was being escorted back to the United States by dynamic Agent Littlestar. For one second, he thought about her as a woman instead of a tough-as-nails professional, then reined that horse back in.

  He knew nothing about her except that she had a sharp tongue, determination, and persistence in spades. Traits he could admire. She looked fresh and beautiful as she came out of the hotel, her cascade of dark hair loose and black against the navy blue of her blazer, the couple close to her. The mom held the little girl’s hand, but she broke away and ran to Dragon, throwing her arms around his legs. His hand cupped the back of her head, and Pitbull watched as emotions streamed across Dragon’s young face. He sometimes forgot how young the kid really was because he was so damned strong and mature. There was stress there, and Pitbull already knew how much he was struggling with Speed’s death. The little girl was a solid reminder their teammate had two of his own. They would have to grow up without a dad.

  Dragon crouched down and murmured to her as he pressed something into her hand. It glinted in the sun, and he knew immediately it was the kid’s trident. She gazed down at it and then turned. The child had no idea the significance of it, but the Marine did. His face showed the honor Dragon had bestowed on his child. He reached out his hand, and Dragon clasped it. The mom wiped her eyes and took the little girl’s hand as they slipped into the waiting black limo, the dad following. Dragon swallowed hard and closed his eyes briefly as a mask of blankness settled over his good-looking features.

  Pitbull absolutely hated going anywhere the ladies were with this guy in tow. But he was a good guy, and Pitbull c
ould put away his rivalry when they were together.

  Agent Littlestar—Makayla—bent down and petted Juggernaut. She looked up at Mad Max and said, “Do you think you could be available to help us in the future?”

  Max grinned, his blue eyes twinkling. “I wouldn’t know, lady. You’ll have to ask him. He outranks me.”

  She chuckled, and the brief moment of mirth made his gut clench hard.

  She then stood in front of Fast Lane. “You were invaluable to this mission, and I’m sorry I was so…forceful.” She looked back at Jugs. “That is a fine dog. I apologize for being so dismissive of him and your team.”

  Fast Lane might look like a badass gearhead, but he was quite the eloquent guy. “No worries, ma’am. It was our pleasure.”

  She nodded and started for the limo, but then she stopped, her shoulders squaring, and finally met Pitbull’s eyes. She changed direction and walked over to him. He didn’t dare look at the guys. “Petty Officer…”

  “Ballentine,” he supplied, and her eyes flashed, telling him she was well aware of his name.

  “Petty Officer Ballentine, thank you for your quick reflexes and for saving my life. I apologize for my lack of knowledge when it comes to your excellent working dog.”

  Their eyes met and held for a beat too long. Hers were the gray of mountain granite and streaked with the colors of the earth and sky, flecked with verdant jungle green, rich and mysterious.

  Oh, hell, no. He was in way more trouble with no way out of it.

  Damn if she wasn’t no-nonsense beautiful. With her dark bangs fringing those gray eyes and that delicate nose, her eyes wide with a slight tilt, thickly lashed, she looked familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place.

  It had been a long time since he’d kissed a woman, a very long time, and he certainly had no business kissing this one—but there it was suddenly, in his mind, his gaze drifting to her lips, a hot longing curling deep in his gut.

  “Apology accepted,” he said graciously. “After all, we’re just a bunch of—”

  “Highly functioning sociopaths and troublemakers,” she said, mimicking his words to her when she’d been laying down the law.

  A wisp of a smile touched those provocative lips. “See you around, Ballentine,” she said as she turned on her heel and disappeared into the limo.

  2

  What the hell was she going to do now!

  Josephine Moretti stared at her reflection in the mirror as she got ready for the day. It’d been a week since Gen Saito had asked Jo to call her son, and Jo had used her friend’s phone, due to the meds that had made Gen woozy. She hadn’t even been aware the woman had another son let alone that it was Ryuu Shannon. She’d been extremely private, mentioned her deceased son once or twice, saying she didn’t like to talk about it. Jo completely understood why. Jo had figured any pictures would be a reminder of what must have been a tragedy.

  Ryuu freaking Shannon!

  The man she’d conceived Ceri, his daughter, with on the only night she slept with him. She grasped the edge of the sink and used it to sit down on the commode. It couldn’t be that she’d been living with Ryuu’s mom for the last three months, and Gen had been part of their lives for six years.

  Drawing a deep, shaky breath, she squared her shoulders. She was better than this…panic rising like a tide to swamp her. She would deal with this, calmly, coolly, and collected.

  She’d moved to this building after she’d found out she was having Ryuu’s baby. It was safer than where she’d been living before. She’d moved next door to his mother! Ceri’s grandmother. All these years she had a way to reach him, and she hadn’t known it.

  She’d tried after she found out she was pregnant, but he never responded. She’d texted the information to his brother, Asahi. It was the only phone number she’d had, but now she realized that the deceased son Gen always talked about had to be Asahi. Her heart broke for Ryuu and his mom. She’d thought he’d stayed away from her tattoo parlor because he didn’t want to bring trouble to her. He’d even said that he’d find another tat artist so that she didn’t have to deal with any gang members that came around. Now she realized why she’d never heard from him.

  Ryuu must have never gotten the message, and here she thought all these years he didn’t give a damn.

  This wasn’t the kind of news you broke over the phone. She would have to make a trip to San Diego and see him. Let him know, and he could make a decision after that. Her gut clenched thinking about what his reaction would be, and she started shaking all over again.

  She’d accepted handling Ceri on her own. Her own mother had done just fine raising her after Jo’s father had wanted nothing to do with her pregnant mom. Which translated to Jo that he hadn’t wanted to be saddled with a kid. It had hurt more than she could say thinking that Ceri would also suffer the same pain at that kind of rejection.

  “Jo-chan?” Gen called from the closed bathroom door. “Are you all right?”

  She smiled even through her panic. Gen called her the affectionate Jo-chan when she was worried. Ryuu’s mom was a sweetheart and had been there for her even before Ceri was born. Jo had taken her in when it was clear she was having a difficult time financially. She frowned, wondering why the hell Ryuu hadn’t been back to New York City. His poor mom.

  She rose and opened the door. Gen frowned, her dark eyes even more concerned as she searched Jo’s face. She was a small, slender woman who hadn’t gained an ounce since Jo had known her. Her face had a round shape and was adorable. She kept her dark hair, now shot through with gray, in a tidy bun at the nape of her neck. She was dressed in a pair of gray pants and a pink top. “Your eyes are dilated and funny looking and you’re so pale, like the kabuki,” she said, her tone soft.

  Inhaling deeply, Jo managed a weak smile. “I’m fine, Gen. I’m just tired.”

  Her friend’s gaze was unwavering, and she bit her lip. “You work too hard. You should let me—”

  Jo managed to get some energy into her voice. “No. We agreed. You would watch Ceri and that’s a big help to me.”

  The older woman’s expression relaxed somewhat, and she managed a smile. “That’s true.” She stared at Jo a moment longer, assessing the situation. “Okay, but you come and have some breakfast,” she said.

  Jo watched her, a hint of humor in her eyes. “You love ordering me around, don’t you?”

  The little woman turned and grinned, her eyes mere dancing slits in her dear face. “That is also true.” She slipped her arm around Gen’s shoulders.

  “Before breakfast, I need to tell you something. Let’s go sit in the living room.”

  How was she going to say this? How to convey to Gen how sorry she was that she hadn’t tried harder to find Ryuu. Jo needed to shut down that train of thought for now, concentrate solely on getting through the next few minutes. Her heartbeat accelerated. At least not until she had time to adjust to the shock, not until she was able to deal with it rationally. If she let herself think about it now, she would start to panic, and that would get her nowhere.

  How should she say that Ceri was Gen’s granddaughter?

  At least it was going to be easier to tell Gen. She’d seen Ceri grow, had been so much a part of her life.

  As soon as she sat on the sofa, she took Gen’s hands and looked her in the eye. “This is a strange story, so you’ll have to bear with me. I know it’s going to be—”

  A knock interrupted her next words, and both of them looked toward the door.

  “Who could that be?” Jo mused as she rose and headed to the door. She pulled it open, and her heart stalled. Everything just stopped. Time, her heart, rational thought. Oh God. It felt as if every drop of blood had drained from her head. No. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be happening. Not now.

  But there was no denying reality.

  Ryuu Shannon stood in her doorway looking amazing in a tight pair of jeans with a black leather jacket over a red T-shirt. If she didn’t know he was in the Navy—something Gen had men
tioned when she’d asked Jo to call him—he would look like the biggest and cleanest-cut hoodlum ever to hit the streets. His face was hard and chiseled, and more handsome than should have been legal. His boots were pure military issue, flat black and lace-up. The just-there stubble on his face gave him an even more dangerous edge.

  Damn that face and body. She’d been going to bed with him in her thoughts for the last six years—a situation that made her feel painfully ridiculous. He didn’t know, of course, but it didn’t matter. Just looking at him made her feel foolish and pathetic. She just hadn’t been in touch with her physical side for most of her life. It was her brain she relied on. But her body had led her down a path she had willingly gone. Even now, she felt awkward remembering how it had been with him.

  Physically, he was even stronger, harder, his face still perfect and his black hair cut short except for the errant strands on his forehead that looked windblown. Any normal woman wouldn’t have let him go.

  “Jo?” Ryuu said, flashing her a grin that was hot enough to melt her knees, pure promise and too damned familiar for comfort. The smile faded, and his brows dropped into a frown. “What—” Then he looked over her shoulder and saw his mom. “Mom? Do you live here? The woman downstairs said you moved.”

  “Ry-tan, why are you here? I told you not to come back here. It worries me so!” She jumped up and ran over to him, throwing her arms around him. He had to bend down for her to hug him. She held on to him for a few minutes, and it gave Jo a short reprieve.

  Drawing a deep, shaky breath, Jo closed her eyes and leaned back, her insides trembling. Ryuu had changed, become more rugged, mature, and strong. Only his eyes were unchanged. They were still the same shade of dark brown with thick black lashes, still steady and intense, seeing much but giving little away.

  She wasn’t ready for this.

  “Jo?” Gen said, that concern back. Jo’s eyes popped open, and they were looking at her.

  Reaching up, she ran her hands through her dark brown hair, her mind weighed down by somber thoughts. It never ceased to amaze her how a person’s life could be altered by mere chance. But life was full of surprises. This, for instance, was shocking.