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COLTON SCRUBBED A HAND across his day-old stubble, grabbing a chair in the bull-pen and sinking down into a seat. His rumpled shirt was tucked into his jeans, and the boots he’d pulled on in haste this morning weren’t even tightened. The rest of his team shuffled around him, dragging chairs over as well for the impromptu 0500 meeting. They’d been called into base with less than an hour’s notice, and Colton figured that whatever was happening was big.
Take-down a Colombian drug lord big.
Their team leader Hunter moved to the front of the room with Delta’s CO, the two speaking in low voices as they conferred with one another while the massive flat-screen TV in front of them flickered with static, waiting for the secure connection to go through.
“You look like shit,” Ryker said as he sat across from Colton, smirking. His gray eyes flickered with amusement.
Colton raised his eyebrows, glancing at his rumpled-looking teammate. “I didn’t get all my beauty sleep last night. What’d you do? Roll out of bed and grab something from your dirty laundry?”
“Yeah, how’d you arrive looking fresh as a daisy?” Noah quipped sarcastically, his gaze landing on Ryker.
Ryker scowled as the other men on the team guffawed.
“Let me guess, you were otherwise occupied.” Colton said. He crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair with a grin. “What’d you do? Sneak out on your one-night-stand?”
“No need to look so damn happy about it,” Ryker muttered. “She was gorgeous. I had to leave her in bed and swing by my apartment to grab my ID to get onto base. Not exactly how I planned to start my morning.”
“Hoorah,” Noah said, adjusting the aviators atop his head with a smirk.
Their gazes all landed on the TV at the front of the room as the secure connection to the Pentagon finally went through. A moment later Admiral Pearson’s face appeared on the screen, surrounded by a room full of military personnel and top brass at the Pentagon. “Good morning, team. By now you’ve received the latest SITREP on the situation in Colombia.”
“Affirmative,” their CO said. “I’ll brief the Delta team on the latest updates. We can be ready to move out within the hour as soon as we receive orders, sir.”
Colton raised his eyebrows. SITREPs, or situation reports, provided up-to-the minute intelligence on situations unfolding all over the world. The Delta team had been primed and ready to go for several days, waiting on word from the Pentagon as to when they’d make the move to deploy. An emergency briefing before going wheels up meant something else was going on.
A doorway behind him opened, and Colton glanced back to see Captain Ryan Mitchell, the Alpha SEAL team’s CO, striding into the room. He nodded at the Delta team as he passed, his face stern and unreadable, before he stopped beside their own CO at the front.
“Captain Mitchell,” the admiral addressed him. “What’s the update on the situation in Kabul? Your team has moved out?”
He nodded. “Affirmative. The Alpha team went wheels up at 0400. They’ll be ready to move in as soon as they land.”
Admiral Pearson nodded and eyed the men on the Delta team from the secure video call. “As everyone is aware, the Alpha team was sent on another critical operation. They won’t be deploying to Colombia with you. We’ve been waiting on intel for over a month to take down Miguel Rodriguez, the head of the Rodriguez cartel down in Bogota. Practically every damn three-letter agency has been involved gathering intelligence on this—DOD, DEA, FBI. Even the damn TSA is on alert at airports. We’ve had our eyes and ears open, and now is the chance to move in. Although we’d planned to send Alpha and Delta together, we don’t have time to wait for their return. Rodriguez has been more accessible than usual due to the current situation unfolding. Now is our chance to bring him in.”
“What situation is that, sir?” Hunter asked from beside the CO.
The admiral cleared his throat. “His daughter was kidnapped. The latest SITREP provides additional details, but it appears Rodriguez’s own men have turned on him. The bodyguards of his own daughter nabbed her—possibly for their sex trafficking ring. Possibly for their own purposes. They could be demanding ransom. The intel is still out on the specifics. Rodriguez has been out in the open looking for answers, more careless about his security than ever before, and we’re moving in to take him.”
Colton blinked, momentarily in a daze at this new piece of information. Images from his night with Camila at the Miami hotel flashed through his mind. Her throaty laugh filled his ears. The memory of her scent slammed into him.
His gut clenched, and he ground his jaw, his blood boiling as he tried to focus on the secure feed. To listen to the rest of what the admiral was saying. His hands fisted at his sides, his anger a living, breathing thing.
“Camila?” he asked, his voice low.
As far as he knew Miguel Rodriguez only had one daughter.
But he needed to be certain. To make everything crystal clear.
His CO eyed him coolly, calmly assessing Colton’s demeanor. “Affirmative.”
All eyes swept back to Colton as he muttered a curse. “When?” His voice sounded hoarse. Desperate. Unlike him.
“Yesterday afternoon from a café in Bogota. Her bodyguards were right outside according to witness accounts, and then they rushed in and took her. Her friend was there, too, but left untouched. Nobody made any attempts to stop them. Not surprising, given that Miguel Rodriguez has even the local police under his control. She was thrown into a van and taken, location unknown at this time.”
“Fuck,” Colton muttered under his breath.
His CO addressed the admiral. “Colton put trackers on her belongings last week when he intercepted her at the airport. They could still lead us straight to Rodriguez if he’s going after her himself.”
“So, we’re still able to track Camila?” Colton asked, something like hope springing forth in his chest. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, giving him purpose. Strength.
“Negative. She left everything in the café—purse, phone, belongings. Even if we wanted to flush out her father that way, we couldn’t. It doesn’t matter either way. Our operation isn’t about recusing the woman—any of the women. We’re taking down the kingpin.”
Colton sat stiffly in his seat as the admiral continued the rest of the secure call, providing some details of the operation and other government agencies involved. And then just as quickly he dismissed them, turning off the feed to move on to other matters of national security with his team assembled at the Pentagon.
Some of the men began murmuring around him, and Colton’s eyes landed on the CO.
“Is this personal?” his CO finally asked, eyeing him as static once again filled the screen behind him.
“Personal? No. Yes. Of course it’s fucking personal,” Colton spat out. “I spent the night with her at my hotel. In my hotel room.”
Ryker snickered, and Colton shot him a look that could kill.
“She was in my bed all goddamn night. And I went through her belongings—every last thing. She’s clean. No trace of anything her father is involved in. You saw the emails we pulled. There’s nothing that connects her to any of his operations.”
“Then we move in and get her, too,” Noah said. “Plus all those other innocent women who’ve been kidnapped.”
“Not part of the op,” their CO interjected. “If we find them along the way, we rescue them. Turn them over to the Colombian military. But we’re not chasing after every damn woman they’ve nabbed. That would take weeks, months—hell, even years. Our mission is going in after one man.”
Colton clenched his fists, resisting the urge to pound the table. To break something. To shout out in anger.
Hell.
He barely even knew the woman but knew he’d do anything in his power to rescue her. Protect her. Hell, he’d do everything. It wasn’t even a question.
Ryker eyed him coolly from across the table, and Colton could practically see the wheels turning in his head. None of the team would abandon their mission, but when push came to shove, not one of the men was willing to leave a woman to be sold off as a sex slave.
And it wasn’t just one woman.
There were hundreds who’d gone missing. The DOD didn’t even know half of it.
“Get home and finish packing your gear,” the CO said, glancing down at his phone. “We just got another SITREP. Attempts are being made to run Rodriguez out of his mansion in Bogota. If he’s hiding out, it will be harder to find him. We go wheels up at 0700. Less than two hours from now. Dismissed.”
The men were on their feet in an instant, moving toward the door of the bullpen. And this was why Colton had never been in a serious relationship. Deploying on less than a couple of hours’ notice didn’t sit well with most women. Not when he couldn’t tell them where he’d be going. How long he’d be gone.
Not when he’d up and leave at a moment’s notice.
He walked out of base, the other men talking around him. Colton’s gear had been packed and ready for imminent deployment. He’d grab a shower, gear up, and be back on base in less than an hour. Going to Colombia and leaving without Camila was not a goddamn option though.
