This was bad news. Special Forces soldiers had an extra gear. About a million dollars of training went into each soldier and they were worth it. To a man, they were smart, relentless and capable of devastating violence delivered with surgical precision. An SF soldier gone bad was tragic news. An SF soldier gone bad and after Nicole was terrifying.
“Coming in,” Sam said and flipped his cell closed. He went to his gun locker and chose a Glock 19, slotted in a full magazine and picked up another two magazines he put in his jacket pocket. He slid the Glock into the shoulder holster. There was more firepower in the office, but it just felt good to be loaded for bear right now.
He took the time to stare for a full minute at Nicole, stretched out on his bed, in a deep sleep. What would waking her up achieve? Nothing. There was nothing she could do right now and learning that a highly trained bad guy was after her would only make her more anxious. The best thing she could do for herself right now was to rest. Her father was safe and by God, if there was one place in all of San Diego where Sam trusted the security, it was his house.
It had top-of-the-line features, triple backups and a small separate generator to keep the alarm system going even if the electricity was cut. He would swear in court that he and Harry and Mike were the only ones who could get in.
He scribbled a note—Honey, I had to go into the office, call me on my cell when you wake up. Be back as soon as I can—and left it on the dresser.
Sam was in a rush to get back to the office, but still he stood for a moment on the threshold of his bedroom, just looking at her, naked, stretched out on his bed. He could see every single detail of her slender, curvy body. Could see the delicate collarbones, the sharp points of her hip bones, the long lines of her legs.
A stunningly beautiful woman. A head turner. The kind of woman who’d have made a fortune modeling.
But more than just a beautiful woman. She was smart and strong and kind and funny and fiercely loyal in a way he appreciated down to his bones. A woman in a million, and she was his.
He was going to keep her safe.
The fuckhead after her might have been a Ranger, but Sam was a SEAL, which trumped that to hell and gone. As long as he was alive, no one would ever hurt her.
And he was a hard man to kill.
TWELVE
The man who came,Wilson, was fast and good. He’d given his bank account number, and by the time he drove up in a non-descript-looking off-white Transit van with the logo of an electrical-supplies shop on the sides, Outlaw had had the money transferred. Outlaw believed in paying well. You got what you paid for. And anyway, it was the client who was paying. He’d just add that amount to the bill.
It was the wonderful thing about working for the money men. They could fucking well afford anything. All they wanted was for their problem to go away and they were willing to throw money at it to ensure that it did.
Outlaw did his briefing inside the van as Wilson drove them to the warehouse. The old man was trussed up in the back. Getting him out of the house had been a snap, he’d weighed as much as a girl and he’d been sedated. The nurse’s body was in the back, too, and would be weighted with heavy chains, abdomen slashed open. It was improbable given the weight of chains attached to her, but the gases that formed in the stomach could possibly carry her to the top. Slashing her open took care of that. Outlaw never took chances.
“We’ll get the geezer set up and then get his daughter here. I’ll have her meet up with you. As soon as I get what I need from her, we’ll just drop them over the side of the wharf. Where is it exactly that we’re going?”
“South side of town,” Wilson said. “The docks around Fleetridge. This warehouse was impounded because the owners were using it as a drug clearinghouse and now it’s slated for demolition. Next month, in fact. There won’t be anyone there. There won’t be anyone in a three-mile radius this time of night.”
“Perfect,” Outlaw said. His instinct had proven correct. Nothing beat local knowledge. And Wilson was proving real efficient. Outlaw liked men who did what they were told without unnecessary talk.
He’d made it a habit to hook up with former soldiers and so far it had worked out fine. He’d refined his search parameters even further, sticking to men who’d tried out for Special Forces and hadn’t made the grade. They were perfect. Depending on where in the long, grueling process they dropped out, they’d had the best training on the planet without that fuck-you, my-way-or-the-highway attitude all Special Forces soldiers developed. To a man, SF soldiers only followed orders when they made sense to them, which made them useless to Outlaw.
Outlaw didn’t need for his men to understand, just to obey.
There was also the fact that a man who had been an SF soldier had his pick of civilian security jobs, low-hanging fruit for all of them. There didn’t need to be anything else on the resumè. If you’d been a SEAL, a Ranger, Force Recon, that’s all anyone needed to know.
There were plenty of guys who’d nearly made it, but when they mustered out of the military, no one would give them the time of day. If they were lucky, they became rent-a-cops, low-level security, cheap bodyguards for minor punks. Not a one who didn’t need money.
They’d trained and trained hard, and yet, since they couldn’t make that final cut, their lives were over. But they were manna from heaven for Outlaw, who didn’t need that razor edge the elite soldiers had. All he needed was good, solid muscle with some brains behind it.
Outlaw had mostly uncomplicated jobs to do for clients who had to remain anonymous. The SF dropouts were efficient, took orders and were glad for the work, since they were shut out of the top-tier security work Special Forces soldiers gave each other once they were out of the military.
They wouldn’t give the dropouts the time of day. Outlaw had once seen a former SEAL cross the street to avoid a man who’d rung the bell four days into Hell Week.
He treated his men with respect, paid them above market rate, and got excellent service.
He’d learned well from the money men.
She was swimmingin the Pacific, way out beyond her comfort zone. The strong tide was slowly carrying her out to sea, however hard she fought against it.
It was getting dark, the last slice of the sun drowned in the vast ocean’s blackness and there were no lights on shore. A wind started up, blowing from land, creating wavelets rippling out that would reach all the way to China. Never a strong swimmer, she was tiring fast, swimming as hard as she could to shore, yet never coming closer.
The wind intensified, grew cold, sapping her strength. A wave crashed over her head unexpectedly and she drank water, icy salt water. She surfaced sputtering and frightened and shivering.
