Page 66 of Her Forever SEAL

Then she was lifted.

Cat swung her stick too. She caught the second man across the back and he turned and grabbed it the same way, one-handed, like it was nothing, and shoved her hard enough that she stumbled. But Cat didn't go down.

Cat grabbed Kayla.

Both hands. One on her arm, one on the back of her jersey, and she planted her feet and pulled and the man pulling Kayla in the other direction had a hundred pounds on Cat and it didn't matter because Cat was not letting go. She was screaming Kayla's name and she was not letting go, and for one second, one real second, the momentum stopped.

The man holding Kayla kept pulling her away from Cat, shoving her into the van.

Then the driver gunned the engine.

The van lurched forward, just a foot, just enough, and the man had Kayla's arm and the van's movement added to his pull. Cat's grip broke at the jersey first and then she grabbed for Kayla's hand and got it and held it and the van was moving and Cat was being dragged, her cleats scraping and shrieking against the asphalt.

“Cat, let go—” Kayla screamed it. “Cat, let GO⁠—”

Cat didn't let go.

The man hit Cat's arm from the outside, hard. Cat made a sound Kayla had never heard from another human being before, and her hand came away.

The last thing Kayla saw was Cat hitting the cement. Not falling. Hitting. Her shoulder first, then her cheek, and she skidded and lay still and the parking lot was getting smaller and people were running toward Cat from everywhere. Kayla was hauled the rest of the way into the van, screaming Cat’s name.

Then something hit the side of Kayla’s head and the parking lot tilted and went gray, and then went away entirely.

21

He'd been on the run as soon as he’d heard from Sophia, shouting at Drake to take over, and find a way to get Black Dawn in place, so he and their men could come home.

He spent hours in the air running it back in his mind. The intelligence that had come in clean and fast. The deployment that had pulled his team instead of Black Dawn with no explanation. The extraction that had gone textbook. Flawless. Beyond textbook. Guard rotations confirmed in twenty-four hours. Entry points exact. Nothing snagged. Not once.

Not fucking once.

He called Drake.

They discussed the operation in-depth. Mason told him that bone-deep, he knew it was a set-up. Drake agreed. He got ahold of his wife Karen, but she was in Tennessee, and she’d been kept in the dark. Same with his sister Evie. Evie was fucking pissed. He’d sat on her, and then called Sophia, who did her best to keep it together and get him info that he then passed onto Mason.

Drake explained the Bree situation. The operation.

“Fuck.”

“Exactly,” Drake agreed.

“But I’m the real target. They’re going to go after mine. Someone has a grudge against me,” Mason ground out.

“That’s my read.” Drake agreed.

“They set up this op we were on. Staged in West Africa with no actionable orders and a textbook extraction already complete.”

“Someone was feeding the suits back home.”

“Yeah. This is Boko Haram,” Mason muttered.

“Yeah. Someone wanted you gone, then they wanted the women distracted.”

“That’s the way I see it. How soon can you get to the States?”

“We should be there thirty-six hours after you.”

“That gives Clint time to go through old missions and find out just who in the Boko Haram has it out for us. Has it out for me. And then has the network to set this up.”