Chapter Sixty-Five

Ghost

G ripping the top of the doorframe, fucking tired from another sleepless night, I questioned my motives. Again.

She left. She didn't answer the texts. She'd made her decision.

Don't fucking do this .

I had a code.

Correction, I'd had one.

One goddamn rule outside my protocols—don't fuck her.

Don't fuck any of them. The single code was universal. I knew who I was. I knew who they were, but that wasn't why I'd had to make the vow. The thought of any other woman hadn't even remotely crossed my mind. Because eight years ago, I'd laid eyes on a sheepherder girl who'd barreled into me after running from a crumbling shack of a structure that was under siege, and I'd gotten fucked.

Colliding into my three-foot world with the force of an RPG, her terrified gaze had met mine, and that was it.

Every damn molecule had shifted.

My already seething anger compounded, and my entire purpose realigned. Obsession didn't seed, it took hold—like a Ka-Bar to the chest.

Then the mission went beyond FUBAR.

I'd come home to Feralyn missing, rumors of the young sheepherder from the village being taken, and that fucking profiler claiming she owned me right before I drew on her. The profiler only lived that day because I had to find my sister and the girl. ISIS, the Navy, the CIA—all of them be damned. They could fucking kill me or hang me for treason for all I'd cared, but only after I found them. And I did.

My life had been a downward spiral ever since, but I'd fucking found them.

I was battle born.

I was made for the fight. My purpose was to safeguard. I knew it the first time I saw my mother cry. I knew it the day she told me, with tears of hurt, that my piece-of-shit sperm donor had fathered a daughter with another woman. I knew it the second I met my half sister and the three-year-old girl looked more lost than my mother. And I sure as fuck knew it when my mother crawled into bed for a week after she found out my bastard father married a woman with two sons and had taken his daughter from the mother who'd given her life.

I didn't become a SEAL to solely serve my country.

The fact that I could strategically strike, kill, capture, and evade with equal measure wasn't merely because of the skills I'd honed. I didn't operate under the radar only because being untraceable kept me alive. I didn't live as a ghost because I thrived on anonymity. My mission was resolute and singular.

I became a lethally trained Tier One operator to protect.

That was the fucking mission I was put on this earth for.

But the second I'd gotten Feralyn home and left her with her stepbrothers, I'd made a vow. Find the Turkish sheepherder. Find the only woman who'd ever made my world tilt. Make sure she was safe, but don't fuck her.

Don't touch her, don't put my hands on her, don't break her— don't fucking take her .

Do not be me. Not to her.

Just make her safe.

Which I had, but not without incident. I didn't forgive myself for that shit or what'd happened to Feralyn. The memory of how I'd found them haunted me. Being the reason they'd both been taken never stopped plaguing me. I didn't forgive myself for any of it.

But I also didn't regret a single one of my tactical moves over the last eight years either.

Which made me the worst kind of fucking bastard because now I had a new memory that haunted me. Except this one wasn't the mental screenshot of a terrified Turkish girl being held prisoner in a filthy underground bunker. This new hell was the fucking image of betrayal. My wife. Looking at sixteen women.

That single moment she saw them.

A moment I'd facilitated.

Right before I took her trust and destroyed it.

But here I was, standing on her doorstep at oh nine hundred, about to take even more because that fucking Marine was right.

This was what I did.

I took.

My dark-eyed hayatim's voice echoed in my head.

I cannot carry your darkness anymore.

Kicking me out of my thoughts, the burner in my pocket vibrated with an incoming call.

I blindly answered it. "What?"

"The female and the horse are safely relocated," November stated with his emotionless, detached tone that rivaled mine.

"I didn't ask for a sitrep." I was done with the women who deserved more than a number.

November paused. Then the fucker handled me. Again. "She's around back in the pool."

I fucking knew that. The question was why did he? "You bypassed my new security, hacked my network, broke into my servers, and helped yourself to my satellites. Slow day?"

"I prefer the term borrow."

"To tell me what I already know?"

"No."

Christ . "This ought to be good."

The fucker stopped typing in the background. "It was her choice to leave."

Pushing off the door, I scrubbed a hand over my face before scanning the yard out of habit. "What do you want, Rhys?" I was not having a conversation with him about Safiya. Fucking ever.

"I found and pulled your military and SAC records."

This day just kept getting better. "What took you so long?" I thought I'd wiped my background.

"It wasn't in my purview before."

I didn't bother asking before what. I already knew where he was going with this. Same as he'd hacked me, I'd done my due diligence on him. I knew his proclivities. The only difference was, I didn't give a fuck what he did.

Redirecting, I aimed at a real issue. "Are you coming to work for me, or am I going to have to pay you to train someone on how to protect my satcoms?"

"Neither. You've had counterintelligence training, have a high aptitude for hacking, and you already have someone."

Ignoring all the bullshit about me, I zeroed in on his last statement. A Delta Force Operative turned hacker who'd helped me steal a satellite because he wanted to see if he could, didn't constitute as having someone. "Cypher doesn't work for me."

"Maybe not you." Then November really fucked with me. "He's also not the only one with the skill set."

Not touching either comment, I looked back at the door I was going to walk through earlier before I'd stopped myself. "We done?" Because I was. Not even the three SEALs now working for Trefor who'd I'd enlisted for some Black Ops wetwork had ever had this level of unrestricted access to me.

"Are you done?" the hacker countered.

The question a repeat variation of Christensen's statement, I stilled. Then I lied. "Mission complete."

The hacker didn't immediately respond.

Then he reiterated every reason why I never should've underestimated him. "The profiler is dead. Cypher is cleaning up dark web chatter on Venezuela. Saint is whispering in Langley's ear. Your female in the pool is not as vulnerable as you think, but the mission is not complete. The players have only changed. If you decide you're truly out, don't sell your company to your partner. I'll buy it."

"I don't have a partner."

"Double the retail value on each satellite," he stated, ignoring my comment.

"Not interested in crypto." Or selling out. But that wasn't the point. Letting Rhys know he wasn't the only one who'd done his homework was. More than flush in crypto and offshore accounts, intel wasn't his only form of currency. So far, I'd found seven different income streams the secretive bastard had hidden.

"Eight-hundred million. Cash."

"I have five satellites," I reminded him. And two more I'd already commissioned.

"You only paid for four. The fifth you stole. Eight hundred million," he repeated.

"No."

"I'm the better choice, and I'll let you retain access. Think about it." The fucker hung up.

I let myself into the house.