A SEALed Fate (3 page)

“Jafar. Let her go.” Arabic wasn’t needed here. Jafar Akeem Hamal was well versed in at least ten different languages and had enough terrorism under his belt to grasp the tone of Fitz’s voice. The message was clear. Jafar could either put the girl down or die. Something flashed in the man’s eyes as he stepped just that much closer to the cliff they stood near, his insanity becoming a palpable thing as he challenged Fitz to come closer without even speaking a word.

“Put her down
now.”
Fitz was trying to stay focused, keep his gaze off the pleading eyes of the child staring at him with so much hope. The sick fuck had snatched her from her bed in his own compound as the rest of the place was raided and taken down
—
the daughter of one of his own men. He would risk her if he had to
—
use her as he would a shield. Fitz had followed him here, aware that Jafar could and would do anything necessary to protect himself, including killing the girl in his arms.

Fitz’s stomach roiled. He wouldn’t let that happen. Not tonight. Not ever. It had taken six years to track one of the Middle East’s greatest threats and now that Fitz’s team had him in their grasp, they would not let go.

“Let me go. I let her go,” Jafar replied in a lilting accent, his calm radiating in waves.

Fitz could smell the scent of salt water, hear the crashing waves below.
Just a little longer, sweetheart. I swear.
His hands clenched at his sides, aching to reach for the M9 on his person, but any sudden moves could cost the girl her life. Besides, he knew Donnelly had a M107 trained on Jafar somewhere close by. Jafar wouldn’t escape this intact if something happened to that girl.

Fitz was well aware of the sound of the girl’s father crying out to their god in the distance, that his will would be done. Fuck that. The only will Fitz was following tonight was that of the US Navy SEALs.

“Why are we talking?” Donnelly’s voice crackled through Fitz’s earpiece. “I can take the prick down now and we can be done with this.”

“Because if you propel him over the edge, she goes with him.
That’s
why,” Fitz growled back. “Don’t make a move until I say otherwise.”

Donnelly had been unraveling lately, impatience making him reckless on the last three missions. He wasn’t just making jokes to push Fitz’s buttons anymore. The sniper had begun to voice the fact that he didn’t believe Fitz was a strong enough leader, that he was too soft. What he didn’t understand was that Fitz had some self-control and that Donnelly ought to be grateful for it, otherwise he would’ve gotten fucked up a long time ago.

“This is bullshit. He needs to be taken down.”

“I. Said. Don’t. Move.” Fitz locked eyes with Jafar. “If you let her go now, we can make a deal with you. Don’t make this harder.”

Jafar’s eyes narrowed as his lips curved. “I’ve no deals to agree to with you, my friend. There’s nothing you could offer me aside from my freedom.”

Jaw clenching, Fitz tried again. “Just put her down.” He made the mistake of glancing at the girl. She couldn’t have been more than six, with riotous hair and golden eyes that looked all too familiar. His chest seized.
God, please
.

“No,” Jafar answered.

“We’ll kill you,” Fitz said.

The man smiled. “Impossible.” He took another step back. “You know what amuses me the most about your American soldiers?”

Fitz watched him closely.

“How much you value the most insignificant lives; how much you weigh on honor.” Jafar’s grin began to widen sadistically. “But we look at the bigger picture. We look at what our deaths will come to mean. What our deaths will come to...honor. If I die physically tonight, it will end nothing. My men will continue on. Like a poison I’ve touched far more than you could ever hope to reach. And like a poison, I will have lasting effects.”

“Fuck this. Move, Carrigan. I’m taking the shot!” Donnelly shouted.

“I said don’t!” Heart hammering now, Fitz roared, “Just put her down NOW!”

“Move, Carrigan!”

“Jafar...” Fitz tried again but he only took another step backwards, now standing dangerously close to the murky waters of the Mediterranean.

The girl in his arms whimpered.

Fitz looked from her to the other man. “Please...”

He appeared to almost be considering it, the expression on his face one of clear thought, but then something fast and hot whizzed past Fitz’s cheek, missing him by scant inches and planting itself into the forehead of Jafar, sending his body into a recoil that threw him right over the edge...

“NO!” Fitz’s roar echoed around his bedroom as his whole body clenched then released, jerking up beneath the sheets on his mattress. Harsh pants left his mouth; his shoulders tensed, hands fisted at his sides as the same nightmare that had haunted him for so long replayed over and over again. The look of horror that flashed across the girl’s face right before she was hurtled off the cliff and into the depths of the water below.

“Fuck!” His hands slammed down against his bed before he used one to grip his recently grown-out hair and tug. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Fitz lay back down, his chest heaving with the exertion to breathe normally. Each time he closed his eyes, all he saw was that one last stare of lost hope. The stare that called him a failure a million times over. There had been many casualties during his stint as a SEAL. But none of them a child and none of them by his hands.

He’d always wondered if he should’ve told Jafar that he could go; always questioned if it would’ve hurt as much had the girl not reminded him of Zuly.

“Jesus Christ.” With a groan, he rolled over, tried to get the moisture to recede from his eyes as he scooted out of bed and grabbed his cane, hobbling toward the bathroom

He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. Couldn’t keep running over the what ifs. Fitz stared down at his knee. Remembering the terror-filled scream of the girl’s father. How something had snapped inside Fitz, and he’d gone for Donnelly with everything he had. His team member was on the ground within seconds, Fitz’s fists hammering into him non-stop, no real rhyme or reason to his blows, just months of frustration and sporadic rage boiling over into a culmination that just about had Donnelly beaten to death.

Fitz had finally been pulled off by a few of the other men, and as he was dragged away, the man who played a part in the death of a child actually drew his Beretta and fired at his own team leader. A clean shot went through Fitz’s shoulder, and the other shattered his knee cap before Donnelly was wrestled down, the screams of the girl’s father playing as a backdrop. The agony in the man’s voice as he condemned Fitz’s team and Jafar to eternity with Satan would be etched on his memory forever. That curse would never be forgotten.

His hands slapped against the tiled wall of his shower as he turned the water on in an icy blast, punishing himself.

“You need to see a counselor, Carrigan. Fuck. I think we all do.”

The words of his lieutenant commander had been taken with little value. The hell was a counselor going to tell him that he didn’t already know? He was fucked. He’d always be fucked.

Fitz had no interest in parking his crippled ass in some shrink’s chair for hours on end. Combing through his sunny days as a kid, looking for something that wasn’t there. He knew what was wrong. He’d failed. Not just as a SEAL but as a son, a brother, a potential husband. He’d failed himself when he edged away from the help offered. He’d failed Zuly when he told her he didn’t need her. He
did
need her. Fitz needed her
now.
But he didn’t deserve her. He was a coward. A coward who needed the comfort of a woman’s arms. The whispered voice against his ear to tell him it wasn’t his fault. And he’d never get it. That
was
his fault.

***

Determination had Zuly up and out of bed before eight a.m. After spending most of the night thinking about what Kamara had said, a frustration smoldered within her. Fitz was so very, very wrong. He
did
need her. And she needed him too. So she’d be damned if she sat back and watched him wither away to nothing, his pride causing him to stay in the comfort of having his head up his own ass.

Enough was enough. Two months was far too long for someone to stay away from family and friends, to miss the growth of their nieces and nephews, to forgo the tradition of family barbecues and camping out. Zuly was, in a word, fed up. This shit ended today.

Showering, she tossed her hair up into a ragged bun, threw on cotton shorts and a tank and slipped her feet into a pair of sneakers that she hadn’t worn since she bought them. On the way out the door, she grabbed a thermos of coffee and started for her truck. Her shift at Grant Memorial didn’t start until seven so she had plenty of time to tell Fitz exactly how she felt.

Hands tight around the steering wheel, Zuly took the back roads she knew toward Carrigan Mountain, land owned by Fitz’s family that had been passed down from generation to generation. It was usually the first male born into the Carrigan household who inherited the mountain, but the honor had been given to Fitz after his brothers all passed it up.

As a girl Zuly used to believe his cabin door was going to be the threshold he carried her across on their wedding day. She’d thought out the designs of the rooms and nurseries for their little ones. She’d thought they’d spend more nights under the stars. Wow. That was fucking sappy.

With Fitz gone for basic training, she’d had more time on her hands to get her degree and had immediately started as an RN at Grant after she gave her two weeks’ notice for her job as a PCA at a small facility in the city. Work kept her occupied for a while until she finally got her first phone call from Fitz. Up until he completed his full sixty-one months of pre-deployment training, they’d been exchanging letters.

Zuly would wait every day to hear the small roar of the postman’s engine before she hopped the banister of her first-floor apartment and hauled ass toward the mail slots. But there was nothing like hearing his voice—the much rougher, much deeper timbre rolling over her senses like a physical touch. And the first time she’d seen him after he’d come home for a visit...

The sheer strength in his limbs as he’d lifted her from the ground after she’d thrown herself at him... God...there would never be anything like that feeling of completeness. Zuly had wanted to tell him then; had wanted to hit him until he understood how badly she hurt when he was away. But she hadn’t. Maybe that was why it was so hard now. The man had been all over the world. Surely he’d seen enough women to change his opinion about whatever he may or may not have thought of Zuly.

Sighing, she finally rolled to a stop in front of the two-story, log-constructed home at the bottom of Carrigan Mountain. Her fingers brushed across the keys hanging from her ignition, as she remembered the day Fitz had handed them to her. She’d never felt right staying in this place without him so she hadn’t. She’d come and chop wood, dust, air it out but she never stayed the night.The grass needed to be cut and she could clearly see trash littering the yard and the front screened-in porch. There was no telling what the inside looked like. Fitz’s truck was in the drive so that had to mean he was somewhere inside brooding.

Zuly sucked in a deep breath and climbed out of her SUV, heading right up the front porch and to the door. Without hesitation, she unlocked it and pushed her way in, pulling up short at the sight of beer bottles and pizza boxes. Obviously the frogman didn’t believe in cleaning nowadays.

She stood there for a while, taking in the familiar layout and the sight of dozens of pictures. The couches and the old futon. With a deliberate slowness, she crept along the hallway, past the kitchen and up the back stairs. With each creak, she winced, wondering when she’d hear Fitz’s angry yell for her to get out. That would come soon enough, she was sure.

When she finally reached the door to the master bedroom, her pulse hammered loudly in her ears. Trying to retain moisture in her mouth, Zuly twisted the knob and swung the door open. Her eyes scanned the room before landing on the large bear of a man lying in the middle of an even larger bed. There was a bottle of whiskey on the nightstand and an empty glass.

“Started early this morning eh, frogman?”

Silence.

Irritation burned in her chest at the sight of someone so strong looking so frail. Not by anyone else’s choices but his own. He was in pain and he refused to say a word. Why?

Zuly stomped over to the shades and pulled them open, flooding the room with light before she snatched his comforter back and ignored the urge to look past his naked waist. “Get. Up!” she roared.

Like a startled bear, he rose. “Ah!”

She banged on the first solid surface she could reach. “I said get up!”

Fitz took one look at her, a scruffy beard covering half his jaw, his dark brown curls well past his ears now. “Z? The hell are you doing?”

She was in his face so fast that he scrambled backwards. “If you think for even half a second, Fitzgerald Donahue Carrigan, that I’m going to sit on my ass for a moment longer and watch you kill yourself, you are out of your fucking mind. Get. The. Fuck. Up.”

His hard features contorted into disbelief then anger. “I don’t have to do a goddamn thing you say. Why are you even here? Get out.”

Zuly leaned in until they were nose to nose. “No.”

“I mean it, Z. Go.”

“I couldn’t give two rubbed-together rat shits what you do and don’t mean. I’m giving you exactly one minute to get up and out of this bed, or by God you will pray for Satan’s arms to comfort you because I am going to rain down on you a biblical fury that you couldn’t even
dream up.
Get. Up.”

Strong hands came up to push at her shoulders. “Get out, Zuly.”