Prologue
Navy SEAL Ryker “Bulls Eye” Fletcher fingered the delicate gold chain in his hand, frowning. Sunlight glinted off of the small pendant, and the fragile, feminine necklace looked almost comical in his large, muscular hand.
He clenched his jaw, frustration roiling through him.
Somewhere, halfway around the world, the American woman it belonged to was still being held hostage. Possibly injured. Harmed. Frightened.
Finding the forgotten necklace in his pocket brought back an onslaught of memories—searching the ramshackle camp in Afghanistan with his SEAL team for the missing woman. Finding another hostage who’d already been killed. And then nearly stepping on the gold necklace lying on the ground as they were moving out under the dark cover of night.
The last thing he’d expected to see through his night vision goggles in that hellhole was a piece of woman’s jewelry.
His teammate Mason “Riptide” Ryan came jogging over, the harness from their rappelling drill still on, and grabbed his canteen before gulping some water down. “What the hell is that?” he asked, raising his eyebrows as he glanced over at Ryker.
“I found it in the pocket of my fatigues.”
Ryker held it up, watching as Mason’s eyes widened. “Wait—that’s the necklace you found at the terrorist camp? Why the hell do you still have it?”
Ryker lifted a shoulder. “I forgot about it when we hauled the Brit back to base. Then I thought I lost it in the chaos. I told the CO about discovering it on the ground, but it’s not exactly a clue to the missing woman’s whereabouts. It just proved she was there. For all I knew, I’d dropped it back in the desert.”
“Well hell. That was an entire month ago.”
“And we still don’t have solid intel on her location,” Ryker said, sliding the delicate chain back into his pocket. “We left her there in the hands of monsters.”
Mason shook his head. “We didn’t have any solid leads on where she was taken. On how to track her down. Our mission was the make-shift camp she’d been held at.”
Ryker spat on the ground, frowning. “I don’t like it. A month and nothing? Bullshit.”
“What the fuck is there to like?” Mason asked, setting his canteen back down. His gaze swept toward their other teammates in the distance. Stationed at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, the men drilled daily out on the ocean and around base. Ready to go at a moment’s notice, they served at the beck and call of the U.S. Navy. As soon as they received word, their team or the Alpha SEALs, the other elite team stationed on base, were sent off on missions all over the world. “As soon as we have new leads, we’ll be back on a transport across the ocean. It’s not like we’ll fucking leave her there.”
Ryker tugged at the adjustments of his own harness, eyeing the rappelling wall in front of them. Two of the men on his team came quickly down in full gear. Ryker pulled his own helmet on and grabbed his rucksack, feeling the adrenaline beginning to rush through his own veins.
“We shouldn’t have left her there,” he said, shaking his head. “No woman should’ve been left in that godforsaken place.”
And then he jogged over toward the wall to join the rest of his SEAL team.
Chapter 1
Emily Swenson coughed as the armed man nudged her forward down the dark hallway. Her hand instinctively reached for her sidearm, but of course they’d taken her weapons as soon as they’d captured her. She shuffled along in front of him, her combat boots kicking up the dusty ground. Her thin tank top clung to her breasts, the worn pants she had on hanging from her slender hips. Fit and athletic before arriving in Afghanistan, she’d lost at least ten pounds since being captured. Probably more.
They’d fed her two small meals a day and kept her mostly isolated in a dark hut until they’d moved her two days ago to this new compound.
Her eyes swept down the dim hallway.
The guard hurried her along, pushing open a heavy door. “Move,” he muttered in a thick accent, and she held her breath as she stepped inside.
It smelled of food and some sort of incense and sweat. Her stomach roiled, but since she hadn’t eaten since this morning, it was empty.
She swallowed, trying to calm her gag reflex.
No one had harmed her yet. There was no reason to worry that this was the moment.
A heavyset, bearded man sat beside a table in the dim room, smirking. His long, dark beard