Page 3 of Dangerous Mission

While the credits played, she clicked on the secure mail app on her computer. She and Hex had teamed up after the director of the FBI hadn’t wanted their help. When she’d exited the building after the director refused to let her join the task force she helped fund. She saw a man in a crumpled suit and black glasses pacing back and forth, cursing the director’s name. He couldn’t of been older than thirty at the time. Since the director had just given her the bad news, she wondered why he was mad. Instead of minding her own business, she asked if he wanted to have a cup of coffee. That’s when her and Hex became friends and joined forces.

They ended up spending hours talking about the evidence he’d acquired on a trafficking ring. The reason he had so much information was that his sister had been taken. By the time he got to her location, she was gone. The organization he uncovered moved around so quickly he was always one step behind. He tried turning everything over to the FBI. Director Ernest said he would investigate it.

One of Hex’s biggest problems was the traffickers hit high-end events. His sister was a waitress at a charity event in New York the night she was taken. Hex had found information on the dark web that led him to believe there would be a kidnapping attempt at a high-end club. He wanted the FBI to look into it.

Terri went to the club when it opened and sat at a VIP table that overlooked the entire place. She stayed most of the night and was close to leaving when she caught sight of an older man dropping a pill into a woman’s drink. Terri alerted security, but they didn’t listen to her. She rushed across the club and bumped into the woman, causing her to spill the drink on herself. The man glared at her as she tugged the woman into the bathroom and told her what had happened. When they went back outside, the guy was gone, and the cops brushed it off. They actually told the woman she should be careful not to take drinks from strangers. Terri wanted to scream.

The next day, she barged into the Oval Office and told her father she wanted to be on the task force. He went over a list of reasons why it wasn’t safe and lectured her for her actions at the club. No matter how old she was, her father still treated her like a teenager, unlike her older siblings. Griffen worked on their dad’s foreign policies and spent most of his time traveling. He always sided with Dad. Ashley kept to herself. She was ten years older than Terri and had been out of the house when Dad was elected governor. The media left her alone, and she didn’t come home much or talk to Terri.

When Terri left her dad’s office, she knew nothing would ever change his mind. She contacted Hex, and they teamed up. She funded his research so that he could spend time searching for more clues. He also helped keep her phone and computer locked down. At times, he protested a few of her ideas, worried about her safety. He wanted her to have a tracking device, but she put her foot down.

Over two years, they’d saved many women. A few, she’d been too late to help, and others, the information was bad. Most of the intel came from TikTok. Everyone who followed her there thought she turned the info over to the FBI. Most of which, she did. The only thing she didn’t turn over was info linked to the traffickers they thought had kidnapped Hex’s sister. Then she figured out whether the woman or man needed to be helped. When most people thought of human trafficking, they thought of women, but men were trafficked too.

Terri read through her new emails and clicked one open.Her mysterious contact had sent her updated reservation information to an upscale restaurant.

She continued scrolling through her emails and found one with the missing woman in it. The shaky video of a woman and an older man walking down the street didn’t seem out of the ordinary until she looked closely. The woman tucked her thumb into her palm and closed her fingers over her thumb. At a closer look, Terri saw the man’s fingers digging into the woman’s arm.

Time to see if she could help. She quickly changed into dress pants and a designer shirt. When she’d first started helping women, she wore a dress, which made it hard if the guy attacked her.

She quickly got ready, grabbed the keys to her Honda Civic, and headed for the door.

* * *

Axel “Richy”Deleon stared at the only woman he’d ever loved. She was sneaky as fuck.

When they were younger, she’d sneaked out of her parents’ house and into his bedroom numerous times during the dead of night. He couldn’t remember a single time she’d gotten caught.

“Have you talked to her yet?” Cy’s voice came through the SUV speaker.

“No.”

“It’s been a week. I thought you were supposed to protect her.”

He and President Fugate had discussed on the flight to DC how to broach the subject. Axel wanted to watch her from afar, mostly because he was a coward when it came to Terri. It was the same reason he’d run years ago and only left a note for his mom to give her. Back then, he and President Fugate had a plan, which he didn’t completely listen to.

But the president didn’t bring up the past during the four-hour plane ride, which Axel was happy about.

When they’d arrived in DC, he went straight to her condo and mapped out the area. After he watched her the first day, he knew it would be easier to protect her from afar. Terri ditched her agents like a professional escape artist, and she used the same tactics she had when they were teenagers. When she stepped foot into the Victoria's Secret store, he knew it was a ploy to evade her security. Like clockwork, the agents ran to the back while he watched her walk out the front. The pink hoodie she had on did not disguise her very well.

When she left the mall in an Uber, he followed her to her second apartment. Her place was on the other side of DC and not in the best neighborhood. The worst part was that the building had no security, and she lived on the bottom floor, facing the water. Terri didn’t think her father knew about her second place, but the president had given Axel all the information he needed.

Axel didn’t bother answering his teammate. “Have you hacked into her secondary phone?” he asked Marcus “Cy” Reeves.

Cy was the team’s communication specialist. Well, that was what the navy considered his title, but he was a hacker. He’d also ended up reconnecting and marrying his high school sweetheart. They were expecting there first child in six months. The man was head over heels in love. Like all people in love, they thought everyone should be, which was why Cy was really calling. Axel’s friends wanted him to get back with his high school sweetheart. His friend and teammate didn’t understand that that would never happen.

“Nope. I told you it would be a slim chance for me to hack a burner phone. There is no way I’m getting in that thing. She even has a high-end firewall on her email. I’ve tried phishing her, and she’s good. I sent her a mixture of phishing emails. Not once did she click on a single link. Not many people can stay away from cute cat or dog videos, but she doesn’t click on any of it,” Cy said. It almost sounded like his friend was impressed with her computer security. Axel could hear typing in the background. “Her car is too old to have GPS. I have a satellite open so that I can watch.”

Axel let out a sigh. She hadn’t left again since going into the building. His fingers drummed across the steering wheel. “When do you think you guys will go wheels up again?” Not being with his SEAL team back in California was putting him on edge, especially since they weren’t any closer to finding Carter. At night, he still worried about Yara and the woman Carter had taken. Yara had given so much information about her ex-husband, but the team wasn’t any closer to finding his location.

Six months ago, Hudson ‘Casper’ Smith had been pulled from their team and put on another SEAL team for a mission. It wasn’t uncommon to assist other SEAL teams in the same division, but he’d been placed on a team out of Virginia. The whole mission was fucked from the beginning. Casper had angered a terrorist cell years ago, and they wanted vengeance. But the commander didn’t think it was all above board and had an outside mercenary company on standby. They made it in time to help Casper and save three women. Abide Hassan, the man they were after, escaped with another of his wives. Abide had help from a man named Carter, who specialized in chemical warfare. Both men were still on the loose, and Axel worried what their next move would be. Carter had it out for Grim, a member of their mercenary team who’d helped Casper.

Grim along with his teammate Doc watched over Yara, one of the wives they had helped save. Then one of the other wives, Tamara, turned on them and tried to kill Casper’s fiancée along with Grim. Casper’s fiancée, Sierra, took Tamara out to save Grim’s life, but Carter got away with one of the women they’d saved. Everything was still messed up. Axel was torn between being with his team and protecting Terri.

Cy’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Today in the briefing, Commander said we might head out in a couple of weeks, but it’s not to find Abide. Carter isn’t on the military’s radar. I know Xavier and his team won’t stop until they get Carter and save those two women. Sounds like we’re headed back to Brazil for a training mission.” Cy paused. “It’s going to be weird going into a mission without you.”

Axel’s hand drifted over the scar on his chest as he remembered when he and Cy had been taken in the Congo jungle and kept in an underground hole for weeks, with only the water that dripped down to quench their thirst. From above them came the screams of the men they called brothers dying. They’d promised each other that they would always have each other’s backs. Now his long-time friend and teammate was heading into a mission without him, even if it was just training. And Axel was technically on a mission without Cy.

Terri walked along the edge of the sidewalk. She’d changed from her jeans and T-shirt into a pair of black fitted pants and a dress shirt, but it was her four-inch heels that made him groan. She was already tall at six feet, but even when she was wearing those heels, he was taller than she was. When they were teenagers, she’d always said they were made for each other because they fit so well together. Then he’d made a decision without her—a decision to leave everyone and everything behind.

---