Page 1 of Protected By the SEAL

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BENJI

“Ah, Benji.” My boss looks at me with a serious glint in his eyes. He has something there for me, it’s dancing behind his gaze, and I don’t know if I should feel nervous or excitement about what’s to come. In this line of work, there’s no telling what a job will entail. “I’m glad you’ve come to meet with me today because you’re off on assignment. Are you ready for it?”

I take a seat in his office, a place I’ve been a million times before for various reasons, and I smile. “I think so.”

“Good, because this is a top-notch, highly secret mission that will require all the training you got as a Navy SEAL.” I sit up a little straighter and stare defiantly at him. I can do this, whatever it is. This is why I started working in security the moment I left my military career. I’m capable of it. It’s always good to know I’m putting myself to best use. “This involves a celebrity—or more the daughter of a celebrity, anyway—in Puerto Rico. As I’m sure you can imagine, a lot is at stake here.”

Uh-oh. I have to admit, that does stack on another level of pressure here. Anything that involves a person in the publiceye is problematic. It makes it so much harder to maintain our discrete service, which is what we were hired for. When it involves a person the whole world believes they own a piece of, it’s a challenge. Even more so in the world of social media and the Internet. It’s more of a challenge for someone to go missing, but it’s even harder to find them.

“When you say a celebrity, Max, exactly what do you mean?” I ask with a slight warning tone in my voice. “How much risk?”

There’s always a risk, a giant one, and usually, I’m okay with that, but there’s something about the way Max is addressing it which amps up the anxiety within me. I’ve stared death in the eye plenty of times, but I’ve never put anyone else in danger. I might have lost people in my military career, but I wasn’t the one in command there. Here, I am. I don’t intend to start now.

“Have you ever heard of William Jones?” Max asks me wryly. Obviously, I’ve heard of him. Everyone has. He’s one of the most famous self-made millionaires in America. A poor boy who came from nothing, who basically came from poverty, ended up with no education, started a business young, and made a massive success of it. Mostly because of his charismatic personality. From that company, he has gone on to create an empire including a very famous reality show about his family. “Yep, him.”

“What’s happened to him?” My initial reaction is to wonder why whatever this scandal is hasn’t already been reported in the media, but I suppose if these guys are coming to us to sort the issue out, it must need to be private.

“It isn’t exactly him. It’s his twenty-two-year-old daughter, Cassie Jones. She’s been kidnapped.”

My heart leaps up into my throat. “She’s been kidnapped? What’s happened to her? What are the cops doing?”

“Well, the reason William has come to us about it is because he doesn’t trust the police in his city. He doesn’t think they will solve it properly and keep his child alive. He’s also worried about it being leaked to the media.”

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. “But why would he want to keep it secret? Surely, fans will guess.”

“Actually, Cassie left the reality show six years ago as soon as she was old enough to make that decision. She didn’t want to be a part of it anymore and has pretty much been forgotten by most of the fans. This doesn’t need to be leaked. I guess William is worried that by bringing her back into focus now, it will make sure that her life is more at risk.”

“Ah okay, I see.” I nod, understanding that much. “So, it’s for her protection. Why didn’t she have more in the first place?”

“I can assume that’s because she wanted to have a more normal life away from anything to do with the public eye, so she distanced herself. But someone has remembered her, someone has been watching her, and they know that she was the easiest target and someone for whom her father would pay a lot to be released. She’s still his daughter even if she isn’t in the public eye.”

“You think it’s an obsession case?” I muse. “I mean, if she left six years ago, she can’t have been in the reality show all that long. But do you think in that time, she developed a stalkeror something? Or do you know whether it’s about the ransom money?”

“I’ve been working on this case a lot already.” Max lays a giant file down in front of me as evidence of this. “And it’s for the ransom money for sure. The whole world knows that William Jones is worth a fucking ton, so it’s hardly a surprise that the criminal underworld wants a part of this. In particular, the Mexican drug Cartel.”

“The Cartel?” Shit, this is fucking huge. A celebrity, the Cartel, a business empire… this is the most extreme job I’ve ever been involved in up to date. It’s insane. But Max knows what he’s doing. He’s successful because healwaysputs the right guys on the right jobs. He has some kind of weird instinct about it. So, even when I’ve seen other guys doubt themselves in the past, he always ends up being correct. I just hope it all works out the same here. “Are you for real, Max?”

“They get their money from all sorts of criminal enterprises. This is one of them.”

“So, wait, let me get this straight.” I hold up my hands to stop Max for a moment. “The Cartel kidnapped this… girl?”

“Cassie,” Max confirmed. “And they actually hired a small-time criminal to kidnap her. A guy who wants to be in the big leagues who hasn’t made it there yet.” He pats his file. “Trust me, it’s all in here. I know what I’m talking about. The guy is good at computer hacking and tricked Cassie with a very convincing-looking job interview, which she went to alone. She didn’t tell anyone about it, which William thinks is because she didn’t want the added pressure of everyone knowing about it.”

“And what’s happened after that?” I ask, starting to feel a little frustrated with all this madness now.

“Well, she went missing, obviously. And William, who has been suspicious and a little paranoid for a while now, I guess assuming that something like this might happen, found something on her computer, which is when he found me. I remotely accessed all the information and have it all printed here for you to see.” I’m not going to look yet. I need to wrap my head around all of this first.

“So, from there, my tech team did their thing and found out more about the guy, the kidnapper, Alex Turner, who has received his down payment for the job but will get the rest of the money when he meets the Cartel men for the trade.”

My blood runs ice cold. I might find this whole thing insane, but I’m invested in it now. “And then what?”

“Well, we want to get to Cassie before she’s taken to Mexico, which is why you need to go today. The meeting point coordinates are inside the information package that I have for you here. It’s in the middle of the Puerto Rican jungle.”

“Fucking hell,” I whisper as I try to take all of this in. “You do realize how intense this is, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Max nods in an understanding manner, but it makes no difference. He’s going to make me do this however overwhelming I’m finding this information. Sure, I might have been in war zones in among the worst things to ever happen to humanity, but this is on another level. “But I know you can tackle it, Benji. I’ve chosen you for a reason. I need a man with your skillset who can tackle this alone. To keep it on the down low as much as possible, to keep Cassie safe.”

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