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My hand was trembling as I slowly lowered the phone. Not only had I missed my chance to talk to the others, I’d spent the few moments we had trying to guilt-trip Devyn about not telling me they’d left. All while having shown up here totally at random, after a few weeks of barely calling them.

Not cool, Jules.

And now they’d been yanked away, sent on some dangerous mission to God knows where. Tasked with doing God knows what, and thrown into a situation so dangerous I might not see one or more of them ever again.

I tried convincing myself I was being dramatic. But in my heart, I knew the grim reality of the situation. And it hurt ten times more than I thought it ever could.

Looking around, I realized I’d be staying the night in an empty house. There was no way I was driving back to the airport, at least not until morning. I was simply too tired. Besides, right now I felt like total shit.

I went back to the kitchen, washed out the mugs, and cleaned up the coffee maker. Then I sank into the nearest chair, dropped my head into my hands, and got ready to cry.

No. Fuck that.

A voice in the back of my head broke up my inevitable pity party before it even got started. It was a strong voice. A frighteningly fierce voice that I hadn’t heard in quite some time.

GET UP.

I rose. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, as my whole body started to tingle. This time it was a good tingle.

Great. Now pull your shit together.

Without hesitating I locked up the house, turned on the fireplace, and stood before it. There, staring into the yellow-blue flames, I relaxed my body and let my mind do what it always did best: think.

For the first minute or two, I could only think of my men. I envisioned their handsome faces, their hard bodies, their deep, powerful voices echoing through the now empty house. I reminded myself I loved them. I told myself that was totally okay. I convinced myself all three of them were going to be fine, and that they’d look out for each other, and that they’d come back to me whole and happy and filled with even more love for me than they’d left with.

Then I shoved my gorgeous Navy SEALs out of my mind, and I began thinking about everythingelse.

Ideas formed. Plans coalesced. I ran to the kitchen and found a pen and paper in one of the drawers, then sat on the couch to begin recording the incredible stream of creative consciousness that was telling me what to do, when to do it, and how best to get it all accomplished.

It reminded me sharply of the old days, of my old self. Of my first few weeks in New York, and how I’d chased my ambitions tirelessly and relentlessly. I’d accomplished everything with hard work, brainpower, and elbow grease. But most of all I’d done it by pushing all fear, negativity, and apprehension out of my fucking way.

By the time I was finished it was nearly two in the morning. My body had been exhausted for hours, but now my mind was finally drained. Thrilled and satisfied, I killed the fireplace and climbed the steps back to the bedrooms. Once up there I didn’t even change. I stripped down, climbed into Devyn’s bed, and inhaled the musky, wonderful scent of him that permeated the bedsheets.

I fell asleep the very second my face hit the pillow.

Forty-Seven

DEVYN

Ramos flew with us all the way to the coast of Somalia, but the USS Nimitz is where our time together ended. We were inserted under the cover of darkness, crawling up along the white sand shores. Invisibly we skirted the various fishing boats that dotted the harbor, slipping noiselessly from the beach as we pressed onward.

Our squad circumvented Kismaayo entirely. We crept past the chaotic jumble of architecture that made up the ancient port, humping our gear across the sun-blasted landscape as we moved deeper west. Before dawn broke we’d melted into the lower Jubaan province, where the scrubby green canopy covered us completely.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the only thing green.

Maverick and Gage notwithstanding, our squad consisted mainly of men we knew and trusted. There was Christian, who could track a grasshopper through sagebrush. Evans, with his TAC-50, could place a round center mass from thirty-five hundred meters away. Bringing up the rear we had Hyde, who’d earned the nickname because half the time he was irrationally angry, and Parker who’d never in fourteen missions let us be ambushed from behind.

But we also had three fresh-faced rookies who looked pulled straight out of BUDS school. Men so green, Gage joked their trident pins were so shiny he was going to make them rub dirt on them.

“Vaughan!”

The scout ahead of me halted and turned around.

“You’re running point, not a marathon.”

He squinted back at me, confused. Moving double-time, I caught up with him.

“If I lose sight of you, you’re no good to us,” I told him. “You got that?”