Page 31 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

Smoke still lingered, low and oily, a haze that hadn’t yet lifted from the twisted wreckage of what used to be a fentanyl lab.

Metal groaned intermittently under stress, a heat-twisted beam ticking as it cooled.

The sun was sinking, casting a coppered wash across the debris field.

Generators hummed softly in the distance. Voices had mostly gone quiet.

Bash moved slowly over the rubble, boots crunching over char and plaster dust, a pry bar tucked under one arm. His shoulder ached, his throat raw from the smoke he’d inhaled when they breached the east wall. He ignored it, kneeling to flip a collapsed cabinet with a grunt.

Out of the corner of his eye, movement, boots approaching.

Boomer. The SEAL moved like a storm held barely in check. Quiet on the outside. Chaos just under the skin.

Bash looked away, out toward the sea beyond the warehouse, visible now through a ragged hole in the rear wall.

The waves looked calm, but he knew better.

Beneath the surface, they were just as restless as he was.

To the untrained eye, he looked detached.

Observing. Unbothered. But inside, he was sinking.

The woman he’d have died for, who he’d handled wrong, was now completely out of his reach. His bloody fault.

When he found out he was being assigned here, he thought there might be a second chance. A moment to tell her he’d made a mistake not letting her in. Not letting her see a man who wasn’t exactly whole.

But Taylor only had eyes for one special operator, and it wasn’t him.

She’d leaned toward that bruised and bloodied SEAL earlier, cleaning his face with the kind of reverent tenderness that made Bash’s jaw tick.

Mein Hübscher Sprengmeister , she’d said.

His eyes stung, and it wasn’t the leftover smoke.

Jesus Christ.

He’d watched the others fall apart around them. Skull’s crude jokes. Breakneck’s wheezing laughter. Kodiak with the occasional medical nudge. But Taylor didn’t even blink. She was locked in on Boomer. Like the rest of the world didn’t even register.

Boomer let her. No deflection. No jokes. Just…open.

Like he should have been.

Boomer breached reinforced doors with less effort than it took him to meet her eyes. It was easy to see the same kinds of things in Boomer that he knew lurked in himself. Maybe that was why he’d kept the man at a distance.

SBS were gung-ho, but they weren’t like Navy SEALs. When their day was done, they went home. The training was intense, but the brotherhood wasn’t a blood oath. It was a job.

He would have to admit, he envied that.

The worst part? She’d bent down. Set her hand to Bash’s chest in a sisterly way, murmuring, “I’m so thankful you're okay.”

Boomer, the fucker, didn’t even react. Not even to gloat. Damn, it was hard as hell not to give the man respect. Which meant…he was already irrelevant. Outplayed. Outgunned. Out-loved.

His hands tightened on the edge of a warped shipping crate, knuckles white against rusted steel.

“Didn’t the EMT, your medic, and mine say to rest?” Boomer’s voice was lower than usual, dusk-thick and bone-tired.

Bash rasped, his voice still raw. “I’ll rest when I’m dead.” He almost said, Dixie , but caught himself. Instead, he added simply, “Mate.”

The word sat between them. Not a challenge. Not a peace treaty. Something else.

The yank didn’t answer at first. Just moved beside him, shoulder to shoulder, his gaze tracking the same horizon.

Boomer cleared his throat. “The other day, in the kitchen, what I said…I went too far. The patriotism. The rivalry. The ghosts behind both of our flags.” Then quieter. “Look… I’m sorry.”

Bash just stared at the sea, voice low and scraped. “Why? It’s true.”

Boomer shook his head. “Not exactly.” He took a long breath, scanning the wreckage.

“Your ancestors were one of the most powerful empires on the planet. Mine conquered a new world…hell…ya’ll conquered the world.

You built it with the basics. Ships. Grit.

Courage. When the Nazis came to power, you and France held the line.

” He looked at Bash, and damn if it wasn’t hard not to like the guy.

“You held hard while they bombed the shit out of you.”

Bash gave a short laugh, but it came out broken. “Ha. My family got rich rebuilding England.”

Boomer shook his head. “Truth be told, we were itching for a reason to join that war. Waiting for it. When we did, we stood side by side, and we ended it.”

Bash didn’t answer right away. Just nodded. Slow. Like something old and heavy was finally settling in his chest.

“Fucking yanks,” he said at last. No venom in it. “We were praying for you to come in. Our backs were against the wall. What was your worst bloody day became our best bloody day.”

Bash thought of the graves. The silence after a breach. The cost no one could repay. Boomer’s gaze was solemn, and even though that war was in the distant past, what it stood for rang down through the years into each one of them.

“I expected my guys to come for me. But not you. I didn’t expect you to come for me. Not after all the crap I’ve slung your way.” His voice dropped. He shifted because there was a hollowness inside him that even his team couldn’t fill. He loved the guys, but…

Boomer didn’t move. “We don’t discriminate between our brothers.

Special forces. Allies. Military complements.

It’s all part and parcel of the bigger picture.

” His jaw clenched. “You guys helped us in Afghanistan. Saved our asses more than once.” He kicked at a dented steel sheet, dislodging a charred binder wedged beneath it.

“Coming for you wasn’t just duty.” Boomer crouched to retrieve the half-burned object, flipping it open with practiced care.

“It was brotherhood.” He looked up, green eyes unwavering, and chuckled. “I get to bust your chops about it.”

Goddamn this guy.

Bash looked away, but there was no edge to it now. Just something aching in his chest. Maybe, fucking maybe, this was the right man for Taylor.

He exhaled hard. “I-um…come from wealth, but you probably already guessed that.”

Boomer grunted. “Not a stretch.”

“What you probably don’t know is that getting left behind…” Bash’s mouth twisted. “Not something I’m a stranger to. Boarding schools. Parents who were too busy to deal with me or my sister, or brother. One’s a ghost. The other’s a carbon copy of my father.”

“You didn’t want to enjoy that money?”

“How? It wasn’t mine. I didn’t earn it.” He glanced down at his hands. “Sitting behind a desk? Fuck no. Shoot me now.”

Boomer said nothing for a moment. Just stared at the half-melted edge of the binder. Then, voice low, he said, “I get needing a challenge. Small-town, family business like yours. Being a mechanic was in my blood. But fixing cars?” He gave a humorless smile. “Not so much. I found what suits me.”

Bash felt the words thrum low in his chest. He couldn’t say what he felt. Didn’t trust himself to try. He just nodded.

Boomer rose, then tapped the edge of the binder with his knuckle. “This look familiar to you?”

Bash leaned in. Ash flaked as he lifted the cover, revealing laminated sheets still intact beneath the fire damage. He flipped one, squinted.

“Shipping manifests,” he said slowly. “Not domestic. Looks like port codes. This one’s…Lisbon. That’s Porto de Aveiro there. This one’s in Marseille. Some of these are in code.”

Boomer’s jaw tightened. “One of those ships was already reported derelict.”

Bash narrowed his eyes. “You think these are tied to the ghost ships?”

Boomer’s voice was quiet. Lethal. “I think someone just gave us their playbook.”

The wind shifted behind them, carrying salt and smoke and the dying hum of generators. Boomer stood. “They fucked us up, and we’re going for them hard.”

“Roger that,” Bash said with a nod, sifting through more of the debris.

Boomer joined him, tucking the notebook into one of their SSE containers. They bagged everything that looked useful.

Ice’s voice came through the comm. “You two about done?” Boomer responded that they were on their way out. “Debrief in an hour.”

He and Boomer headed for the van that would take them back to the compound. He said, his voice a little rough. “If you ask me?” Bash lifted a brow. “You’re still one of the strongest fucking countries holding the line.” He let it hang there. Then, quiet. Meant for no one else. “Allies,” Bash said.

Boomer looked at him. Smirked. “In theory, Your Majesty .”

“Get out of here, Southern fried.”

Boomer was in the cages, moving automatically, rifle cleared, safety checked, hands going through the rituals his body knew better than sleep.

The vest felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

He shifted to unbuckle it, muscles stiff from adrenaline and grief and the backwash of what could’ve gone wrong.

His hands went to the clips at his shoulders. Her palms covered the backs of his hands. Her presence hit him like pressure at altitude, silent, crushing, inescapable. He froze.

When he let his arms drop, need lit him up, her fingers warm and sure as they unfastened the vest with careful precision.

She slipped it off like she’d done it a thousand times, and he didn’t move.

Couldn’t. The metal buckles clicked softly as she eased it to the bench.

She was so close, and he looked down at her, eyes dragging over the curve of her cheek, the slope of her neck, the loose strand of hair that had come free from her braid. His whole body was in turmoil.

She looked up at him with a spark that undid him.

“ Mein Hübscher Sprengmeister? ” he asked.

Her brow arched with quiet provocation. “Your team isn’t the only one who gets to tease you. Besides, you made me soar off the broom.”

He blinked. “What the hell…oh. You mean ‘fly off the handle’?”