Page 58 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

He heard the neck break. So did Gretchen. Her gasp pulled his head around. She was kneeling on the rug, staring at him, frozen. Shocked. Blood down her face. Eyes wide.

He knew how he looked. Fierce. Savage. Deadly.

But she was alive.

Behind her, the merc leader stepped into the room, raising a pistol. Boomer didn’t hesitate. He squeezed the trigger twice, center mass. The man dropped where he stood.

Gretchen sucked in a breath. Then another, finally crumbling into sobbing tears.

Boomer rose and went to them, releasing Alaric and helping him to his feet. He immediately went to Gretchen and held her close.

Bash came down the hall and nodded, blood on his hands. “We’re clear,” he whispered, looking at Taylor’s parents with relief.

Boomer depressed his comm. “Ice, the Hoffmans are safe. Taylor?”

Iceman’s voice was tight and sharp. “They took her before we got here. She made sure everyone was in the safe room, wounded but no dead thanks to her.”

“Took her?” His heart hollowed out. “Where?”

“Anna’s picked up a lone GPS signal heading toward a wayward dock. We’re on our way to pick you up.”

Boomer looked at Bash. “I’ve got them, mate. You get her back.”

Darkness swam behind her eyes, hot and muffled like pressure under water.

Taylor blinked once. Then again. Her head throbbed in sync with the frantic rhythm of her heart. She was on her side. Hands bound behind her back. Zip ties. Tight.

The van jolted over a curb, and pain flared at the base of her skull. She bit down hard, staying silent. The floor was metal. Cold. Salt clung to the air. They were taking her out of Lisbon by sea. Of course they were. No cameras. No trace.

She sat up slowly, teeth gritted. Her body was bruised, neck sore, lips swollen, her vision swimming in and out of double vision, her head excruciating. She tasted blood. She eyed the doors, nothing but determination left in her, and planning to fight again with everything she had.

Outside, gulls cried in the distance. The vehicle rolled to a stop. Doors slammed. Nothing happened, so she wiggled her hands over her butt, lifted her arms, and brought her bound wrists hard against her knees. The plastic broke apart. She was free.

Her ears strained. A sharp hiss. Subtle. Like air compression. Suppressed shots?

Footsteps sounded outside. She braced herself. When the doors opened, she tackled the first silhouette, taking him to the ground, her fist cocked and ready to shatter a jaw.

“Whoa, wildcat,” the voice rasped, wrecked and ragged. “You gonna punch the guy who came to save you?”

She froze.

Boomer .

Soaked in sweat. Blood-smeared. Eyes dark and burning.

Her breath hitched. She didn’t speak.

She grabbed his vest with both hands and kissed the hell out of him, hard, fast, all relief and desperation. She kissed him like she needed him to feel what words couldn’t carry. Like if she didn’t, she might shatter into pieces.

Boomer didn’t flinch. He kissed her back like the world could wait.

Then the chuckles came.

She pulled back just enough to register the rest of the team all standing there.

Iceman smirked. “Hell of a greeting, Hoffman.”

She pushed off Boomer, wiped her mouth, and looked at Kodiak. “In my defense, I do have a concussion.”

Breakneck tilted his head, smirking. “Do we all get kisses too? Or is that just a Boomer special?”

Taylor groaned. Boomer just muttered, “You want a concussion, too?”

Less than six hours later, the approval to take down The Zverstvo Triad was greenlit by the Americans, the UK, and the eight participating countries. The CIA had the intel, and Boomer, Taylor, and the SBS were airborne.

Once they landed, they were met with NATO forces who joined Taylor, Boomer, and the SEAL/SBS team staging a multinational assault on the Montenegro compound itself.

Inserted under darkness by sea and air, they breached the perimeter of the villa with precision and firepower, engaging Triad guards in a brutal close-quarters fight.

Bash and Breakneck neutralized outer perimeter patrols; GQ and Hazard took the southern wing.

Taylor herself tracked Milena to the upper floor of the villa, where the two women faced off, Milena armed, cornered, and spiteful. Taylor made the shot.

Boomer cleared the last hall and engaged Luka Vukovi? hand to hand, steel vs. steel. Both men bled. Only one walked out. The fight was brutal, personal. Boomer's final move? Controlled. Lethal. Necessary.

Dra?a tried to escape by sea, a speedboat fueled and waiting. But Bones found him first, and Skull finished him off.

When it was over, the Adriatic was quiet again.

Three bodies. Three ghosts.

The Zverstvo Triad was no more.

Their fall ended the largest Balkan fentanyl route to ever reach Western Europe, and the blow sent shockwaves through the cartels operating in North Africa and southern Spain.

It was Hoffman’s operation, and as the week progressed, and the joint task force interdicted the last remaining ships with no backup and their support gone, it was just a matter of time.

They had operated out of the fortified villa on the Adriatic coast of Montenegro, with outposts across Durres, Thessaloniki, and Sarajevo, their influence stretching from ports to customs houses to corrupt officials at every checkpoint.

The whole thing came crashing down, each outpost flooded with DEA, CIA, and Europol.

Boomer found Taylor in the conference room, surrounded by men in tailored suits and measured voices. She was smiling. Polished. Confident.

He leaned against the doorframe and waited. When the meeting broke, the men nodded politely as they passed. Boomer nodded back, then stepped inside.

“Hey,” he said as he crossed to her.

She turned, smile softening. His smile. She came into his arms like she was part of him. “Hey yourself,” she murmured.

He held her, breathing her in, anchoring himself to the moment. He hadn’t seen her much, not since the Balkan op, not since they’d started hunting the last of the ghost ships.

“Who were those guys?”

She pulled back, exhaled, eyes flicking away.

“My second job offer.” His hands stilled on her arms. Waiting.

She met his eyes. Her voice was steady, but her throat moved with the effort.

“I can hardly believe it. They’re offering me Division Chief of Counter-Narcotics and Transnational Crime for Europol. At The Hague.”

He blinked. Just once. “What the actual fuck, sugar…that’s huge. That's a sky's-the-limit kind of career move.”

She nodded, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“No more combat. No field work. I’d never carry a sidearm again. I’d go from enforcer to administrator.”

“Yeah. But as chief at Europol, you’d run EU-wide ops. Inter-agency coordination. Diplomatic missions. That’s—” He didn’t finish. Couldn’t. “The second offer?”

“Deputy Director of MAOC,” she said quietly. “I’d leave my position with BKA. Stay in the fight, just…behind a desk. Strategy. Task forces like this one. Still powerful. Still vital. But political. Entangled.”

Boomer gave her a slow nod. “They both sound high-powered. Great steppingstones.”

There was anxiety in her eyes…hurt. “Is that all you have to say?”

Boomer hadn’t told her about Lila. About the wreckage of his marriage. About how he could do his job without hesitation, dodge bullets, breach under fire, run into battle, but couldn’t walk back into a shared kitchen without feeling like he was on foreign soil.

He hadn’t told her how Mike’s death had hollowed something in him, and how he’d let that grief destroy everything else. The parts that should have healed.

He hadn’t told her that when he was deployed, he could breathe. But when he came home? That’s when everything started to unravel.

Now she was being offered everything she’d earned. Everything she deserved. He was standing there like a goddamn ghost with his hands in his pockets and the Atlantic still clinging to his skin.

“Carter...” Taylor’s voice broke through the quiet. She clutched his sleeve. “I need to know what you think.” All her hopes and dreams were threaded through her voice, and the hope in them hit harder than a supersonic bullet.

He took a hard breath. Everything in him wanted to just say it. Choose me. Please.

“I think we have something here,” he said, voice thick. “Something real. But I belong to Uncle Sam and that puts me in Virginia Beach.”

She didn’t flinch. Of course she didn’t.

“At most, we could try a long-distance thing. But that’s not feasible.

Not for me. Not for you. Not with everything coming at us.

” The pain in her eyes hit him like a battering ram…

what was he doing? What were these stupid words coming out of his mouth?

This was the one defining moment in his life, and he was being an idiot.

Holding on to shit would come between them, and he refused to allow his past to dictate his future.

Not with this fucking amazing woman, not with him.

He’d allowed his guilt and shame to rule him, but in the face of losing Taylor?

It was incomprehensible that he would fold.

Hurting her was something he wasn’t going to do.