Page 1 of Covert Temptation (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #4)

D ante King adjusted his tie with a flick of his wrist, struggling with the discomfort of wearing a suit.

Normally, he was only seen in combat fatigues. But today, he looked like any government agent planted in the courtroom.

Bland.

Forgettable.

Except for the body armor he wore beneath his tailored dress shirt. And his Glock secured at his side.

Weapons were only permitted inside a courtroom with special clearance from the judge, and with a little pressure from the Department of Defense and some United Nations officials, the judge here signed off on the safety precaution.

Technically, Dante was present as security detail, acting as one of several guards protecting an expert witness in a high-stakes case.

If Dante was honest, it was nice to be in the field, away from the screens and servers that usually tied him to base. SEAL Team Blackout Charlie counted on him for intel, but today, he wasn’t just the guy behind the data.

His gaze drifted toward the grand windows filtering in a pale wash of sunlight. Ornate molding trimmed the ceiling, and carved columns stood like sentinels. The courtroom had been built to intimidate, and the silence inside the four walls held weight.

It draped over the room like a heavy woolen blanket, stifling everyone seated on the polished wood benches. Every cough was muffled. Every squeak of a shoe brought on a wince from the person wearing it.

To Dante, the quiet had deeper undertones. He felt the threat throbbing beneath the surface. The foreign national on trial hadn’t arrived yet—he got hung up in security—but his high-powered attorneys looked like wolves in their expensive suits.

In his ear, Dante’s comms device emitted a soft click, prefacing the voice he expected to hear.

“Focus, Mainframe.” His leader, Constantine’s, voice was as sharp and clipped as it always was. “You seem a little too happy to be there.”

“Mainframe” was the nickname given to him the very first time the team leaned hard on his knowledge. They claimed having him on the team was like having their very own mainframe computer. They didn’t use it often, but he knew it was a gentle reminder of his purpose here.

Dante smirked. He’d forgotten another of his teammates was also planted in the courtroom today, watching his six as much as the proceedings.

Dante shifted his focus to the defense table and touched a fingertip to the stem of the glasses he wore.

He had the perfect 20/20 vision of a SEAL, but the accessory came in handy in times like these.

The brush of his fingertip transmitted footage recorded by the microscopic camera, and all data would be uploaded to servers, to be analyzed later—probably by him.

“What?” he murmured under his breath to his commanding officer. “Can’t I be happy to be out of the cave?”

“I wouldn’t call our base a cave,” Con responded.

“We need to have the wi-fi fixed. There’s interference every time someone microwaves a burrito,” he murmured in response.

“Yeah, I’ll get someone on that. My to-do list is piling up since we’re a man down. Denver’s leaving shook everything up.”

Dante’s smirk faded, but he masked any other reaction to the sensitive topic. Denver Malone was one of his closest friends on Charlie team. Denver had taught him everything he knew about being an intel specialist.

Recently, Denver had been discharged for medical reasons, leaving an immense hole in the brotherhood, one that wouldn’t be easily filled.

With Denver gone, and Chase tied up protecting Ambassador Alyssa Vargas—who was still very much a target—Dante felt the absence of his closest friends. Blackout Charlie was running thin, and the weight of it pressed harder every day.

He swept the room with slow purpose, noting faces and postures. The way the defense kept checking their watches. The bailiff near the door was blinking too slowly, as if he might fall asleep.

The system uploaded everything Dante looked at, meaning that lingering too long on something—a person's expression, a hand gesture—flagged it for deeper scrutiny.

Every single shift of expression was data, a lead…or a distraction from what was about to go down.

The defendant finally arrived, sending a ripple through the crowd. Then a heavy wooden door opened with a jarring noise, and the jury entered.

“All rise.”

The judge entered in a whisper of robes, and the heavy doors shut with a thud Dante felt in his chest. He didn’t do fear, but the sound filled him with tension as he picked up on a throb of danger in the room full of people who thought they were safe before the criminal entered.

This wasn’t just a trial. It was a powder keg.

Court was now in session.

Dante sat straighter, his body armor shifting beneath his charcoal gray suit jacket, his weapon solid against his spine. He turned his attention to the courtroom, transmitting real-time data through his glasses and comms.

The proceedings started out dry as hell with procedural motions and a recap of charges. When the prosecutor began to outline the witness list, Dante’s attention sharpened like a honed blade.

They listed Dr. Alan Shaw, linguist, cultural intelligence expert, Secretary-General of the UN…and the man Dante was here to keep alive.

The minute Shaw stepped into that box on the witness stand, he’d have a target on his back.

In a nonchalant move, Dante swept his gaze across the room, transmitting all the visuals. This wasn’t the usual mission. No breaching of doors or storming compounds. But it was still a battlefield.

If the crime syndicate retaliated, he and the rest of Shaw’s security would be the only wall between Shaw and an assassination.

The hours dragged on. Arguments were presented. Evidence revealed. Witnesses called to the stand.

When court wrapped up for day one, Dante pushed to his feet and glanced at the other guards to see them sweeping the area for dangers just the same as him.

“The media’s crawling all around the front of the building,” came Con’s voice in his ear.

Dante bit off a groan. Damn. Just what they didn’t need.

“Copy that,” he said under his breath. He hung back, letting the courtroom nearly empty before he collected Shaw and led him out the door. The two other guards on the security detail, placed there by Homeland Security, traded looks with Dante. He gave them a small nod, and they took the lead.

Their plan to exit with Shaw through the rear of the building was a good one, especially now that the press had showed up.

As Dante cleared the courtroom doors, he sensed his fellow SEAL, Hudson Steele, standing just on the edge of the crowd, planted there in plain clothes.

He didn’t turn to look at him, just continued through the labyrinth of corridors that would eventually lead to the street.

Then it would be three steps to the armored vehicle waiting to whisk Shaw to safety.

Dante fixed his gaze on the back of the guard at the front, trying to ignore the irritation scraping through him. As usual, he wasn’t in the lead. He didn’t take point on this op—or any other op.

He was a team player, the guy who had everybody’s six, and he kept reminding himself that was just as important, even if it annoyed him.

They reached a heavy metal door with a security glass panel. As soon as the car came into sight, the guard in front pushed the door open.

Sandwiched between his bodyguards, Shaw took one step over the threshold.

Dante shifted his hand toward his weapon.

Then Shaw took a second step into the open air.

A cool breeze wafted exhaust fumes into their faces as they left the safety of the building. Shaw lengthened his stride to reach the open back door of the car.

Suddenly, a loud crack echoed off the New York City skyscrapers.

The soft thwap of the bullet as it struck human flesh.

The shot was just delayed enough to indicate that it came from long range.

Dante didn’t have time to move, let alone throw himself in front of Shaw. The bullet hit before the sound ever reached them.

But Dante saw which direction the bullet had come from.

A frenzy of shouts came from the other two guards as Shaw dropped. Bodies dove for cover. Screams erupted.

Shaw was dead before he hit the ground. One shot right between the eyes.

The sniper was a pro.

Dante looked around, glasses recording everything, but it was too late to save Shaw. He shoved a marshal toward cover, even though he didn’t expect more shots to come.

He touched his ear, opening the link between him and his commanding officer. “Shaw is down!”

“Fuck! How?”

“Headshot. A sniper.”

“ Dammit. We expected street-level muscle, not a sniper.”

Anger rushed up from the pit of Dante’s stomach. “If I was lead on this op, I would have put more security in place. I could have stopped it!” Dante still crouched low, out of range, scanning every rooftop and window so the glasses could pick up what they’d missed.

The other guards were hovering over Shaw, but they knew there was no hope for the man. They’d failed.

They’d all failed.

“I’m fucking tired of being in the background.” Dante’s words were clipped. “There was a leak. Someone knew every move we were going to make.”

A beat of silence followed his statement. Then Con’s tone came out sharp, edged with purpose. “And you’re just the guy to find out who.”

Dante’s pulse kicked like a high-powered rifle. He might hate being stuck in the shadows, but he did enjoy a good hunt.

Game on.

* * * * *

Safe.

The word echoed inside Kennedy’s head like a cruel joke. This place—the bare-bones apartment the special ops team had stashed her in—might technically qualify as safe but there was nothing that held up the “house” part with any meaning.

Sure, no one knew she was here. The reinforced steel door couldn’t be breached. The buzzer outside was unmarked, and the blinds were always drawn. But she had nothing but shadows and concrete walls for neighbors.

Safety had never felt so much like a prison.