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T he conference room went dead silent.

Not the kind of silence that came from training and discipline, but the kind that hung heavy and oppressive in the air. Like seconds before a storm broke wide open.

Julian Chase—aka Cobra—sat at the foot of the table facing the big screen on the wall. His elbows rested on the table and his boots were planted wide in a position to jump to action the minute his leader gave the order.

No one spoke or moved. The laughter between two of the men on the SEAL team silenced, and everyone else seemed to freeze in their seats. The shift in their energy was palpable.

Chase’s jaw was locked but he kept his expression neutral just like the rest of the men on the Blackout Charlie team. But anyone with half a brain could see none of them were grounded. They were all wired, seated on both sides of the long table in stiff poses, shoulders bunched, arms folded across their chests.

“I think we found our bomb.”

Con switched on the big screen. The hum of the projector filled the throbbing stillness.

Tension flickered under Chase’s skin like a live wire.

The screen lit up with an image. The footage was from a closed-circuit camera, grainy and grayscale. The schoolhouse in the desert—isolated, flat-roofed, surrounded by nothing.

Chase blinked at the screen. Then stared at the image of the schoolhouse like he could drill a hole into the brick walls.

“This was formerly listed as an abandoned school facility on the New Mexico border.” Con’s tone was clipped. “It was repurposed for ICE processing. The detainment center held up to fifty people at a time.”

Chase’s breath became shallower. Dear god. He knew that building.

Con continued. “As of twenty-four hours ago, it held twenty-seven immigrants from various countries, nine ICE officers and two civilians who were hired as custodial staff. And three guards from the local military police.”

Across the screen came a ripple, then the building exploded. No warning. Just fire and dust. The camera shook as the facility folded in on itself with a violent blast that distorted the image.

The guys around the table flinched. Hell, even SEALs weren’t immune to that kind of sudden violence.

Julian was already moving, on his feet, bolting out of the room.

“Cobra—” Con’s voice chased him, but he ignored his commanding officer.

Henner shoved his chair away from the table. “You okay, man?” he called out.

Chase never answered. He sprinted through the halls of the mansion that served as Charlie’s base. His boots hammered the floor, echoing off the high ceilings like a thud of danger. His chest was tight, a solid fist jammed into his lungs.

Above all, SEALs were trained to not act on their emotions. But this…

This was different.

It wasn’t just an old school in the middle of New Mexico.

It wasn’t just an ICE facility.

It was Echo’s former base.

He burst into his private quarters. Ripped open a drawer. Grabbed the photo at the back, behind old foreign coins he’d collected and that watch that hadn’t ticked since that op in Syria.

He located the photo that he’d never shown to another living soul.

The picture showed twelve of them, sun-drenched, shirts off. All smiles and middle fingers. A snapshot of youth and arrogance and a brotherhood forged in steel.

Almost all of them were dead.

All but him.

He raced back to the conference room and strode directly to the whiteboard on the wall next to the big screen. Markers scattered as he slapped the photo on the board with a magnet.

“This is Echo team.”

A pin could drop in that room. Nobody even breathed.

“That ICE facility…was our old base .”

He started drawing arrows, circles, adding names.

“Jesus Christ,” Con murmured from where he stood a few feet away.

Chase barely heard him as he scribbled more and more names in the white space over each man’s head on the photograph with arrows pointing to each smiling face.

“This is Logan Pierce. Jaxon Hale. Thomas Brooks.” He was almost frantic, the marker almost slipping out of his shaky fingers. “All dead in a chopper crash. Almost every man in my platoon died that day.”

He heard the crack in his voice—so did everyone else. But no one spoke. They didn’t do emotion and didn’t know how to handle it.

They might all think he was crazy. How many times had he stared at that photograph and asked himself if he was imagining something nefarious when it was just a simple accident?

Chase barreled on, drawing an arrow to his own smiling face. In the photo, he wore sunglasses, the mirrors reflecting the sun and what he remembered to be a perfect, cloudless sky.

Who knew that mere days later, he’d break a leg in a skirmish and be sidelined?

The only reason he was alive now.

A throat cleared behind him. “No one knew where Echo’s base was. Hell, most of command didn’t even know. It’s ghost protocol. Everything’s locked down tight,” Con grated out.

“So how the hell did Cypher find it and send the bomb there?” Dante King’s low voice added to the mix.

Chase didn’t stop. He drew a circle around another name. “This is Max Reece. He didn’t go down in the chopper crash that day—he was on leave. In Chicago. Doing a food tour. When our team went down, he was on hold while the commanders found him a new assignment. Then, before he could connect with the new team, he died in a car accident one month later to the day of that crash.”

He stopped, head bowed, breathing hard like he’d sprinted up Everest with a heavy pack and enough artillery to wipe out a small country.

He lifted his head and stared at the board until the names blurred and the arrows seemed to march across the white background.

And the ghosts of the men all rose up to haunt him again.

“There’s a handful of former members of Echo. Guys on medical release or just retired. Some moved from one team to another, like Apollo did when he moved to Alpha team.”

“You never talked about it, man.” Con’s gritty voice broke into his cloud of pain.

A beat passed.

He swung his attention to his leader. His new leader—the one who didn’t go down in that bird.

“You’re the last man standing.”

Julian slowly set the marker in the tray and turned to face the team. His new team, his new brothers. “I think he’s coming for me. Or worse, he’s coming for all of Charlie team because of me.”

Con rubbed his knuckles over his jaw. “We need to find out everything the Echo team was involved in. The ops you ran. Anything that would make Cypher target you.”

Cypher, the terrorist they’d been hunting for months, seemed like an even bigger danger now that they knew his target was Echo. Cypher was responsible for bombings, and he wanted them to find him. Through cryptograms and other measures of contact, he had led the Blackout team through several countries. The latest was following a bomb from Turkey to the United States. The terrorist had killed hundreds of people…including an entire ghost ops team.

“That info’s locked down,” Henner spoke up. “Top-level clearance.”

“We can request it. Go through the channels.” Con didn’t shift his gaze from Chase as he spoke. Their leader had the ability to assess every situation and see right through his men.

Something Chase didn’t need right now.

Dante sat back in his seat, biceps flexing as he folded his arms over his expansive chest. “Do we really need permission? I can get what we need. No lines. No waiting.”

Con grunted. “We know you’re a highly skilled hacker, but we need to attempt to go through the proper channels first.”

He shrugged. “Your call. But in fifteen minutes I can get what you need. When you’re ready to cut through the red tape, tell me.”

Con didn’t respond to that. His gaze shifted to the whiteboard and Chase’s wild diagram of the team he’d lost before returning to the big screen. “We suspect that bomb we were following to Fort Leonard Wood—then lost track of—is what was used in the bombing at the ICE facility.”

Henner leaned forward. “Bigger question is how did a bomb get in ? May and I saw the size of that crate. It’s not easily concealed. It’s gross negligence that a bomb could even make it inside the facility.”

May Lin, the explosives expert working with Charlie team—and Henner’s girlfriend—sat near the foot of the table. She stared at the image of the destroyed school building for a long beat. “We don’t know it’s the same bomb.”

Con said nothing as he turned back to the screen. He clicked a button on the remote to roll new video footage.

Chase’s gut clenched as he watched the events unfold on the news in real time. Live footage from Mexico. Political fury. Outrage from the citizens. Then the coverage switched back to the bomb site. The press swarmed the street and smoke still curled from the rubble.

“Mexico is furious that their citizens were involved in the attack. It’s a miracle we haven’t been pulled into a full-blown international incident yet. Which is why May and Henner will be going to the site to investigate the bombing.”

The pair nodded at the order.

“And we have a diplomat to protect.” Con pointed at the screen again, just as a woman stepped into view.

Sleek black hair. Dark sunglasses. She was surrounded by suits and security, then swept into a black car.

Chase squinted.

“Wait.”

Everyone silenced once again with unspoken questions and rising concern. Nobody even twitched an eye as they waited to hear what new chaos Chase would unleash on them.

The lump sitting in his throat felt jagged as he forced it down in a swallow.

“What is it, Cobra?” Con asked.

He didn’t swing his stare away from the woman on the screen. His words came out slow, measured with an ounce of uncertainty.

“I think I know her.”

* * * * *

Alyssa Vargas couldn’t breathe. Not because her blouse was too tight, though it was—and maybe the fabric wasn’t the best choice for the boiling day in Mexico City—but because this was turning into the kind of day that made even seasoned diplomats weep into their coffee.

It all started with the explosion had rocked the world before dawn. A former school converted into an ICE processing center…wiped out. Forty-one people—staff and immigrants—had been inside. Forty-one lives.

Forty-one reasons why Alyssa couldn’t afford to panic.

Now she was being flown to New York City to meet with the secretary-general of the United Nations in person. She was used to being in the thick of things, but this was big. As the liaison between two countries, the responsibility to smooth tempers rested on her shoulders.

Alyssa gripped her phone. It had been vibrating nonstop ever since she got the news of the attack. She’d already taken so many calls that all the names were a blur in her mind.

A new tsunami of text bubbles flooded in from her chief of staff. Then a flurry of messages hit from her contact at Homeland Security…

Oh god. Even her mother was texting. Why did it seem like her mother always had a finger on the pulse of world events before Alyssa did?

Worst of all, the press was completely blowing up her phone.

Somehow, word had already spread before Alyssa found time to brush her teeth.

She hurried into the hotel bathroom and rushed through her morning routine. When she walked out, she saw her assistant Kennedy had entered through the room through their adjoining door and stood at the side of the bed. Alyssa’s suitcase was open.

Kennedy looked up from folding clothes. “Your blazer’s hanging in the closet.” She pointed to the hanging bar and went back to packing Alyssa’s belongings.

If not for her assistant, her life would be even more in shambles. Kennedy went above and beyond the standard duties of taking messages and making appointments. She was so efficient that she practically ran Alyssa’s life, right down to the shoes she would be wearing when she briefed with the secretary-general later in New York.

Over a pair of flowy trousers and her silk blouse, she added the blazer to match. Then she hastily yanked her hair into a sleek ponytail and slipped on leather boots.

“Your secure line is being routed through the jet,” Kennedy informed her, folding the last garment into the suitcase and zipping it up. “You’ll be briefed by General Hemmings as soon as you’re wheels up.”

General Hemmings.

She took two steps to the bed and unzipped the suitcase her assistant just finished packing.

Kennedy’s eyes popped open wider as Alyssa rummaged through the neatly folded clothes. “What are you doing?”

“If I’m speaking to General Hemmings, I need something black. It covers stress sweat.”

Kennedy located her black suit, and Alyssa began to strip off the beige. When she looked at her boots, she arched a brow at her assistant who also enjoyed playing the role of stylist. “Do the boots still work?”

Kennedy dug in the front pocket of her luggage and withdrew low-heeled pumps. “Try these.”

“You’re always cool and calm. Are you ever going to tell me your secret?” Alyssa was already sweating just from changing suits, while Kennedy looked immaculate in a cream blouse, trousers of the same hue and high heels that screamed “expensive but practical.”

She yanked on her pants and fastened them. “This is a nightmare. I almost miss being a negotiator. Then I only had one problem to solve at a time. Now…it feels like fifty.” She shoved her arms into the sleeves of her jacket and then went for the change of footwear while her assistant stowed everything away, neat and tidy.

Alyssa ran her hands over her hair to smooth any flyaway strands—a few of them silver. “You know, I always admire your ability to look put together while I’m falling apart. Meanwhile, I look eighty. And are those new shoes?”

Kennedy extended one long leg to show off the gleaming leather heels. “Not new—just freshly polished. And you don’t look eighty, Alyssa. You look thirty. Though a hot and sweaty thirty.” She moved to the hotel room door and lifted the handle of her own suitcase.

“Good to hear, I think? When do you have time to shop?” She grabbed her own suitcase and looped the long strap of her laptop case over her shoulder.

She really couldn’t care less about shopping and clothes right now. She just needed a distraction from the monstrous weight on her shoulders.

That call with General Hemmings was going to be a doozy. The man was a hard-ass on a good day, let alone after a massive breach of national security.

Her stomach twisted with fresh nerves.

“What I wouldn’t give for a coffee and the only hurdle to be a language barrier. Now the whole world seems to be on fire.”

Kennedy threw her a sympathetic glance as they stepped into the elevator and rode down to the lobby. She didn’t smile, nor did she try to argue with Alyssa. The unspoken truth hung between them. This wasn’t simple. It wasn’t even manageable.

It was chaos on an international scale.

They exited the hotel and hurried to the black car waiting for them.

Damn. Outside was swarming with news reporters.

Cameras were shoved in her face. Questions were fired at her. She managed to keep her head down and stride to the door the driver opened for them. A guard pressed a comms device in his ear and said, “She’s en route” right before the door slammed.

As soon as Alyssa settled into the back seat and was concealed behind dark, tinted windows, Kennedy produced a travel mug out of thin air and held it out to her.

“I put an irresponsible number of espresso shots in this. Figured you’d need it.”

“Oh my god. You’re a gem. And I say that in a way that’s only mildly codependent.” Alyssa took the mug with a sigh of relief as the car, mobbed by reporters, pulled into morning traffic.

Her phone was still blowing up. She answered several messages, but what was there to say about the horrific tragedy? Lives were lost, and no one seemed to know why, let alone begin to understand it.

She had toured through many countries, seen the worst of humanity. Yet she didn’t live that on a daily basis. She had so much to be grateful for—like rich espresso and the ability to travel with good people, some who kept her safe and others who kept her sane.

The minute she got into the air, Kennedy handed over Alyssa’s phone with General Hemmings on the secured line.

Kennedy gave her an encouraging smile. “You got this. And hardly any silver hair!”

Alyssa swallowed a chuckle, then she steeled her back against the airplane seat and clasped the phone to her ear. “General Hemmings.”

The man’s hard-ass tone came through loud and clear. “You’re headed into one hell of a fallout zone, Ambassador Vargas. I hope you’re prepared.”

She twisted her head to look out the window at the miniature buildings on the ground below as they left Mexico City behind.

Then the general began briefing her on the details…and the storm swallowed her whole.