Page 26 of Stealthy Seduction (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #5)

It contained a video file. No text, just an attachment with a timestamp from earlier that morning.

She clicked play and watched grainy drone footage of a helicopter landing.

Military personnel disembarked with practiced efficiency, their faces too distant to make out clearly.

It could have been old footage—after all, Steele’s team had flown countless missions, and helicopters were standard transport.

But then the camera zoomed in, focusing on one particular figure, and Izzy’s world tilted off its axis. An ice-cold geyser of terror made her stomach plummet and her mind whirl.

A flash of light caught the morning sun—and something reflective around the man’s neck, glinting against his tactical gear. The image was brief, lasting only a second, but it was enough.

The crystal. Her crystal, hanging from its leather cord around Hudson’s neck.

Oh god.

Through her fogged vision, she scanned the timestamp on the video. The footage was from today. This morning. Which meant…

Another email notification popped up, and she opened it with trembling fingers.

A life for all of theirs. You have thirty minutes to decide. - C

The C stood for Cipher.

Her lungs threatened to explode in short, panicked, barely-controlled gasps as the implications crashed over her. He had eyes on their helicopter, knew about the mission, about Hudson, about all of them.

And he was offering her a choice—her life for theirs.

She replied quickly. What do you want?

The response came almost instantly. You. Alone. Pier 47, thirty minutes. Come alone or watch them all die.

Thirty minutes. She looked at the clock on her laptop screen—7:05 a.m. Dawn was breaking outside the windows, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink.

Beautiful and terrible.

Like the last sunrise she might ever see.

The women were still talking about anything to take their minds off the men they loved being away from them.

They didn’t know. Hudson didn’t know. The team was out there, exposed, thinking they were hunting Cipher when he was actually hunting them.

She had to act fast.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she opened a new document and began typing:

If you’re reading this, I’ve gone to meet Cipher.

He has surveillance on the team’s current location and threatened to kill all of them unless I come alone.

I couldn’t risk their lives. Hudson, I love you more than I thought possible.

Please don’t blame yourself for this. Take care of each other. One life for all of theirs. - Izzy

She saved it on the desktop where it would be visible to anyone who opened the laptop, then closed the computer and stood on unsteady legs.

“I need some air,” she said to the room in general. “I’m going outside for a little bit.”

The words sounded normal enough, but Kennedy looked up abruptly. “You okay? You look pale.”

“Just need to wake up a little. The fresh air will do me some good. I won’t be long.”

She made it to the doorway before Alyssa called out, “Don’t forget to grab a coat, Izzy.”

She gave her friend a nod and slipped out on a mission of her own.

The mansion’s corridors felt like a maze as she made her way toward the rear exit. Her plan was simple—jog to the nearby fast-food restaurant where she could call an Uber to take her to the pier. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all she had.

Dawn was breaking properly now, the sky filled with gold and coral light that should have been beautiful. Instead, it felt like a countdown timer, each new ray that streaked the sky bringing her closer to whatever fate waited at Pier 47.

She found her wool coat in a closet and paused at the back door, her fingers on the handle, trying to gather courage she wasn’t sure she possessed.

Three years of therapy. Of rebuilding herself after Syria. Of learning to trust her instincts and find strength in survival—it all came down to this moment.

She was going to be brave. She was going to save the people she loved, even if it cost her everything.

The security camera mounted above the door tracked her movement as she stepped outside. She looked directly into its lens, knowing that this moment would be recorded.

“Hudson,” she said quietly, her voice steady despite the fear coursing through her veins. “I’m sorry. I love you.”

Then she turned and ran into the golden morning light, leaving behind the only safety she’d known since Syria, racing toward an uncertain fate with the desperate hope that her sacrifice might be enough to keep the people she cared about alive.

Behind her, the mansion grew smaller with each step, but the weight of what she was about to do pressed down on her shoulders like lead. Thirty minutes to reach the pier. Thirty minutes to say goodbye to the life she’d been building with Hudson.

Thirty minutes to be brave enough to face whatever Cipher—Daniel Sheen, she would use his name, dammit—had planned for her.

The morning air burned her lungs as she ran, but she didn’t slow down. Couldn’t slow down. Time was running out, and somewhere out there, the man she loved was walking into a trap only she could save him from.

Even though it meant walking into one herself.