Page 27 of Stealthy Seduction (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #5)

T he convention center stretched before them like a concrete monument, the glass facade reflecting thirty or so rescue units that had rushed in at Charlie’s call.

Steele stood at parade rest between Dante and Mason, watching the NYC bomb unit clear the last of their equipment from the scene.

The device that Charlie team discovered in a centralized area that would have brought the entire urban structure down, and wiped out the rest of the block with it, had been neutralized about forty minutes ago.

But it had taken the squad three hours to defuse one of the most sophisticated explosives they’d ever seen.

“This is Charlie One. Explosive disposal is complete.” Con’s voice filtered into their comms devices.

“Copy that. Initiating secondary sweep.” Steele waved a hand at the K9 unit, and the handlers and their eager dogs entered the evacuated convention center.

He shifted, the familiar weight of his gear a comfort, a reminder that he’d lived through another mission. These were moments he always catalogued as victories—another successful op completed, another threat eliminated, his brothers all still standing.

Con’s second order came through, and three of his teammates moved to do another sweep of the perimeter.

Cipher was too smart to rely on just one bomb, which meant they were all waiting for the other combat boot to drop.

Within ten minutes, the team reported back that the perimeter was secure. Every inch of the building and surrounding grounds had been checked out.

It was a textbook execution. But the whole scenario felt wrong to Steele. Maybe he was just being paranoid. While he was anxious as hell to return to base, and to Izzy, he didn’t have an easy feeling about this.

He reached up and touched the tip of the crystal dangling on the leather cord around his neck. As soon as the chopper landed, he’d tucked it inside his vest for safekeeping. He didn’t want to lose Izzy’s method of comfort, after all.

Strangely, the small lumpy stone gave him a measure of peace too—that he’d return to her very soon. That together, they were stronger.

Con broke away from the huddle of government agencies on the scene. As he neared Steele and the others standing around waiting for orders, his phone started buzzing.

The sound rarely signaled good news, especially during times like this. But this noise cut through the calm like a buzzsaw because it was Con’s civilian ringtone, so out of place among tactical radio chatter and barked commands.

Who the hell would be calling during an active operation? Steele’s sixth sense was already prickling.

Con stopped feet away from Steele and pulled out the device. His expression shifting from annoyed to concerned as he read the display. “Fuck. The call’s coming from base.”

His stomach dropped. “The only people there are the girls.” His lips felt wooden, barely allowing the words to pass through them.

Con answered on the third ring, putting it on speaker and stepping close to Steele to allow him to hear. “This is Con.”

Sophie’s voice came through in a rush, words tumbling over each other with barely controlled panic. “Ryan, thank god! I knew something was wrong. I told them it was too easy, the puzzle was too—”

“Sophie, slow down. What’s happening?”

There was a muffled sound, voices in the background, then Alyssa came on the line. Her negotiator’s training kept her voice steady despite the underlying tension.

“We can’t find Izzy anywhere,” she said without preamble.

Steele’s world dimmed to a pinprick of pain.

“She’s gone,” Alyssa continued, in a hurry now. “She left a note on her laptop.”

“What does it say?” Steele rasped.

She read it to them, ending in one line that made his blood chill.

One life for all of theirs.

The world seemed to tilt sideways. Steele felt his knees threaten to buckle as Alyssa’s words crashed over him like a tidal wave.

“Dante,” Con barked into his comm, “I need eyes on the base, now.”

“Copy that, accessing feeds… Fuck! Steele, this is for you.”

Steele snatched the phone out of Con’s hand to stare at what Dante sent.

Izzy’s beautiful face loomed on the screen. She stared directly at the camera when she gave the most haunting message he could ever hear.

“Hudson, I’m sorry. I love you.”

The words hit him like fists. The resignation echoing in Izzy’s voice made his chest constrict with something he’d only ever felt once before, in the middle of Times Square.

Panic.

“We’re shipping out,” Con announced to the team. “Pack it up, double-time.”

The ride back to the base passed in a blur of radio chatter. Steele sat rigid, all too aware of the amethyst nestled against his chest that couldn’t stop his mind from cycling through every worst-case scenario while his teammates coordinated the emergency response around him.

When they burst into the mansion, Dante wasted no time sprinting to the war room. By the time Steele entered mere seconds behind him, he was already hunched over Izzy’s laptop, his fingers flying across multiple keyboards as screens filled with data streams and surveillance footage.

“Found the email,” Dante announced without looking up. “Video attachment showing our helicopter insertion this morning. Timestamp indicates it was sent forty-three minutes after we deployed.”

“How did he get eyes on our insertion point?” Con demanded.

“It wasn’t drone surveillance—we had a pulse on everything in the area. I’m not sure how this was taken.”

They traded a look. New intelligence was never a good thing, not to a SEAL.

Steele moved to look over Dante’s shoulder, and what he saw made his blood freeze.

Grainy aerial footage of their team disembarking from the helicopter, but the camera zoomed in on one specific figure—him, with something glinting around his neck in the morning sunlight seconds before he tucked the item into his vest.

His hand moved instinctively to his throat, and he yanked the crystal pendant free, his fingers closing around the small amethyst hanging from its leather cord.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

Con’s voice was harsh when he saw. “I thought you knew better than to wear personal items during operations.”

He didn’t have any excuse to give…could only wonder what Izzy was going to do without her crystal.

Dante’s screens shifted, showing rideshare tracking data, street camera feeds, traffic monitoring systems. “Got her pickup location…and drop-off. Following her to the next vehicle now.”

More screens. More footage. A woman with chestnut hair climbing into a taxi, then another vehicle, each transition tracked through the city’s electronic eyes.

“Oh god,” Steele said, watching his worst nightmare play out in real time. “She’s trying to save us. One life for all of ours.”

“Cipher’s using her as bait,” Con said grimly. “He knows we’ll track her movements, knows we’ll want to mount a rescue operation.”

Slowly, Steele swung toward his commanding officer. “Why do you sound like you won’t do exactly that?”

Con silenced, his gaze fixed on the screen for so long that Steele’s blood ran cold.

“So we’re not rescuing her?” The words came out in a shout, carrying a note of incredulous rage. “What the fuck, Con? We can’t just leave her!”

“If we go after her, we’re putting the entire platoon and all the women at risk. It’s what he wants—”

Steele was already moving, his body responding to a primal need for action before his mind could catch up. He strode out of the war room, down the corridor, his boots echoing off the walls like gunshots.

The base’s shooting range in the basement was empty, the fluorescent lights humming overhead as he grabbed a Sig from the weapons locker and loaded a fresh magazine. The first shot punched through the center of the target downrange, followed immediately by fourteen more in rapid succession.

Each shot was precise, controlled.

Each shot was also completely inadequate for relieving the rage and terror coursing through his system.

He blew through one magazine and was loading a second when Dante appeared in the doorway.

“What do you need?” Steele barked at him.

“This isn’t you, man,” Dante said quietly. “Steele doesn’t go rogue. Steele follows orders, thinks about the team. Charlie counts on that to keep us all alive.”

“Could you walk away if it was Kennedy?” Steele asked without turning.

The silence stretched long enough that he finally looked over his shoulder. Dante’s expression was pained, conflicted.

His friend finally dropped his head. “ Fuck. No. But you can’t just charge in there and kill Cipher. He’s too smart for that, too prepared.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

Dante was quiet for a long moment, his analytical mind clearly working through possibilities. “You’ll need eyes and ears. Someone to coordinate intelligence, monitor communications, provide support.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“I’m saying that if you’re determined to disobey a direct order and risk your career, your life and potentially the safety of everyone on this base…you shouldn’t go in blind.”

Steele felt something ease in his chest—not relief, but the knowledge that he wouldn’t be entirely alone in this insane maneuver that might be the biggest mistake of his life.

“Dante. You said it—I need eyes. And you’re the best there is. Help me. Help me get her back.” His grating voice was edged in apprehension.

Several long seconds passed. Every moment that Dante remained silent carried Izzy farther away from him.

Suddenly, Dante moved to the weapons locker and began selecting equipment. “I’m risking my career for going against orders.”

“Then what are you doing with all that comms equipment?”

He didn’t look at Steele when he answered. “Kennedy’s upstairs right now, probably pacing and worried sick about what’s happening to her friend. And if I let you go out there alone…if we lose you both… I’ll have to explain to her why I didn’t do everything I could to help.”

For the first time since hearing Izzy’s recorded message, Steele allowed himself to hope.