SEAL for Her Protection (SEALs of Coronado Book 1) (17 page)

“I saw what you did on this couch with him and it sickened me,” he said coldly, then his tone softened. “But that can all be in the past if you tell me you love me.”

Hayley couldn’t stop the fury rising up in her. Yanking her hands out of Brad’s grasp, she jumped to her feet and marched across the room to dig through the crap in her entertainment center, trying to find the camera she knew was there.

Brad grabbed her arm, but she shook him off.

“Don’t touch me!”

She barely knew what half of the stuff on the shelves was, but then she spotted a small rectangular box not much bigger than a pack of gum. That had to be it. Of course, if she’d noticed it before, she would have thought it was something to do with her TV or cable box or streaming video service or wireless router. She didn’t know anything about this crap.

But Brad knew that about her and had used that piece of information to spy on her.

“Is this it?” she asked, yanking the thing out from between the electronics and shoving it in his face. “Is this the camera you used to spy on me?”

The thought her best friend would do something like that made her want to throw up. Worse, he’d known how bad it had been since coming back from Africa. He’d know she’d felt like she was being watched. And he’d done this to her anyway.

When he didn’t say anything, she threw the camera on the floor, stomping on it with her bare feet until it broke into smithereens.

“Get out!” she shouted. “Get the hell out of here and never let me see your face again!”

He held out his hands beseechingly. “Hayley, please…”

Hayley was so damn furious, she didn’t hear the rest. The fact he was trying to convince her that somehow this was all justified, that he was the injured party here made her more angry.

She put her hands on his chest, shoving him backward toward the door. She’d gotten him halfway there when she smelled the most godawful stench. That’s when she looked down and found him holding a handkerchief and a small brown bottle.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Then he lunged at her.

Panic shot through Hayley. She struggled against him, refusing to be captured again by anybody. But Brad was bigger than she was and while she got in a few shots, she couldn’t keep him from getting the smelly rag over her face. The sweet, antiseptic odor was cloying and made her feel lightheaded.

She tried to hold her breath as she kept fighting, but Brad spun her around and pinned her to the door with his forearm, shoving against her chest until she didn’t have any air left.

Hayley slid down the door even as she heard Brad telling her over and over he was sorry.

Chapter Twelve

A
S USUAL, EVERYTHING the Navy touched took ten times longer than it should. By the time Chasen got back to San Diego, the sun was already going down.

He stopped by his apartment only long enough to yank off his dirty uniform and dump it on the floor then changed into jeans and a T-shirt. He could have used a shower, but didn’t want to waste the time. He’d do it over at Hayley’s place. After hearing about what happened last night, he needed to see her and make sure for himself she really was okay.

Traffic was a bitch, but he still made it to her place in record time. Too impatient to wait for the elevator, he took the stairs up to the fifth floor and practically ran down the hallway to her apartment. But when he knocked on the door, it swung open on its own.

He tensed, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

“Hayley, you here?” he called.

No answer.

Chasen walked in and looked around, taking in the empty kitchen and adjoining living room. His gaze locked on the pile of broken plastic on the carpet in front of the entertainment center. While he was curious, he ignored it for the moment to search the rest of her apartment. Hayley wasn’t there, but her purse, car keys, and cell phone were.

Something definitely wasn’t right.

Going into the living room, he crouched down to check out the pieces of plastic on the floor. It didn’t take him long to figure out what it was. The small glass lens like the kind in a cell phone was a dead giveaway. He frowned at the electronics attached to the back of the lens, then looked at the entertainment center where the cable box and DVR had been hastily shoved aside. That had to be where the camera had been. Which meant whoever had put it there had gotten a good view of the couch.

Shit
.

Chasen was up in a flash and running for the bedroom. A quick look around confirmed his worse fears. There was another camera hidden in an air conditioning vent overlooking the bed. A few minutes later, he found another one in the kitchen, hidden in the fake plants Hayley had on display along the upper cabinets.

Whoever had planted the cameras would have been able to see into every room except the bathroom. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was Nesbitt. The councilman must have placed the cameras in Hayley’s apartment to find out how much she knew. No doubt he’d sent Stavros to shut her up.

The thought of what they might be doing to her even now made Chasen feel so lightheaded he almost dropped to his knees. He gripped the edge of the counter to steady himself. He had to keep it together. Hayley needed him.

He was out the door and halfway to his truck before he remembered he didn’t even know where the hell that asshole Nesbitt lived.

Pulling out his phone, he called Brad, hoping Hayley’s photographer would have the information, but it went straight to voicemail. Had Nesbitt told Stavros to grab Brad, too? It made sense since Brad knew as much about Nesbitt as Hayley did.

Scrolling through his list of contacts, he called the number the hacktivists had given to them the other day.

Kyla answered on the third ring.

“You said to call if I needed your help hacking into something,” Chasen said after he identified himself. “Well, I need your help.”

Chasen quickly told Kyla about the cameras. “Hayley’s missing and I’m pretty sure Nesbitt is the one who grabbed her. Can you get his address?”

“Oh God. Yeah. Do you want us to figure out where the video feeds were being sent first? To make sure he was the one kidnapped her,” Kyla said.

“Who else would it be? She was investigating the asshole,” Chasen said. “I need Nesbitt’s address. Now.”

Kyla hesitated. “What are you going to do?”

“Whatever I have to,” Chasen said.

Forty-five minutes later, he, Logan, Dalton, and Nash stood hidden in the tree line outside Nesbitt’s ego-inflated McMansion in La Jolla.

“So how are we going to handle this?” Logan asked.

Chasen looked over to see his teammates checking the clips on the 9mm semi-automatic weapons Chief Travers had scrounged up. Chasen had no idea where the guns had come from but he hoped they weren’t easily traceable.

He hated getting his teammates involved in this, especially since their careers would be over if they got caught. People were likely to take a dim view of Navy SEALs running an operation on American soil, regardless of the reason. Although getting kicked out of the Navy might be the least of their worries. Going to prison or getting shot were real possibilities, too. But without any intel he had no way of knowing if Nesbitt had security guards around. Chasen wasn’t going to risk Hayley’s life by storming in there without at least some kind of plan—and backup.

“Nothing complicated,” he said in answer to Logan’s question. “We ghost in and avoid contact if at all possible. Our primary goal is to find Hayley and her photographer Brad if he’s here. If we can’t find her, we go for Nesbitt. Then I start breaking fingers until he tells me where Hayley is.”

Avoiding the security cameras was a piece of cake, which made getting onto Nesbitt’s property almost too easy. The fact there weren’t any guards around worried Chasen, though. Did that mean they were all positioned around the room where Hayley was being held?

Once inside the house, they split up into pairs so they could search faster. He and Dalton had just made it to the immense kitchen when he heard shooting coming from the other side of the estate.

“Shit! Logan and Nash were made,” Dalton whispered.

Chasen cursed. “Status?” he said softly into the mic attached to his headset.

“We’re good,” Logan said. “Nash is about to kill the lights.”

As if on cue, the whole house went dark as the small explosive charge Nash had placed on the main circuit breaker blew.

Chasen dropped his NVGs into place as pounding feet headed their way. A moment later, four men came toward him and Dalton. Chasen put the first guy into the kitchen down by hand, making the others immediately pull back behind the partition wall leading into the living room. A moment later, they opened fire on him and Nash.

Cursing, Chasen dived for cover behind the kitchen counter. He hadn’t wanted to get into a gunfight with Nesbitt and his goons. Not only would it bring the cops down on them, but it might also prompt whoever was guarding Hayley into doing something rash. There was nothing to be done about it now except end this ASAP.

“Who the hell are you and what the fuck do you want?” Nesbitt yelled from his position behind the wall.

“You know what the hell we want!” Chasen shouted back. “Where’s Hayley Garner? I know you grabbed her.”

Nesbitt was silent for so long Chasen was afraid the bastard had taken off without him hearing, but then the man answered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen Hayley Garner in two days.”

“That’s bullshit,” Chasen replied.

Catching Dalton’s eye, Chasen gave him a nod. Dalton quickly moved forward to get into position to lay down cover fire that’d keep the bad guys occupied so Chasen could charge while they were busy ducking. Whatever happened, he needed to take Nesbitt alive. If Hayley wasn’t being held in the house, the councilman was the only one who could lead them to her.

Chasen was about to give Dalton the signal when his cell phone vibrated.
Oh hell.
Now really wasn’t the best time to be taking a call. Then again, it could be Kyla. She might know exactly where Nesbitt was holding Hayley.

Digging the phone out of his pocket, he thumbed the button without looking at the call screen and held it to his ear. “What?”

“Oh God! Is that shooting I hear in the background?” Kyla asked.

“Yeah, so I’m kind of busy. Did you call for a reason?”

“Um…yeah,” she said. “Nesbitt didn’t kidnap Hayley—Brad did.”

Chasen frowned. “What? That can’t be right.”

Kyla quickly explained they’d found traffic cam footage of Brad going to Hayley’s apartment then footage of him leaving a little while later with a blanket covering something—or
someone
—in the backseat that wasn’t there on the way in.

“Plus, we traced the IP address on those wireless cameras back to the computer at Brad’s apartment,” Kyla added. “He was the one who kidnapped her, I’m sure of it.”

Chasen cut loose with a string of profanities, making Dalton turn and look at him. Chasen jabbed a finger in Nesbitt’s direction, reminding his teammate there were guys with guns right around the frigging corner.

“Does Brad have her at his place now?” he asked Kyla.

“I don’t think so. We tracked the GPS on his cell phone to a house on Wilkerson Drive in La Jolla. It’s a few miles from where you are now. I’ll text you the address.”

“I owe you one.” Hanging up, Chasen spoke into his mic. “Guys, we’re pulling back. Hayley is at another location. This is the wrong place.”

“Roger that,” Nash said.

Seconds later, Chasen and his teammates were falling back toward the exits, using the same techniques they’d used in combat countless times. Nesbitt must have thought they were turning tail and running because he charged down the hallway after him and Dalton.

Chasen caught Nesbitt under the arm and flipped the man over his pricey granite kitchen counter then he and Dalton hauled ass for the edge of the property, Nesbitt and two of his goons on their butt. They met up with Logan and Nash on the way. Chasen would have loved to shoot Nesbitt for sending Stavros to threaten Hayley, but luckily for the councilman, he didn’t have time right now. He needed to find Hayley before it was too late. If something happened to her…

His heart seized in his chest, making it hard to get air into his lungs, and he almost stumbled.

Fuck
. He had to stop thinking like that.

He was going to save her in time, just like he had in Africa. He was a SEAL. Rescuing people was what he did for a living. And he was damn sure going to rescue the woman he loved.

If he’d had time, he probably would have thought about what that realization meant, but he was too busy diving over the wall surrounding Nesbitt’s place as a shitload of cop cars came speeding into view, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Chasen hesitated long enough to see the cops surround Nesbitt and his men with guns drawn before he followed Logan, Dalton, and Nash, disappearing into the trees and heading for the address Kyla had texted him.

Chapter Thirteen

H
AYLEY HAD NO idea how long she’d been out and when she finally came to, it took her a minute to figure out where she was. The first thing she noticed was her wrists were secured to a fancy armchair with duct tape. The second was she had a cloth gag in her mouth. She lifted her head and was stunned to see it was dark outside the pair of French doors on the other side of the room. She looked around, trying to remember where she’d seen the classic French provincial furniture before. Then it hit her. She’d recognized it from the Internet videos
The People
had taken of Alan Peat accepting bribes in his La Jolla home.

Pulse racing, she wiggled her wrists, straining to tear the duct tape holding her down. It wasn’t necessarily tight, but it stuck to her skin and hurt when she moved.
Oh God.
No one knew where she was, not even Chasen. He might have been able to save her in Africa, but there was no way he’d find her here. He might not even realize she was missing yet.