Wed to a SEAL (Hot SEALs) (Volume 8) (7 page)

“All right.” She glanced back at her car.

“Leave your car there for now. It’s legally parked and far enough from the house it won’t tip off anyone who’s looking for you.” Rick answered her unspoken question.

His reasoning made sense so she nodded. “Okay.”

“You ready to go? Got everything you need?” Rocky asked.

Her cell was in her pocket. Her bag could stay in the car. The keys were clutched in her hand. The apartment key was on the same key ring as the car key. She clicked to engage the automatic locks.

“Yes. I’m ready.” She only wished that statement were true.

Inside the cab of the truck, sandwiched between Rocky and Jon’s bulk, mixed feelings ricocheted through her. She gave Rocky her address and he took off in the direction of her apartment.

She was trapped, unable to get out either door past the men. But she was also sheltered. Protected by their bodies, not to mention their weapons, which they’d both checked the moment they’d gotten into the vehicle.

“Want to fill us in on what we’re walking into? Why your ex wants to kill you?” Jon asked in an even tone that belied the question.

The answer to that was no, she really didn’t want to tell them anything just as she didn’t want to face it herself, but she’d run out of options.

“I kind of left without saying goodbye.” Her elusive statement was met with silence. They were obviously waiting for her to elaborate. She drew in a deep breath and forged ahead. “I never told him I was pregnant. He knows nothing about Lola.”

“He’s the father?” Rocky asked.

“Yes, he’s the father.” It was a kneejerk reaction, her getting insulted by the question even though she probably had no right to be.

How could these men know she’d been a virgin when she’d met Tito? That he was still the one and only man she’d ever been intimate with.

“What’s this guy’s full name?” Jon asked.

“Tito Perez.”

“Why did you leave?” Rocky asked.

“And where did you leave from?” In the tag team questioning, it was Jon’s turn to have a go.

“Miami. I was in the final year of university there. I left because he . . .” She had to swallow and steady herself before continuing, “because he was not a very nice man.”

Out of her peripheral vision she saw Jon typing on his cell phone.

At the same time, Rocky asked, “Care to elaborate on that?”

She was feeling a bit ganged up on as they fired questions at her, but she supposed there were a lot of things they should know considering there was a very real chance they could come face to face with Tito at her apartment.
 

Like it or not, they were all in this together now.

She swallowed and steeled herself for the revelation. “He was involved in bad stuff with bad men. And he didn’t treat me right.”

When she’d tried to break up with him, he’d slapped her around so badly she’d had to go to the campus infirmary and pretend she’d fallen down the stairs.

“Why didn’t you just go to the police in Miami?”

“He would have hurt me—or worse.” She had no doubt in her mind about that. “I had to disappear. Leave the state before he figured out I was pregnant. And now I have to hide all evidence that Lola exists before he sees it and figures out she’s his.”

She had two lives to worry about now.

Rocky glanced in her direction. “The police can protect you.”
 

“You don’t know how powerful he is. He has connections.”

Jon shook his head. “Maybe he had connections in Miami. We’re in Virginia now. You’d be safe contacting the authorities here.”

She drew in a breath. This was the part where she really had to trust these men.

“There’s something else.” Both men turned to look at her. She swallowed and continued, “I’m Cuban and my student visa is no longer valid because I left school. If I’m not a full time student, I’m here illegally.”

Rocky pursed his lips and nodded. “Okay. We deal with one problem at a time. First, we clean out your apartment and figure out what to do about good old Tito.”

“And then?” she asked.

He shot her a glance. “What about the concept of dealing with one problem at a time didn’t you understand?”

She scowled. “Don’t try and tell me you guys don’t plan things out, down to the last detail. I don’t believe it.”

On the other side of her, Jon laughed. “She’s got you there. But as much as we do like to plan, we also know there are plenty of times the situation will go sideways. Then we ditch the plan and have to think on our feet.”

Her expression must have appeared less than confident after his revelation.

Rocky shot her a smile. “Don’t worry. We’re very good on our feet.”

As the heat of his thigh pressed against hers from the tight confines of the truck’s bench seat, she had to think he was probably good everywhere.

And that right there was proof she suffered from the damsel in distress syndrome. Wanting to be saved. Waiting for her knight in shining armor to ride in on a white charger—or pick-up truck as the case may be.

Her psych teacher would have had a field day analyzing that.

Maybe she was just noticing Rocky’s muscular thigh straining the denim of his jeans because she hadn’t had sex in a year. Even though Tito had been her first—and that relationship had been spectacularly bad—it didn’t mean she was ready for him to be the last.

If she lived through this she would get on with her life. Get her degree, somehow, somewhere. Meet men and date again. Learn to trust again, and maybe even fall in love.

The fact she was sitting between these two men now proved she could still find the strength to put her trust in someone, in spite of the devastating results of the last time she’d done so.

There was hope.

As Rocky swung the truck onto her block and her heart pounded as she visually swept the street looking for trouble, she had to believe that. There would be hope for tomorrow. She just had to get through today.

“That’s my building. On the right.”

Rocky slowed the truck to a stop along the curb and threw the gear shift into Park. He scanned the street in front of them and behind them before turning his attention to her. “You ready to go in?”

Jon was already out of the truck and conducting a visual search of his own.

Isabel nodded. It was obvious she had to be ready. She had no choice.

CHAPTER 6

Rocky tracked Isabel’s progress as she bounced around the apartment. Nervous energy or just plain fear had sent her into perpetual motion.

At one point she was literally turning in circles trying to do everything at once and instead getting nothing at all done.

“Hey.” He grabbed her arm as she strode past where he stood keeping an eye on the street through the window. He felt her shaking as she spun toward him, eyes wide.

“Yeah?”
 

“You can slow down. We have time.”

“No, I can’t. We have to get out of here.”

“Yeah, but when you rush, you make mistakes. Forget things.”

Ten minutes either way wouldn’t make a difference. And much more of this frenzy and she’d work herself into being even more of a mess.

Her manic, frantic, not to mention messy packing was starting to get to him. It shouldn’t. He’d been trained for worse than the possibility of an ex-boyfriend knocking on the door.

Hell, he’d faced men ten times worse than a thug from Miami who liked to knock around a woman half his size.

In fact, Rocky kind of hoped this Tito did show up while he was there. He’d enjoy teaching him what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a fist. What it felt like to fight fair on a level playing field against an equal opponent.

Okay, maybe not
quite
equal. Rocky had no doubt he could kick this Tito’s ass.

But at the moment, he had a bigger battle to win—the one being waged by Isabel’s panic as it warred with her ability to concentrate.

“You’re safe as long as you’re with Jon and me. Even if Tito shows up, you’re safe. I swear.” He grinned and tried to lighten the mood. “And I’m first-generation American, born and raised in a strict Italian-Catholic household so you know you can trust me since I don’t swear lightly.”

She drew in a deep breath, expanding her chest until her tits strained the fabric of her shirt. His grandmother and mother would have both taken a wooden spoon to him if they’d been there to see him noticing her chest.

He shouldn’t be looking, but he couldn’t help it. The woman was built. That was to be expected he supposed. She did work at the strip club.

At the moment he couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen her dance. Damn his bad memory.

Isabel shook her head. “You don’t know what he’s like.”

Back to the baby-daddy. Rocky had happily pushed him out of his mind but here he was, back again.

“It doesn’t matter. We’re prepared. If he shows up here we’ll deal with him.”

“And what about after I’m out of here? Where do I go? Where do I take Lola that he won’t find us again? I moved us here after I had Lola thinking it would be safer to get out of the state where I had her, but it’s obvious I wasn’t careful enough since he found me.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m scared.”

Her final words were spoken so softly they were barely a whisper but he heard them. Hell, he felt the fear radiating off her.

“We’ll figure it out.” He squeezed her arm and then dropped his hold. “Finish your packing. Let me know if you need help with anything heavy.”

“I’ll be fine. I moved in here alone.” She shrugged and turned toward the bedroom, and he bit back a curse.

She shouldn’t have had to move in alone. Just like she shouldn’t have had to flee her life in Miami. Certainly not while pregnant, or after she had an infant to care for.

A text from Jon lit Rocky’s cell. He was on his way back into the apartment after doing a walk around the building. Good. They needed to talk.

The door opened and Rocky tipped a chin in his direction. “Glad you’re back.”

Jon moved closer, the expression on his face grim. “Wish I was as glad about what I have to report.”

He’d kept his voice low, but even so, Rocky glanced at the bedroom door to make sure Isabel wasn’t in hearing distance before he asked, “What have you got?”

“I’d texted Rick the guy’s name and last known residence.” Jon blew out a long slow breath. “Your girl sure picked a winner of a boyfriend.”

Rocky pushed past the fact that Isabel wasn’t his girl—though he wouldn’t exactly hate it if she was—and moved on to the more pertinent topic. “What’s he into?”

“Everything. Illegal arms. Drugs. Typical mob stuff.”

“Wonderful.” Shaking his head, Rocky blew out a loud breath filled with frustration. “She’s scared, man.”

“Yeah, I know. Watching us come in here as if we were breaching an insurgent hideout probably didn’t help.”

Rocky snorted. “Yeah, no shit.”

With decades of training and operations between them, he and Jon had fallen easily into full tactical mode. Flanking the doorway, they’d cleared the apartment with guns drawn. All while Isabel watched, visibly shaken.

“We need to keep her with us.” He glanced up at Jon. “Sorry. She’s not your responsibility. I meant
I
need to keep her with me. Somewhere safe.”

Rocky had made the decision. He just hadn’t figured out the logistics yet.

The fact remained he lived in the bachelor barracks. What his room lacked in space, it made up for in an overabundance of rules particularly pertaining to visitors of the opposite sex.

“How long have you known her?” Jon asked.

“I met her last night in the parking lot of the club. Her car was acting up. I took a look under the hood.”

“Just under the hood of the car? Nothing else?”

Rocky drew his brows low at the unspoken insinuation. “I fixed a loose wire and she drove away.”

“Then she’s not exactly your responsibility either.”

Sometimes Jon could be too logical, almost to the point of being cold. Unfeeling. It might make for a good businessman and team leader, but Rocky tended to live more by his emotions.