Page 18 of Kidnapped By a SEAL

Not to mention sound asleep and under their care until they arrived back in the States. He shouldn’t even be thinking about her that way, let alone watching her sleep with those thoughts in his head.

“So what’s the latest intel?” Colton asked, bringing Ryker’s mind back to the present.

“It’s believed Izallah escaped the compound,” Noah said. “Why the hell he wanted Emily is anyone’s guess. She was probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“So what—he just wanted an American woman to add to his collection of wives?” Ryker asked in disbelief.

Hunter shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? It’s about power and control with those assholes. Someone could’ve seen her on base and gotten a nice, hefty fee for ambushing the Humvee and capturing her. It probably didn’t matter who the woman was; they just needed an easy target. The fact that she’s young and beautiful certainly didn’t hurt.”

“It’s disgusting,” Noah said. “That whole backwards mindset is fucked up.”

“Agreed,” Hunter replied. “It’s also well-known that this asshole is vindictive as hell. Men who haven’t done exactly as he wanted have been found dead with their throats slit. He takes out revenge on those who dare cross him. It’s unlikely he’d come after Emily or that he even knows who she is if he wanted to track her down, unless we believe the theory that there was an informant.”

“Seems unlikely,” Mason said. “That jackass would take any woman. She was just in the wrong place.”

“She needs protection,” Ryker said.

Colton raised his eyebrows. “On the chance she was targeted? Normally I’d agree, but she’s not just some helpless woman. She’s a special agent with State. She’s highly trained and capable of defending herself.”

“She’s injured,” Ryker said. “And she was moved from place to place for over a month. That shit can mess with your mind. We should be more concerned about her safety.”

Hunter crossed his arms, leaning back in the hard airplane seat. He glanced toward the front of the plane where Emily was still sound asleep. “So what, you think we should tell the CO she needs a bodyguard or something? That seems crazy. She’ll be back on U.S. soil. And there’s no proof she was specifically targeted.”

“We need to run with the idea that there was a mole,” Ryker insisted.

“What makes you so sure of that?” Mason asked. “There’s no evidence. We work with all kinds of locals—guides, translators. And she’d just gotten there. If she was somehow targeted, it happened awfully damn fast.”

“It did,” Hunter agreed. “But money talks. If Izallah was paying his guys enough to bring him an American woman, they’d probably go along with it. What would they care if their only job was to get her to him? Maybe they couldn’t touch her, but they’d get paid, and they’re other women out there.”

“So if they wanted some pussy they could get it without messing with her,” Jacob said bluntly.

Hunter shrugged. “Exactly. I don’t see it being a big issue that she was being saved just for him—not her specifically anyway. I think his men knew he wanted a woman. Another wife. It could’ve been anyone.”

“Not just Emily,” Ryker said. At her name, she tossed and turned at the front of the plane. It had to be a coincidence, because the engines were so damn loud, there was no way she could’ve heard him say her name.

Ryker stood up anyway. “I’m going to check on her.”

Hunter nodded, and the other men continued to talk as Ryker moved toward her. Her eyelids fluttered as she slept, and his chest clenched as he saw how fragile she really looked. Jesus Christ, she didn’t deserve any of what she’d been through.

Had she been singled out? Or did she just have some shitty luck?

None of that mattered now, because as he crouched down beside her, her beautiful eyes opened.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” she said quietly. “How long was I asleep?”

Ryker lifted a shoulder. “An hour or so? The guys and I moved to the back of the plane so we didn’t bother you.”

She nodded, trying to sit up, and Ryker reached over and helped her. “Damn, your hands are freezing. Do you need another blanket or something? I can see what we have stashed around here.”

“Yeah, I am cold,” she said, shuddering.

“You need to eat more,” he chastised.

“I’ll remember that the next time I’m taken hostage,” she quipped.

Ryker grabbed the first thing he saw, his camo jacket, and draped it across her slender shoulders. “Touché,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that. What can I say? Sometimes I’m bossy.”

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