Page 3 of Dangerous Secret

It was the anniversary of their rescue, a date the three of them were celebrating at a Myrtle Beach bar. Cooper Devlin and Liam O’Rourke sat across the table from Grayson. They were also celebrating Cooper finally coming onboard The Phoenix Three, the security company they’d founded that specialized in rescuing missing and kidnapped children.

Grayson settled back in the booth as the waitress set three shot glasses each in front of them. He and Liam had opted out of the military a year ago, but Cooper had stayed with his Army ranger team until recently.

“Here’s to those assholes rotting in prison,” Liam said. He poured the contents of the first shot glass down his throat.

“Fucking A.” Grayson downed his.

When he and Cooper had been locked in a room with another boy who’d been kidnapped a few days before, the three of them had bonded during the time they’d been held prisoner. Turned out the kidnappers had only planned to snatch him and Liam for ransom. As for Cooper, he didn’t come from a wealthy family, so Grayson didn’t even want to think of what would have happened to him if they hadn’t been rescued.

And rescued they were. Instead of the millions the kidnappers had demanded, they’d gotten a long prison sentence.

“Here’s to your father,” Cooper said, raising his second shot glass toward Grayson.

It had been Grayson’s father who’d hired the men who’d rescued them. Both his and Liam’s fathers had immediately agreed to pay the ransom, but when the kidnappers had decided that had been too easy, they’d demanded more. Daniel Montana, a former SEAL, decided he wasn’t going to mess around with his son’s life and had called in some favors. In sending a team to rescue his son, Liam and Cooper had benefited, the team also getting them out of that house.

“May he rest in peace,” Grayson quietly said, then downed the contents of the shot glass. It was still hard to believe his father, a man who’d always been larger than life to Grayson, was gone.

“Amen,” Liam and Cooper said in unison.

“Here’s to finally having Cooper join us,” Liam said.

Grayson pointed his empty shot glass at Cooper. “’Bout time.” When one was kept in a dirty room with two other boys—barely fed, a bucket for a bathroom, and not knowing if they were going to live or die—it was no surprise that a lifelong bond was formed. They weren’t blood brothers, but they were brothers all the same.

“I know.” Cooper twirled his shot glass in a circle. “Things weren’t good with my team, and I couldn’t just walk away.”

“Well, you’re here now. The Phoenix Three are finally together. Oorah,” Liam said, giving the US Marines’ battle cry.

“Hooah.” The Army’s battle cry from Cooper.

Grayson gave the Navy’s. “Hooyah.” He glanced at thetwo best men he knew. “Did you really think when we were still just boys and made a pact after we were back in our cushy lives that we’d actually make The Phoenix Three happen?”

The name had been Liam’s idea. He’d said they’d risen from the ashes. They’d kept in touch after being rescued, and for each of them, settling back into their privileged lives no longer fit. On a group text one night, Grayson had asked the question that had changed their futures.

Do you think there are other kids out there who need rescuing but don’t have parents with the money to ransom them, or the connections to bring in badass men to save them? Kids like Cooper would have been if not for having been abducted with two rich boys.

Cooper: Maybe we should save them.

How?That from Liam.

Almost instantly, the answer appeared in Grayson’s mind, and his heart had raced—in a good way—as the whole picture was laid out in front of him. Grayson had always been fascinated by his dad’s stories from his SEAL days. That was probably why he could see the answer so clearly. His fingers flew over the keys as he texted his vision.

We learn how to plan missions, how to stage rescues, how to fight. Then we come back together and start a company that saves children who don’t have the kind of families we do or the money to rescue them.

Liam: Again, how do we do that?

Cooper: We join the military.

Grayson grinned at how fast Cooper saw the same answer.Exactly.

And that’s what they did. Grayson joined the Navy, becoming a SEAL. Liam enlisted in the Marines, becoming a Marine Raider, an elite Special Forces unit. Cooper became an Army ranger. As afraid and hungry as Grayson had been during those weeks in that room, it had brought these two men into his life and a mission that gave him immense satisfaction. They’d made an impossible dream come true, and he wouldn’t change a thing.

“To The Phoenix Three,” Cooper said, holding up his third shot glass.

Liam held up his. “To the children we’ll save.”

“Especially the children,” Grayson said.

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