Page 1 of Rescuing Tobias

CHAPTER 1

March 13th

9:37 P.M.

It had beena long time since he’d had this anxious, ants-in-the-pants kind of feeling.

Four years, to be exact.

Because that was how long it had been since Tobias Ashford’s life had been blown up.

Literally.

His Delta Force Team had been left stranded after an op went wrong, and they got caught up in an explosion. Thankfully, they had all survived, but not unscathed. Him in particular. The injury to his back had not only ended his career but had also left him with permanent nerve damage and pain that no amount of physical therapy could ease.

After his injury, he’d changed careers and used his hacking skills to land a job with the world-renowned Prey Security. It was both a blessing and a curse. It meant he was able to continue doing what he loved, helping make the world a safer place, only in a different capacity than when he’d been in Delta Force. But italso meant he was forced to watch others do what he still craved, and every time he watched a team head out, he felt a small pang of loss.

But not today.

Today he wasn't sitting in a comfortable air-conditioned room with his computer set up in front of him, his fingers flying over the keyboard, going over intel that the team might need in the field.

Today, he was in the field again.

It didn’t matter that it probably wasn't a good idea, that one wrong move could end up aggravating his injury, and he very well could wind up confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

He had to be there.

This organ trafficking ring had taken one of his own. Cyber Team was every bit as much his family as his father was, only he saw them every day. After his mom developed early-onset dementia while she was still in her thirties, his father had dedicated most of the last two decades to caring for the woman he loved. She’d passed just over a year ago, and now his father was finally free, he was traveling the world, doing all the things he and his wife had planned when they’d first married and not yet known what path life would send them down.

While he was happy for his father’s newfound freedom, it had been an adjustment not seeing him every few days, and it made him feel even closer to his team, even if he wasn't the best at communicating that.

Mess with one of his teammates, and there was no way he could sit on the sidelines any longer.

So there he was.

Adrenaline pumped through his system, doing a better job at dulling the constant pain he lived with than any pain pill ever could. This might not be the best idea for him from a physicalstandpoint, but there was nowhere else Tobias would rather be than sitting in this van on the way to one of the sites they’d been given by a doctor who had been taken into custody when Navy SEAL Nathaniel Trevino and another SEAL team led by Blake “Rocco” Wise had rescued his teammate Ava Hendricks just four days ago.

The doctor claimed he’d been blackmailed into working for the trafficking ring by a colleague who caught him stealing drugs from the hospital where they both worked to pay off his gambling debts. The man had been the only one left alive that day, and he had been talking nonstop for the last four days, telling everything he knew in exchange for being put into the witness protection program.

Personally, Tobias would rather see the man spend the rest of his life in prison for what he’d put Ava through, not to mention the countless others who had lost their lives to the ring. But at least they had actionable intel they could work on, which included hitting three bases the ring operated out of, including the one he and Rocco’s team were about to ambush.

This one was on a small island in the South Pacific. It was beautiful there, peaceful, the thick, green vegetation gave off tropical paradise vibes, and the sunshine and warmth were a pleasant change from the cold temperatures back home.

As much as he wanted to be there, Tobias couldn’t get rid of the anxiety buzzing in his system. Maybe there was a touch of PTSD involved, since this was the first mission he’d gone on since the one where he was blown up and almost killed. The fear that something could happen, that they could all wind up dead, including the innocent people who had been abducted by the ring, was fresh on his mind, even though he knew that wasn't likely.

There was also fear that he would personally mess up somehow.

Unlike the other six men sitting in the truck with him, he wasn't at peak physical condition anymore. Sure, he still had a six pack, and the hard planes of his physique indicated he worked out every day, but he wasn't where he’d been before the injury to his back had ended his career.

“We go in quick and hard,” Rocco spoke as Cole “Rex” Kingston drove them through the trees on the barely there dirt track toward what had at one time been an old school.

On Rex’s temple was the healing remains of a wound he’d gotten in Mexico. He and the rest of his team had gone in to extract Nathaniel after the SEAL had lost contact with his commander during what was supposed to be a quick in and out op to plant a tracker on the organ trafficking ring’s ship. The op had been derailed after Nathaniel found Ava floating unconscious in a life raft after she’d managed to escape.

Unaware that Rex was a SEAL there to help her, when the man had approached Ava, she’d managed to evade him, get in a couple of strikes, and run off with his weapon. Something he was sure Rex’s team would never let him live down. Not that the man seemed to care. From what Tobias had seen, Rex had been proud of Ava for fighting for her life and coached her that in the future she shouldn’t allow any threat to live.

“When we found Ava in the clinic in Mexico, there was no security,” Rocco continued. “So we’re hoping for the same here. As far as anyone outside us, Ava, and a handful of people working to bring down this ring, all personnel died the day we rescued Ava. The ring has no reason to believe that there were any survivors who could have given us intel. It should be an easy in and out. As soon as we give the word that the location is secure and all personnel have been contained, Prey will be sending in transport to take victims to the nearest hospitals.”

“If we’re lucky, some of the doctors and nurses might also have been blackmailed into working for the ring, then we’ll getmore intel,” Beckett “Ace” Morgan said. “There were a handful of people from the ship where they held Ava, and the guy from the clinic in Mexico. There’s every chance that not everyone involved in the ring is there by choice.

---