Page 25 of Nate Hayes

He had no idea how screwed he was.

Jack slid up beside me, whispering, “We got eyes on three more behind the rise. You ready?”

“Always.”

Fraiser gave a sharp hand signal. Go.

And wemoved.

It was over in less than a minute.

Three clean takedowns. No noise. No alarms. The kind of coordinated strike that made the devil think twice about showing up.

Max reached the girl first, cutting her bonds with a blade so fast she barely had time to flinch.

“You’re safe now,” he said softly. “We’ve got you.”

She looked up at him, then over at Fraiser stepping out of the shadows like he owned the damn night. Her eyes welled up with tears.

“I—I thought I was going to die.”

“We would never let that happen,” Fraiser said, crouching beside her.

I stood at the edge of the scene, breathing hard, pulse slowing.

We did it.

She was alive.

The SEALs had landed.

Fraiser turned toward me with a wry smile. “Heard you could use a hand.”

“Took you long enough.”

“We had to finish our coffee,” muttered.

Max gave me a pat on the back. “Nice to see you still know how to get into trouble.”

“Better at it than ever,” I said. “But seriously—how the hell did you find us?”

Fraiser pulled a GPS tracker from his vest pocket. “You think I’d let one of my boys leave the country without one of these tucked into his gear?”

I couldn’t help but grin.

“Good to see you,” I said.

“Let’s get the kids out of here,” he said. “Then you can buy me a bottle of Italian wine and explain why a goat named Pancake is on your personnel file.”

11

Nate

We slipped into the trees just as the barn exploded behind us.

The blast hit the ground like thunder, throwing heat and debris into the night. Chloe screamed. Siena dove to the ground. I covered Ethan with my body, shielding him as flaming wood and dust rained down around us.

“Move!” I shouted, yanking Ethan to his feet.

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