Page 4 of Inevitable
I was also certain that Wyatt hated it when Shelby did something nice for another guy, and she did plenty of nice things for me. She thought I was a lonely, older bachelor who didn’t take good care of myself on my own.
She was partially right.
I wasn’t lonely, and even though I was twelve years older than her husband, Wyatt, I wasn’t ready to think of myself as truly old. However, I was a fifty-three-year-old man who was obsessed with my job and my private volunteer rescue organization that we called Last Hope. Shelbywasprobably right about me not paying much attention to my personal well-being most of the time.
I was too obsessed with our hostage rescues to think about what I ate or cooking for myself most of the time.
Wyatt and I were currently sitting at Last Hope headquarters in San Diego, a high-tech facility with impenetrable security.
We monitored and ran our rescue missions from these headquarters while one of our volunteer teams rescued hostages in the field.
Every one of the men on our teams were previous special forces.
Mostly, we took on cases that couldn’t or wouldn’t be handled by the government.
I’d founded the organization after I’d been forced to retire as a SEAL commander because of an injury to my leg that had left me with my leg still intact.Barely.I had a noticeable limp, and I hadn’t been able to return to my duties in the military.
What had started off as a small volunteer rescue operation to fill a gap in the system had morphed into a covert, international organization over the years.
The funding from five billionaires who had signed on to volunteer a few years after the creation of Last Hope, including Wyatt, had boosted Last Hope to another level.
Not only did I have amazing funding for a high-tech operation, but the skills those men provided to help me run complex operations from our operation room here were invaluable. All five of them were top-notch previous special forces.
I took a sip of the strong coffee I’d brewed in the kitchen and swallowed before I asked, “Exactly why are we here right now? I know Brock and Nate requested a conference call immediately, but why the urgency?”
Brock and Nate were half of a very important volunteer team based in Michigan. Although we had previous special forces volunteers scattered across the globe, they were the A-team we called on the most for hostage rescues. They’d been part of Wyatt’s Delta Force team for years, and they’d never had a failed operation as long as they’d been volunteering for Last Hope.
Wyatt shrugged. “I don’t have any more information than you do,” he informed me. “But if they say it’s an emergency, I’m not going to argue. They never ask us for anything for all of the things they do for Last Hope, and they’re still part of my team even though we aren’t serving in Delta together anymore.”
I nodded sharply. “Agreed. If they have a problem, I’m here to help them resolve it.”
My fingers flew across the keyboard of the laptop and logged us into the meeting to wait for Brock and Nate to join us.
If Brock and Nate needed information, I was the guy to hit up.
I’d formed an intricate network of informants and useful people to know on both sides of the law throughout my years as a SEAL commander. I’d added even more to that list aftermy years in the military were over through Last Hope and my contract job with the government.
I was also one of the best hackers on the planet, and there was very little information I couldn’t obtain if I needed it. There was no conceit about my skills. They were simply…a fact.
Having a genius IQ had come in handy over the years, and the areas where I was especially gifted were technology, gathering intel, and an uncanny ability to recall almost any fact or information I’d learned in the past.
I watched my screen as Brock dropped into the meeting and his face appeared on the screen.
I didn’t know our Michigan team as well as Wyatt did, but I could tell that the younger man was stressed.
And it was damn hard to stress out a previous Delta Force operative.
Brock, Nate, Gage, and Seth were around Wyatt’s age, and they all had balls of steel.
I nodded at Brock. “Wyatt is here with me. What’s your situation?” I asked abruptly.
I wasn’t known for being a warm and fuzzy kind of guy.
I cut right to the point.
Brock actually looked relieved that I didn’t bother to make idle conversation.
“Nate’s here, too,” he answered as Nate’s face popped onto the screen. “We have a friend that’s missing. She left four days ago for a consulting job in Lania with Prince Niklaus. I told her to check in with me every morning. Lania might be considered a safe country now, but it was a hellhole not that many years ago. I heard from her the first and second day, but she missed her check-in yesterday, and I haven’t heard from her this morning, either. She’s not answering texts or calls from anyone.”
