Page 1 of A Touch of Frost
Chapter 1
Mozart
It seemed along the way to becoming who they turned into, most SEALs forgot the cardinal rule. It had been a part of the SEAL training from the very start, spoken by men of honour, engraved in their DNA and confirmed with blood.
No one gets left behind.
Ever.
It irritated me that not only did they lose a civilian contractor, they hadn’t even bothered to stop and look for him.
To my shame, they left him.
It had taken me a while to digest that entire situation and it was sitting on my chest like bad sushi.
Maybe I was the issue.
Even though I knew my guys wouldn’t have made that decision, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe I was too old for this shit. Maybe it was time I thought about walking away from it all.
Wolf would never had drawn that conclusion. He’d always been that kind of leader, one I could trust would always have my back.
But the new school kids know no loyalty, no brotherhood.
I sighed.
I couldn’t even imagine leaving one of my brothers behind much less someone who was supposed to be in our charge. Hell, even if I could imagine it, Wolf would kick my ass.
I chewed on the insides of my cheeks, trying to control my simmering anger while Tex tried coming up with an idea to help Jesse Ackert find his brother.
I was fresh out of ideas.
Even though Wolf and the rest of my team wanted to do something, there wasn’t much we could do.
Dr. Paul Acker going missing came at a very bad time for my team had mandatory training. We then went through all the connections we knew for certain we could trust to see if they could lend us a hand. But everyone our team was close to were tossed to the four corners of the earth.
Wraith just became a father two months prior and had taken his wife and son away—they’d left the moment the doctor cleared little Cody Snyder to fly. His phone had been off—code for he wanted to spend time with his family.
I couldn’t blame him.
Cyclops and the rest of the 4Guardians were trying to find Kraken who’d been missing since a mission went bad almost a year and a half prior.
CIRO—God, they’ve been battered six ways from Sunday and had their own issues.
“So, there is no one to help me?” Jesse Ackert asked. “This some bullshit.”
“We'll figure it out.” Tex was still tapping away at his keyboard. “We could bring someone in, but we can’t really take that chance.”
“Someone? As in someone you don’t know?” Jesse wanted to know.
I nodded. “With the way your brother went missing, Tex and I are a little on edge until we can figure out what really happened in Romania.”
“Someone is lyin’,” Tex said. “And I want to know who and why. This is not the way SEALs are supposed to act—this is not the way.”
“Fuck the why.” Jesse frowned. “You can figure that out later when my brother isn’t in danger or quite possibly dead somewhere.
I could understand his frustration.
“He’s not dead.” I muttered.
