It didn’t fall to shit until they hit Saudi Arabian soil. Getting through customs had been a breeze. Baker had performed like a rockstar. It turned out that the inside man at customs had two cousins who worked with him, so the three of them had combined forces to pass Gray and his team through while everyone else was concentrating on the fire on the bridge. It had been beautiful. By the time they reached the resort, Slokovich had notified Dex that Baker had made it safely back to land in Bahrain. But now they were here at the Al Khobar Beach Resort and not even the slightest bit of their intel had turned out to be correct.

“Dex?” Gray asked.

“I’m working on it.” His man’s eyes never left his computer. They were in the cramped mechanical room that was supposed to have housed the two women. Instead it was crammed full of boilers, air handlers and electrical generators. Two workers were hog-tied and blindfolded in the corner.

Gray so wanted to tell his communications expert to work faster, but that would be useless, because nobody worked faster on a computer than Dex.

Dalton and Griff were checking all of the Villas, while Hunter had the riskier job of checking out the rooms in the interior of the hotel. Gray had dispatched Aiden to check over the Royal Villa where the poisoning had taken place.

It was now four-thirty in the morning. His team knew that they only had fifteen more minutes before they had to reassemble back at the beach.

“Got something,” Aiden’s voice came over the team’s shared receiver.

Dex’s eyes never left his computer screen as he continued to search, but Gray knew he was listening to Aiden’s words.

Aiden continued, “There’s blood in the master bathroom. A lot of it. Rope’s hanging from the shower curtain.”

Gray’s blood ran cold. “So they questioned the women in there?”

“Looks like.” Aiden’s voice was flat.

“How much blood?” Hunter asked over the com. “Do you think they’re dead?”

“No,” Aiden answered. “One of them left a message behind the toilet. It’s small, but I can make out the world ‘gold’ and some kind of symbol.”

“Describe the symbol to me,” Dex said urgently. His fingers slammed the keyboard.

“It’s an upside down triangle with two lines in it, and a line coming down from the bottom.”

“Time’s up. All of you get your asses to the beach,” Gray ordered.

“Not me, I’ve almost got it,” Dex said. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. Gray went to the door and opened it a crack. The sky was beginning to lighten.

“Forget it, Dex. We’re leaving.”

“Aiden, you still there?” Dex demanded.

“Yep,” Aiden answered.

God fucking dammit.

“Aiden, I told you to get the hell out of there.” Gray was going to kill Aiden if he wasn’t killed by a bogey.

“What’s your question, Dex?” Aiden asked calmly.

“Could the symbol be a tulip? Could the whole thing be Golden Tulip?” Dex demanded.

Gray could actually hear his man’s hope. “Absolutely. Does it mean something?”

“You heard our boss. Get your asses to the beach,” Dex said as he crashed his computer shut and shoved it into his rucksack. He turned to Gray. “Let’s go.”

“What? Explain it to me.” Gray peered out the window of the cabana, then nodded to Dex when he saw the coast was clear. They kept to the shadows until they hit the high wall that separated the beach and the luxury resort. Gray gave Dex a leg up, then hauled his own ass up and over. They were the first to arrive at the rendezvous point.

“Status,” Gray demanded. Seconds seemed like hours as he waited for his team to answer. The flavor of the air changed and Gray turned to see Griff and Dalton coming up behind him.

“Goddammit—” Gray started.

“Got a problem.” Gray could barely hear Hunter’s whisper.

“Need backup?” Gray whispered back.

“Negative.” Aiden’s voice was tense.

Fuck! Information would really be appreciated at this moment.

Dex had his comp out again, Gray saw the satellite image up on his computer. He was trying to focus in on the royal villa.

A gurgle came through the receiver. Aiden answered the unasked question. “One tango down.”

“Guys, there’s a total of eight in the villa,” Dex said quietly. “That makes six bad guys and you two mugs.”

“Five now,” Aiden’s voice was almost soundless.

“Make that four,” Hunter whispered. A light thud came through the receiver. “Oopsie, now there’s only three.”

When the hell did Diaz turn into such a smartass?

Silence.

Gray looked down. Even in the moonlight he could see the individual grains of sand on the beach, the Navy appreciated his perfect eyesight.

He started counting, willing his mean to be all right. To be safe.

Gray flinched as a rifle shot went off with a muffled roar.

He heard more shots. He wanted a report. Damn it, he wanted to know what was going on. Listening intently, Gray tried to imagine what was playing out in the villa. It was definitely his guys doing the shooting, but then he heard another volley of shots from farther away.

Still no sound from Aiden or Hunter.

That was good news. There would have been a very familiar thud / grunt that would have come through if their body armor had been hit. Gray refused to even think about the sound any other type of accurate shot could have made on his men’s flesh.

Goddammit. I want a report!

He looked up from the sand and his gaze caught Dalton’s.

Was that a smile of reassurance on his friend’s face?

Christ, these men fell in love and they all changed. Maybe he should talk to his commander about doing a fitness for duty report each time a team member got engaged or married. A picture of Riya flashed before his eyes. He scowled and focused harder on the silence in his earpiece.

“We got ‘em. We’re on our way.” Aiden said in a normal voice.

Halleluiah.

“He’s a geek at heart,” Aiden murmured as he sidled up next to Gray.

“Nope, he was born and bred to be a SEAL,” Gray disagreed.

“But he has a unholy relationship with his computer, you have to admit that. Where most of us would sleep with our knife, he probably sleeps with his comp.”

“I can hear you, you know. And, O’Malley, I sleep with my wife.” Dex didn’t look up from his computer.

“See, he’s got the supersonic hearing of a geek,” Aiden said quietly.

“SEAL’s have the highly-developed hearing of a SEAL, thank you very much. Just because you and Gray are so old you don’t understand technology, don’t take it out on me.”

Gray heard Griff and Dalton smother their laughter, which is just what Aiden had been aiming for. Tension had been high as they had slowly headed North toward the King Abdulaziz Seaport for a good part of the day, only to find out they were headed in the wrong direction. Thank God Dex had been able to ferret out where the Golden Tulip was actually docked.

“I still can’t believe they’ve named the place Dana Beach on Half Moon Bay. Do they like California much?” Griff asked.

“Who gives a shit what they call it, as long as we’re finally here,” Hunter said. Gray could tell his patience was shot. But then he heard Hunter take a deep breath. Good man.

Gray watched as Hunter’s lip ticked up. “You know, I just took Aliana to a jazz concert at Dana Point about three weeks ago.” He waved his hand to gesture across at the gated four-star resort that looked like a dilapidated Holiday Inn in the middle of the Mojave Desert. “Even she would burst out laughing if she were to compare the two places.”

“So how good is the intel?” Dalton asked Dex.

“That’s definitely the Golden Tulip,” Dex pointed to a yacht that was out past the harbor. It wasn’t in sniper range. “It belongs to Prince Khalid bin Al Halabi’s brother-in-law.”

“How are they related?”

“His wife’s brother,” Dex answered Dalton.

“That takes balls.” Hunter shook his head. “This guy really arranged to hold his mistress hostage on his wife’s brother’s yacht?”

“From what our friend Kane told me, Faizon, the brother-in-law, is one twisted fuck. Not only would he be happy that his sister’s rival is being hurt on his turf, he’d also like to be in on it.”

“You called McNamara?” Gray asked. He was surprised that Dex would have reached out to the communications expert on the Night Storm SEAL team, since they’d only worked together once before.

“Nope, Wyatt did,” Dex answered with a shit-eating grin. “Wyatt got Kane doing a lot of the deep background research for him ever since I pinpointed the yacht,” Dex’s voice full of admiration. “My little boy is growing up. He figured out a way to get someone else to do his work for him.” Dex pretended to wipe a tear from his eye.

“Can the shit,” Gray grimaced. “We get it, Wyatt did good.”

“Damn right he did,” Dex said. “Kane is fucking connected, he sure knows how to forage for gossip.”

“I don’t know, I still think you’re the biggest gossip in the fifth fleet,” Dalton drawled.

Dex shot him the bird.

Gray snorted, Dalton was right. It was like the pot calling the kettle black. If the situation weren’t so hellish, it would be fun to see Dex so jazzed. He had schematics, gossip and was ready to grip a knife in his teeth and swim out in the harbor and rescue the two women.

Gray took a moment to look around at the rest of his men. Griff was the perfect SEAL, he was anything Gray needed him to be. There wasn’t a damn area he didn’t excel in, but water was his home. He’d definitely be going out to the yacht.

Hunter was trying to keep it low-key, but his need for retribution was second only to Aiden. The man was off-the-charts protective. Gray shifted his attention to his second-in-command. He’d been damn near mute since finding the evidence of torture in the bathroom. Gray thought back to when Aiden’s wife Evie had been captured in Turkey. It had been through sheer force of will that he’d kept it together and saved his woman, but he’d done it. Yep, Aiden had managed a miracle and tonight wouldn’t be any different. His whole team were going to work miracles for these two women.

“Gather round children, I have a plan,” Gray smiled.

Gray had driven the truck a mile south of the Dana Beach Resort and hid their truck behind an abandoned house. Dex had somehow scoped out a dock that they were going to eventually bring the women back to. This was where the plan got a little…flexible.

Kane had tracked down the former captain of the Golden Tulip. The man had only lasted seven weeks after Faizon bought the yacht, but it was enough time for the older Saudi to have intel regarding the security setup. He was also the one who gave Kane the scoop on just what a sick and paranoid fuck Faizon was.

“Here’s where they’re weak,” Dex pointed to the stern of the yacht. “Four open decks for people to get skin cancer, and for us climb aboard. According to the captain, they only ever had guards on the lower and main decks, never on the upper deck. Doubt it’s changed.”

“What kind of artillery are the men using?” Aiden asked.

“Kane said that from the description they were submachine guns. More than likely MP5K’s. The captain said that Faizon always travels with a security detail of twelve. They’re all former military, tough sons of bitches.”

“So the captain saw them in action?”

“Yep. They took down two boats of Somali pirates. That wasn’t the problem. It was when there was a party on board, and the Cap realized that some of the female guests weren’t allowed to leave. A girl jumped overboard in the Mediterranean Sea. One of the guards gunned her down. The captain hid. He didn’t want anyone to realize that he had witnessed the killing.” Everyone stared at Dex in silence.

“I know, harsh shit, isn’t it?” Dex said quietly.

“What about the other girls?” Hunter finally asked.

Dex’s shoulders hunched, then he looked up and stared his friend Hunter in the eye. “He never saw them again. At the next port, the captain got off the ship for supplies and never came back.”

“How’d Kane track him down?” Gray asked.

“Fuck if I know, he’s as good as Clint Archer,” Dex said. Hell, that was high praise. Clint Archer was the communications and intelligence guru from Midnight Delta. Dex had worked with him for years.

“Where’s Clint?” Hunter asked.

“The Midnight Delta team is in Nigeria.”

“Shit,” Griff breathed.

They all nodded.

“Fucking Boko Haram. Nigeria is the worst. You’re stuck fighting against women and children who’ve been kidnapped and brainwashed. It’s heartbreaking,” Aiden said bitterly.

Gray looked at his men. “Okay, enough of their shit, we’ve got our own to worry about. We need to get to those two women before they’re thrown into the Persian Gulf.” He nodded at Dex who was kneeling in front of his comp. “You’re staying here and coordinating everything. We’ll let you know as we dispatch the bad guys. Did your know-it-all new best friend have any idea how many people besides the guards are on the yacht?”

“Faizon and his family. That would be his grown son, and two teenage daughters.”

“He took his family? Two young daughters?” Gray felt his stomach turn over.

“I just pray to God he’s keeping his daughters far away from what’s going on with his prisoners,” Aiden said. Gray remembered one of the human trafficking missions Aiden had worked on with the Midnight Delta team. The people involved had been evil.

“Okay, we want to hit the yacht at two a.m. We want off the boat at two-thirty, and no more than an hour after that, I want our asses back on the truck with the women, headed for Bahrain.” All of his men nodded.

“Aiden, did you take what you needed for triage?” Gray asked. Aiden was one of the best medics he knew.

“I’ll do what I can on the yacht,” Aiden assured him. “Dalton, you know the drill.”

Dalton nodded. As the leanest man on the team, he would be giving up his wetsuit to one of the women. Dex’s wetsuit would be carried by Griff because extra weight wouldn’t slow him down.

“Do a communications check,” Dex demanded.

They all checked their mics and receivers, then dropped into the water off the dock. Gray was the last to go in. If anything happened to one of his men, he’d be there to take care of them and haul their ass back to shore. But with these Navy SEAL’s, seeing the sun at midnight would be more likely. Still, it was his job to have their six.