Page 72 of Her Forever SEAL

“Really?” he heard her say, her voice pulling to something softer. “Yeah, everything's okay. You stay there much longer and you’re going to want a horse of your own.” A pause. A sound that wasn't quite a laugh but was trying to be one. “Now you listen to your Aunt Beth. You’re going to be staying over there tonight too.” Another pause, then Sophia faked another laugh. “I promise Kayla and I aren’t doing something fun without you. I’ve got to go, baby.” One more pause. “I love you, too.”

She hung up. She stood with her back to the room, and Mason saw her shoulders tremble. That line, the one where Lisa was saying that Sophia and Kayla might be doing something fun without her, had to have killed her. It did him.

She turned around, her eyes meeting his. She gave him a small nod. She had it together.

He nodded back.

She moved to the table and pulled out a chair next to Rylie. The softness that she had shown while on the phone with Lisa was gone.

“What have you got?” She asked Rylie.

He had never loved her more in his life.

Angie capped her marker and turned around.

“Okay,” she said. She looked at Mason. “Do you want the overview or should I pick up where we are?”

“Where you are,” Mason said.

She nodded. “Mary has gone completely dark. Last known contact was the coffee shop, three days ago. We've had eyes on it. She hasn't been back. Her cell is off or destroyed. The apartment she was renting in downtown San Diego, cleared out sometime in the last forty-eight hours. Whoever pulled her out, pulled her out fast and clean. Which tells us she had an extraction plan already in place.”

“Which tells us they knew this was coming to an end,” Rylie said, without looking up from her laptop.

“The operation was always designed to culminate,” Angie agreed. “The rental house in Eastlake Vista is just as clean as Mary’s place, despite one of the residents being dead.”

Sophia turned to Rylie. “Tell Mason what that one man said to you right before the cyanide killed him.”

Rylie looked up at Mason. “We didn’t get any of them alive. All of the zealots. We knew we were dealing with terrorists, not just people who were in it for the money.”

Mason nodded.

“Anyway, right before he died, he whispered. It doesn’t matter, we win anyway.”

Mason thought that over. It tracked with the text that Sophia had received. They were out to gut Mason. Maybe the whole Midnight Delta team, but he suspected it was personally directed at him.

Angie cleared her throat. “Mary was a temporary asset. She was never going to stay.” She moved to the board and pointed to the corridor marked in red. “Unfortunately, this isn’t like the cartel, or the mafia or something. There is no known presence of the Boko Haram in the US, so I can’t track a particular route. That’s why finding Mary is so important.”

“And confirming this really is a member of the Boko Haram who is out after Mason,” Sophia said. We’re still just making that assumption.”

“It’s a solid assumption. We were sent to Nigeria on what I’ll contend was a bogus mission. You folks confirmed that the background done for Mary was the same methodology used by Boko Haram techs, which was a good catch.”

“That was all Lydia,” Angie said.

He saw Sophia looking down at her phone, biting her lip.

“What?”

“Cat,” Sophia said quietly from the table. “I just got an update.”

“How’s she doing?” Rylie asked.

“She’s out of surgery. She just needed two pins in her arm. She’ll end up with full mobility.”

“What happened to Cat?” Mason asked.

“She was walking with Kayla when they grabbed her,” Angie answered. “They tried to fight the two men off with their sticks. It was fast. According to witnesses, less than a minute. Cat held onto Kayla and wouldn’t let go, even when they shoved Kayla into the van. She got dragged, one of them hit Cat’s arm to get her to let go…”

“Jesus.” Mason ran his hand through his hair.