Page 92 of Her Forever SEAL

Mason looked at Kayla.

She was on the floor. Shivering. Her lip swollen. Blood caked at her hairline. She should be scared as hell. Instead, she was looking at him with belief shining in her eyes. Somehow, some way, his daughter was positive he would get her out of this.

“I have thought about this moment for twelve years, Mason. I have imagined your face.” Ibrahim paused. Savored it. “I think I am going to enjoy it very much. Killing your daughter in front of you.”

Mason held her gaze for just a moment. Just long enough to say what he couldn't say out loud.

I've got you, sweetheart. I'm here. It's almost over.

He felt everything at once—the anguish of seeing her like this, the fear the moment he’d heard Sophia tell him that Kayla had been taken and the absolute bedrock certainty that he would burn down the world before he would allow Ibrahim to kill her.

Thirty years of training and every one of them had been pointing at this moment, this room, this choice.

He was ready.

Then he heard it. A mechanical groan. It was the loading dock door beginning to roll open, distant and unmistakable, coming up through the stone floor. Every head in the room turned toward it.

Every head but his.

Mason lunged at Ibrahim, got one arm locked across his throat, then spun him around so he was between Mason and his men. Ibrahim made a sound that was pure surprise before it became pain, and then Mason cranked the pressure.

Ibrahim screamed.

“Drop them,” Mason yelled. “Drop the weapons or I snap his neck right now.”

The three bodyguards and Ibrahim’s assistant looked at each other, then at Ibrahim. One of them started to lower his weapon.

The door at the top of the stairs blew open.

Drake came through first, weapon up, and Jack right behind him, and then Rylie, and then⁠—

Sophia.

Mason saw her scan the room. Her eyes clocked him, but kept moving. She spotted Kayla in the corner, and she ran like nothing else in the room existed or mattered.

Two shots.

The sound in the stone room was enormous, concussive, and Mason felt his heart stop completely because Kayla was in that corner and he wasn’t sure where the shots were going.

Please, God. Not Sophia. Not Kayla.

He saw one of the bodyguards slump to the ground, Aiden standing over him, kicking the gun from his hand.

“Nice shot, Angie,” Aiden called over his shoulder.

Drake had the second bodyguard on the ground and Jack had the third face-first against the stone wall. Chidi, Ibrahim's notepad man, had both hands in the air and was making a sound that wasn't quite words.

Mason still had Ibrahim.

He looked at Sophia. She’d reached Kayla. She had her arms around her and Kayla's face was buried in her mother's neck and Sophia's eyes were closed and she was holding on like she was never letting go.

He looked at that for exactly one second.

Then he looked at the men around the room. Drake. Jack. Aiden. Rylie. Dare. Angie, still with her weapon up, professional and steady.

“Where’s Finn?” he asked Drake.

“Taking care of a loose thread.”