“Dontcha fucking hurt her!” he snarled, even as his knees hit the cool sand.
“Or what?” A voice sounded from the shadows of the porch.
Craning his head around, Mason watched a fifth man slowly make his way toward the group. Maybe it was the eerie light from the nearly full moon, but Mason would swear there was something strange about the way the guy moved. It was careful. Deliberate.
Injured? Mason wondered. Or…old?
The new arrival said something to the asshole from the hallway. Mason didn’t speak Farsi, but he recognized it when he heard it. A chill streaked down his naked back despite the sweat dewing his skin.
As soon as he’d seen the nose of the AR-15, he’d assumed the intruders were more Iranians. Now, he knew for sure.
What the fuck is this?
He had a feeling he was about to find out. And an even stronger feeling he wasn’t going to like what he learned.
“Where are the others?” the fifth man inquired with a slight tilt to his head.
“What others?” Mason asked.
“We took out the one patrolling the island’s perimeter. But you left Key West this morning with two more. My man says they are not in the house. Where are they?”
They’d only taken out one man? Which meant two of his teammates were alive! If Mason could bide his time, the two remaining SEALs would make themselves known to him, and the odds would be far more in his favor.
“They stopped here to get more clothes, and then they went back to Key West.” He wasn’t one for untruths, so the lie felt greasy on his lips.
The fifth man’s eyes narrowed as he stared out at the lagoon. “The floatplane is still here.”
“The one you say you took out flew them to Key West before coming back.”
Again, the men reverted to Farsi and Mason tried to judge from their intonation whether or not they believed him. If he was forced to put money on it, he’d say they didn’t.
Expecting more questions about his two missing friends—and maybe a little torture to try to get the truth from him—he was caught off guard when the fifth man pointed to Alex and said, “Is this your woman?”
For tonight. And if I were someone different, I’d make her mine forever.
Of course he admitted none of this aloud. Were they hoping to use her against him? Torture her so he’d be forced to admit the truth?
“She was in his bed,” Shadow Man answered and Mason’s fingers twitched around the hilt of the blade in his hand. One swift strike and he could sever the asshole’s femoral artery. It would be so satisfying.
It would also be the dead last thing he did on this earth. Dead being the operative word.
“Interesting.” The fifth man tapped a finger against his chin. “I had not considered making you watch while I kill those you care about. But the idea has merit. An eye for an eye.”
A cold fingernail of horror scraped up Mason’s spine. This is about me, he realized.
“Who are you?” His voice was little more than a dull rasp.
The fifth man slowly peeled back his balaclava. Dark skin. Hate-filled stare. And hair that had been black at one point, but was now a steely gray.
“I am Commodore Izad Bagheri.” The man held his chin high so he could stare imperiously down his nose at Mason. “I am father to Arman, Basir, and Kazem. I am husband to Hettie. Because of you, they are all dead.”
Mason shook his head, trying to make sense of the old man’s words. He’d done his share of killing in the name of the flag and freedom. But he’d never harmed a woman.
He told Bagheri as much. Then he added, “And if your sons were the ones on the boat yesterday, I’m truly sorry for your loss. I didn’t want any of that. They attacked us.”
Surely, as a military man, Bagheri could understand there was nothing ignoble about self-defense.
“You mistake me.” Bagheri shook his head. “Only one of my sons was on the boat yesterday. He was there to avenge his older brothers. To avenge his mother, who died of a broken heart when she heard there was nothing left of her boys to bury because you blew them into a thousand pieces!” Bagheri’s voice rattled with fury.
“I have never killed anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me,” Mason swore between clenched teeth, feeling the atmosphere growing more volatile with each passing second.
“Lies!” Bagheri sliced a hand through the warm night air.
That one syllable cracked like a whip, and Alex jerked beside him. Covertly, Mason pressed the back of his hand against hers. She immediately rubbed her pinkie finger along his.
It was a small move. And yet it told him she was grateful for his touch and understood he could do no more.
Bagheri pointed a finger at Mason’s nose. “My sons were not trying to kill you! You boarded their ship! You detained them! And then you set your charges and condemned them to the sea!”
A memory swirled to the surface of Mason’s mind. “The Gulf of Aden. What was that? Ten years ago?”
“So you do remember?” Bagheri’s eyes were feverish now, brimming with a killing light.
Mason wished he was better with words. As it was, he thought hard about what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. “My team was tasked with a VBSS mission.” When Bagheri scowled, he clarified. “Visit, board, search, and seizure. The ship your sons were on was a Syrian vessel suspected of smuggling antitank and antiaircraft weapons to Hezbollah.”
“In the righteous fight against the Zionists!” Bagheri hissed, and the missing piece of the puzzle clicked into place for Mason.
It hadn’t been a Syrian ship. It’d been a renamed Iranian ship flying the Syrian flag. Which meant, unbeknownst to him, Mason had been involved with the Iranians. His entire team had been.
Fuck!
“Politics aside, that ship and those weapons were in violation of sanctions and international law,” he replied carefully, remembering how deeply dangerous the work had been. His team had been ordered to sneak up on the suspicious vessel in their fast boat and then get on board without the ship’s crew being any the wiser.
“Our job wasn’t to kill anyone,” he continued in the same calm, even tone. Hoping it would help Bagheri hear. Hoping it would help the man see. “We were just supposed to verify the cargo and then disembark and let a joint task force of American and British destroyers seize the vessel. But the sailors on board discovered us. They refused to surrender despite being outnumbered and outgunned. They barricaded themselves on the bridge, and once my team breached their fortifications, they opened fire.”
“Lies!” Bagheri yelled again.