She took a step back. “Right, I’m ready. The sooner you guys can find the pirates, the sooner we can all get back to our lives.”
She hated the look of disappointment on Scott’s face, but she ignored it, giving him a small smile and waving to his teammates, who were standing behind him. Then she turned her back on them and headed toward the other SEAL team.
“Rachel…”
“Rachel!”
Once again, Elodie remembered too late that was the name she was going by, and she turned. Scott was frowning at her, but when he saw that he had her attention, he said, “I’ll make sure you’re all right before we leave.”
She wanted to thank him, to smile in her obvious relief. But the sooner she got it through her thick skull that she was destined to be alone, the better. She wouldn’t drag someone down into the goatscrew that was her life. She wouldn’t put anyone in danger. Paul Columbus would find her one day and kill her. She knew that for certain.
So she simply nodded and turned her back on Scott once more as she joined the second SEAL team. They surrounded her and began the long walk down the deck toward the bridge.
Chapter Five
Mustang appreciated his team not giving him shit for his short conversation with Rachel. He knew they’d hear every word through the radios they were still wearing, but he hadn’t cared. Of course, they hadn’t said anything intimate, but he couldn’t deny he liked that she seemed to want to know more about him. Telling her he was stationed in Hawaii wasn’t exactly a state secret, but it made him feel good that she was interested.
But then she seemed to close down. He’d seen her wipe all emotion from her face as if he’d said something offensive. He wracked his brain trying to figure out what he’d said or done wrong, but came up blank.
What he did know for certain was that Rachel wasn’t her name. And that bothered Mustang more than he cared to admit. He’d called her name twice before she’d turned around, and he didn’t think it was because she hadn’t heard him. Nor did he think she’d been using the pseudonym for long, otherwise she would’ve reacted to the name immediately.
One thing Mustang didn’t like was a mystery. Especially when it was attached to someone he admired.
Rachel Walters, or whoever she was, had saved his and Midas’s lives. They hadn’t seen or heard that pirate come down the stairs, and they would’ve walked right up to him behind that wall before they realized it wasn’t Rachel waiting for them.
She hadn’t liked killing him, that was obvious, but she had. She was an enigma, and Mustang wanted to solve the mystery of who she really was and what she was doing on this ship in the middle of nowhere.
But first he and his team, with the help of Rocco and the other SEALs, had a pirate to track down and eliminate.
An hour and a half later, the Asaka Express was up and running once more. It had taken forty minutes for the SEALs to find the last pirate. He’d climbed inside one of the air ducts and had attempted to crawl his way to freedom. He’d been found when the duct collapsed under him and he practically fell into their laps. He’d also made the mistake of trying to shoot his way through them, which wasn’t a good choice when surrounded by six armed Navy SEALs.
As the sun began to rise, an announcement had been made that the ship was clear and the engineers had immediately turned the electricity back on. The cargo ship had narrowly missed being grounded on a shallow reef off the coast of Djibouti, and after the SEALs had been extracted from the vessel, it would continue to Port Sudan with an armed escort of three US Navy ships.
Once there, Mustang had no idea what would happen to the crew. Most likely the company would give them the option of staying onboard or being flown home. He had no doubt a replacement crew would be available almost immediately, this time hopefully with a few more safety precautions being taken if the ship continued operating in this part of the world.
He and his team would be returning to the USS Paul Hamilton and, from there, sent back to Hawaii. All part of a day’s work for them.
But he hoped to be able to catch Rachel before they left the ship. The decks were crawling with Navy personnel at the moment. There were probably more people onboard than had ever been on the ship’s decks at any one point.
Mustang headed toward the bridge with the rest of the team. They all wanted to at least say hello to Rocco and his crew before heading home. Things on the bridge were chaotic when they arrived. The bodies of the captain and his officers had been removed; Mustang assumed they’d been brought down to one of the freezers…which Rachel probably wouldn’t like.
He ran his eyes over the people in the room and saw the few officers from the Asaka Express who’d managed to escape the slaughter by hiding down in the engine room, now working with the sailors who’d been brought over from the other Naval ships in the area.
Rocco was standing with Gumby, Ace, Bubba, Rex, and Phantom on the opposite side of the long room, simply observing what was going on. The one person he didn’t see that he most wanted to find was Rachel.
He saw Rocco making his way over to meet them. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Mustang returned, shaking the other man’s hand. “Good to see you. Thanks for the assist.”
“Of course. We just happened to be in the area,” Rocco said with a smirk. “You all headed home?”
“As far as I know, yes. I’m sure there will be a ton of paperwork that needs to be done, and two after-action reviews, since we were pulled off another job to come here.”
Rocco nodded. “Yeah, same here. We’d finished our original mission, but still, two AARs suck.”
As his friends and Rocco’s teammates greeted each other and shot the shit, Mustang argued with himself, wondering whether he should ask about Rachel.
“She’s good,” Rocco said as if he could read his mind.
Not pretending he didn’t know what he was talking about, Mustang asked, “You sure? She was pretty tapped out there at the end.”
“I’m sure,” Rocco said. “She’s a trooper. We were gonna take that rifle away from her, but she seemed to really want to keep it. It wasn’t until we arrived at the bridge, and she saw for herself that things seemed to be safe, that she allowed Phantom to take it from her.”
“Where is she now?” Mustang asked.
“Not sure. One of the officers seemed very glad to see her, and after the all-clear, he escorted her below decks. They left a few minutes ago.”
Mustang clenched his teeth together upon hearing that. Which was ridiculous. Rachel had a life, and she was probably very glad to see someone familiar. He’d kinda had hopes that she’d want to see him off, but she’d probably be relieved never to see his face again. Especially after everything that had happened.
“Want some advice?” Rocco asked.
Mustang shook his head, realizing he’d zoned out for a second. “From the one and only Rocco? Of course,” Mustang quipped.
But Rocco didn’t rise to the bait. “Women can be confusing as hell. They say one thing and do another. They can be shy on the outside, but badass warriors on the inside. And if I’ve learned anything by being married to Caite, I’ve learned to never assume I know what she’s thinking.”