About the book
Former Delta Operator Myles Simms doesn’t know when to quit. The concept so foreign to him he can’t give up on Delilah Watts. A woman he’s never met—a woman who might be the enemy yet he’s compelled to save her.
Intel Specialist Delilah Watts never imagined sending an email would be deadly. Kidnapped and left to die, yet she regrets nothing. She’d blow the whistle over and over again if it meant one life was saved—unfortunately, it just wouldn’t be hers.
.
A man on the search.
A woman in need of a hero.
A race against time.
Chapter 1
Where are you?
I looked from the picture of Delilah Watts to the map and followed the yellow highlighted route I’d taken from San Diego to Los Mochis, Mexico. And just like the five hundred other times I’d studied it, it had no answers.
Where the hell are you?
For five weeks, with the help of Tex, Garrett, Kevin, Linc, Colin, Jaxon, and Leo, I’d been able to track Tamir Cohen. Then we hit a dead end, and after two weeks with no new leads, the guys went home.
I did not.
My mission was incomplete—wouldn’t be complete until I found Delilah. But to find Delilah, I needed to find the man who’d taken her—Former Israeli Defense Force commando, Tamir Cohen.
He’d been leaving us breadcrumbs.
Tiny clues that only someone with specialized training would find.
Tamir had spent years in the IDF’s highly respected Shayetet 13 before he’d asked to be transferred to his dead brother’s Yamam unit. Shayetet 13 specialized in recon, intelligence, hostage rescue, and sabotage, among other things. Yamam was a well-trained counter-terrorism unit. If Tamir didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be found. He’d disappear, and no one would ever see him or Delilah again.
Shayetet 13 commandos didn’t make mistakes. He was leaving us a trail to follow, but that trail ended, and for two weeks, I’d been stuck in Los Mochis.
My phone clattered on the table next to the map, and my hands curled into fists when my boss, Zane Lewis’s name appeared on the caller ID. Zane calling at three in the morning local time, five in the morning his time—unless he’d gone through with his threat and was in Mexico to drag my ass home—didn’t give me warm and fuzzy feelings.
“What’s up?” I answered.
“Tex is on the line,” Zane unhappily grunted.
“Tamir Cohen called me. He stashed Delilah in a house two and half hours south of your location. The town’s called Laguna Colorada just outside of Culiacán,” Tex told me.
I quickly skimmed the map and found the location.
“Got it. Did he give you coordinates?”
“Sending them now,” Tex returned, and sure enough, my phone vibrated with a text. “He also gave a warning.”
A chill went up my spine. A warning from an IDF commando made my jaw clench.
“What was the warning?” I asked.
“To keep Delilah off radar for as long as possible. Aviv Abrams wants her dead.”
“We knew that,” I reminded Tex. “Did Tamir explain why he didn’t kill her? He works for Abrams, and Aviv won’t be happy when his head of security comes back without a trophy after being gone for months. And if Tamir thinks he’s gonna bullshit Aviv into thinking he couldn’t find Delilah, that’s not gonna work.”
“Tamir didn’t exactly explain his strategy to me, Myles. He called with the location and the warning.”
There were a few beats of silence while I weighed my options. Go in alone and risk an ambush or wait until Zane got a team down to Mexico to help me extract Delilah.
“I’ll send—”
I interrupted Zane. “No time. I’m less than three hours away. I’ll leave now and have her secure before the sun comes up.”
“Could be a setup,” Zane warned.
“Could be. But he’s also been leading me to her.”
“That could be a setup, too.”
“We already went over this, Z. Tamir knew we were following him. At any time, he could’ve engaged with us. He didn’t. He kept his distance. He’s had her two months, and as of two weeks ago, she was still alive. Our options are he’s killed her and wants me to find her body which makes no sense, or he’s setting a trap knowing I want her, and he attempts to kill me. But again, that doesn’t make sense. I’ve been in Los Mochis for weeks. He knows I’m here. I’ve been visible on purpose, trying to draw him out. If he wanted me dead, he would’ve tried by now.”
I had to fight against the bile fighting its way up my throat at the thought of Delilah’s lifeless body being dumped for me to find.
“So, now you think Tamir Cohen’s some sort of good guy?” Zane sneered.
“I think you’ve been right all along. There’s something off about a man who was so dedicated to his country, to his family’s honor that he went to his father’s homeland to serve in the IDF when he was born and raised in the United States, and then that same man turns into a soulless killer.”
“That’s not what I said,” Zane corrected. “I said, I thought Aviv possibly had something Tamir wanted or he was holding something over him that made him turn. But there’s no denying he’s fucking turned.”
“War changes a man,” Tex interjected. “It can suck the good right out of our bones if we’re not cautious.”
“Has he?”
This was something I’d spent a lot of time thinking about. If Tamir wanted Delilah dead, she’d be dead. He would’ve done it immediately and been on his way. He wouldn’t have taken her eight-hundred and sixty-six miles into Mexico to do the deed. Keeping a hostage was risky, and it was a risk Tamir wouldn’t take for an hour—certainly not for two months.
“Are you willing to bet your life on that line of thinking?”
“Yes.”
“Get on the road,” Tex cut in. “I’m gonna see if I can pull satellite images.”
“Appreciate it. I’ll be out the door in five.”
“Don’t get dead.”
Zane disconnected and I folded the picture of the beautiful smiling woman back into quarters and tucked it back into my wallet.
Hang tight, baby. I’m coming for you.
Five minutes later, I was out the door.
Chapter 2
I was cold.
So cold my teeth were chattering and my body was shaking in a way I had no control over.
This happened every night.
During the day I would try to break free through the barred windows until sweat drenched my clothes, then night would come and everything would be damp and I’d shiver until my muscles ached.
But it could’ve been worse, right? Tamir Cohen could’ve hurt me. And not just because he was huge. I knew he was IDF. I’d done his background check when Aviv had convinced him to come work for Abrams. The dossier I’d collected for the insurance company hadn’t begun to touch the surface of who he really was. They didn’t need much information, just enough to insure him as the Abrams head of security. But I dug until I found who he really was. So, yeah, Tamir could’ve killed me a hundred different ways but he hadn’t.