Page 4 of Kyle

“Did you just run a background check on my friends?”

“Yep,” Declan answered unashamed.

“What the hell?”

“Is there something you don’t want us to know?” Declan’s eyes narrowed.

“No. But it’s uncool. You could’ve asked me about them.”

“Anaya, I don’t think you understand how this works,” Declan told me. “First, I’m not risking my life or my team’s working with people I don’t have a full workup on. And I’m certainly not handing young girls to people who haven’t been vetted. I don’t care how well you think you know them, or that they’re your friends.”

“Did you investigate me?” I asked and held my breath praying they hadn’t.

“Yep.”

My eyes widened and anger surged. They’d know everything about me. Not that I’d ever done anything wrong, but the invasion of my privacy was unwelcomed. I didn’t offer details about my childhood to anyone. Not even my closest friends know what had happened to me growing up.

I couldn’t hide the fact I didn’t have a family, but I didn’t talk about it.

“So, you know,” I seethed. “Yet you still think my reasons for going back to Timor-Leste make me stupid.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Enough,” Ace cut in. “You all have a plane to catch and a mission to plan. Bickering isn’t going to help.”

“It’s bad, Declan,” Piper spoke. “So bad, that when Ace and I saw it we knew we couldn’t leave our girls there. Amisha was upfront—she sells the girls. She even told us how much money it would cost for us to buy one. Twelve-year-old girls are being trained how to please a man.”

Declan’s jaw locked and his eyes clouded. Maybe he was finally understanding.

“We’ll leave you to it. We have to pick up the girls from Rocco and Caite,” Ace announced and stood. After he was on his feet, he helped Piper up and they said their goodbyes.

Now what?

Were Declan and Kyle really going to help me or had I made everything a hundred times harder on myself asking them for help? When Ace had told me he knew a group of former SEALs who had worked human trafficking and could assist me, I was excited.

Now, not so much. Declan scared me and he was kind of a dick. Then there was Kyle. I could handle Declan being an asshole, but Kyle? I wasn’t so sure about that. I didn’t know what it was about him, or why after years of not feeling anything, suddenly there was something to feel.

Everything about this partnership smelled like a disaster waiting to happen.

Chapter 2

I scrubbed my hands over my face as I took my seat on the plane. This morning’s meeting hadn’t gone well. Declan’s normal gruff demeanor had taken on a hard edge. This case was too close to home for him. I’d tried to get him to go back to Maryland with the team and send Max to Timor-Leste with me, but he’d refused. And being the team leader, it was Dec’s call.

It was doubtful, but I hoped the twenty-plus hour flight would calm his short temper.

Anaya finished stowing her bag and sat in the seat next to me. “Would you like the window?” I offered.

“No, thank you. I’ll read for a bit then I’m sure I’ll fall asleep.”

Once again, I found myself studying the woman, wondering what it was about her that garnered such a strong reaction. From the moment I saw her walking across the lobby of the Hotel Del Coronado, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

It was more than her obvious beauty. She carried herself with strength and determination. Two things I admired. I’d thought the sadness I’d seen in her eyes was from the horror she’d lived through in Timor-Leste, the loss of her friend, but now I knew it was more than that. I’d read her file. I knew she’d bounced around from foster family to foster family and finally as a teenager ended up in several group homes. The last was specifically for troubled teens.

But after she’d aged out of the system, she’d turned her life around. Complete about-face. I admired that, too. She’d pulled herself out of the gutter, all by herself. Went to community college, then to UCLA on scholarship. She was also older than I’d thought. At first glance she looked to be in her early twenties, but she was thirty-two, same age as I was.

“Thanks again for coming with me,” Anaya said, pulling me from my thoughts.