Page 73 of Keeping Laryn
Before she could blink, Tate jumped out the open door and ran toward the sound of Pyro’s voice.
Laryn took off her own headset and knelt by the edge of the open door, peering into the darkness, straining to see or hear anything as she gripped the pistol Tate had given her so tightly,she had no doubt her knuckles were turning white with the pressure. The rotor blades were still spinning above her head and she held her breath, hoping against hope to see Tate and Pyro returning with the injured SEALs any second now.
To her surprise, it wasn’t either of the pilotsorthe special forces soldiers who appeared as if out of nowhere. It was three men. She might’ve thought they were also SEALs, based on their size—except they were literally dressed from head to toe in black, including masks pulled over their faces. Only their eyes were showing, and these men weren’t injured in any way.
She heard shots ring out in the direction Tate and Pyro had gone, but the men didn’t even pause. They came right at her, reaching up and grabbing her by the front of her coveralls and roughly pulling her out of the back of the helicopter before she could even think to use the gun Tate had given her. The weapon was wrenched out of her hand as Laryn opened her mouth to scream. Then a black-gloved hand clamped over her mouth, silencing any noise she might’ve made.
Laryn fought with every ounce of strength she had. She was in deep shit, and she knew it. Her only chance was to get away and hide in the darkness. Wait for Tate and Pyro to return. And theywouldreturn, she knew that without an ounce of doubt.
As one man struggled to control her, to keep her contained as she thrashed and squirmed and tried to bite the hand that covered her mouth, one of the other men leaped up into the MH-60.
Laryn had the horrified thought that he was going to lie in wait for the others to return, then assassinate them—but instead, the sound of automatic gunfire broke out from inside the bird.
She was confused for a split second, then realized what the guy was doing. He was shooting up her chopper! She could see sparks flying from the cockpit as bullets ripped through the metal.
“Noooooo!” she yelled, but it was muffled behind the hand covering her mouth. Tate and the others definitely weren’t leaving. They weren’t going to be able to use the MH-60 as a weapon against the people who had her in their grasp either.
No. That chopper wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The number of bullets the asshole continued to spray into the cockpit guaranteed that.
She still expected the men to wait around to ambush the pilots, but to her surprise, the one holding her began to drag her away from the helicopter.
Fighting harder, not wanting to become a prisoner of war, Laryn did her best to try to get the man to loosen his grip. Just when she thought she might do it, that she might get away, the man who’d been serving as a lookout, his rifle at the ready, turned toward her.
The last thing she saw before she was knocked out was the butt of his rifle, coming at her face.
Edge paced the room the pilots had taken over for their use on the destroyer. On aircraft carriers, they had a ready room specifically for pilots. He didn’t really care one way or another, as long as they had someplace to prepare for their missions and go over intel.
“Laryn wouldn’t have messed that up,” Chaos said. He was also pacing the room.
“I know,” he said with a nod.
“I mean, a fucking loose connection? How does that even happen?”
Edge didn’t bother to respond this time. He was as irritated and bothered as his copilot that they’d been taken off the mission at the last minute. Both pilots were now listening to the radio chatter as their team headed inland to pick up the SEALs.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, but Edge ignored it. All his attention was on the conversation they were listening in on.
But the second the phone stopped vibrating, it started up again. Edge didn’t have anyone back home who would be so desperate to get a hold of him. No wife—his ex didn’t count; she wouldn’t contact him if she was literally dying, she hated him that much—no kids, no parents, no siblings. And his best friends were deployed to this destroyer with him.
He ignored the cell again, but when whoever was on the other end called athirdtime, Edge huffed out a breath of annoyance and reached for the damn thing. He had no idea who could be calling, as this was his emergency phone; it used satellites instead of cell towers, and he hadn’t given the number to many people.
“What?” he barked into the phone.
“Is this Roman Aldrich?” a man asked. “Edge?”
“Who wants to know?”
“My name is Tex Keegan, and I’m trying to get a hold of Casper. Is he there?”
Edge blinked in surprise. He knew about Tex. Everyone did. He was also aware that Casper had contacted him about the guy in Turkey—Osman, he thought his name was. The man who had threatened Laryn. But he hadn’t thought much about her situation since arriving on the destroyer, where he assumed she was safe.
“No. He’s on a mission.”
“Fuck.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Edge asked, stopping in his tracks. He could see Chaos turning toward him with a questioning look on his face and immediately put the phone on speaker, so his friend could hear whatever it was Tex needed to tell them.
“Right, so…I suppose I should ask why you aren’t on that mission with him, but at this point it doesn’t matter. Altan Osman? The man he asked me to look into? That guy is bad news. And to answer Casper’s question, yes, he’s a threat to Laryn Hardy. Ahugefucking threat. He has the power to get to her pretty much anywhere—including on your naval base. Where is she?”
