Merciless Survival (SEAL Team Blackout), page 1
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Merciless Survival
SEAL Team Blackout
Book 3
Copyright Em Petrova 2022
Ebook Edition
Electronic book publication 2022
Cover Art by Bookin’ It Designs
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SEAL Team Blackout
SHATTERED TIES
RUTHLESS PROTECTION
MERCILESS SURVIVAL
SAVAGE PAWN
She wrecked his mission, but he stole her heart.
SEAL Team Blackout Operator Ronin Ramsey is confident that this will be a successful international op. Locate the enemy and get out—simple. Until all hell breaks loose and he discovers a group of women are being held hostage by the very terrorist his team’s after. And the surprises keep coming when a certain brave and stunningly beautiful hostage triggers big protective instincts he’s never felt before—not to mention the smoldering tension.
Farah Wolfe is just trying to make a difference in the world with her work in Nigeria. Now it seems the group that took her hostage isn’t finished terrorizing her. If not for Ramsey, she wouldn’t even be alive, though she doesn’t want to think about her growing feelings. Keeping that secret from him is easy. Keeping her hands off all those steely hard muscles? Impossible.
For Ramsey, duty calls, and that means he can’t even hope for the things other men get in life. With time running out to stop the threats raining down on them, Ramsey and Farah have no choice but to break some rules of engagement…and more than a few when it comes to love.
MERCILESS SURVIVAL is a steamy romantic suspense with all the action and adventure, an alpha SEAL protector and a forbidden fling that results in ALL the feels. 1-click now and pick up the entire SEAL Team Blackout series!
MERCILESS SURVIVAL
BY
Em Petrova
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
ONE
Farah would rather be anyplace else but sitting at her desk, staring at a spreadsheet of numbers until her eyes crossed.
She could be on a trip to one of the internment camps, helping the aid workers to get food and clothes to displaced Nigerian villagers. She could even be stuck in a meeting with all of her superiors and feel less stressed than she was right now.
Heck, digging latrines would be preferable.
A rivulet of perspiration zigzagged down Farah’s spine.
And of course, she just had to be one of those women who sweat under stress; neck-deep in accounting, she didn’t have a prayer of staying dry. Especially with temperatures in Abuja, Nigeria topping the nineties on a regular spring day.
The numbers on her screen just weren’t adding up. She was two cents off and she would not stop until she found her error—or someone else’s.
Since the financial aid was going to one of the causes Farah worked closely with, she was determined to pinpoint where the mistake was made. Two pennies might not seem like a lot to most people, but the program fed, clothed and housed unfortunate people. Every cent counted to them.
Besides, the government frowned on lazy accounting, especially when they were doling out millions of dollars in humanitarian aid.
Forcing herself to move slowly through the list of figures, she picked up her bottled water and sipped. The cool liquid slipping down her throat helped, and the tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed a bit.
Farah directed her desk fan to blow on her neck, hoping it would help with the perspiration dampening the loose tunic top she wore over linen trousers. Pleased with a little more airflow, she began again at the top of her spreadsheet and worked her way down, checking figures she’d already checked twice before.
“Why can’t I find this error?” she muttered.
When she pulled in a deep, frustrated breath, she caught the scent of coconut perfume. She glanced up, a smile already fixed on her face for her best friend and coworker, Cassie.
The pretty blonde tucked a strand of straight hair behind one ear and leaned against Farah’s desk. “Uh-oh. I see I’ve interrupted a mad figure-checking spree.”
“I’m off by two cents.” She glanced over her friend’s red and white polka-dotted outfit. “And I see somebody is patriotic today.”
Cassie chuckled and waved a hand in dismissal. “You know red’s my favorite color. It has nothing to do with being Canadian.”
Farah scanned from the flowy red dotted dress to Cassie’s red sandals. “Whatever you say. Remember I’ve seen your apartment and it’s covered in hockey posters.”
“That’s because all my family plays back home. Plus hockey players are hot. Speaking of hot, you look like you could use a break. Are the numbers getting to you that bad? You never stress.” Cassie leaned over the desk to peer at the screen.
“Few things stress me out as much as numbers that don’t add up. Why I decided to take this job is beyond me. I could be doing pretty much anything else for a living.” Farah pulled her thick hair off her sticky neck.
Cassie snorted. “True, you could be in Boise working in your mother’s midwife practice.”
Farah inwardly shuddered at the thought. She’d spent enough lonely years of her life waiting for her mom to come home. She was always out helping other people grow their families instead of at home with Farah and her two brothers. As a result, Farah never wanted that life for herself, even if she knew a lot about midwifery from countless occasions when her mom needed an extra set of helping hands.
Bringing babies into the world was a noble profession, but one that came with too many emotions for Farah to choose it for herself.
Cassie poked a manicured finger into Farah’s shoulder. “And I would be working in some dull office. Instead, we looked at a brochure for the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance and thought it was a good way to travel and see the world.”
Farah turned to her friend, brow raised. “And make a change in the world.”
“That too.” Cassie straightened and looked over the top of the computer toward the window overlooking the parking lot. A single palm tree was visible from this angle. Farah had the pattern of the bark memorized, since she stared at that tree whenever she was frustrated, puzzling out a problem or just plain bored. She much preferred times she got out of the office to work at the camps.
Cassie nudged her and then pointed out the window. “What do you think those vans are doing out there?”
She’d barely gotten the words out of her mouth before shouts echoed down the hallway. Cassie’s eyes flared wide. Farah turned her attention from her friend back to the window.
A man dressed all in black and toting a machine gun sprinted past the palm tree.
She shot to her feet, and Cassie gripped her arm, fingers biting into the flesh. “Did you see that?”
Farah met her eyes. “We have to get out of here.”
They made a break for the door. Farah peeked into the hallway. Another man ran by. Then another, and another.
Cassie gave a little cry, and Farah shoved her against the wall, a hand over her mouth. She stared into Cassie’s green eyes. “We have to stay calm. I think it’s an attack.”
Pops of machine gun fire blasted through the building, confirming it was true.
She’d heard about attacks like this across the world. Nigeria wasn’t exactly the most peaceful country, but Farah and the other people who worked for the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance—or BHA—were a bit more sheltered. The worst Farah had seen was a common mugging on the streets of Abuja.
Cassie sagged at the knees, and Farah propped her up so she didn’t fall. “Why now? Why us? We help Nigerians!”
“Listen to me, Cass. We are leaving this building together. But I don’t want to drag you.”
Shrieks hammered their ears as the men in black wearing face coverings rampaged through the building.
Farah shot a look at the window. It was fixed glass. She could throw her computer through it, but the noise would only alert the men to their location sooner. Who knew how many were circling the building too.
“To think I was going to bring up how quiet the office is today.” Cassie’s whisper wobbled.
“You should’ve knocked on wood.” Farah stole another look around the doorframe. Her heart gave a hard jolt at the sight of a man holding two of their coworkers at gunpoint. They walked ahead of the attacker, hands up in surrender.
More men ran down the corridor, stopping at every doorway to yell at the people inside to come quietly and don’t make any trouble.
Farah settled her hands on Cassie’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “They’re coming in here next. Whatever happens, we stick together.”
Cassie’s eyes sparked with alarm. “How are you so calm?”
More shouting, closer this time.
Farah whipped her head back to Cassie. “Mom taught me that when facing a crisis, do so with a cool head.”
“How does the advice of a midwife help us now?” Cassie plastered herself to the wall as footsteps and shouts approached their door.
“It doesn’t, but I usually handle stress well…except when I’m off by two cents.”
The steel barrel of an automatic weapon poked through the open door, and the gunman swung it from Cassie to Farah.
“Come with me,” he ordered.
Farah clutched her friend’s fingers and squeezed. “Now I’ll never find those two cents.”
* * * * *
“Ramsey.”
Ronin Ramsey glanced up from the tattered and dog-eared thriller novel he was reading and focused on his fellow Navy SEAL standing in the doorway of the lounge.
His brain shifted quickly from what the scene in the book—a sultry night in New Orleans and a heinous crime—to his current surroundings, a temporary military barracks in scorching Egypt.
“What is it?” Ramsey asked.
Bridger lifted his jaw to indicate he should come with him. “We’ve been summoned to the conference room.”
Ramsey dropped the thriller onto the sofa and stood to follow. This place sure wasn’t the SEAL Team Blackout headquarters back in Washington, DC. When they’d been deployed to Nigeria to search for a certain terrorist, they'd all hoped for a quick, clean op. That wasn't what they got. Every trail they followed led to a dead end. So now they were stuck here among low-ceilinged, cramped corridors.
Ahead of them, a few of the guys were talking and joking.
“Man, you look barely awake,” one said. “I swear you already slept twelve hours straight. You sleep as much as a fifteen-year-old kid.” The SEAL shoved the one he was teasing in the shoulder.
“I’m still catching up from that last op, man. You might be able to sleep sitting up in the desert surrounded by venomous snakes but I can’t. I was awake for forty hours.” He scrubbed a hand up the back of his head, where his longer-than-regulation hair was mashed to his skull. Since SEAL Team Blackout wasn’t a conventional branch of the military, they got away with more when it came to appearance. Many sported hair well below their collars, had facial hair and expressed their personal style when it came to street clothes, Ramsey included.
They filed into the room. The blinds were drawn against the baking Egyptian sun, darkening the space in order to view what appeared to be a livestream on the big screen.
Ramsey narrowed his eyes and took a seat in one of the folding chairs set in a semicircle around it.
Bridger sank next to him, his stare fixed on the screen too.
Sparrow, the leader of their platoon, Blackout Alpha, stood at the front of the room next to the screen. He widened his stance and folded his arms. “Blackout Alpha, what you’re looking at is a hostile takeover in Abuja. It’s happening live, and as you can see, there are six gunmen in this room alone. But we’re guessing their number is more along the lines of twenty. At approximately 1300 hours, they infiltrated the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance.”
“Any casualties?” Ramsey spoke up.
Sparrow’s gaze landed on him. “Three executions so far.”
“Jesus.” Bridger’s murmur reached Ramsey.
Sparrow continued, “Who they are and their purpose for taking the building by force are unknown. However, we do know there’s some pushback against American efforts in Nigeria, even ones that help their people.”
“And that Abubakar wants all Americans out of the country,” Ramsey added.
The video panned over four people seated with their backs against a wall, bound and gagged.
The members of Blackout came from all different SEAL teams, so they’d seen some shit. But they’d been recruited to this special forces unit for the most sensitive deep ops. They took the missions other units didn’t—or the government wanted to keep under wraps.
Each member of Blackout was completely removed from official books—death certificates were issued and they lived only to serve. Ramsey knew there was a reason why Sparrow was showing them this footage. It was certain the United States government didn’t want it leaked that humanitarian workers were held at gunpoint by a terrorist group.
“Do we have any guesses as to which group they’re aligned with? Is it Abubakar?” Ramsey asked.
Sparrow pivoted to the screen and then back to Ramsey. “As of right now, that information is unknown. They’re livestreaming to show off—it’s a statement.”
“Or a challenge,” another SEAL said from across the room.
Sparrow gave a solemn nod, and they all turned their attention back to the screen. The camera framed a man dressed in black. His face was covered, but his eyes had the wild, crazed expression of a sociopath. Ramsey had seen guys like him a time or two. Shit always ended up sideways with a live spark like this one.
As the Blackout team looked on, the man lifted his weapon and fired. One of the people against the wall slumped over, blood pouring from his forehead. Screams erupted, sharp even though the sounds were muffled by gags.
Ramsey twisted his eyes away from the dead man.
The crazy-eyed man moved in front of the camera again. “I will execute one hostage every two hours.” His speech was heavily accented. He held up two fingers and jammed them at the camera.
Ramsey closed his eyes and reopened them. “Who are the hostages? Are they primarily US citizens?”
“A few Canadians and some Brits are there too. The Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance—or BHA—works with the people of Nigeria. They decide how the US funding is distributed and who can benefit the most. These workers are often hands-on, dispatched to the camps where the displaced persons are housed, but many sit at desks all day,” Sparrow briefed them.
On the screen, the hostages were still screaming and crying, the dead man slumped between them. None of the terrorists took action to remove the body.
The person filming was on the move now. Hallways blurred by. He stopped at one room to show Blackout and whoever was viewing this in Washington right now a group of ten more hostages.
The team looked on as face after face zoomed by the camera. People from all walks of life, all in Nigeria for a reason—to help other humans. And this was how they were repaid.
“Fuuuck meee,” Ramsey drawled out, shaking his head.
More cries filled the speakers as the man stalked over to a group of women huddled on the floor. He reached down and grabbed one, thrusting her in front of the camera.
She wobbled on her feet, probably thrown off balance from being bound at the ankles. When she regained her footing, she raised her head.
She was one of those natural beauties with almond-shaped eyes, a face full of freckles and dark hair waving over her shoulders. She tried to turn her head aside, but the terrorist reached out and clamped his fingers around her delicate jaw, forcing her to look at the camera.
She wrenched from his grip. A collective gasp of air rippled through the SEALs viewing her resistance. Ramsey braced himself to witness her execution.
The woman tipped her chin up in defiance, and she glared into the camera.
Ramsey shifted to the edge of his seat, fist clenched on his knee. His stare was riveted on the woman. He felt as if she were looking into his soul.
Off-screen, the male voice growled in his thickened accent, “This woman—she may be next. Tell her family to prepare to mourn her and the others we have here.”
Those almond-shaped dark brown eyes sparked with anger rather than terror.
An anger hot enough to burn down the whole world.
She’s gonna get herself killed.
“My god,” Bridger echoed Ramsey’s thoughts.
Ramsey stood, looking to Sparrow. “We have to stop this. Tell me we’re going.”
“Our commanding officer’s in the process of finding out if we’re the closest platoon. Transport to Abuja takes—”
Sparrow’s phone rang, cutting off his words. He brought it to his ear and responded to whoever was on the other end in monosyllables. Ramsey turned his attention back to the woman on screen.
