Trusting Zane Read online

  Trusting Zane (Special Forces: Operation Alpha)

  Fierce Protectors Book 6

  Casey Hagen

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Books by Casey Hagen

  More Special Forces: Operation Alpha World Books

  Books by Susan Stoker

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  © 2019 ACES PRESS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.

  Dear Readers,

  Welcome to the Special Forces: Operation Alpha Fan-Fiction world!

  If you are new to this amazing world, in a nutshell the author wrote a story using one or more of my characters in it. Sometimes that character has a major role in the story, and other times they are only mentioned briefly. This is perfectly legal and allowable because they are going through Aces Press to publish the story.

  This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I might have assisted with brainstorming and other ideas about which of my characters to use, I didn’t have any part in the process or writing or editing the story.

  I’m proud and excited that so many authors loved my characters enough that they wanted to write them into their own story. Thank you for supporting them, and me!

  READ ON!

  Xoxo

  Susan Stoker

  About the book

  Zane Crew, former SEAL, current security genius, and forever loner has reached his breaking point where his sister, Chloe, is concerned. Finished with her bad decisions, he’s sworn off cleaning up her messes for good, until danger chases her right onto his doorstep, his niece and nephew in tow. Before he could reach her, her assailants whisk her away, leaving him with two terrified children to care for and a trail rapidly running cold.

  Kinsley Scott, a former foster child, always envisioned a career helping those who couldn’t help themselves and what better way than with the Department of Children and Families. Only, after a few short years on the job, disenchantment and mountains of paperwork weigh her down in a career that leaves little time to get hands on with the people she meets. When her heart gets in the way of her judgment and kids go missing, she’s thrust into a frantic rush to find them.

  Forced to form an alliance, Zane and Kinsley clash at every turn even as the two children caught in the crossfire bring them together in a tangle of old hurts, regrets, and whispered admissions. Can they both forgive themselves for their mistakes and work together in time to bring Chloe home before it’s too late?

  Chapter 1

  Zane Crew ran his skin over the familiar dent of the cold metal clutched between his fingers. The decade-long habit, really more a ritual, had become as much a part of him as the battle scars permanently marring his skin.

  The once-jagged scratches dug into the metal by a blade and hatred had worn down to become little more than ridges out of place as they lay diagonally over the name Foster, Jax R.

  In the decade since Jax’s death, Zane’s scars had done the same.

  But the memories still scored his soul like the enemy’s jagged blade landing with a precision that only raw venom could elicit.

  Scrubbing a hand over his dry eyes, he winced and glanced down at the past that shaped his present. Bitter memories lay hidden along with the series of numbers assigned by the US government tucked in the shadows cast by the lamplight.

  Letting the tags clatter to the cold surface of his desk, he clicked his mouse and sent the final bill for his latest project and filed it away in his mind as complete.

  The money would come through; it always did. One of the many benefits of designing complex security systems. The customer always worried that Zane had the power to make their life a living hell if they didn’t fulfill their monetary obligations.

  And he was okay with letting them believe he was the modern-day Oz at the end of the yellow brick road.

  His phone vibrated next to him. Spotting an old SEAL buddy’s number on the screen, he answered. “You’re burning the midnight oil. Isn’t it one in the morning there?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” Tex said with a rough groan. “But pain is a fickle bitch, and it’s keeping me up tonight.”

  Zane leaned back in his chair, absently glanced at the secondary monitor offering multiple views of his surrounding property, and took a sip of the whiskey next to him that sat untouched for the past two hours. “So naturally you called me.”

  “Sure, haven’t talked to you in a while. Thought I would check in. Can’t let a SEAL brother drift too far from the fold. No matter how much he’d like to,” Tex said, his words loaded with intimate knowledge of Zane’s past.

  The time spent lying next to one another while they both waited to see if their injuries would kill them had bonded them in a way nothing else could. Late nights and whispered fears in the darkness climbing past lumps of resentment lodged in their throats, distracted them from the pain and anguish of a missing leg and a torso so cut up, it’s like the enemy tried to give Zane gills.

  Torturous memories tried to resurrect themselves in his mind, but he shut them down before he could so much as feel the frigid mud and ice-cold water that seeped into his uniform that long-ago night.

  He couldn’t go there.

  Wouldn’t go there.

  Zane cleared his throat and let another sip of the whiskey burn a trail down his throat. “How’s that wife of yours?”

  “Happy as a horse that’s busted into the grain bin. She’s on a cruise with a friend of hers.”

  “She left your raggedy-ass home, huh? Good call.”

  “Hey, I resemble that remark,” Tex said, his southern drawl even more pronounced than usual. “Who wants to be stuck on a cruise ship, anyway? Forced socialization with overzealous couples and leaving with a stomach virus that leaves my guts in the septic? I’ll take a hard pass. Besides, she sends me a bikini shot every day she’s gone. I’ve got quite the collection. It’s not hurting my feelings at all.”

  “And you don’t know what to do with yourself without her,” Zane said.

  Zane smiled at the sound of Tex’s sigh on the other end of the line. “Guilty as charged. But I did have a point when I dialed your number,” Tex said.

  Zane grabbed a pen and a pad of paper. “I’m listening.”

  “A SEAL buddy, Dylan North, and his company Fierce is branching out. They’re building a state-of-the-art facility, and they need the best security money can buy.”

  Zane scratched Dylan’s name and the name of his business down on the paper. He’d run checks on both the minute he hung up the phone. Not that he didn’t trust Tex. He did, but he liked to have every last bit of infor
mation at his fingertips before he met a potential client so he could make informed decisions early on. “What kind of facility are we talking about?”

  “It’s a recovery center of sorts for domestic abuse survivors. A small, but fully staffed hospital for initial care and recovery, a rehab and counseling center, shelter, employment training, daycare, and gym for self-defense classes.”

  Zane let out a low whistle. “And he’s bought a small town to fit this all in?”

  “Abe and Mozart helped them out with a tip on an area with potential between Corona and Anaheim Hills. There’s a series of buildings there already. Used to be a shipping hub so the main building is massive. They’ve got plans to section it out and remodel the outbuildings.”

  “Does this North have bottomless pockets?” Zane asked as his brain scrambled to come up with a figure for the scope of project they were talking about. Sure, they could get the property one hundred percent ready to go, but then they had to staff it and have monetary resources to keep them up and running until they made a profit.

  And how exactly did they think they were going to make a profit? People in abusive situations rarely had money. Lack of means to support themselves and their children had to be one of the top three reasons they stayed in the shit situations they were in.

  “They’re deep. The edges are about grazing his ankles. They've managed to pull us all in Cookie, Abe, Dude, Wolf, Mozart, and Benny. We all have wives who’ve been touched by abuse in one way or another. Some more than touched. And most of us have kids. There was no way we weren’t going to get in on this,” Tex said, his tone low and serious.

  Years ago, their injuries left them wondering who they’d become in the coming days, weeks, and months, if they were lucky enough to survive. Would they ever be useful again? Be protectors again?

  Could they find a new normal fulfilling enough to erase the painful memories of failing at their duty?

  Tex found a life, a purpose.

  But Zane, if he were honest with himself, hadn’t gotten there yet. The failures reared their ugly heads and landed like barbs in his chest.

  He didn’t have to wonder why he’d taken an acute interest in security and computer systems. With each job, this undeniable need welled up inside him, driving him to do it bigger, better, and more advanced than anyone in the business. His years in the military and his knowledge of military grade, cutting-edge technology allowed him to think up possibilities others hadn’t.

  Every job was one more challenge to get it right. One more chance at salvation.

  And a project like this that could save so many… yeah, he was in. He was so in. If they didn’t have the budget he needed, he’d make up the gap. “So state-of-the-art, Fort Knox, but inconspicuous so families and children aren’t scared. I have something new that I’ve been working on that might be just the thing. I’ll need the blueprints of what’s there, the architectural plan of what’s to come, and the budget for security.”

  “They’re hitting your inbox now,” Tex said in that confidence-laced voice as though asking Zane had just been a formality.

  That bond forged all those years ago stood against time and distance and made them a brotherhood of a different kind. They didn’t need words. Just a look or a tone and they knew what the other was thinking.

  Just as Tex said the words, Zane’s inbox chimed. “You had that email ready to go. What if I had said no?”

  “We may not talk often, but I know you, man. Speaking of… how is Chloe?”

  The muscle ticked in his jaw as he forced himself not to clench his teeth. “I don’t know. She’s not speaking to me.”

  “And the kids?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Your parents must have heard something from her at least,” Tex said.

  “Yeah, same old story. She’s onto something that’s going to land her on Easy Street. They buy that shit hook, line, and sinker every goddamned time no matter her track record,” Zane’s words laced with rancor scraped past his tight throat.

  “Sorry, man. That’s tough.”

  Zane and Chloe had been the best of friends growing up. Three years older, he hardly expected she’d have any interest in her little brother tagging along for long days at the lake, bonfires, and nights at the drive-in with her friends, but she did. She took him every last time.

  He’d hop in the passenger seat next to her, the same height, but at thirteen, still the kind of skinny that made him look like he’d been living off back alley scraps on the streets.

  She’d wait for him to buckle up, that raised eyebrow so much like their mother’s, but as soon as he clicked it into place, the look would vanish. She would tussle his hair playfully, and they’d be off.

  The sensor light over the garage flicked on, setting the first of the six screens aglow. Zane’s chair snapped forward as he scanned the monitor, expecting to see the neighbor’s cat, Zeus, saunter by.

  Instead, his sister’s face filled the frame from the camera aimed at his front door. The sound of her fists pounding on the oak had him reaching for his gun under the desk.

  “Zane!” Her panic-laced scream pierced the night as she looked over her shoulder. The cinder block and rooms between him and the front door were no match for the frantic edge in her voice.

  His phone crashed to the floor as he shot out of his chair and took off at a run for the front of the house. His bare feet pounded against the tile. His lungs expanded with jagged gulps of air.

  Chloe beat against the door again, making it rattle in its frame. “No, no, no, leave us alone!”

  The terror in her plea turned his blood to ice in his veins. The twenty feet between him and the door had become as daunting as the Grand Canyon. Her cries tore from her throat, becoming more distant by the second, and the sound of her fists hammering his door fell silent.

  He lunged for the handle, the locks giving way as soon as his watch came within a foot of the electronic panel above the knob.

  Raising his gun, he struggled to find his target as an armed man in a mask dragged his sister by a fistful of her hair to a dark sedan waiting in the middle of the suburban street.

  Chloe kicked and clawed, drawing a low, frustrated growl from her assailant. He raised his arm and brought it down, the butt of his gun slamming into her temple with a sickening thud.

  Her body went limp, her heels dragging along the asphalt as the guy tossed her slack body into the back seat, not even closing the door before the car squealed away.

  It all happened in seconds. Not enough seconds for Zane to have a chance at helping her, but just enough to sear every single moment into his mind like a red-hot branding iron burning into soft flesh.

  The whimper at his feet had his gaze snapping to the nearby shrub. Two impossibly small huddled bodies, his niece and nephew, shook as they covered their heads with their hands, their soft cries breaking his heart as rage spiraled through him.

  Chapter 2

  Kinsley Scott took a bite of her Nutri-Grain bar, a meager breakfast, but all she had time for as she balanced her satchel, purse, files, and a scalding hot cup of coffee in her tired arms.

  How the hell did she get so lucky to start out her workweek just as tired, if not more so, than she ended the last one?

  And the last one had been the worst since she’d started working for the Department of Children and Families.

  They’d lost three employees in her division to other counties, leaving her with a heap of documentation to catch up on and long overdue family visits if she had any hope of taking the partial week off that she had scheduled before her three coworkers had jumped ship.

  And one visit in particular that thwarted her and caused her too many sleepless nights.

  She pushed her way through the door of her office, the flimsy plastic lid breaking free of the cup, and hot coffee sloshing over onto her skin.

  “Ouch! Damn.” The efforts from her weekend fell from her arms, caught the edge of her desk, and tumbled down to the floor
where the contents landed in a jumbled heap.

  So much for the weekend full of work she’d put in.

  Tears of frustration burned in her eyes, pissing her off even more. Setting her cup on the stained cork coaster she’d been using since her first day on the job four years earlier, she let the straps from her bag slide from her shoulder and tossed it onto the best vinyl chair the county could buy tucked into the corner.

  “Knock, knock,” Tamara said from her doorway. “Did you hear the news?”

  “What news?” Kinsley asked from where she knelt on the commercial carpeting that bit into her knees. She resisted the urge to snarl at the office gossip despite the hideous events of the morning.

  She deserved a massage for showing such professionalism and maturity. There was just something about the permanent sneer that curled Tamara’s always-red lips that made Kinsley want to smack the attitude right off the woman.

  Good thing she liked to eat or she might just risk her paycheck to do it.

  “There was a glitch in the system and because of it, some of our cases look like they’ve fallen through the cracks. I’m sure you have nothing to worry about, being so thorough and all,” Tamara drawled as she studied nails so long Kinsley wondered how she wiped without slicing herself to the colon.

  Why did her mind go there? Ick.

  “So, they’ll get the system back on track, and it will be fine,” Kinsley said, smoothing wrinkled papers before laying them next to her.