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- Herausgeber: Valley Publishing Ltd.
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Planning to meet his sister in Germany, but, when she’s a no-show, Lennox has his first inkling that trouble has come home in a big way …
When his sister and her best friend go missing, Lennox is determined to find and to keep his only family member safe … and her best friend. They were both doctors, traveling the globe with the UN. Lennox was proud of his sister’s accomplishments. He’d never tried to hide their relationship, thinking no one from Lennox’s Navy SEALs past cared—or was still alive. Only now someone has decided to use Lennox’s only family as a way to exact revenge.
Helena is caught up in a kidnapping of Lennox’s sister, all designed to get back at Lennox—the most infuriating man she’s ever met. And one she’s cared for since forever. Now to know she was used as a trap to kidnap his sister and to take him out was the worst kind of punishment. But she knew this man. Knew him intimately—if only once—but also knew he was coming to rescue them, even if it meant losing his own life.
Lennox wasn’t letting the only two women in his world be taken out without a fight, … especially one who didn’t even know how he felt …
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Lennox
The Mavericks, Book 10
Dale Mayer
Books in This Series:
Kerrick, Book 1
Griffin, Book 2
Jax, Book 3
Beau, Book 4
Asher, Book 5
Ryker, Book 6
Miles, Book 7
Nico, Book 8
Keane, Book 9
Lennox, Book 10
Gavin, Book 11
Shane, Book 12
Diesel, Book 13
Jerricho, Book 14
Killian, Book 15
Hatch, Book 16
Corbin, Book 17
Aiden, Book 18
The Mavericks, Books 1–2
The Mavericks, Books 3–4
The Mavericks, Books 5–6
The Mavericks, Books 7–8
The Mavericks, Books 9–10
The Mavericks, Books 11–12
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About This Book
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 Gavin
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
What happens when the very men—trained to make the hard decisions—come up against the rules and regulations that hold them back from doing what needs to be done? They either stay and work within the constraints given to them or they walk away. Only now, for a select few, they have another option:
The Mavericks. A covert black ops team that steps up and break all the rules … but gets the job done.
Welcome to a new military romance series by USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. A series where you meet new friends and just might get to meet old ones too in this raw and compelling look at the men who keep us safe every day from the darkness where they operate—and live—in the shadows … until someone special helps them step into the light.
Planning to meet his sister in Germany, but, when she’s a no-show, Lennox has his first inkling that trouble has come home in a big way …
When his sister and her best friend go missing, Lennox is determined to find and to keep his only family member safe … and her best friend. They were both doctors, traveling the globe with the UN. Lennox was proud of his sister’s accomplishments. He’d never tried to hide their relationship, thinking no one from Lennox’s Navy SEALs past cared—or was still alive. Only now someone has decided to use Lennox’s only family as a way to exact revenge.
Helena is caught up in a kidnapping of Lennox’s sister, all designed to get back at Lennox—the most infuriating man she’s ever met. And one she’s cared for since forever. Now to know she was used as a trap to kidnap his sister and to take him out was the worst kind of punishment. But she knew this man. Knew him intimately—if only once—but also knew he was coming to rescue them, even if it meant losing his own life.
Lennox wasn’t letting the only two women in his world be taken out without a fight, … especially one who didn’t even know how he felt …
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Chapter 1
Lennox Cummerbund landed just outside of Munich, Germany. He was meeting his sister, Carolina, for a couple days, hoping to get that much time with her before he got called on a mission himself, having finished with Keane’s assignment. As Lennox walked out of the airport, his duffel bag over his shoulder, he gazed around, looking to see if she had gotten in before him and was here to pick him up.
A couple days ago they’d made arrangements to fly into the same airport, roughly around the same time. He had her flight number on his phone but hadn’t had a confirmation from her that she had managed to catch it. As he walked through one of the lengthy areas of the airport, he saw the computerized flight board above. He quickly checked her flight info. So she should have gotten in about ten minutes before him.
He sent a text her way, saying he would wait outside the front doors near her baggage pickup area. They could grab a cab and head to her apartment that she had here. She was a Red Cross doctor and traveled all over the globe. Breaks off together were hard to come by.
She was his only sibling, and they liked to touch base, if they could, at least once a year. When Lennox received no responding text, he frowned, wondering if Carolina was still stuck on the tarmac, but, even then, they were allowed to turn on their electronics again. He waited inside now, at the luggage pickup. Carousels rolled through for her particular flight. She should arrive here at any time, and, indeed, a crowd had showed up.
He scanned the faces but found no sight of his sister.
His frown deepened, wondering if she couldn’t make it. He sent her yet another text; when that didn’t work, he dialed her phone number, and his call immediately went to voicemail. Shrugging, he sat at the exit, watching as people came and went. Maybe she got in on an earlier flight, or possibly she was still stuck in whatever godforsaken part of the world she had been in last. He thought it was Somalia.
And given the connecting flights that she probably had to take, she could have been stranded anywhere. Usually she’d send him a message, if that were the case. He checked his email while he was here, but still he had no word from her. Now he was starting to worry.
“Lennox?”
His gaze shot up as he studied the tall dark-haired man in front of him. “Gavin?”
Gavin reached out a hand, and the two shrugged, shook hands, and half hugged in a typical bro manner.
“Damn, it’s good to see you,” Lennox said. “Odd place, but then, maybe not. I hardly recognized you. You’re not in uniform, so you’re not here on business?”
“Oh, I’m here on business,” Gavin said. The smile fell off his face. “And I’m still in the military, just not the same unit.”
“Ah. A lot of that going on. I’m here visiting my sister,” Lennox said, holding up his phone. “At least I would be if I could find out what flight she’s on or where she got stuck. Her flight arrived, but she’s not on it.”
Gavin nodded, his expression turning serious. “That’s why I’m here.”
Lennox felt something inside him still. “Why?” He straightened his duffel bag at his feet as he glanced around. It seemed everybody suddenly moved slowly, as if only his world had sped up to the point where it all focused entirely on Gavin’s face.
“We have reason to believe she’s been kidnapped. Your sister, as far as I know, landed at this Munich airport and was snatched outside the terminal here. We waited until you landed to inform you and hoped we’d have more details by now. But we’re still digging.”
Lennox stared at Gavin in shock. “Seriously?”
Gavin nodded. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got wheels.”
“Well, if Carolina’s been kidnapped,” he said, “we should take a look at this airport, where she was snatched.”
“We’re hoping to find her trail more effectively and more efficiently via the video feeds.”
“We?”
“I’m part of the Mavericks team now.”
Lennox nodded, then pointed at the airport behind them. “Then we should be heading inside to review their security feeds, awaiting intel before we book our next flight.”
Gavin shot him a look. “We are securing a flight, but we’re taking a military transport.”
Lennox stared at him. “So I’ve been tagged for this mission to head up, or is this assignment just because it involves my sister?”
“Both,” said Gavin. “In most military and even civilian cases, you wouldn’t be allowed anywhere close to this op. But the Mavericks get to make the rules and have decided you’re probably the best person to track her down.”
“You’re damn straight, I am!” Lennox said, swearing fluently. He threw the duffel bag over his shoulder and said, “Lead the way.”
Within minutes they were in a nondescript car, heading out of the airport, moving through lanes and lanes of traffic as they navigated toward the main US base on the outskirts of Munich.
“Have you ever been on this base?” Gavin asked.
“Lots of times,” Lennox said. “Most of the personnel probably still remember me.”
“Right, you were stationed here for a while, weren’t you?”
“Yes, and I was here for training several months at a time too.”
“Good. Hopefully we’ve got some orders when we get there.”
“I can do without the orders,” Lennox said. His voice was hard. “I need intel.”
“That’s coming too.”
“Who’s running ground crew on this one?”
Gavin looked at him. “I have no clue. I’m not even sure I understand how all this system works, honestly. When they tagged me for this mission, basically because I was so nearby, I told them that they needed somebody with more Mavericks experience, and they just said, This is how we roll.”
Lennox thought about it, then nodded. “That’s exactly how they roll,” he said. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with my Mavericks experience either. I just ran my first Mavericks mission with Keane,” he said. “And I knew the next one was mine to head up, but I hadn’t expected it to involve my own sister.”
“I don’t think the Mavericks expected this either,” Gavin said.
“Do we know a reason why?”
“Not that I’ve been told.”
“Nobody’s seen her since then?”
“No, we’re not sure who’s behind this or why they were targeted.”
“They?” Lennox pounced. “So it wasn’t just Carolina?”
“Four on the same medical team,” Gavin replied. “Your sister, another doctor, and two nurses.”
“Which means Helena as well.”
“I don’t know Helena,” he said. “Who’s she?”
“My sister’s best friend. They’ve been working as a medical team since forever,” Lennox explained.
“Doctor or nurse?”
“Doctor.”
“So three women and one man are confirmed on the team. The Red Cross is taking this very seriously.”
“Of course they do,” Lennox said. “They can’t get doctors and nurses to work for them if they’re being kidnapped randomly. Safety for them is paramount.” Lennox paused for a moment. “How do we know they were kidnapped? Or are we just going on the basis that they didn’t show up for their connecting flights?”
“We think your sister’s medical team members were seen being marched into the back of a vehicle. No visual confirmation yet on the captives,” Gavin responded. “The witness got scared when he saw the men were carrying weapons and decided not to report it for at least an hour.”
“Did he describe the gunmen?”
“Four white men in military fatigues with machine guns.”
Lennox swore at that. “Well, that doesn’t help.”
“No, the witness did wonder about the direction they were traveling, as the road led to another part of the airport. So it’s possible they were flying the captives somewhere else.”
“Which would be smart on the kidnappers’ part,” he said. “When you think about it, a lot of traffic occurs at a major international airport. That hinders our progress tracking them, as we have to delve through massive amounts of security tapes. Plus the kidnappers and their captives could easily have been flown elsewhere. But where? Why?”
“If only our witness had stopped and waited longer to see where they went, … but you know what the airports are like. The traffic comes and goes quickly.”
“Cameras?”
“Yep,” Gavin said. “The vehicle headed to the section reserved for private planes, but it only shows them taking that turn.”
“And do we know anything about those private planes on the ground at the time?”
“No, we don’t,” said Gavin. “Outside of the fact that the terminal exists. However, the hangers we’ve contacted so far are not willing to hand over any security cameras.”
“So hack into them,” Lennox said harshly.
“In progress as we speak,” Gavin said.
“If we don’t know where or why she’s been taken or who took her, how do we know where we’re supposed to go next?” Lennox blew out a frustrated breath. “By going to the US base, we could be going in the wrong direction,” he snapped in frustration. “That’s a complete waste of time, if so.”
“It will be, indeed,” Gavin said, “but we’re waiting on intel regardless.”
“So, on to the military base, then—hopefully by the time the next naval plane leaves—we can hijack it to our new destination.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Better be,” said Lennox, muttering to himself as he stared at his clenched fists. With just his sister and him left in the family, the two were close, very close. The thought of her suffering sent shudders down his spine.
“Is your sister still feisty?”
“You mean, arrogant, snappy, domineering, and sometimes aggressive? Yes.”
Gavin laughed. “Sounds like she can hold her own.”
“She’s had to,” he said. “She hasn’t had the easiest time climbing the ranks. She’s had several incredibly sexist bosses and coworkers, plus an abusive ex-husband. Now that she’s single and traveling the world again, she’s learned that showing she has a backbone of steel and honesty can do her some good but can also do her some harm.”
“True enough. But is she likely to keep her head in a scenario like this?”
Lennox thought about all the circumstances in Carolina’s life and what she’d been put through already. “Yes, I think so.”
“Good. What about Helena?”
“She’d shoot you in the balls just as soon as talk to you,” Lennox said, his voice harder than he expected. He could feel Gavin’s searching gaze, but he refused to rise to the bait.
“How long have they been friends?”
“From grade school,” Lennox answered. “They determined they would be doctors a hell of a long time ago,” he said, admitting his surprise at that. “I didn’t think they’d make it, figuring their dreams would change as they got older, but they are committed to being doctors.”
“Both married?”
“Both married guys named Peter. Both divorced. Both were in abusive relationships.”
“Jesus,” Gavin said. “A little too much twinning for me.”
“They’ve always been that way. They were apart for a while, both working in distant parts of the country, keeping in contact via social media and Skype and the like. When they both came home around the same time with their respective Peters, they both married quickly, then kinda led separate lives again, neither one copping to their abuse yet in touch all that time, until their divorces happened within about six months of each other too. That had them getting reacquainted again.”
“Seriously?”
Lennox looked at him. “Yeah, seriously wrong. But it did happen.”
“I can’t imagine such a life, but still that sucks.”
“Well, they had each other to recover,” Lennox said. “They were always the best of friends, and that didn’t weaken throughout the marriages or the divorces.”
“I’m sorry for both of them. Any children?”
Lennox sucked in his breath and shook his head. “They were both pregnant. Both of them lost their baby.”
“Jesus!” Gavin said and went silent.
Lennox settled into his seat, wishing that he could forget about the trauma his sister had gone through. Or the trauma that Helena had gone through. Both of them had been pregnant early on in their marriages but about a year apart. And neither had known about the other’s loss until they’d come together after the breakups of their marriages.
They’d both taken a beating somewhere around the time of the miscarriages. He looked down at his still-closed fists, reminding himself of the beat-downs he gave both Peters. To this day he wondered how he had held it together enough not to kill those two sorry excuses for humans. Lennox shook his head even now.
He couldn’t believe that his sister, who was so feisty and stood toe-to-toe over every argument, had let some guy beat her up. When he had talked to her about it afterward, she’d stared at him with tears in her eyes and said, “I don’t know how that works. I’ll yell at anybody who’s abusive in a hospital. I’ll protect every patient,” she said, “but somehow I let my husband hit me.”
She’d gone through all kinds of self-defense training afterward, plus assertiveness courses, shrink sessions, and had done everything she could to pull herself back together again.
As for Helena, Lennox had no clue how she had dealt with her recovery—other than her close relationship with Carolina. But Helena had been in a very rough foster care system for all her earlier life, so she must have learned how to cope way back then. Afterward, she had gone to med school on full scholarships. She was a brainiac, supersmart. But maybe knowing that she was finally loved—supposedly by Peter—had allowed her to let her defenses down, even when her brain was screaming at her that she was making a horrible mistake.
Lennox knew a lifetime could be spent on studying such a field, and still no answers are guaranteed to come up. He didn’t know if Helena had done the same kind of assertiveness training that his sister had done; he hoped so for Helena’s sake. This kidnapping though, it would be a rough go for all of them.
“Still amazing that the two are so close and that so much synchronicity existed in their lives.”
“I think they would have been quite happy to have skipped out on a lot of it though.”
Gavin laughed. “No doubt. At least they both got out of a bad situation.”
“Do we know anything about the other two people in the party?”
“One’s a male nurse by the name of John Steadman, and the other is a female nurse, called Sasha Kempton.”
“Is there any reason to consider this personal, as an act against the Red Cross, or just a political statement?”
“We haven’t heard anything yet. We are doing a full rundown on all four of the kidnap victims.”
“Well, I doubt your information will be any more detailed than what I already know about two of them.”
“Hence why you’re perfect for this job,” Gavin added. “You know what? If this were a regular military op, you wouldn’t be anywhere close to this.”
“Oh, I would be,” he said, his voice low and deep. “They just wouldn’t have liked the way I made it happen.”
“Right, still the same old Lennox then.”
“Absolutely,” Lennox said. “I’d have quit the navy and gone in myself, if that were my only choice to inject myself into this investigation.”
“Well, the good news is, it doesn’t have to happen that way.”
Just then they entered the security at the base. By the time they were cleared and moved forward, heading toward the offices, Lennox was already on his phone contacting the Mavericks. Keane was on the other end. “Have an update on where my sister has been taken to?”
“We lost sight of them at the airport. No flight plans were filed on the private planes.”
“Do we have a satellite on them?”
“We do, but we haven’t located them yet though.”
“How long until we do?”
“With any luck, another ten to fifteen minutes.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’re just pulling into the military base.”
As soon as they parked, he hopped out, his phone in his hand, and tried to call his sister once again. With no answer, he quickly sent a text to Keane with Carolina’s phone number, email address, and a couple other personal details. Find her, he added.
Keane answered. We’ve got this. I’ll have an answer for you soon.
Helena opened her eyes and stared around the small cargo plane. She and Carolina were tied up, as were the other two members of their group. Somehow they’d been taken from a departure lane outside the airport at gunpoint and moved into the back of a small truck, then driven to a private airstrip, on another airplane even now. She had no idea where they were being taken or why. What did bother her was the half-military, half-mercenary–looking mix of males on board. So far there had been no sexual connotation, and, as a doctor, she knew her skills were highly valued, but her entire medical team had been taken. Why?
She exchanged hard looks with Carolina, who stared at her. Helena had taken a blow to the side of her head and was dealing with quite the headache. Then so had Carolina. Helena raised her eyebrows ever-so-slightly, silently asking Carolina if she was doing okay, and Carolina gave her best friend the slightest of nods back. They’d always been very good at reading each other’s thoughts, keeping track of what each other were doing and how they were feeling, so Helena was pretty confident that, although her best friend had taken a blow to the head, Carolina would be okay.
Helena glanced at the other two; John was sleeping. The kidnappers hadn’t hit him at all. He was small, wiry, very efficient at what he did and hadn’t put up much of a fight, so maybe that’s why their captors had gone easy on him. Sasha, the fourth member, stared down at her feet, as if wondering about the state she now found herself in.
At the time they’d been accosted at the airport, they were all talking about their days off. Helena was heading with Carolina to Germany. Carolina would spend time with her brother, whereas Helena, who had a hard time being around Lennox, planned on visiting some other friends nearby. She would stay at Carolina’s apartment because it was convenient and easy. They’d been friends for so long that sharing a space was just second nature. And it had been Carolina’s idea that Helena come stay at the apartment. “You won’t see much of Lennox. I promise.”
Helena had snorted at that. “Anything is too much.”
“You’ll have to get over that,” Carolina said. “He’s not a bad guy.”
“He rubs me the wrong way.”
“And I’ve told you why,” her friend had said in exasperation. “The two of you are so damn perfect for each other that you have to get past that initial almost hate-driven type of relationship you’ve got.”
“And how will that improve anything?” Helena asked. “He’s hardly somebody I want to spend time with.”
“And yet you’re attracted to him. You can’t fool me.”
“He’s a healthy sexy animal,” Helena said. “What’s not to like?”
“So what’s the problem?”
“He’s more than a penis,” she’d said, laughing. “I can handle the physical, but I don’t think I want to live with the rest.”
“And I think that’s just because you’re so damn much alike,” Carolina had said.
“No, we aren’t.” Helena had been determined to shoot her friend down on that point.
“Yeah? Well, every time I ask him what’s wrong with you, I get the same answer. Gorgeous body, gorgeous face, but you know, I’d still have to live with her.”
The trouble was, Helena was attracted to Lennox. And it was way more than just the physical. But she also knew that Lennox went through women like crazy, and she wouldn’t be just another one among the many.
She’d been very particular about the men she hung out with, up until she got married. Then she had made such a shitty decision with her husband that she knew she couldn’t trust herself to choose the right one. She knew Lennox quite well, especially after the number of times they’d seen each other, but she’d also thought she knew her husband.
Her husband had been tall, slim, almost that gentry-type male; she’d never thought such a beast would be under that smooth surface. Lennox was the beast on the outside; she could hope that a gentle male resided underneath, but she couldn’t be sure, and she couldn’t take the chance.
Her ex had taken his fist to her jaw, to her ribs, to her stomach. She was pretty damn sure that’s why she lost the baby she carried at the time.
To find out Carolina had been hiding the same damn secret about her husband had been hard. They both wished that the other hadn’t had to suffer as they had.
They figured each had a fifty-fifty chance of having a decent marriage, so why had they both ended up on the negative end of the scale? Carolina had devoted herself to her work and had ignored men, whereas Helena was still searching the world of men around her because she did want a family. Yet every time she considered another intimate relationship, she found herself drawing back.
She couldn’t even look at the strong aggressive alpha males because all she could remember were the fists that kept pounding her into the ground. And, of course, the problem with that was, her husband looked the exact opposite on the outside—a compliant beta male. So she felt she couldn’t trust any males.
If she didn’t want children so much, remaining single suited her just fine. Being a doctor, she knew all about IVF and figured that could be the answer for her. But then, so many horror stories kept coming up in the news about that too. It was enough to stop her from moving forward.
And now she might not get a chance to rethink that choice.
She studied the two guards at the other end of the cargo plane. They sat, talking among themselves, their weapons turned casually in their hostages’ direction. Still it’s not like her team was any threat to the gunmen. The four who made up her medical team were tied up but not gagged and not likely to give their armed guards any trouble.
Both Helena and Carolina had martial arts skills and kept up their training, trying out new and more advanced techniques, but Helena couldn’t imagine doing a whole lot in this scenario. These men outweighed her easily by one hundred pounds each. Regardless, all the gunmen had to do was pull a trigger, and that would be the end of her and the others anyway.
Except … guns fired on airplanes were not her forte. Would their guards even shoot their weapons on an airplane midflight? Taking out a window on an airplane sounded like a really bad idea—one that would probably kill them all from the sudden depressurization of the plane itself if not when crash-landing. Would the gunmen risk that? Can a bullet puncture the hull of an airplane? Does it matter the kind of bullet from the kind of gun?
Helena knew absolutely nothing about guns either. Her mission was saving people, not shooting them. But rifles? On an airplane? These weren’t handguns. Or she guessed they could be machine guns, not rifles. Regardless, surely rifles and machine guns were more powerful than handguns and were capable of long-range shots, correct? To her, it seemed even riskier to shoot a rifle in an airplane in flight than to shoot a handgun. Shaking her head, she wished right now that she had access to Google.
Helena thought, if the gunmen were carrying those weapons more for show, then it would be the four of them against the two visible guards and any they couldn’t see. Granted, John and Sasha might be worthless in this situation. So it would be Helena and Carolina against the guards. Given the abusive relationships she and her best friend had been through, and the emotional consequences, Helena would pit her anger-fueled adrenaline against either of those guys. She bet Carolina would too.
Then her head reminded her of her injury as a piercing slash of pain bounced around like an echo in her mind.
She leaned back, closed her eyes, breathing deeply through the agony, until she felt the intensity of Carolina’s gaze. She opened her eyes to see Carolina nodding toward the men. Helena quickly twisted slightly so that she saw the two gunmen. Both had their rifles down and were showing each other papers or something as they exchanged various pieces back and forth. Was it their IDs?
Helena had no idea if their kidnappers had taken their luggage or if their baggage was still sat at the airport. The gunmen had taken the captives’ wallets, purses, all their IDs, and their phones. So that could be the paperwork they were shuffling between themselves.
How much longer would this flight be? Her head throbbed once more, interrupting any more thoughts on her escape plans. Maybe it would be better to tackle her captors once they were on the ground.
Just as she thought that maybe this would be a flight that never ended, the pilot called back to the gunmen, and they started their descent. She glanced at Carolina to see the fear in her best friend’s eyes. Helena gave her a reassuring smile. But how do you do that when your hopes were sinking along with the plane?
Helena closed her eyes again and prayed for help.
