Lucas - Anne L Parks Read online

  Lucas (Special Forces: Operation Alpha)

  Anne L. Parks

  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

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Chapter 17

  Also by Anne L. Parks

  More Special Forces: Operation Alpha World Books

  Books by Susan Stoker

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks, first and foremost, to Susan Stoker for providing us with a way to explore her world and her characters while creating stories, characters, and worlds of our own. Thanks to my editor, Joan at JRT, you make my writing better. To my friend and cover designer, Drue Hoffman, I’d be lost without you (still manage to get lost most days, but that’s usually on me—HA!). To Debra and Drue at Buoni Amici Press, the most fabulous PR and book marketing firm around, you make my life a thousand times easier, and I appreciate all you do. As always, tanks to my family for putting up with me as I follow my dream—love you more than you will ever know. But most of all, thanks to the readers, who love our characters, and become invested in our stories, as much as authors do. We are nothing without you and your support.

  Find out more about the author on her website:

  www.annelparks.com

  About the book

  For Dr. Scarlett Black, treating tuberculosis patients in Russia provides her life with purpose—as well as an escape from her failing marriage. But when she is suddenly kidnapped by a group of terrorists, her desperation to place time and distance between herself and her husband may have placed a deadly target on her back.

  Lucas Black loves being a Marine Raider sniper. Loves being a part of the elite, highly covert special operations unit, The 13. And he loves his wife. But when Lettie Black is kidnapped, and the operation to free her goes horribly wrong, Lucas questions whether their marriage is even worth salvaging at all.

  Lucas and Lettie must put aside their differences to save innocent lives. But will they also have to sacrifice not only their love, but their lives, in order to keep others safe?

  For special operators in all four branches:

  Navy SEALs

  Army Delta Force

  Marine Raiders

  Air Force Parajumpers

  All the guts, none of the glory—

  just how you like it.

  Chapter 1

  Dr. Scarlett Black placed her elbows on the desk and rubbed her eyes. The cursor hovered over the send button on the email to her husband. Her emotions were as erratic as her heartbeat, and her head had no idea what her heart wanted anymore. Long hours as a visiting physician with the Doctors Abroad in the Chechnyan hospital treating tuberculosis patients had zapped the last bit of energy from her weary body. But she owed Lucas an update on what was to come next.

  As the end of the treatment program in the small town of Novye Atagi, a small village south of the capital city of Grozny, was within sight, so was the transition to a new place. Not home, like they had agreed on. A fireball flamed to life in the center of her chest. The thought of going home had been what made the long days bearable. But as the time drew near, so did the realization that none of the issues between her and Lucas—the issues that had sent her halfway around the world a year ago—had been resolved.

  Lucas was a sniper in an elite special operations group, having recently been selected to move to a highly covert unit he couldn’t talk to her about. The secrecy was only part of the problem. Lettie had been so proud of Lucas when he joined the military and became a special operator with the Marine Raiders. Things began to shift when he became a sniper, and she became a physician specializing in family medicine.

  Her profession saved lives.

  Lucas was taking lives. And that was hard for her to reconcile.

  Too many nights had been spent arguing over Lucas killing people. How could he expect her to rejoice in his accomplishments, his move up within the ranks? The accolades he received? Lucas was very good at his job. Something that made Lettie sick to her stomach when she considered how hard she worked to preserve life.

  She reread the email outlining how she had decided to go to Indonesia to help with the ongoing recovery efforts from the recent tsunami. She was sure the first thought through his mind would be how they had agreed that they would discuss these things, and that neither had the right to make unilateral decisions that affected both of them. But every time she tried to bring it up, she chickened out. It had taken her less time to sign the contract to go to Indonesia than it had to finally hit the send button. The whoosh of the email being sent thousands of miles away made her want to weep, while dousing the fire in her chest.

  Shouts came from the hallway. Someone was yelling in Russian. The voice was not the usual distraught cries for help. But angry. Demanding. She rose from the desk and made her way to the hallway. A tall man dressed in black stood a few feet away from her.

  “Ya mogu vam pomoch?” Can I help you, she asked the man in stilted Russian. It was one of the few phrases she had picked up during her time in country.

  The man swung around. She immediately recognized the tactical gear he wore. It was like what Lucas wore, only black. She also recognized the semi-automatic he wielded. His dark eyes grew as he took her in. The barrel of the weapon lowered, the end pointed straight at her chest.

  “Vy doktor?” he asked.

  She nodded, hoping she was correct interpreting his question. “Yes, I’m a doctor.”

  “Amerikanskiy.” He was in front of her before she could blink. His free hand went around her upper arm and he yanked her closer. “American,” he said through gritted teeth and broken English. She didn’t need to see his face to know the sentiment he felt toward her.
Disgust poured from him and soaked through her leaving her cold with fear.

  She tried to yank free. A quick glance of his uniform showed only one patch that was subdued. She couldn’t read Russian any better than she could speak it, so she had no idea what it meant. But she had been around plenty of Russian military and government officials, and none of them had worn the insignia this man had on his shoulder.

  “What do you want with me?” She asked struggling against his grasp.

  His fingers dug into her arm. He looked behind him, ignoring her question as if she hadn’t spoken. She followed his gaze and saw the other three visiting doctors in her group. All were being held at gunpoint just as she was. Dread swamped her. Fear prickled her skin. Lucas’s voice rang through her memories. “What if they kidnap you, imprison you?”

  He hadn’t wanted her to come to Russia with the humanitarian aid group she signed up with on a whim. But she had scoffed at his worries. “I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m going to Syria or Afghanistan. Russia is civilized. And they need our help. Why would they want to hurt a handful of doctors saving their people from tuberculosis?”

  Her captor thrust her forward toward the door, shaking her from her memories. The bitter cold took her breath away. The door of a black panel van opened, and she was shoved inside with her colleagues.

  “Wait!” She looked at the man who had grabbed her. “Where are you taking us?”

  He didn’t respond. The door slid along the track and slammed close, shaking the van. Fear rippled through her and for the first time, she wished she had listened to Lucas and stayed home.

  Chapter 2

  Lucas rapped on the front door to his best friend’s house, hoping Mick and his wife were not busy. Since Lucas had joined The 13, he and Mick McIntyre, the Air Force PJ, had become tight. And Mick’s place was a refuge from Lucas’s empty, lonely house up the street. He had bought the house hoping his wife, Lettie, would return from her humanitarian mission to Russia and be ready to settle back into a semi-normal existence. As normal as living with a special operations sniper can be, at any rate.

  But that seemed to have been a foolish aspiration. Ever since he eagerly opened the email from Lettie, expecting to find her flight information and dates for her return back to the States—discovering she had decided to go to Indonesia—he had been the most depressed he had been since she left a year earlier.

  The front door swung open. Mick stood in the doorway, bottle of beer in hand. “Oh, thank god, man,” he said as he took in Lucas. “Get your ass in here.”

  Lucas crossed the threshold and shrugged out of his coat, hanging it on the coat tree in the foyer. “What’s up?”

  Mick looked over his shoulder. “She’s killin’ me.” He led Lucas into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and grabbed two more bottles of beer.

  “By ‘she’ I assume you mean your lovely wife, Layla?”

  Mick tipped his beer bottle back and emptied it. Twisting the caps off the two new bottles, he slid one across the island counter to Lucas. Mick shifted his eyes to the doorway, most likely ensuring Layla hadn’t snuck into the room, or was in earshot. “That woman is not Layla. I think she might be possessed.”

  Layla was two weeks from giving birth to their first child. She was petite, the sweetest woman Lucas had ever met—until the third trimester hit. Now, she had a Jekyll and Hyde personality and poor Mick couldn’t ever seem to keep up with which personality he was dealing with. Most of the time Lucas felt bad for his friend, but it didn’t stop it from being funny as shit to watch unfold.

  “You do realize you are talking about the woman you love?” Lucas took a draw from the bottle. The cold beer felt smooth sliding down his throat and hitting his stomach. “She’s also carrying your child.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like…one minute she’s happy, rubbing her belly, then she’s crying and saying that she’s going to be the worst mother in history. When I try to tell her she is going to be a great mother, she flips a switch and starts yelling at me.”

  “Hormones and nerves,” Lucas said with some authority. He had heard Lettie talk about new fathers-to-be making similar confessions when she had been a family physician at Camp Lejuene in North Carolina. That was what she told them to calm them down.

  Layla waddled into the kitchen. Lucas bit his tongue before he opened his mouth and blurted out that she was as big as a house. She wrapped one arm around his waist. “Hi, Lucas, I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Just got here,” he said.

  She smiled, then glanced at Mick. “Is the crib put together?”

  “Almost,” he said. Layla’s face scrunched in anger, and a deep frown flipped her smile over. Mick lifted his hands in front of his chest in surrender. “I was doing it, but Lucas—”

  She dropped her arm from Lucas’s waist and pointed toward the doorway. “Then take your little friend and get back into the baby’s room and finish up.”

  Mick rushed toward the door, giving Layla a wide berth as he passed by her.

  “The baby’s going to be here and he’s still going to be ‘almost’ done with everything,” she muttered under her breath throwing her arms in the air.

  Lucas followed Mick down the hallway and into the bedroom directly across from the master bedroom. He had spent a day here two weeks earlier painting it a pale yellow. He spent most of his free time here. It felt like home—not like the cave where he dwelled.

  “Do you see? She has become the daughter of Satan,” Mick said when they were in the room and safely out of earshot of Layla. “Think long and hard before you start a family. Women go insane when they get pregnant.”

  Lucas peeled the label from his beer bottle. “Well, that’s going to be difficult if my wife is thousands of miles away—unless you buy the whole immaculate conception theory.”

  Mick dropped to a sitting position on the floor in front of a half-put-together crib. “Yeah, but that’s only for a couple more weeks. Scarlett will be home before you know it. Then you can get down to business.”

  Lucas set his beer on the window sill and took a seat on the floor opposite Mick. “Doesn’t look like that’s happening. She sent an email saying she’s on her way to Indonesia for another three months.”

  “What the fuck?”

  Lucas shrugged. “Who the hell knows? Certainly not me—I mean, I’m just her husband—and, apparently, I don’t even rate high enough to warrant a discussion. Or even a phone call informing me of what she is doing.” He blew out a heavy puff of air from his lungs. “I don’t know why she doesn’t just ask for a divorce. It’s pretty clear she can’t stand me anymore. She has to put half a world between us just to be happy.”

  Mick looked at him. “Did you email her back and ask her what was going on? Tell her how you feel?”

  “Nope. She made her decision.” Lucas grabbed the beer and downed it. “And now I get to live with it.”

  Chapter 3

  Lettie trudged through the deep snow wishing she had kept her heavy snow boots on at the hospital. It would’ve been a stupid idea—the boots were heavy, and her feet would have melted inside the fur lining walking between hospital rooms to check on patients. Her routine was to wear them into work, exchange them for her running shoes with memory foam inserts to aid in darting from patient to patient throughout the day. It was as if on auto-pilot—same thing, everyday. She didn’t give it any thought at all. Until she had been taken, living in what must once have been used as a barn, in some remote mountaintop area. Through the narrow openings between the slats of wood that made up the barn, she could see a house. Smoke rose from the chimney.

  As she walked the distance between the barn and the house, armed guards tightly grasping each of her elbows, she could see more of the house. One story, stone and wood, and there didn’t appear to be a gap anywhere. The guards dragged her up the steps of the front porch. She had started losing feeling in her toes that morning. By her calculations, her and her three colleagues had been prisoners for ele
ven days.

  The front door opened, and a whoosh of hot air blasted her face. The sudden heat prickled against her cold skin, but she welcomed the pain as long as she could savor the warmth. The men escorted her into a large room to the left of the foyer. A fire roared and crackled in an enormous rock fireplace that separated the room. A threadbare couch sat opposite two equally worn chairs.

  A man sat on the couch, a cigar in one hand and a glass with clear liquid in the other. In Russia, it was a good bet that any beverage that was clear was not water, but vodka. It was a staple that Lettie couldn’t understand until she had met her first cold night in Chechnya. While a fire would warm the exterior of the human body, the national spirit was almost the only thing to warm the insides. It had taken Lettie almost a full month to be able to do more than sip the alcohol straight.

  The man gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs. As she sat, he poured a glass of vodka and slid it across the coffee table toward her.

  “Drink,” he commanded.

  Hoping her numb fingers would be able to wrap around the glass and hold it, she leaned forward and grasped it. With shaky hands, she managed to get it to her lips and took a long draw. The spirit burned like a hot flame down her throat, igniting a roaring ball of fire in her stomach. She took another large gulp, knowing it might be a really bad idea since she hadn’t had much to eat since arriving at the makeshift prison, but also wanting to ensure she could keep warm after she returned to the drafty barn.