Protecting Amy (Special Forces: Operation Alpha) Read online

  Protecting Amy (Special Forces: Operation Alpha)

  Desiree Holt

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Desiree Holt

  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.

  Editor: Kate Richards

  Cover Design: Croco Designs

  Beta Reader: Margie Hager

  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

  To Kate Richards and Margie Hager, my wonderful team who make all things possible.

  To former SEAL Jack Carr, who inspires my SEAL stories

  Thank you for your service.

  And to Amy Hrutkay, who is a person I so admire, and who makes life so easy for the authors in the Special Forces World.

  And my daughter Amy Nease, a shining light in my life.

  About the book

  She thought her past was firmly behind her…

  Amy Ressler was a vivacious, outgoing person, looking forward to her first job after graduating college. Until the night her stepbrother slaughtered her entire family, and thought she was dead, too. For ten years she’d been living under an assumed name in a house in Tampa with security guards and a security system. Her agoraphobia keeps her a prisoner in the house where she designs sought after video games.

  Quinn Molloy couldn’t seem to find a place for himself when he left the SEALS…

  Quinn Molloy has been part of the teams for eighteen years and suddenly an injury left him with no place to go, except to visit his friends Melody and Tex Keenan. Where they introduce him online to KitCat, Amy in her online disguise, a terrified woman who needs a bodyguard.

  The killer is loose…

  When Matthew Baker escapes from jail the hunt is on, led by the US Marshals. But with Amy helpless in her self-imposed prison, Quinn accepts the job as her personal bodyguard, and they discover that what starts online can explode n the bedroom. As long as he can keep her alive.

  Chapter 1

  It was the screams that woke her. She had fallen asleep early, tired from a long day of errands, and, for a moment she thought she was having a nightmare. Then she heard the scream again, loud and piercing, and her mother’s voice shouting. Pleading.

  “No. Please, no. I beg you. Please. What are you doing there? Why… God.” The scream sliced through the air.

  She threw back the covers and ran from her room, racing down the stairs toward the family room, the source of the screams, when she heard them again. This time there were no words, just a screech of mingled pain and terror. She stopped at the sight that presented itself to her. Harrison, her stepfather, lay on the floor facedown, his body at an unnatural angle, the back of his shirt soaked with blood. More of it lay in widening pools around him. Next to him, her mother was curled in a ball, arms over her face in a protective gesture. Blood still welled from a slash on her arm and flowed from two huge wounds to her back. And she wasn’t moving, either.

  Without looking around, she dropped beside her mother, heart pounding as she pressed two fingers to her throat, feeling a very faint pulse. Tears running down her cheeks, she shifted to check on Harrison. Same results. Who had done this? Why?

  “Get away from them.” A guttural voice snapped the words.

  Pulse accelerating, she turned slowly to see Matthew, her stepbrother, standing behind her, holding a bloody butcher knife. His T-shirt and jeans were covered in blood splatters, hair disheveled, a smear of blood on one cheek. She hadn’t seen him in weeks. What was he doing here? Chills raced down her spine, and she found it hard to breathe.

  She swallowed hard and forced herself to speak.

  “M-Matthew? What happened here? We have to get help for them.”

  “Leave them, bitch. It’s all your fault anyway. You and your smarmy mother and my asshole father. Now, move,” he shouted.

  But fear froze her in her position.

  “I said move. Now, bitch.”

  He stepped closer to her, and, when she couldn’t seem to make herself get up, he raised the knife and slashed her shoulder and her back. Then he stabbed her twice in the side, the pain so sharp and breath-stealing, for a moment she thought she was dead. She collapsed forward, hoping she could stay alive long enough for him to leave.

  “What’s going on here? Daddy? Why is everyone screaming?”

  Oh no! Oh, god, no.

  She managed to slide a glance sideways and saw her little brother, Brian, in his pajamas, staring, his face white, stark fear in his eyes.

  “Matthew? Matty, w-why do you have that knife?” His eyes were wide with fear. “Why did you hurt them? Why…”

  “Fuck,” Matthew shouted, the word thick with anger. “You should have stayed in bed, you fucking little brat.”

  She tried to get up, to get to Brian and protect him, but before she could, she heard more screams. She saw Matthew grab Brian by the neck with one of his thick hands and plunge the butcher knife three times into the small body. When he didn’t fall down at once, he kicked him.

  She saw the little body crumple to the floor and, with an effort, swallowed down the fear and pain, forcing herself to remain still. Hoping he believed she was dead. The pain was so sharp she could hardly draw a breath. Then she heard the knife clatter to the floor, followed by running footsteps. She raised her head just enough to see what was happening and saw him race for the kitchen and out the back door. She prayed the police could get here in time to save at least one of them.

  With slow, painful movements, she inched her way over to reach the cell phone on the coffee table, and…

  Amy Ressler woke with a start, sweating and shaking, throat parched and dry and tight with fear. She sat up in bed, clicked on the nightstand light. Her bedroom looked the same as it had when she’d gone to sleep. Nothing disturbed. Nothing different.

  Then the images slammed into her, and she realized it was the dream again, the nightmare. As vividly as if they were all here in her room, she saw the bodies on the family room floor, including hers. Felt the burning pain of the stab wounds. Heard the insane sound of Matthew’s voice. Would it never go away? Realizing she was shaking, she wrapped her arms around herself. Blinked to clear the scene from her brain.

  God. Ten years, and the details were just as vivid in her mind, the fear still as intense and suffocating. At last, when her breathing had evened out, she tossed back the covers and climbed unsteadily out of bed. In the bathroom, she filled a glass of water and looked at herself in the mirror while she drank it. The face that looked back at her was pale and drawn, with dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t looked this bad since, well, since it happened.

  It.

  What a small, innocuous word to describe the worst moment of her life. One minute she was happy and enjoying life, excited about her college graduation and her interview for a dream job. The next she was living a nightmare and changing every aspect of her life just to be able to stay alive. Even after all these years the nightmares still came with regularity and still frightened her to death. Ten years!

  Was this what the rest of her life would be like? Would it never stop?

  Why on earth when her mother married Harrison Baker had she not put her foot down where Matthew was concerned. Gotten him some psychological help. Everyone knew he had an unnatural vicious streak, that he thrived on cruelty. That there was something wrong with him. Her mother had tried to tell Harrison over and over again
that laying down the law wasn’t going to fix whatever it was, but he refused to listen.

  Now they were all dead, and Matthew was in prison, supposedly for the rest of his life. But Amy would only relax once the man was dead. Something she prayed for on a regular basis.

  With tremendous effort, she forced herself to focus on something else. Anything else. The new video game she was designing. The research she was doing for it, the one she titled SEALs of Glory. She decided she was in love with all SEALs, the icons of Special Forces. Creating and designing each character and plotting the missions gave her a real edge of excitement. And blocked out the terror that was still her constant companion after all these years. She had planned to use her degree in computer science to write programs for businesses, but this was a lot more fun. Discovering she had the talent and interest for designing these games was the only thing that helped her retain her sanity.

  The days after the killings were still a blur. She still gave thanks every day for Harrison’s attorney, Dan Rendell, who had worked with the police to relocate her, help her purchase a home and get settled. At least as much as she’d ever be. He was her only lifeline to the world and still handled so many things for her.

  When she’d fled Texas, she’d had no idea where to hide or what to do with her life from that day forward. It had taken all her strength to get to Florida and move into the house Harrison had purchased for her in the name of a shell company. Located in South Tampa, the comforting Spanish architecture and mature landscaping of the single-story home gave her a sense of protection. She’d managed to move in, but she hadn’t been able to set foot outside since then, not even to the little guest cottage in the back.

  Guest cottage? She didn’t plan on having any visitors.

  “You never know,” Dan Rendell told her. “Life can change.”

  But not for her.

  Dan had contracted with an agency named Security Solutions to provide agents when she needed them, such as when strangers like the landscapers came to work on her yard. She didn’t trust Matthew not to reach out beyond prison, if he found a way to do that, and try to slip someone in.

  “He’s locked up tighter than a drum,” Dan assured her. “And if anything changes, they’ll notify me at once. But he truly thinks you’re dead. The Marshals and I are doing a good job.”

  But both he and the Marshals who kept in touch with her off and on urged her to rent the cottage out to someone who could provide security on a round-the-clock basis. Have a stranger living here? On her property? Discovering what a nutjob she was? She didn’t think so. As long as she never left the house, she’d be safe.

  In a new city, living under a new name—new everything—she should be safe. She no longer jumped every time her cell rang, remembering only Dan Rendell and her shrink had that phone number, and his office monitored anyone coming onto the premises, like landscapers and housekeepers. And none of them knew her real identity except for Dan. After ten years, she’d thought life could finally go on for her.

  The monster was locked away. Even after all these years, she checked the special site obsessively, needing the assurance he was still in prison. Only the scars that were a constant reminder kept her tied to that night, them and one other thing. Okay, one very big thing. A huge thing.

  She couldn’t make herself leave the house.

  She knew it was crazy. Actually, truth be told, people thought she was crazy. This year, finally, she had decided to try stepping out onto the patio to have a cup of coffee. But every time she set a foot outside the door, she broke out in a cold sweat, and nausea gripped her. Sometimes it took her half an hour to get back to semi-normal. She had her groceries delivered and hired people for everything else. A housekeeper, a gardener, a repairman, all thoroughly vetted by the police. She’d learned there wasn’t a thing you couldn’t do either by phone or Internet.

  And she had no face-to-face personal relationships, friendship or otherwise. Nothing where her scars would be called into question, despite the fact they’d faded a lot. To her, they were still as visible as when they were fresh, daily reminders of that nightmare. And, of course, there was the terrified state of mind she still had to work hard to control. Even after ten years, all her socializing was done online with people she’d never met.

  After all, she couldn’t contact people who thought she was dead. Nothing that would give away her location. Which was stupid because he was still in prison. She’d found a place online where you could verify the information, and she did so every week without fail. For ten years. Why didn’t they just execute him, she wondered. Wasn’t killing four people enough of a reason? No matter how much the attorney, who checked on her regularly with a secure phone, tried to tell her it was time to take her life back, the fear was still so overwhelming.

  She glanced at the clock. Three a.m. Maybe she’d log onto the chat room she was comfortable in. A few years ago, she’d discovered it while surfing the Internet, looking for someone who might answer a coding question that was giving her fits. She’d fallen into the gaming industry while trying to figure out a way to use her computer skills without leaving the house. Answering an online ad had given her that first break and led her to what was now a very lucrative business for her.

  She knew experts were out there, and it wasn’t as if she’d have to tell anyone who she really was. Even her chat room name, KitCat for her kitty—one of the few living, breathing things she allowed in the house with her—didn’t track back to her. Then, one night, she dropped in an avatar and joined the conversation.

  The first two times she entered the room, she’d just observed. She found the people there fascinating and interesting and, at least on the surface, nonthreatening. They came and went, and sometimes months would go by before she dropped in again. On purpose. She didn’t want a constant presence that could in any way lead back to her. Just in case. And mostly, she just posted questions.

  Which was how, a few months ago, she’d met Tex. Married and over-the-top in love with his wife, he frequently had insomnia and logged onto the Internet to relax at odd hours. She’d taken a chance when she was having a thorny problem with one string of code for the game she was working on. If he was a computer genius, as it seemed he was, maybe he could help her. Depending on what kind of genius he was, of course. When she’d posted her coding question, he’d invited her into a private chat room so he could give her information, but she’d laughed at his message.

  Tex: Cute name, KitCat, but I gotta tell you right off, I’m married to the most wonderful woman in the world, and she gets everything I’ve got to give.

  She’d been taken aback for a moment before answering.

  KitCat: No prob. I’m not in it for that. A relationship is the last thing on my mind.

  Tex: Ever?

  KitCat: No, and don’t ask Please But Please. But I reached out because I thought you could help me with a programming problem.

  Tex: Yeah? You a programmer?

  KitCat: I design video games.

  Tex: No kidding? Killer.

  That first night, she posed her problem to him, and he’d given her what turned out to be a simple answer. The next night, she’d hopped online to thank him, and they began chatting, mostly about their work.

  When she first got into the video game design business, she’d discovered a whole room filled with techno fanatics who could answer any question about anything cyber. Especially coding and designing. Over the years she’d made cyber “acquaintances,” Tex being the latest.