“Only as much as you want me to know,” Mason said with a smile in his voice. “If you want me to still believe you have three brothers and three sisters, then that’s what I’ll believe.”
“Six,” Drake said.
Mason chuckled. “A half dozen baby sisters, huh?”
“The bane of my existence.” He paused. “So, you know about my dad. Did you also know he got out of prison?”
“Fuck no! I was supposed to be notified!” Mason sounded as pissed as Drake was.
“Weren’t we all.” Drake sighed. “Who else knows?”
“Nobody. I haven’t even told Sophia. But I can’t vouch for Clint. What that boy finds out with a computer never surprises me.”
Drake sighed again. “If not him, then Lydia. She probably has a file on all of us. But I know he knows I’m here in Tennessee because he’s tracked my phone.”
“He does it out of love, Drake. With some of the shit that our team has gone through, he and his intrepid fiancée can’t help but worry.”
Drake laughed. “You make Clint and Lydia sound like a romcon couple. Come on, he’s a SEAL, dammit.”
“If the shoe fits. Hey, I made you laugh, and you’re in Jasper Creek with your dad out of prison. My work is almost done. Now for the real shit. Drake, without question you can have the time off. But I’m getting on a plane.”
“Hell, you just got married. What’s more, we just got off a three-week mission. There is no way I’m asking anyone to hop a plane to Tennessee.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. I’ll be there in eight hours.”
Drake thought about the man with the swastika tattoo. Having backup was tempting.
“Mason, you’re always going to be my first choice. But I refuse to piss off Sophia. No way man. I like her too much to have her mad at me. But I agree that backup would be nice. I’m going to give the senior chief a call. His team hasn’t been deployed in over a month.”
“Aiden?”
“Yep.”
“You two don’t get along.”
“Oh, we get along on the important stuff.” Drake thought about the other man’s penchant for busting heads when the situation warranted it, and smiled even broader.
“How about Clint and Lydia? Do you need any computer skills? Not to say yours are lacking, but they’re lacking.”
“Fuck you,” Drake said without heat.
Mason laughed.
“Yeah, let the dynamic duo know what’s up, if they don’t know already, but they can handle it from the safety of their own home. I’m serious Mase, this shit can be handled with just Aiden and me. If it weren’t for the fact I needed someone to watch over my sisters, I wouldn’t even be calling in reinforcements, these people are small time.”
“But you’ll give us a call if you need to, right?”
“Right. I give you my word.”
“I’m going to be checking in with you,” Mason warned.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Drake smiled and hung up the phone.
This time he had to actually search for the name on his phone. He calculated that it was ten thirty in San Diego, still early enough to be calling Aiden O’Malley.
He got the man’s voicemail. He left his name and number and said he needed his help on a personal matter. He looked around the area and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Drake rolled up the windows on the SUV and carefully pulled out of his spot behind the blackberry bushes and headed toward the Carmendy Chalet.
He was on Hwy 321 when Aiden returned his call.
“Hey, Avery. What can I help you with?” Aiden asked over the car speaker.
“It’s a long story. But the bottom line is I have some men who recently got out of prison who have targeted some of my sisters in Tennessee.”
“I need to juggle a couple of things, but I can be there tomorrow night.”
“Can you e-mail me your information so I can buy you a plane ticket?” Drake asked.
“We’ll square it when I get there. What airport am I flying into?”
“McGhee Tyson.”
“I’ll call you when I have everything arranged.”
The line went dead.
Drake shook his head. Mason had been right, he and Aiden hadn’t always gotten along. But Aiden O’Malley was a Senior Chief. A decorated Navy SEAL and the second in command of Black Dawn. He’d worked on a couple of missions with his team, and Drake respected the hell out of the man. Out of all the teams that they’d had to work with, Black Dawn was second only to his. Midnight Delta was obviously the best. And it was on that thought that he pulled up to the gate to the Carmendy Estate.