Deadly Lies (Deadly SEALs Book 4) Read online

  Deadly Lies

  Alana Albertson

  Deadly Lies

  Copyright © 2020 by Alana Albertson

  Cover Photo: Lindee Robinson

  Cover Models: Travis Bendall & Angel LaCoursiere

  Cover Design: Aria Tan

  Copyright © 2020 by Alana Albertson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is dedicated to my fans.

  A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

  Mark Twain

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Also by Alana Albertson

  Acknowledgments

  Deadly Lies

  1. Ash

  2. Mia

  3. Mitch

  4. Ash

  5. Mia

  6. Ashley

  7. Mia

  8. Autumn

  9. Mia

  10. Autumn

  11. Mitch

  12. Ashley

  13. Mitch

  14. Mia

  15. Ashley

  16. Mitch

  17. Ashley

  About Alana

  Author’s Note

  Deadly Lies was originally published as the novellas Storm, Seduce, and Solicit. These books were 10, 11, & 12, in the Se7en Deadly SEALs serial.

  This edition has been re-edited. It ends on a cliffhanger.

  Also by Alana Albertson

  Want more romantic reads?

  Try my other books!

  Heroes Ever After

  Military New Adult Fairy Tale Retellings

  The Beauty and The Beast

  Inspired by Beauty and The Beast

  Meet Grady! But without her love, I’m not a man—I’ll remain forever a beast.

  The Mermaid and The Triton

  Inspired by The Little Mermaid

  Meet Erik! I’m a Navy SEAL, a Triton, a god of the sea. And she will never be part of my world.

  The Princess and The SEAL

  Inspired by The Princess and The Frog

  Meet Ryan! She’s a Princess and I’m a Frogman. If I kiss her, I’ll turn into a Prince.

  The Swan and The Sergeant

  Inspired by The Ugly Duckling

  Meet Bret! Though the ugly duckling is now a beautiful swan, the girl I fell in love with is long gone.

  The Angel and The Rockstar

  Inspired by Rumpelstiltskin

  Meet Dax! All she has to do to destroy my life is to say my name.

  The Maid and The Marine

  Inspired by Cinderella

  Meet Trace! I will never be her Prince Charming.

  Rescue Me

  Romantic Comedy Series

  Doggy Style

  Meet Preston! When it comes to doggy style, he’s behind you 100%.

  Blue Devils

  Military Pilots Contemporary Series

  Blue Sky

  Meet Beckett! I’ll never let down my guard for this Devil in a Blue Angel’s disguise.

  Blue Moon

  Meet Sawyer: One Night with this Blue Devil will make you a sinner.

  Blue Thunder

  Meet Declan: Declan’s back in town. Homecoming hero―local boy turned Blue Angel.

  Deadly SEALs

  Navy SEAL Romantic Thriller

  Meet Grant! She wants to get wild? I will fulfill her every fantasy.

  Deadly Sins, Deadly Lust,

  Meet Mitch! I’ll always be your bad boy.

  Deadly Scandals, Deadly Lies

  The Trident Code

  Navy SEAL Romantic Suspense Series

  Invincible

  Meet Pat! I had one chance to put on the cape and be her hero.

  Invaluable

  Meet Kyle! I’ll never win MVP, never get a championship ring, but some heroes don’t play games.

  Rescue Ranch

  Navy SEAL Cowboys Series

  Wild Love

  Meet Chris! She shouldn’t fall for the Navy SEAL next door.

  Military Contemporary Stand Alone

  Badass

  Meet Shane! I’m America’s cockiest badass.

  (co-written with Linda Barlow)

  Father Figure

  Meet Gabriel! Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

  (Co-written with Jane Harvey-Berrick)

  Acknowledgments

  To Kelli for your flawless editing

  To Nicole Blanchard to listening to me whine about this series. Thanks for putting up with me.

  To Deb Nemeth for always fitting Grant and Mia in and reading me the riot act when I wanted to nix their HEA.

  To Ashley Williams. Thank you for helping out Mia and Grant in their hours of need.

  Deb Rafique for your eagle eye proof.

  To my audio team at Brick Shop: Jason Clarke & Jennifer O’Donnell for bringing Grant and Mia to life. To Rob Granniss for doing an excellent job producing the book.

  To my husband Roger—for loving me in sickness and in health. Even when I’m writing all day in my fuzzy pajamas. For watching the boys while I write. For being my HEA.

  To my two beautiful sons, Connor and Caleb. You are my world. I love you more than anything. To my two unborn daughters who I lost while writing this series and will never meet, I love you both and wanted you so much.

  To my betas:

  Jen Negron—you are the bomb. I adore you. Thank you for believing in my writing. I can’t wait to read these books in Spanish.

  To all the wonderful bloggers who review my books.

  To all the fans that have written me about this series.

  Deadly Lies

  A brazen, bad boy Navy SEAL wants the one woman he can’t have in Deadly Lies, the fourth book of Se7en full length novels in the addictive Deadly SEALs series.

  I don’t ever play by the rules, not in my love life or my job.

  NCIS Agent Ashley Pierce suspects me of murder, and I’m more than happy to let her investigate me.

  She has her agenda; I have mine. She’ll do anything to break her case, and I’ll do anything to make her submit to me.

  But when the one thing that matters most to me in the world is taken, I need her help. Once we go down this road together, there is no turning back for either of us. Even if we never make it out alive.

  1

  Ash

  JOAQUÍN CRUZ COULD BE INNOCENT.

  Joaquín Cruz could be innocent.

  I repeated those words over and over again in my head, trying to understand the ramifications of the possibility of Joaquín being not guilty. It would throw everything into question. If he hadn’t raped Mia, had he really killed Tiffany? The party had been at Paul’s house. Had Paul killed Tiffany? Had Paul raped Mia? Had Paul kidnapped Julián? And if so, then why, why on God’s earth, would Joaquín cover for that monster? What did Paul have over Joaquín? If Paul had done all these horrific crimes, did he really kill himself? I never thought he killed himself—and these crimes would put his suicide ruling even more into doubt.

  There had to be a rational explanation for this.

  Mia gripped my arm, her hand shaking. “Ash. Don’t you dare lie to me right now. What did he say? Did Joaquín leave the base that night? Tell me the truth.”

  I studied Mia’s face. A beautiful, flawless, surgically enhanced face. She had changed her life, her body, her face to find out the truth about Joaquín. She deserved to know everything I did.

  But I didn’t want to tell her the truth.

  I coul
dn’t tell her the truth because I didn’t even know what was true and what was false. I had spent the last few years of my life convinced Joaquín was guilty, convinced Joaquín was behind all of the shadiness of the Se7en Deadly SEALs. And that Mia was involved in covering up his crimes. That she was somehow in cahoots with him and not the victim she pretended to be. I’d always felt that I was close, so close, to figuring out the depths of the crimes of the Se7en Deadly SEALs. But if Joaquín was innocent, if Paul was the one who’d raped Mia, then that meant I didn’t have a clue what was going on. And even if it was Paul who had committed the crimes that Joaquín had taken the fall for, there was still trouble lurking around the SEALs. I believed someone killed Paul. And, though I hadn’t shared my suspicions to Mitch, Grant, or Mia, I believed there was a chance that there was a possibility that Sienna’s disappearance was linked to these shady SEALs.

  If Joaquín was innocent, I was horrible at my job. And worse yet, that I had let a killer go and had convicted the wrong man.

  Some NCIS agent I was. I could kick myself for not checking the base logs when the Joaquín Cruz case was under investigation. That fatal error was on me. I had no one to blame but myself.

  Grant had been right when he’d accused me of being a shitty agent. Maybe if I had cracked the code of the Se7en Deadly SEALs back during the Cruz case, then Sienna would be safe now. I wasn’t sure how these crimes were linked, but I just knew they were.

  I didn’t want to share my suspicions with Mia. To have her cling to the hope that her brother was innocent. She was my partner, and, for once, I needed to push my suspicions about her past behavior aside and be a true friend.

  “Look, Mia. Meeks said the records indicated that Joaquín hadn’t left the base, but you know your brother. He’s smart. He could have doctored the logs.” I didn’t believe a word I was saying, but at the moment, I had no other answers to give.

  “Doctored the logs?! Do you realize how fucking ridiculous that sounds?”

  I nodded rapidly. “Yes. But it is in the realm of possibilities.”

  Mia shot me a dirty glare. “Who left that night?”

  A lump grew in my throat. “Mitch. And Paul.”

  Mia’s eyelashes fluttered, and her lips began to tremble. Within minutes, tears came rushing down her face. She held her knees close to her chest, in the fetal position, rocking back and forth like a baby. And I actually wanted to comfort her.

  I reached my hand out to her, but she pushed it away.

  “Ashley, what does this mean? If Joaquín is innocent, it makes no sense that he would lie and take the blame for something he didn’t do. Especially something so horrific as raping his sister and kidnapping my son! He told me to my face he had raped me. He told me that he’d been in love with me all his life. I refused to believe it, but I had finally accepted it. Why would he admit he rap—”

  She couldn’t even complete her sentence. Her jaw shut. “I need to go to him. I need to ask him why he lied. Now. We can’t even interview Paul because he’s dead!”

  Paul. If Joaquín hadn’t left the base, then Paul could most definitely have raped Mia. And April could’ve covered for him. Implicating Joaquín to Mitch. But why?

  “With Paul dead, April in a coma, and Joaquín lying, we may never know the truth. I’m so sorry, Mia. Do you think you can get Joaquín to tell you the truth?”

  She shook her head. “No. Clearly not. He has his own agenda. An agenda worth confessing to a horrific crime that he didn’t commit and ruining the relationship with the only family member he has left. Why would he come clean now?”

  Well, he wouldn’t. “We can figure this out, Mia. We’re smart.”

  “Now. I need to nip this in the bud now. I need to go to him. I want to confront him and see his face when he lies to me again.”

  “And what will that accomplish? This is of utmost importance, and I vow to move heaven and earth to help you figure if he lied and get answers. But Joaquín isn’t going anywhere. There’s no rush. Sienna is missing. We need to go to April’s house and focus on finding her.”

  “No. I can’t wait. And he could know something about Sienna. He’s going to have to come clean if we have proof of the base logs.”

  “Mia, he will deny it like he’s already done. Either one of two scenarios is true: he either raped you, kidnapped your son, murdered a stripper, kidnapped you, and then tried to rape you again at gunpoint, or this entire time he confessed to crimes he didn’t commit. He told you he was guilty. Why would he do that? He has given up his career, he’s stuck in San Quentin, for Christ sakes. There is no sane, rational reason why he would be innocent. The only thing that makes sense is that he’s guilty, and maybe he used Paul’s ID.” But I knew there would be trail if he had done that. At some point, Joaquín’s ID would have to have been used to get off base.

  But I couldn’t focus on that now. I needed to focus on Sienna.

  “Well, we could figure it out. Grant was injured that night, so he wouldn’t know. Mitch had already left. Maybe another member of the Team would be able to tell us.”

  She was correct, but there was a fatal flaw to her logic. Some of the SEALs could verify who was there and who wasn’t, but they couldn’t be trusted to tell me the truth.

  “Mia, I could interview the rest of the Team, but who knows if they’ll tell me the truth. These men cover for each other, no matter what. You know that better than anyone. I know that you were snooping around at The Pickled Frog, and they shut you out. That is why you became Ksenya, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But this time it would be different. Who would they be covering for? Paul is dead. If Joaquín was innocent, they should want him free. Right?”

  She had a point. But nothing was a certainty with these men.

  We really needed to get going. Cars whizzed by on the freeway.

  “Mia, I know you are upset. But let’s get to Vegas, and we can talk about this more on the way.”

  She clutched my hand. “I have to go to Joaquín. He’s my brother.” She looked out the window, and her voice dropped. “You don’t even know what it’s been like for me the past couple years, believing that my brother, the one person who loved me my entire life, the one person who was always there for me, even more so than Grant, could possibly have done this to me. I can’t tell you how many times I’d tried to will myself to believe that he did this. Tried to find some proof or reason to understand why.”

  My heart broke for her. And for the first time since I had met her, I started to truly believe everything she was saying.

  But I had to remember one thing always—Mia was an actress.

  I kept my suspicions to myself. “Go on.”

  “Joaquín had told me this story about our father screaming at him because my dad found Joaquín looking at me, but that didn’t ring true. I’d never seen any inappropriate behavior, and that’s not how I recall that fight. Papa yelled at him about the friends he was keeping and later told me that Joaquín had been bullied at school and joined the Navy. It had nothing to do with me. I have to go to him now.”

  I grabbed Mia’s hand and looked at her. “I will help you figure this out. We can’t go see Joaquin right now. He confessed to this crime. Right now, we need to focus on Sienna. She’s only a little girl. We need to find her. We need to go straight to Las Vegas. We have to find out who this ‘grandpa’ is. Please, Mia. I need you here with me. I need you fully present. Think about how much you wanted to find Julián. Think of Sienna. Think of Mitch.”

  Mitch. Saying his name brought back a flood of emotions. My relationship with Mitch had never made any sense. We’d gone from mortal enemies to fuck buddies to friends aligned on the same mission.

  Finally, Mia exhaled and looked out into the vast desert landscape. We were around two hundred miles outside of Vegas. The dry desert heat blew into the car.

  “Fine, Ash. You’re right. Finding Sienna is urgent. I will do anything possible for her. But you have to promise me that you will do everything possible to
find out what really happened with Joaquín. Let me tell you this—I know my brother. If he had lied and taken the fall for a crime he didn’t commit, he would have a damn good reason to do so. He would not do this because he was afraid of blackmail. He would not do this because he was afraid of torture. Joaquín was afraid of nothing. No one. The only reason he would do this was to save someone he loved. Someone who was in mortal danger.”

  A raw ache filled my belly. Mia was surrounded by men who completely loved her. Would anyone ever love me the way these men loved Mia? I knew I pushed everyone away. But was I capable of giving and receiving love like Mia was? Grant would sacrifice everything to save her. And, if Joaquín was really taking the fall for this rape to protect Mia from something, Joaquín had proven his devotion to her forever. But she didn’t even realize what she had just said.

  If Joaquín was innocent, and I still had my doubts, he was protecting Mia from something far more horrific than being raped by her own brother. Protecting Julián from a fate worse than being raised by Lorraine, Tiffany’s mother.

  What was Joaquín hiding? And why?

  I placed my hand over hers. “Mia, if he is lying, then that is exactly what he did.”

  Her face contorted. “What do you mean?”

  “You just said he wouldn’t take the fall for anything. He wasn’t afraid of anyone. If he lied, he did it to save the only person he truly loved.”