Secret Daddy Surprise - A Secret Baby Romance (Once a SEAL, Always a SEAL Book 4) Read online

  Secret Daddy Surprise

  Layla Valentine

  Contents

  Secret Daddy Surprise

  1. Garrett

  2. Valerie

  3. Garrett

  4. Valerie

  5. Valerie

  6. Valerie

  7. Garrett

  8. Valerie

  9. Garrett

  10. Valerie

  11. Garrett

  12. Garrett

  13. Valerie

  14. Valerie

  15. Valerie

  16. Garrett

  17. Valerie

  18. Garrett

  19. Valerie

  20. Valerie

  21. Garrett

  Epilogue

  Hot Pursuit

  Introduction

  1. Delaney

  Also by Layla Valentine

  Secret Daddy Surprise

  Copyright 2018 by Layla Valentine

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.

  All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  Garrett

  It’s a moonless night, and every other streetlight on this block is out—pretty standard for the Eastside of San Antonio, Texas. My headlights pierce the velvety black summer air and then merge with pools of light as I peer at the houses that pass.

  “All right, Cole, which one is it? There’s one seventeen…it’s gotta be close.”

  As always, Cole doesn’t answer me. Not vocally, at least.

  He can’t.

  He’s long gone—his body was laid to rest after being decimated by an RPG blasted out of a terrorist compound. That doesn’t stop me from talking to him, as though we’re still behind enemy lines and he’s my closest friend.

  He was the twenty-third SEAL I’d personally known that had died during combat in the Middle East.

  The twenty-third, and the last. During Cole’s memorial, I decided to leave the Navy for good.

  I laugh, snorting softly as I peer out the car window at the passing houses.

  “Pretty ironic, huh, brother?” I whisper. “Here I am, still killing for a living.”

  I spot house one nineteen. It’s on the small side, but at two stories tall, it’s bigger than the other homes on the block. There’s a shiny SUV in the driveway—also much nicer than the other cars I’ve seen.

  It’s all adding up; my employer got the address right. This is where my target lives.

  Signs of drug money are everywhere; drug lords usually like to live in crappy neighborhoods, and they spend money on stupid shit. It’s not uncommon for me to roll up to a house and find signs of wealth pasted over an otherwise run-down house. It’s like they don’t know what to do with their money.

  I survey the house, just like I would have scoped out a compound in Afghanistan, five years prior.

  “What do you think…north or south side? Yeah, south’s darker. Less chance someone will read my plates.”

  Cole always gives me good advice. It’s like we’re still at war, discussing how to gain a tactical advantage.

  I stop the car and read over my target’s bio one more time. I feel the familiar rush of adrenaline beginning to tingle through my veins as I examine his picture and then the blueprint of his house. I’m ready to get to work.

  I look through the information one more time. Then, I glance out of the passenger window to the house’s driveway. The white convertible sports car—the one that the drug lord’s wife drives—is not in its spot. It’s Saturday, and she’s out for the night, as per usual.

  “Won’t be back from her girls’ night out for another hour or so, probably,” I whisper to Cole. “Yeah, better be in and out in thirty minutes, just to be safe. On it, buddy. All right, let’s get this show on the road.”

  I talk to Cole often as I drive to my hits. It helps to calm my nerves. It helps to pass the time. As wacky as it may sound, it even helps to ground me.

  But as soon as I step out of the car, reality always hits. Even though I like to imagine Cole’s presence, I know the truth.

  I’m all alone.

  I open the back door of the black rental sedan and pull out my backpack. It’s heavy, but I’m used to it. I shoulder the pack and slide a rifle into place underneath it, so that the long steel barrel lies cold and hard against my spine. It’s comforting. I won’t need it tonight, but my Navy training of always having a backup weapon has stuck with me.

  Another gun, this one with a silencer attached, gets fitted into my hip holster. After wrapping a thick coil of military-grade rope over my shoulder, grabbing my collapsible ladder, and fitting a black mask and night-vision goggles over my face, I close the door and look around.

  It’s pitch black here on the south side of the house.

  The night vision goggles pick up the heat of two bodies, half a block away. Because of the darkness, I’m sure the two haven’t seen me. To them, my car door slamming is the sign of just another person arriving home from a night out.

  I slip around the front of the car and press my back flush to the fence. It’s overgrown with ivy, and I know that I’m well hidden. I scan my surroundings again, and then, confident that no one is around to see me, I scale the high, metal, chain-link fencing.

  Before my feet hit the ground on the other side, I have a tranquilizer gun aimed at a Rottweiler who is fast approaching. As the dog’s mouth opens to let out a volley of barks, I shoot a dart at him. The mutt is immediately silenced, and he falls softly against the layer of patchy, dry grass.

  I love dogs. Never been able to have one since I move around so much, but it’s always been a dream of mine to have one ever since I was a kid, moving from foster house to foster house.

  Squatting down by the black and brown animal, I’m reminded of how much I’ve always wanted a furry companion. Though I’m pressed for time—thirty minutes in and out is my goal, and I still have to climb up to the roof—I take time to pet the dog and lay a treat out by his nose. I’ve been shot with a tranquilizer gun before, and I know that coming out of the stupor is no fun, to say the least.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I whisper, giving him one last pat. “You enjoy a treat on me when you wake up, ’kay, my man?”

  With that, I’m on my way again. The metal of my light-weight ladder scrapes against the house’s cheap, stucco siding as I climb to the second story.

  Every time it moves, I freeze. A sense of timing is always on my mind, but I’m careful not to rush things. Careful is smooth and smooth is fast, as we used to say in the SEALs.

  When I step out onto the flat roof, I mentally bring up a picture of the house’s layout in my mind. The master bedroom is on the west side of the second story, so I cross the flat roof, stepping silently over the tiled surface.

  Once again, I scan my surroundings. This side of the house is better lit, but it doesn’t matter. Neighbors might glance around the ground story windows or main entrance of a nearby house once in a while, but they’ll rarely spend time looking up at the roofline. No one expects a break-in from the second story. That’s why it’s my go-to method of entry.

  I fasten
my harness and tie an anchor point without thinking much—it’s all muscle memory. That’s how we were trained. When we learned a new skill, we repeated it one hundred to two hundred times, until our fingers bled raw and our minds were numb with the repetition. It was never a pleasant experience, but it worked.

  Now, my mind has time to focus on other things. I’m looking down the street for approaching traffic. As soon as the last car I’ve sighted drives by, I make my move.

  My feet pad against the side of the house. I use momentum and a few light bouncing steps off the side of the house to reach the window. Most of them are sealed shut, and I have to take careful side steps, gripping window trim, before I find a smaller window that slides open.

  See? No one expects entrance on the second story. It’s the same every time. Not only that, but I hear my target snoring as soon as I slide through the window.

  This is almost too easy.

  A part of me is disappointed. At war, I was used to missions that culminated in firefight. Now that I’m a hitman, my marks rarely fight back. Maybe I’m just too good at my job.

  I look at my watch. It’s been twenty minutes.

  I have ten minutes to make the kill and my exit. Plenty of time. I take two deep breaths, quieting my heartbeat and the rush of adrenaline in my body. Though the entry’s been easy so far, it never gets so easy that my body stops reacting. I’m still human, after all.

  I feel a sense of control come back into my body, and my thoughts become more organized. My heart’s still hammering in my chest, but it’s nothing that I can’t handle.

  The floor is covered with beige carpeting that reeks of cigarette smoke. Actually, the whole room smells like cigarette smoke, and as I approach the bed, I see an ashtray filled to the brim with butts. There’s also a cluster of pills and bottles on the nightstand, all signs that the guy was high as hell when he went to sleep this evening.

  As a major importer of narcotics from Mexico into Texas, the guy has more than enough resources at his fingertips to indulge in whatever way he wants to.

  And I’m sure that when he’s choosing the drugs to use, he steers clear of the ones laced with poison that have been hitting the streets around schools lately…all of which, according to my sources, are coming from this loser. Fifteen deaths from the latest batch alone, and I’m sure there’s more leaking out around the city.

  Scumbag.

  I pull my gun from my hip holster and wait for his rattling, phlegm-filled exhale to cover up the clicking sound as I release the safety. Then, without a second thought, I press the trigger.

  The guy gives one last shuttering inhale and then stops, his lungs full of air that will never be used.

  It’s over.

  I linger over his body for three to four minutes, long enough to verify his death by feeling for a pulse. The August night is hot and muggy, and sweat pools in my gloved hands as I press my fingers against his carotid artery.

  It’s still.

  I can’t wait to get the hell out of this bedroom. The sickly scent of cigarettes is overwhelming. Within seconds, I’ve made a beeline to the window and reattached the ropes to my harness. Just as I’m about to push the window open, my lungs spasm. The air is toxic in here—my body is crying out for clean oxygen. I cough twice, violently, before I can get the reflex under control and stifle the coughing.

  My whole body shakes as I work to suppress several more coughs, and I step back from the window long enough to put my hands on my knees. I focus all of my attention on my lungs, my throat, and my breath.

  Finally, the sensation passes.

  I straighten up, and as I do so, my eye catches sight of a photograph. It’s off to one side of the window—I never would have seen it had it not been for the coughing fit.

  But now, I find myself face to face with a photograph of a child.

  It’s a school portrait. The kid in the photo is young—maybe first or second grade. His eyes are bright and he’s smiling so wide that I can pick out two missing teeth. I have no idea how recent the picture is, but one thing is certain: this is definitely the drug lord's kid. The resemblance is unmistakable.

  I just killed this kid’s father. His dad.

  In the morning, this child is going to find out that his dad is dead. Because of me. He’ll have a fatherless childhood, just like I did.

  I tear my eyes away from the photograph.

  For a few seconds, I can’t think. All I can do is imagine that kid’s face when he learns his father is dead. I’m playing the scenario out—the wife getting home, screaming as she finds her husband lying in a pool of his own blood. The child, waking up to the sound of his mother’s hysteria.

  My hand starts shaking.

  I have to get out of here. I reach for the window and pull it open. Muscle memory takes me to the roof, but I’m still having trouble getting my thoughts under control.

  As I cross the roof, I find myself picturing the child’s face again. Will his eyes ever shine that bright again, once he lives through the events that tonight holds for him? Will he ever smile ear to ear like that, as if the world is full of nothing but promise?

  I’m at the edge of the roof.

  I did this, I think. I took his father. I took the light from his eyes. I took his smile.

  My hand knocks against the edge of my ladder, and in horror I watch it sail away from the roof. My shoulders jerk up to my ears and I cringe as the aluminum frame clatters against the chain-link fence bellow.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  A dog in the adjacent yard starts barking, and I see a bedroom light in the house next door come on.

  My survival instincts kick into gear. I know that I only have a few minutes before the neighbor spots the ladder. I run across the roof, making calculations as I go. My rope will get me to the pavement, and I decide that I have time to go around the house and grab the ladder before the cops could possibly arrive.

  Moving fast, I rappel down the side of the house, retrieve my rope, and then round the corner of the house and collect my ladder. Within three minutes, I’m in my car, pulling away from the curb. I can see blue lights, flashing in the distance. The police have arrived faster than I expected.

  That was fucking close. Way too close.

  I slam my hands against the steering wheel in an attempt to release some of the pent-up steam that’s building inside of me.

  It doesn’t help.

  What the fuck just happened? I lost my shit up there. It was that photograph. Then, all of the mistakes afterwards. In the five years since leaving the Navy, I’ve never botched a job so badly. Am I losing my edge?

  From the corner of my eye, I see my phone light up.

  It’s Clint. At least, that’s what my employer goes by, when he makes contact. I highly doubt it’s his real name. I’ve never actually met him, and that’s just fine by me. The phone is vibrating against the car seat, giving off a faint green glow as it hums.

  He wants to know that the job is done. But at this moment, talking to Clint is the last thing that I want to do. My nerves are so fried, it feels like I’ve swallowed live wires and they’re simmering inside my stomach.

  I want to get as far from this neighborhood and the sirens behind me as possible. I want to get out of this car, and out of these sweaty, incriminating clothes. I want to hide these guns.

  Twenty minutes later, I pull into my motel.

  There’s no sign of police presence, but just to be on the safe side, I throw all of my gear into a worn duffel bag and then pull on my construction worker attire—a thick, dirty denim jacket, bright orange vest, hard hat, and construction boots.

  I make my way into my room knowing that the motel’s cameras will only pick up my hard hat, not my face. Once inside my room, I feel like I can breathe a little better. I strip down and then stand under a hot shower for so long my skin starts to burn. But even the scalding water won’t take away the jitters now living inside of my body.

  I need a drink, and I’m not going to find one here.
There’s a club I usually go to when I’m in San Antonio, and I think of it, now. They’re probably still open—it’s only one a.m.

  I dress in a black T-shirt, jeans, boots, and my leather riding jacket. I pull my motorcycle helmet over my head, and then exit the motel room once again. This time, instead of the dark sedan—a rental that I plan on returning bright and early in the morning—I hop onto my motorcycle.

  In just a few minutes, I’ll have a glass of whiskey in my hand, and I can drown out this disaster of a night once and for all.

  Chapter 2

  Valerie

  “I mean, that’s what I did my thesis on. I knew there was going to be resistance—Texas has had a zero-tolerance policy in schools since the nineties, after all. But it makes such a difference. I mean, restorative discipline is definitely the way to go. These kids just want someone to talk to.”

  I pause and take a breath, picking up my near-empty glass and swirling the ice around as I exhale with a sigh.

  “When these kids get into trouble, it’s a call for help. They don’t need punishment. They need a listening ear.”

  The bartender’s eyes are glazed over. Is he bored or something? Now that I’ve stopped talking, he opens his mouth to speak. I can’t wait to hear his thoughts on the subject. Does he think that restorative discipline is as brilliant as I do?

  “So…what’s the last name on your tab?” he says.

  My heart sinks. Right. He’s a bartender, and I’ve just talked his ear off about work. He doesn’t care.

  “Sorry. It’s Brown.”

  He backs away quickly, like he’s eager to get away from me.

  I’ve got to stop talking about work. The thing is, I’m not comfortable in places like this. And when I’m nervous, I babble. Add a few drinks into the mix, and I become a broken record player, spouting off my well-practiced monologue about my career.