Sins of the Past (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

out like a light,” he said as he slid further down onto the bed and propped his knee up on a pillow.
    He could hear male laughter and shouts in the background and knew Cole was in the barracks. It reminded him that that would never be him again. Jacob missed it all. He missed the smell of gunpowder, the adrenaline rush as he geared up for a mission, and the high he got from accomplishing his mission and returning home safe after making the world a slightly better place to live in.
    Cole’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “Okay, the bad news first, Valente may not be dead.”
    Jacob immediately sat up and winced when the move pulled at his knee. “What do you mean he may not be dead? I personally shot the bastard.” He was the reason Jacob was no longer enlisted. He had wanted to personally make sure he killed the man and had gotten up close and personal to do it. Jacob had taken a bullet to the knee, but watching Valente’s eyes as he put a bullet through the man’s head had made it all worth it.
    “I keep hearing rumors that you shot the wrong guy.” Cole sighed as if he was tired. “I’m not sure if any of it is true, but the word on the street is that Valente was a paranoid bastard. So paranoid that he had a decoy of himself made. They say he convinced a plastic surgeon to give another man his face. The night we raided his compound, the decoy was there, not him.”
    Jacob stared at the bare white wall in front of him. Everything that Cole had told him was possible. Julio Valente was worse than scum and using another man to die in his place sounded like something he would do. In Jacob’s opinion, the man’s mother should have aborted him when she found out she was pregnant. Valente hadn’t deserved to take his first breath of air. He had done nothing but terrorize young girls since he was old enough to understand what he was doing.
    From the file his SEAL team had gathered on Valente, he had raped his first girl when he was barely twelve. The six-year-old had been his next door neighbor. From there his crimes got progressively worse until he eventually ran the largest white slavery ring in the world. He kidnapped young girls off the streets all over the world and auctioned them off like cattle to the highest bidder.
    Jacob’s stomach clenched thinking about some of the girls they were able to recover the night they raided the compound. The girls were from Valente’s own personal stash. Even though they were rescued, he had a feeling none of them would ever be the same. Not only had the girls been raped, they had also been tortured beyond belief. They seemed to range between the ages of five to twelve and most had fingers or toes missing, large gashes all over their bodies, and multiple bruises. Rage at seeing what he considered to still be babies being treated that way, was the reason Jacob had personally gone after Valente himself.
    “There is something else. If the rumors are true, then the one about Valente putting a price on your head is true as well.”
    “How is that even possible? How would Valente even know I was there, especially if he wasn’t and there really was a decoy. I never pulled off my mask. There is no way he would have known who I was.”
    Cole was silent before he answered. “The question I’ve been asking myself is how the man even knew we were coming. That was a top secret mission. Need to know only.”
    Jacob wondered the same thing. His SEAL team was an elite black ops group. They only went on missions the government needed carried out in silence, the kind of missions where, if they were caught, the U.S. would deny all involvement. There was no reason why his name should even be circulating in any rumors.
    “We’ll talk more when I get there. There are too many ears here.” Cole paused, letting his meaning sink in. The line wasn’t secure.
    “What do you mean when you get here?”
    “That’s the good news that I wanted to tell you. I got my discharge papers today. I’m getting out in two weeks. I assume that offer to crash on your couch still stands.”
    Jacob was happy to hear the news, but he was shocked. “I thought you were reenlisting. You love the SEALs too much to leave.”
    “It’s not the same. Besides, I thought it was time to move over and let the young guys handle things.”
    Jacob knew there was more to it by the sound of Cole’s voice, but he didn’t push. Cole was not old by any means, they were both thirty-eight and still in good