Born to Fight

Chapter 19

Billy

I sat there listening to Celeste answer Joe’s question, and for the first time since I’d discovered I had a daughter, I felt something I hadn’t expected.

Pride.

She had been asked what she thought about taking the fight to the people responsible for Tina’s death.

Her answer had been pure Celeste.

Fierce.

Uncompromising.

And when she spoke about being military through and through, about wanting to stop being a victim and fight back, something inside my chest tightened.

Because she was my daughter.

I knew that now.

And apparently, somewhere beneath all the anger and resentment, she was beginning to acknowledge that I was her father.

It was a small thing.

A single word.

A passing reference.

But to a man who had missed seventeen years of his child’s life, it meant everything.

Watching her go head-to-head with Lilly had been… enlightening.

That girl was a little pistol.

She didn’t back down.

She didn’t surrender.

And she sure as hell didn’t let anyone push her around.

Just like Tina.

God help the people who had made Celeste angry.

I was still concerned about the g*n.

Very concerned.

But it had quickly become obvious that Celeste wasn’t about to hand it over simply because I told her to.

I could have pushed.

I could have pulled rank.

But I was beginning to understand something about my daughter.

The harder you pushed Celeste Avery, the harder she pushed back.

So I would have to be patient.

I would have to earn her trust.

Because whether she liked it or not, I was in her corner now.

And I wasn’t going anywhere.

I’d already missed seventeen years.

I wasn’t about to miss another minute.

I would protect her for as long as I had breath in my body.

Even if she hated me for it.

Even if she never forgave me.

She was my daughter.

That was enough.

My gaze shifted toward Lilly.

I’d noticed the resentment.

The jealousy.

And I understood where it was coming from.

For years, Lilly had been the youngest.

The baby.

The one everyone protected.

Now, suddenly, there was another daughter in the family.

One who had arrived carrying grief, anger and enough trauma to tear a family apart.

Lilly needed to understand something.

There was nothing to be jealous of.

Celeste wasn’t taking her place.

Celeste didn’t even know what her place was yet.

She’d lost her mother.

Her home.

Her entire life.

And whether she wanted to admit it or not, she needed us.

She needed family.

She needed someone to stand beside her when everything else had been ripped away.

And I intended to be that person.

Even if she fought me every step of the way.

Especially then.

Because I wasn’t walking away from my daughter again.

Not this time.

Not ever.

⸻

Jamie

For the first time since Tina had been murdered, I felt like we finally had the numbers we needed.

If Jamie and I had to deploy, Celeste wouldn’t be left alone.

There were men I trusted with my life sitting around this table.

Men who understood what it meant to protect their own.

And right now, Celeste was my number one priority.

She needed someone in her corner.

Someone who wasn’t going anywhere.

It was strange when I thought about it.

Celeste and I hadn’t known each other that long.

Weeks.

That’s all.

Yet somehow, in those few short weeks, she’d become one of the most important people in my life.

I couldn’t imagine not having her around anymore.

And that terrified me almost as much as the men hunting her.

Because protecting Celeste wasn’t a duty anymore.

It was personal.

My eyes drifted toward Billy.

One look at his face told me everything I needed to know.

There was something different about him now.

This wasn’t the distant father who had walked away seventeen years ago.

This was a father who had finally found his daughter.

And someone had threatened to take her away.

I almost felt sorry for the men who had put Celeste in their sights.

Almost.

But not quite.

Because they had made one hell of a mistake.

They had killed Tina.

They had hunted Celeste.

They had broken into our home.

And now they had given Billy Avery something he’d been missing for seventeen years.

A reason to unleash hell.

I knew Billy.

Maybe not as well as Josh did, but I’d served alongside enough men to recognize that look.

Nobody messed with his kids.

Nobody.

And once Billy found out exactly who these people were and why they wanted Celeste…

God help them.

His phone suddenly started ringing.

Billy glanced at the screen.

Something in his expression changed.

He pushed back from the table.

“Excuse me.”

He walked into the lounge room and answered.

The moment the door swung shut behind him, the entire kitchen fell silent.

Everyone watched.

We couldn’t hear the conversation, but we didn’t need to.

Billy’s posture grew rigid.

His jaw tightened.

His voice dropped low.

Whatever he was hearing, it wasn’t good.

Then, suddenly, he stopped speaking.

He listened.

For several long seconds.

And when the call finally ended, Billy stood there staring at his phone.

I knew before he even walked back into the kitchen.

Something had changed.

He returned to the table and looked around at all of us.

Then a slow grin spread across his face.

“Alright, boys.”

Every man at the table straightened.

“We know where they are.”

The room went dead silent.

Billy’s grin widened.

“So…”

He shoved his phone into his pocket.

“Who’s ready to go hunting?”

The response was immediate.

Cheers erupted around the table.

Chairs scraped against the floor.

Men started talking over each other.

The energy in the room changed in an instant.

We had been waiting.

Planning.

Trying to stay one step ahead of the people hunting Celeste.

Now we finally had something we’d been missing.

A direction.

A target.

I looked around the table at the men I’d trusted with my life countless times before.

Then my gaze moved toward Celeste.

She was the reason we were doing this.

The reason none of us were willing to let this go.

They had brought the fight to our doorstep.

They had murdered an innocent woman.

They had hunted a seventeen-year-old girl.

And they’d made the mistake of thinking she was alone.

She wasn’t.

Not anymore.

They had no idea what was coming.

Because this wasn’t just another mission.

This was personal.

And before this was over, the people responsible were going to learn one very important lesson.

You don’t hunt one of ours…

and expect us not to come looking for you.

The war had just changed.

And this time…

we were bringing it to them.

⸻

SEQUEL

They declared war the moment they murdered the woman who had stolen my heart.

Then they made the biggest mistake of their lives.

They came for my daughter.

Now they’re about to discover exactly how far a SEAL will go to protect his own.

I’m not a perfect man.

Hell, I’ll be the first to admit it.

I’ve made mistakes.

I’ve hurt people.

I’ve spent years carrying the consequences of choices I wish I could take back.

But I am a man of my word.

I’m a soldier.

A father.

A fighter.

And when the situation demands it…

I’m a killer.

You threaten my family, and you’ll see a side of me you will never forget.

If you’re lucky, it’ll be the last thing you ever see.

Eighteen years ago, I fell in love with a woman who captured my heart the moment I met her.

Tina.

She was everything I shouldn’t have wanted.

And everything I couldn’t stay away from.

Then I discovered she was pregnant with my child.

There was only one problem.

I was already married.

I already had two children.

And by the time I finally understood what I’d done, there was no way to make the choices I’d made disappear.

So I walked away.

I left the woman I loved to raise our daughter alone.

And for seventeen years, I never knew the little girl she’d given birth to.

I never watched her take her first steps.

Never heard her first words.

Never watched her grow up.

Never got the chance to be her father.

Then Tina was murdered.

And suddenly, the daughter I never knew existed was running for her life.

I found her.

And for the first time in seventeen years, I looked into my daughter’s eyes.

I saw Tina.

I saw myself.

And I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

I had already failed my daughter once.

I wouldn’t fail her again.

The men hunting Celeste think she’s alone.

They think killing her mother left her vulnerable.

They think they can hunt a seventeen-year-old girl and get away with it.

They’re wrong.

Because Celeste has a father now.

And I will tear apart everything standing between me and my daughter.

I don’t care who they are.

I don’t care how powerful they think they are.

And I sure as hell don’t care what it costs me.

They took the woman I loved.

They came for my child.

Now they’re going to learn the hard way…

you never threaten a father’s daughter and expect him to play nice.