Free Second Chance SEAL: A Bad Boy Military Romance by B. B. Hamel

to go to. I’d been there for about an hour, and as far as I could tell it seemed like a normal place. Busy even, fairly popular. I didn’t catch sight of anything suspicious or shady going down.
    But then again, that would be the whole point. If the place was a mob front then they’d keep any of the illegal stuff in the back of the restaurant. Still, I didn’t know what Tony’s plan was for Piper. It didn’t look like the kind of place he could just grab her and run away, but maybe I was misreading the situation.
    Fucking hell. If this were Syria, or Iraq, or fucking Afghanistan, I’d know exactly what was going on. But this situation was different.
    I took a deep breath and concentrated. It couldn’t be so different from what I’d been through that I couldn’t figure out what was happening around me. I just needed to concentrate and clear my head.
    I watched for ten more minutes as people came and went. The street seemed pretty quiet, and I didn’t see many cars coming past. That was strange, since there seemed to be a lot of foot traffic coming and going from the building.
    That was when it hit me. There was a parking lot two doors down which probably was where most people parked. I was willing to bet that Tony planned on grabbing Piper there, either before or after they met up.
    I quickly got out of my car and moved silently across the street. I went down an alley and slowly snuck up to the lot from the back side.
    It looked like any other lot, but I kept stationary and kept watching. Soon enough, I caught sight of two guys sitting in a car in the back corner of the lot. They didn’t look like they were doing much of anything, and the one guy kept searching around his car.
    I slipped back into the shadows. Fucking hell. They really did want Piper. Everything she said was true.
    Not that I ever really doubted her, but it was a pretty intense story. It was hard to imagine that a person could just witness a mob killing like that. But if she were dating a mobster in secret this whole time, it was totally possible.
    I moved back toward the sidewalk and headed into the restaurant. I felt a stab of nervousness as I stepped inside the dimly lit building, since I knew that walking indoors when you were outnumbered was just about the worst thing possible. Still, I had to remind myself that they didn’t know me, and that I was highly trained.
    “Can I help you?” the hostess asked.
    I quickly scanned the place and spotted a bar. “I’ll sit at the bar,” I said to her.
    “Sure. Help yourself.”
    I nodded to her and headed over. The place was like a thousand other Italian places I’d seen: wine bottles, rustic décor, candlelight, and soft Frank Sinatra music playing in the background. The wait staff was finely dressed, and it seemed like a somewhat upscale place.
    I sat down at the bar and ordered a whisky before scanning the room again. I didn’t see Tony anywhere, though I was only going off his Facebook picture. Still, I was reasonably sure I could identify him.
    My drink came and I sipped it. I watched the flow of people coming and going, wondering briefly at the shape of their lives. A young couple was sitting in the back corner, smiling at each other. Two tables over, an older couple looked at each other the same way, smiling and excited. I wondered what their secret was.
    I sipped my drink and concentrated again. I noticed a guy in a nice suit standing by the back kitchen door. I thought he worked there at first, but he wasn’t doing anything but standing there and watching the crowd. Nobody acknowledged him and he never spoke. As I stared, I noticed a slight bulge in his jacket, and I guessed that was a weapon.
    So there were mobsters in this room. I shifted my weight, scanning for more guns. I found another guy eating at a table with an older woman wearing a similar suit with a similar bulge on the jacket.
    So, at least two armed men. I didn’t know who the old woman was, but that didn’t