Riding The Edge (KTS Book 1)

by Elise Faber

  It was an Olive thing to say, a bad joke she would have whispered over the com, something that would get them all to chill. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she said and sighed. “I know I should be focused on the here and now. I know I should concentrate on us getting out of here, first and foremost. And I know that they can take care of themselves, but . . .”

  “You’re worried.” I continued pulling and pushing at the stone. “We’re a team. A family that’s been looking after each other for these last few years, often through very serious and dangerous shit. That’s not a bad thing, Av.”

  “I’m not supposed to feel—” She cut herself off.

  “Feel what?”

  “Feel anything.”

  “You’re human,” I reminded her. “You’re allowed to feel things.”

  “I haven’t really felt human for a long time,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’m capable of it.” She felt quiet for a heartbeat. “Look at what I did to you.”

  I froze, sucked in a breath.

  Twelve

  Southern Italy

  Unknown hrs local time

  Ava

  Why had I said that?

  Oh God, why in the ever-loving fuck had I said that?

  “What did you do to me, baby?”

  My heart skipped a beat, lungs seizing for a moment. “Don’t call me baby.”

  “What did you do to me, Ava?” A slight emphasis on her name, but no apology for the endearment present.

  I let it slide. After all, I was the one with the giant mouth. “Any luck with the rock?”

  “What, Ava?” he asked impatiently.

  “I—”

  What had I done? Regretted pushing him away? Yes. Wanted him every moment of the last two years? Double yes. Hated that I’d been a total bitch, even knowing that it was the only way to keep him at a distance? Yes, once again.

  And now I’d spent the last ten minutes giving away too much—telling him that I’d been in this fucking cell before, that I’d broken my promise to never be back in it, and worst of all, that I’d done something to him.

  “I’m a big boy, sweetheart,” he said. “I can handle it.”

  “Don’t call me sweetheart,” I snapped. “And you know what? I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “You’re right,” he told me.

  “And even if I did end things rather abruptly between us, it was only for the better of the team. We’re not like Laila and Ryker.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  I listened to the soft scrape of rock against rock. “So, we couldn’t have kept on with what we were doing. It would have been bad for everyone.”

  “Bad for you,” he murmured. “Bad for you and those solid walls you have up.”

  My breath caught. “What?”

  “What happened after we flew back that day?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Bullshit.” More crunching, the sound of pebbles hitting the ground reaching my ears. “We’d made plans to watch a movie. You’d promised to meet me in my quarters. What happened, caro? Why didn’t you show?”

  Because I’d been reminded of exactly what I was.

  One week of fantasy, of fantastic sex, of being more comfortable with another person than I’d ever felt in my life, and I’d thought maybe I could do it, could be with a man, could risk letting someone in.

  Then I’d seen the files.

  Laila had brought them to me just after Dan and I had returned to headquarters, asking me for insights on another team’s mission, promising she’d keep my name out of it, if I’d just offer my opinion on the team’s investigation. And . . . I’d seen what my family was doing all over again, remembered precisely what they were capable of.

  No, I’d remembered precisely what I was capable of.

  Not good. Not complete. Not worthy.

  A total fucking shredded mess inside.

  A person who’d done horrible, horrible things.

  I couldn’t bring that into anyone’s life. Into his life.

  So, I’d done the only thing I could.

  I’d made sure he’d leave me alone.

  “I’m not caro either.”

  “Ava.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, pushing that day, the pictures, the memories away. This was nearly impossible, of course, considering where I was, but it was what I did. Lock everything down. Move forward. Forget. Forget. Forget that I was forgetting.

  If you’re so good at forgetting, why isn’t that week with Dan a long-ago memory? my inner critic countered.

  “And then when I came to see you, you were . . . hurting,” he said softly. “You wouldn’t let me help. Why?”

  “I’m not discussing this. We need to figure out our exit. My ankle—”

  “Isn’t going to get better in the next few minutes or hours,” he said. “We’re sitting in the dark, and I’m wiggling a rock. Tell me.”

  “This is an old castle,” I said. “The walls are thick. They had a hell of a time wiring it for electricity and WiFi, even on the top story. The signal on our trackers—”

  “Isn’t that why I’m wiggling the rock?” he asked. “Now, we’re trapped here. We’re not going anywhere in the next little while, so why don’t you tell me why you have those shadows in your eyes?”

  Irritation prickled through me. “My eyes are none of your fucking business.”

  “No,” he said. “They’re not. But I want to make it my business. Won’t you let me in?”

  No.

  I couldn’t let him in. Otherwise he’d see. Otherwise he’d know, and he wouldn’t look at me the same way. The soft would be edged out of his eyes and disgust would take its place.

  I couldn’t have him look at me with disgust.

  I just . . . couldn’t.

  “Ava,” he warned.

  “I’m not a woman you can push,” I muttered.

  “I don’t want to push you,” he said. “I want to know you. I want to see what’s in your heart, to understand the things that make you happy, make you sad. I—Ava, what I feel for you . . . it’s unlike what I’ve ever felt for anyone else.” He inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I care about you.”

  Those words shouldn’t warm me.

  They should send me running.

  Except, this time I couldn’t lock myself in my room. It wasn’t as simple as skipping a movie date or even as heart-wrenching as threatening to switch teams.

  I was trapped in a cell with a man I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about for years, one who every time I came in close contact with, made me want to forget all about why I had the barriers in the first place.

  Not so much as to protect me.

  But to protect him.

  “You shouldn’t, Dan,” I whispered. “You should forget me and move on to someone nice, someone innocent and sweet and lovely, whose worst flaw is that she bites her nails or leaves her socks on the floor.”

  “I abhor when people bite their nails.”

  I groaned. “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  A sigh, my words sharp. “My point is that you need someone who can open her heart.”

  “And where am I supposed to find this lovely, sweet, innocent woman who opens up her heart to me and shows me all of that nail-biting and sock-leaving?” he asked.

  “Not with me.”

  The noise of scraping stopped and a few seconds later his voice was very close to my ear. “Don’t you see?”

  I shivered. “What?”

  “Don’t you see if I don’t find that with you, I won’t find it with anyone?”

  “Except . . . I can’t be the person you want.”

  “I don’t need you to be anyone other than yourself.”

  It was impossible.

  But he didn’t know that. Because . . . he didn’t know what I’d done.

  Thirteen

  Southern Italy

  Unknown hrs local time
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br />   Dan

  I touched her cheek.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t touch me.”

  I pulled back. “Because you don’t want me to? Or because you do?”

  “We need to deal with the tracker,” she said in a tone bordering on desperate. “Not worry about what I want or don’t want.”

  Shuffling back to the wall because I knew she was right but not letting the thread of conversation drop because we were stuck in this place. We were trapped and probably fucked, tracker or not. And I wanted to know . . .

  If she wanted me to touch her.

  “What are you afraid to tell me?” I asked.

  “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  Silence.

  I went back to work on the rock as I waited her out.

  “I’m not.”

  Continuing to scrape at the loosening edge of the rock, I waited. Probably, it was stupid to try and outwait a sniper, one who could be so still and patient, but this wasn’t the normal Ava. She was more open than I had seen her in years, freer, rawer—

  Which doubled down on my asshole gene.

  Because I was demanding information when she was hurt and dealing with that raw and—

  “I haven’t talked to my parents for more than five minutes in the past two years,” I told her, finally understanding that I needed to give, too. That I was asking her to be vulnerable and to share painful truths, and she needed me to be just as open as her. “I talk to Brit regularly, and I talk to my best friend, Blane.” Then I admitted something that made me feel guilty, “And . . . I talk to Blane’s mom more often than my own. I tell Allison about my life—as much as I’m able. I know I can go to her for advice, that I can just relax and be myself and know she’s just happy to hear from me and shoot the shit.”

  Her voice was soft. “I’m glad you have that.”

  I was, too, and I felt really lucky, considering how detached my biological parents were to have that sounding board, to have solid and stable people in my life who didn’t keep me at a distance, even though I was rarely available for more than the odd phone call.

  “But I feel like a fucking asshole,” I said, “knowing that I can talk to her about almost everything when I can’t even move the conversation past weather with my own mom.” A beat. “Which, I understand, makes me sound like a big whiny baby when I was lucky to grow up in a stable home, to have a roof over my head.”

  “Dan,” Ava said. “That’s not your fault. ”

  “Whose then?” I asked.

  “Theirs,” she told him. “Just because they made sure you had food and a place to sleep doesn’t mean they gave you everything you needed to thrive.” I heard her shifting, felt her gaze on me. “You’re allowed to have your feelings, to wish you had something different.”

  “Maybe.” I glanced over at her, unable to discern much of her body in the shadows. “But I know how lucky I was, especially when I’ve seen what other people go through, what you’ve endured.”

  “I’m not a victim,” she declared.

  “Certainly not anymore,” I said. “But at one time, you were a victim of your circumstances, just like we all are.”

  “That’s—”

  “The truth,” I pressed. “The only difference between you and other people is that you’ve overcome your past.”

  “Fucking hell, Dan,” she burst out. “Do you really want to know? Do you?”

  “No!” I exclaimed, surprising myself. “I don’t want to know or need to know. But it’s bothering you. It took you away from me when I thought we were at the beginning of something special.” I yanked at the fucking rock. “So yes, I think I have to know. You have to tell me. Otherwise—”

  “I’m not ever going to be open for a relationship, you infuriating man.”

  “Well, I’m not ever going to want anyone but you.”

  Her inhale was sharp. “What?”

  “I—”

  I broke off.

  Because footsteps were echoing outside the cell.

  I launched myself over to her, reached Ava’s side the instant the door was wrenched open.

  Light blinded me, hands reached in and grabbed hold of me.

  “Dan!” Ava called. I felt her fingers brush mine, trying and failing to hold on. I was yanked out of the cell, too many rough hands restraining me to fight off every single one.

  Then the door slammed closed.

  And I was dragged down the hall of a dungeon belonging to an Italian mafia boss.

  Fourteen

  Southern Italy

  Unknown hrs local time

  Ava

  I lurched up, throwing myself toward the door, but I didn’t make it in time.

  The metal panel slammed, and I fell to the ground, the momentary adrenaline disappearing in an instant of agony, my ankle screaming, my side sending fiery pain along my torso.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, tears prickling. “Fuck.”

  For a few moments, I concentrated simply on breathing through the hurt, on waiting until my eyes adjusted. They’d been blinded by the light in the hall, by the tears—from my injuries, and not because I was feeling helpless and alone.

  Right.

  Once I’d calmed and my nerves didn’t feel like someone had taken a blowtorch to them, I shifted to the cell door. It was locked, no surprise, but I’d had to try on the off chance that they’d not latched it properly.

  I looked through the tiny crack at the bottom of the door, so narrow that hardly any light made it through, but enough that I could lie flat and squint out of it.

  Empty, from what I could see.

  Empty, from what I could hear.

  “Fuck,” I whispered again, rolling to my back.

  Alone. Dan taken who knew where. They would most certainly hurt him. The question was simply how badly.

  I had to get the tracker out.

  Now.

  Painfully, I crawled my way across the cell, over to the far wall, to the spot where Dan had been working on the rock.

  And then I got to work . . .

  Scratching away the buildup around the rock I’d managed to remove years before. It loosened and fell to the ground much easier than long ago. But it had also been more than a decade. There was dirt and dust crammed around the sliver of stone and it had to be slowly removed, chipped away with calloused fingertips and short nails.

  Slow and steady.

  Bit by bit.

  Just like before.

  I’d spent hour after hour doing this before I’d escaped, lying flat like I was now, body riddled with more severe injuries than I was sporting now.

  Broken fingers and ribs. Cuts from sharp knives that had dripped my blood onto the stone-covered floor. Bruises and eyes swollen shut.

  And I’d still always crawled my way to this wall, this rock.

  There was a reason I’d begun working at this particular stone—yes, it stuck out of the wall, but it was also low to the ground. Oftentimes, I’d not been able to do much more than lie down.

  And scratch.

  And chip away at the old mortar, the dirt and dust that sealed that rock in place.

  Until it had finally given way.

  Until I’d seen the sliver of the Mediterranean Sea and promised myself that once I escaped, I would never be back in this cell.

  “Well, here I am,” I whispered. “Back in this fucking nightmare.” Even as the one person I’d never wanted tangled up with my family was right in the fucking web and probably being tortured right at this instant.

  The hot tear sliding down my cheek surprised me.

  Then it pissed me off, made me scratch faster.

  Tears didn’t help. Not now, not ever.

  Instead, I continued doing the single thing that might very well mean the difference between us surviving this place and us dying in the fucking dark.

  I scratched until my fingers bled.

  Fifteen

  Southern Italy

  Unknown hrs local time

 
; Dan

  The punch to my ribs took my breath away, sending red-hot pain radiating through me.

  Not cracked.

  But damn well bruised.

  “Tell me,” the man I recognized from the elevator demanded. Not one of the goons, though they were lined up like three little ducks against the far wall. Instead, it was Ava’s uncle, Fabio, who was speaking, and he wasn’t pretending to be charming at the moment, wasn’t discussing romance or honeymoons. Rather, he tossed a heavy set of brass knuckles that had just become familiar with my ribs down onto a scarred wooden table.

  “Not sure what you’re talking about,” I said once the pain faded.

  “What do you know?” he growled.

  “I know a lot of things,” I said, already bracing myself for the hurt that was about to come my way. “Like the amount of product in your hair is actually flammable.”

  The blow across my cheek was expected, splitting my lip, coating my tongue in blood.

  The smartass remark was certainly unnecessary, but I’d gone through counter-torture training, had been in a handful of “fun” occasions like this, and in my experience, the best way for me to get out of these situations alive was to keep the snark flowing.

  They certainly wouldn’t keep me alive if I just gave them what they wanted.

  And they definitely wouldn’t stop the pain just because I told them the truth.

  I was fucked unless KTS could get us out, and my only goal at this moment had to be keeping me and Ava alive until the calvary arrived.

  Fingers gripped my hair harshly, yanked my head back until I was forced to meet angry brown eyes that were nearly identical to Ava’s. Except, the woman I loved had speckles of gold and green in her irises, flashes of color that were brought out depending on the light of the room, the clothes she was wearing.

  “What do you know about the shipments?” Fabio gritted, fingers tightening.

  “Did your truckload of lingerie go missing?” I shrugged. “Perhaps it was hijacked somewhere along the way?”