“But we settled on buckskin breeches, clawhammer coats, and riding boots. The three of you will be quite dashing. Kenzie sent over measurements and told the woman we wouldn’t have time for fittings. So, guys”—Sophia looked at Pete, Rick, and Remy—“if you’ve gained or lost weight since the last time you updated your measurements and weight in your electronic folder, you better let her know.”
David rubbed his belly. “Thank God, I’m not going with ye.”
“McBain, you’ve haven’t gained a pound since the day I met you,” Kenzie said.
“Maybe I haven’t gained any, but I sure lost a few chasing ye across England.”
Kenzie shivered. “If you want to have that conversation, we’ll have a throw down right here, right now. So let’s not go there.”
“That’s the second time ye’ve mentioned a throw down. I’m game, but I’d rather do it in bed.” David pulled her in for a kiss. “I’ll go wherever ye want to go. Ye’ve forgiven me, but I’ll keep on apologizing for being such a dumbass.”
“While David’s apologizing for almost killing his bride,” Pete said, “I have a question. Are we taking weapons? I mean other than our Glocks?”
“The official US musket of the War of 1812 was an updated version of the French Charleville Musket imported during the Revolutionary War,” Remy said. “It’s a .69 caliber with a slight range advantage over the Bess, which was the primary musket of the British Army.”
Rick gave him a skeptical look. “Did you just Google that?”
Remy shook his head. “Already knew it. I went to the Battle of N’Orlanz reenactment as a kid. I got excited about guns and cannons, talked to reenactors, and read a lot about it. Just somethin’ I enjoyed.”
“We’re not fighting in that battle. Period. We’ll find Billie and get the hell out,” Rick said.
The limo pulled to the curb close to where Rick and Pete had abandoned the taxi to find Sophia and Remy the previous afternoon. They climbed out, zipping up their rain jackets. The air was thicker now, holding tight to the earthy scent of the coming storm. The square dimmed in the faltering light and nothing—not the trees, not the buildings—threw a shadow.
“The Café Du Monde has seats under the awning. Let’s sit outside and eat beignets while it storms. I didn’t finish mine yesterday,” Sophia said.
“Metal awning, metal chairs, metal tables… Yep, we’ll be in great shape when lightning strikes,” Kenzie said.
“Stay in the car then, Kenz,” David said.
“Nope. If you’re going, I’m going too.” She glanced up at the sky, her hands out, catching the first sporadic drops of rain. “Let’s get inside.”
A boom rolled through the square, announcing the start of what the brooding cloud layer had promised since early morning. The tree branches swayed in the strengthening gust, and the spring leaves surrendered without a struggle. Rick’s stomach tightened as electricity sizzled around their showdown with the thunderstorm.
The group jogged toward the Café Du Monde, and against the waiter’s advice, they were seated under the green and white striped awning, the fringe flapping in the wind. Before beignets and coffee arrived, the world turned dark gray. Rain fell in sliding sheets that hissed and spat on the sidewalk. Black clouds sprawled across the sky, draining the color from buildings and trees and casting them all in premature twilight.
Six black-suited former soldiers and Marines and a survivor of Bastille Day huddled at two small round tables, sitting on green vinyl and metal chairs, tenaciously holding onto a common purpose—survive a battle where the only bullets were sheets of pelting rain. The only explosives were thunder and lightning. And the only deaths occurred in their memories of war and rebellion.
A low crackle of thunder rolled across the rooftops. For a moment, everything paused—even Rick’s heartbeat—and the wind held its destructive breath. Then a streak of hot silver split the sky, zigzagging furiously overhead, one bolt after another. Rick drew in deep, serrated breaths, bracing himself internally, trying to quell his fear. In a storm like this, it was impossible to believe in the temporary nature of the monster.
He cracked his neck right, then left, to release the pressure building up in his shoulders. All eyes weren’t on him, but it sure as hell felt like they were. Everyone was more concerned about their own heads than his. At least he hoped so. The raging deluge was closer to his skin than the air.
Sitting out this storm was going to suck. Could he call off this exercise, mission, or whatever the hell it was? Or call in a stuntman to play his part?
Grow a pair, O’Grady.
Kenzie was in soldier mode, with her game face in place, while behind her eyes, she was strategizing, preparing for all kinds of what-ifs. She laced one arm through his, the other through David’s, connecting the three of them as a fortified bulwark against the storm.
Sophia’s face blanched, turning white in stark contrast to the darkening sky. Then her bottom lip quaked, and her eyes glimmered with tears. Pete had terrible memories from the war and working on the streets of New York, but from his hovering body language, he was focused only on his bride’s traumas, not his own.
A jagged bolt of white-hot lightning split the heavens. Rick jerked, and Kenzie squeezed his arm harder. The thunder was only a second behind, and he exchanged a tense glance with her. Then, a banging like someone taking a sledgehammer to the restaurant’s foundation. Lightning sparked again—a serpent’s brilliant light biting the earth, and its teeth bit him hard. The wind swirled and gusted, jerking the awning until it billowed and snapped, and the deluge pounded them, soaking the beignets and turning the dark Cajun coffee a light, undrinkable brown.
Thunder rolled across the sky, and the concussion threatened his eardrums. “Goddamnit!”
Rick’s curse faded beneath the thunder as its untamed power reverberated across the square. Lightning came again through a rip in the graphite sky and forked to the ground within feet of them. Rick almost jumped out of his chair. If not for Kenzie’s grip, he would have. Then another bolt—a camera flash—blanketed the entire area at once.
He looked away and tried to disengage, slowly rolling his head left to right, cracking his neck again and summoning the will to survive the next bolt. Thunder roared louder than a cannon, masquerading as a knife, and sliced through his high-octane male testosterone shield.
With the next roll of thunder, he was back…
…in a convoy returning to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The path took them through shattered villages that looked like post-apocalyptic backgrounds in a Mad Max movie. The Humvee he was riding in moved through a lunar landscape. Damn, it’s hot. He was separated from the rest of the world like an astronaut, munching on Pop-Tarts and trail mix and swigging an energy drink.
Boom!
The armored vehicle soared into the air, pitched onto its nose. Metal crunched. Men groaned. An ice pick stab of pain shot straight through him…
And then he was back—sort of—but stuck in place. It wasn’t all clicking in his frontal lobe. His heart pounded like a steam-powered machine. He pitched to his feet, moving quickly from shock to fury to God knows what. He had enough of this blast from the past and was ready to punch the first person who touched him, crossed him, or generally just pissed him off.
He gnashed his teeth. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Let’s beat feet, Kenz,” David said.
Chair legs sloshed in water streaming over the concrete floor as everyone pushed away from the table, and a spate of rain lashed down, blurring the surroundings like a gauzy shroud.
Rick’s mind hit the slow-motion button, and he forged a path toward the interior of the Café Du Monde, hoping for a diversion before he fell to his knees. He didn’t want to get horizontal, but he was close to it. His head spun, his ears rang, and he fought to keep his vision from fading to lights out. About to drown in the chaotic confusion clouding his brain, he gulped air and tasted gunpowder. His leg muscles burned the way they did w
hen he ran long distances. But the only distance he’d run was an out and back in his mind. No, not an out and back. Just an out. He’d yet to make it back.
He was about to take a noser onto the tile floor when someone hooked an arm over his shoulder. He whipped around, snarling. Damn! He was a frigging loose bazooka. It was Remy, and if not for his friend’s quick reflexes, Rick would have caught him in the jaw with all four knuckles.
“You’re not wounded, man.” Remy’s voice was low and reassuring. “No one just died. You doan need more of this. Nobody does. This mission is dunzo. Let’s haul ass.”
Rick pinched his eyes shut as everything seemed to go bad-news black. Remy’s baritone timbre—a dull light illuminating the truth—coated Rick’s terror in relief. And in the span of a second or two, or maybe five, his breathing slowed. His eyes opened, and with Remy at his six, they made it to the door and out into the pelting rain…
12
Barataria (1814)—Billie
The room’s temperature dropped a dozen degrees as Shiny Boots’s ice-cold glare flicked over Billie’s face, settling on her eyes. Bulges of muscles flexed beneath his open-front shirt. He unfolded his arms and pointed at her. “Take her to the brothel.”
The words were like a sucker punch, and she flinched. If there was ever a time she needed to be strapped, it was now. Where the hell was her Glock?
An icy chill of terror froze her in place. This couldn’t be happening. If they raped her, how many sexually transmitted diseases would she catch? Hell. Forget the STDs. This was about survival. And her odds of surviving beatings and rape by dozens of violent, ruthless men were close to zero. And if she did survive, she’d only be a shell of a woman not worth hanging.
She was grabbed from behind by a man she didn’t even know was in the room. That’s how off her game she was. In a coordinated attack, another man grabbed her legs. She kicked, twisted, jerked, and freed one leg. She kicked out, catching the man in the chest. A third man gripped her calf with his rough, callused hand.
For a fraction of a second, she closed her eyes and considered her next steps. “I’m a captain in the United States Army,” she shouted. “That makes me a prisoner of war. The Geneva Conventions protect me from violence, indignity, or biological experimentation.”
“Whatever those laws are, they aren’t my laws.” Shiny Boots said, in heavily accented English. Then he took her hand and yanked off her class ring.
“Bastard. Give me back my ring.” Her stomach bottomed out. “I’m an American”—she tried again—“fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life. I’m prepared to give my life in their defense.” She twisted and yanked, but the span of their hands encircled her arms and legs and squeezed hard enough to break a bone. She couldn’t get free, and all she was doing was hurting herself. Saving her energy so she could get through this night was more important than resisting.
How was this going to go down? Were these three going to take her at the same time, bring their buddies in to watch, participate? How many could she take on in a fight? She had three holding her right now, and she couldn’t take them down. But as soon as they gave her an inch, she’d attack, sure as hell—with everything she had.
Fear drenched her chest, scalp, and underarms with sweat again, and her thrashing heart threatened to explode out of her ribs as they carried her from the house and into one of the small clay-walled buildings. Inside, they tossed her onto a bed that smelled of sex, filth, and drunken nights. And they left her there without a word, locking the door behind them.
If she spent even one more second at the mercy of rape flashbacks and rape possibilities, she’d be useless. She had to be proactive. She jumped off the flea-infested mattress and surveyed the room, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. Other than the bed, there was a rickety chair and a square table with a single candle. There wasn’t any electricity in the room, and she hadn’t seen any in the big house, either. The window to her cell was shuttered and lashed with rope as thick and tight as a dock line tied to a bow’s cleat. If only she had her knife.
Wait a minute. She reached into her jacket pocket. It was still there! How did that happen? It should have fallen out or at least discovered by those creeps who manhandled her.
She gripped the anodized aluminum handle and pulled it out. Time was short, and she had to make use of every second.
She started sawing through the thick rope. If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.
She was halfway through the rope when someone tromped up on the small porch outside her prison and put a key in the lock. Quickly, she turned the rope to hide the cut side and put her knife away.
A man who resembled Shrek, the ogre, barged in and perched his hulking body on the edge of the bed in the dimly lit room. The expanse of his shoulders slumped forward, and he leered at her from dead eyes that screamed he had no moral compass or care for humanity. He was emotionless, violent, and utterly terrifying.
“I’m not a whore.” She sucked down the urge to puke.
A revolting, mucousy sound gurgled deep in his throat. “Doan matter. I’m the first. There’s a line waitin’ out the door there. By the time we’ve all had our fun, you’ll be a whore, all right. Some might even throw ya a coin.”
She was not going to die this way. Not gang-raped. Not hanged, either.
He unbuckled his wide belt. The metal clinked as he wrapped the strap around his fist. Snarling, he removed his vest and pulled his shirt over his head. She could smell him—smoke, sweat, and filth—from where she stood. She backed farther away. He followed and caged her in the corner.
She had to fight, had to offer token resistance. She threw a punch, but he moved faster than she thought he could, and he snatched her hand before it reached his jaw. She threw a punch with the other hand. He jerked his head back, and her fist only grazed the side of his face. He grabbed that arm too, pinning both above her head in one of his frying-pan-sized hands. He gave her a self-satisfied smile, one side of his loose-lipped mouth slightly lifted. Then his belt-wrapped hand squeezed her throat.
“Not opposed to beatin’ ya, but it’ll go easier if ya doan fight me no more,” he hissed between his teeth, spraying spittle on her face.
Her mind screamed, Kill the bastard. Now!
“I won’t,” she barely eked out the choked-off lie. If he squeezed any tighter or punched her with his belted hand, she’d be out cold, unable to protect herself. She could take him down, but if she moved too quickly, the noise would bring in the others. The timing was everything. She had to get him on the bed, so when he fell he wouldn’t make any alarming noise.
He ripped open her shirt and pulled at her bra. “Never seen nothin’ like that ’afore.”
“Seen whut?” a man from the outside audience yelled, proving the walls were paper thin.
“Ya never seen a merry bit ’fore. If ya don’t know what to do with it, I’ll come in and show ya,” another man yelled, laughing.
Her nostrils flared while revulsion and fear slugged it out. Revulsion won hands down. The bastard tore the thin lace and groped her breasts with ape fingers, pinching her nipples until she cried out.
“Doan hurt her too bad. We wan’ her breathin’ when it’s our turn.”
I’m going to kill ’em all.
“I heard what ya did to Howell. Ya made him look bad in front of Boss. When it’s his turn, he’ll hurt ya bad. Doan try nothin’ on me. I’ll hurt ya worse.”
Vomit threatened the back of her throat, and watery acid coated her mouth. She twisted in his grip. “Do whatever you’re going to do, but sooner or later, you’re mine.”
The ogre huffed a sardonic laugh.
She growled.
And he held her in place against him, his appalling erection pressing hard. She struggled but put up minimal resistance. She could hardly wait to show him she co
uld kill him. But not yet. Not until she could do it without making a sound. If the men outside heard trouble, they’d barge in and pin her to the bed. One thrust from the ogre and she’d bleed out.
The ogre backhanded her across the face. The impact snapped her head against the wall, and lights crackled behind her eyelids. Her body twisted violently, her eyes watered, and her teeth slammed together. The copper tang of blood seasoned by filth exploded in her mouth. She shook her head to focus. Then he punched her in the gut with his leather-wrapped fist, stealing her breath and nearly throwing her off her feet.
The men outside howled. “We heard that.”
If he hit her again, she’d shove his smile and rotten teeth up his ass, then fucking murder him.
Grunting, he threw her on the bed. The headboard rocked against the wall. Shock stunned her but didn’t paralyze her. A sick grin spread across his face. He hauled his dick out of his pants and stroked it.
Ugly. Vulgar. Stinking. Bastard.
She couldn’t let violence and desperation distract her.
A predatory look of arousal tightened around his eyes, and he fell on top of her. She’d barely gotten her breath back when his crushing weight stole it again. The bed creaked. If she made a move too soon, the bastard would pound the shit out of her.
But he wouldn’t violate her and live. Never again.
That was a promise she’d keep. More adrenaline pumped into her veins.
He tossed the belt aside, and the metal buckle clinked when it dropped to the floor. Then he shoved his plate-size hand into the waistband of her trousers, popping the button. Her muscles flexed, preparing to resist.
“These pants woan do ya no good no more. Ya woan need no clothes. The men will come to ya all day, all night. If ya say no, ya’ll get beat. That’ll ruin ya for the rest of us. Doan want no cut up, bleedin’ whore.”
He pulled a nipple into his mouth and bit her while fumbling with the unfamiliar zipper.
The Topaz Brooch Page 15
