Darkest Before Dawn

by Maya Banks

  this abomination was.

  “I won’t have to,” he said with smug satisfaction. “He works for me. I paid him to bring you to me. You are a bargaining tool who serves a higher purpose. You’ll get me what I want and then you’ll get Maksimov what he wants. And then A New Era will get what they want.”

  He studied her a brief moment, purposely drawing out her terror.

  “You,” he finished triumphantly. “The very thing you thought you escaped will be your ultimate destiny. All you’ve done has been for nothing. But your escaping them greatly benefits me. Greatly,” he murmured, dropping his voice as he raked his gaze over her shaking body.

  “Come in, Hancock,” the man called, evidently having heard something Honor hadn’t. “I should have known you’d be back to look in on your little pet.”

  Bile rose in her throat. No. This wasn’t happening. He was messing with her head. She closed her eyes, refusing to be drawn into his sick game.

  Her head was yanked brutally back until she feared her neck would snap.

  “Open your eyes,” the man said, his voice snapping over her with the force of a whip.

  Not because she wanted to, but because she had to, did she obey. She had to know what was truth and what were lies. When her vision cleared, she saw Hancock standing silently at the foot of the bed, his eyes intent and watchful, but it was the air of disinterest and the blankness in his gaze that terrified her.

  “No,” she whispered. “No!”

  This time she screamed it, and then she kept screaming even when she reeled from the fist connecting with her jaw to silence her.

  “You know Maksimov will not be pleased,” Hancock said in a cool, unruffled voice. “You’re a fool, Bristow. She was healing nicely. Now you’ve bruised the one part of her that wasn’t already damaged. Her face. You know Maksimov likes a pretty face. He won’t be happy that the merchandise incurred further damage at your hands.”

  Merchandise? She stared at Hancock in horror, knowing she couldn’t control the shock of his betrayal from her eyes, and he didn’t so much as flinch. There was no guilt, just steady resolve radiating from him in waves.

  Oh God. No.

  Honor rolled, the man suddenly allowing her to do so as if he saw exactly what was about to happen.

  She barely was able to get her head over the side of the bed in time to vomit all over the floor. She registered the distant sound of a scuffle, angry words being exchanged, but her head was splintering apart with pain as she continued to heave when there was nothing more to expel from her stomach. And the pain from the stress on her injured side, the stitches no doubt torn, robbed her of breath. Her hair hung down in disarray as her head went limp. She simply no longer had the strength to hold it up.

  Blood mixed with her tears dripped onto the floor, a macabre sight along with the contents of her stomach. Mostly bile. She felt sick to her very soul.

  And then surprisingly gentle hands slid over her shoulders, one palming the back of her head, the other lifting the part of her that hung lifelessly over the edge of the bed. She shuddered, going into a frenzied attack. She knew those hands. Knew that touch. What was once her greatest source of comfort was now vile. Evil. She’d never felt so devastated in her life.

  “Damn it, Honor, stop fighting me. You’ll only hurt yourself more.”

  She reared her head back, hating that her vision swam with tears. She barely registered that the man Hancock had called Bristow was now gone, and in his place were all of Hancock’s men. The whole traitorous lot of them.

  “There is no way for me to hurt more,” she said dully.

  Someone, more than one man, swore, in more than one language, but her gaze never left Hancock’s. He regarded her somberly, no hint of guilt. No regret for so callously betraying her trust. She’d been foolish to give it. That was on her. But then she’d had no real choice. No real chance. She’d fooled herself into thinking that she had one. She’d been doomed from the moment the clinic had fallen down around her and on her, the screams of her coworkers still echoing in her ears, the stench of blood ever present in her nostrils.

  Shock and a keen sense of betrayal paralyzed her. She’d trusted him. Not at first, but she’d grown to trust him over the past days as he’d fought to get her out of the country and out of the hands of A New Era.

  Someone, she never lifted her gaze to acknowledge whoever it was, gently pressed a cup containing cold water into her hand and then provided her a basin, holding it a few inches below her mouth.

  “Rinse your mouth and spit in the bowl,” came the gruff order, the roar in her head, her ears, her heart too overwhelmed to register whose voice it was.

  She did as instructed mechanically, like a thing programmed. A machine with no feelings, no thought processes or choice. And when she finished spitting the foul taste from her mouth, she gulped down several sips of the chilled liquid to soothe her raw throat, made so when she’d screamed her denial of Hancock’s betrayal.

  Her gaze settled back on Hancock accusingly, certain that her pain and confusion shone brightly in her eyes. He regarded her quietly, dispassionately. But then, of course, he wouldn’t have the grace to look ashamed. He wasn’t her white knight, her savior. He was the instrument of her demise.

  “You promised,” she whispered brokenly, flinging the cup in his direction.

  He shook his head in denial. “I never promised you anything, Honor,” he said in a quiet tone that reflected no more remorse than was displayed in his expression.

  “No, but you allowed me to think that I was safe . . . And that’s worse,” she said in a savage tone. “You could have told me. You could have corrected my assumption at any time. At least then I would have had time to prepare. Instead of thinking all the while that I was one step closer to freedom. You’re a monster. Just like them. But at least they’re honest about their intentions. That makes you worse than those murdering savages.”

  Hancock lifted one eyebrow, ignoring the pointed barbs she threw at him. “And have you escape me at the first opportunity? Yes, that’s what I do with all my prisoners. I tell them precisely what their fate is so they can run.”

  Her face contorted into a helpless snarl. Much like a wounded, trapped animal awaiting execution from a hunter. “Like I would have been able to escape you and your . . . people?”

  She swept them all with her scathing glare, growing more pissed by the minute when not one of them looked remotely regretful. They were all heartless bastards. Traitors to their countrymen. She couldn’t look another moment at them. They sickened her to her soul.

  “You escaped an organized terrorist group that far outnumbers me and my men and managed to elude them for over a week. So yes. I have no doubt you would have found a way to escape me as well.”

  She went silent, fixing her stony gaze forward and refusing to acknowledge any of them again. Nor would she allow the overwhelming despair threatening to engulf her to show. She wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.

  “Tell me,” she said in a ravaged voice. Her rage was a terrible thing. Her sense of betrayal was far greater. Worst of all, she couldn’t keep it from him. Couldn’t keep how much he had hurt her from him or anyone else in the room. She’d been stripped of her dignity, her pride, her very soul. She had nothing left.

  “What is to be my fate, Hancock? You owe me that much at least.”

  In the blink of an eye, the life had gone out of her. She was dangerously calm. Disembodied, no longer a living, breathing person with hopes and dreams.

  She saw something savage in his gaze for one brief moment before he slid onto the bed next to her, ignoring her scooting as far away from him as she could. She couldn’t touch him, couldn’t allow him to touch her. She’d only throw up again.

  “Why do you need to know?” he asked in a surprisingly gentle voice.

  God, she needed him to be the asshole she’d thought him to be from the start. The opinion once formed that should have never wavered. She always relied on her gut whe
n it came to people, so what did it say about her that she’d been so terribly wrong about him?

  She met his eyes coldly, feeling layers upon layers of ice forming on her heart, her mind, her soul, encapsulating her in a freezing, bone-deep chill.

  “So that I have enough time to carve a hole in my brain so I can crawl into it and die.”

  He instantly recoiled with a flinch. She heard a blistering curse from across the room and then someone stomped away, slamming the door so hard it finished the job of knocking the painting from the wall that Hancock had already set teetering the time he’d left after she’d asked him to kiss her.

  What a stupid, hopeless, naïve fool she’d been.

  “What an honorable soldier you are,” she said in a mocking voice.

  But her pain betrayed her. Like so much else had of late. She tried to sound bitter, angry, furious even. But she could barely choke the words out because she was still screaming on the inside, her pain so great that she could feel herself shattering into a million pieces.

  “Whoring yourself out to get the job done. What exactly is the going rate for stud services these days?”

  Anger glittered hotly in Hancock’s eyes, but she was too far gone to care. Already she was retreating within herself.

  His silence damned him. She knew he’d done just those things for previous missions. No, his jobs. Missions somehow invoked something with meaning. Value. Honor. Loyalty. Good. She was a job, just as other women had likely been jobs as well.

  “Get out,” she said, holding desperately to the last of her crumbling composure. “All of you. Get out!”

  And as she lay there, broken, weeping silently for all she’d lost, she realized that the very thing she’d vowed Bristow wouldn’t take from her—Hancock, her talisman and protector—had never been hers to begin with.

  She had nothing further for anyone to take from her.

  She had nothing, was nothing at all. Just a tool. A bargaining chip. A plaything for ruthless, evil men. And for just a little while, she’d slept with the enemy, figuratively speaking.

  She’d made the mistake of trusting when she knew better. But at least she wouldn’t have to live long with such heartbreaking regret. Her time was very short indeed. She closed her eyes, anguished by what was to come: the suffering and agony that would be inflicted upon her before she finally escaped into death’s protection. She regretted that her death couldn’t come sooner.

  CHAPTER 20

  RAGE ate at Hancock, though he was careful to keep his emotions in check—an art he’d perfected until it came as second nature to him as breathing. But he’d never felt this close to losing his tightly leashed control.

  He held out his hand in the direction of his team, and one of them scrambled to hand over a med kit.

  “Get Conrad back in here,” Hancock snapped. “I need him to take a look at her stitches.”

  Cope, Viper and Henderson immediately exchanged grim, silent glances. At Hancock’s barked order, Honor went utterly still and then rolled away so she faced the wall and curled in on herself, forming a protective barrier.

  With grim resignation, he slid onto the bed next to Honor, one knee bent, so he was sitting facing the headboard and so he could take in the mass of honey-colored hair—she’d managed to get the original color back with repeated washings—and move the strands covering her face. And the evidence of her tears.

  He pushed the strands away, ignoring her recoil and the fact that she was pulling herself further and further away from him, not only physically but mentally. His temper, raw and savage, spiked as he took in her torn lips, the thin trickle of blood that still seeped not only from her mouth but from her nose as well. A wicked-looking bruise was already forming where that bastard had touched her. Hurt her. Put his fucking hands on what didn’t belong to him.

  Hancock had known he was living on borrowed time. It was only a matter of when—not if—she discovered his intentions and that they were not those of the man she thought she saw when she’d looked at him before.

  But now, the knowledge and understanding were there, staring back at him with dark accusation but worst of all, hurt and devastation that was beyond repair. He’d done that to her. And she’d been right when she’d said that what he had done—was doing—was far worse than what A New Era had planned.

  The men hunting her hadn’t lulled her into a sense of false security. They hadn’t given her hope. Or tenderness or caring, all the while intending to sacrifice her. Trade her life for thousands of others.

  Hancock had done all those things, and he’d known she would hate him. What he hadn’t known was how much he would hate himself, nor had he known that her deep anguish would twist his gut into knots he had no hope of ever unraveling.

  He rolled her over, mindful of not hurting her more than necessary, but he had to be commanding and firm. The very asshole she was now convinced he was. And he didn’t deny he was just that.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said grimly.

  She shuddered beneath his seeking fingers, and he saw what the movement cost her.

  “Where the hell is Conrad?” he bellowed.

  He didn’t want her in any more pain than necessary. Her mental anguish he could do nothing about, but he could at least alleviate her physical discomfort. He’d never regain her trust again. Not that he deserved it. But this, too, was unexpected. The pain he felt over the loss of something so precious.

  Conrad entered, his fury a living, breathing thing. He wouldn’t even meet Honor’s eyes, not that they were available for him to meet, but he didn’t know that because he didn’t spare so much as a glance in Honor’s direction. He only looked at Hancock, simmering with barely controlled impatience, awaiting his team leader’s instruction.

  “Give her something for pain. And to calm her,” Hancock added quietly. “She’s torn some of the sutures. I’m sure of it. Make sure and give her another injection of antibiotics.”

  “No.”

  It was said so softly that everyone froze, uncertain of whether it actually had come from her.

  She turned her head over her trembling shoulder, her eyes downcast so they wouldn’t see the grief and sorrow swamping them, making them giant pools that swallowed Hancock whole. But he saw. Only he was close enough to see what she tried so valiantly to keep from his team.

  “No to everything,” she said in a firmer tone, one that held an edge of the fury swirling in her eyes. “And definitely nothing that sedates me. I’ve had enough of having someone else’s will being imposed on me. I get it. I’m going to die. But goddamn it, I’m not dying without a chance to fight. I won’t go down without a fight.”

  Hancock sighed, unable to keep his respect for her and her indomitable spirit in check. And then he once more became the asshole he was and the asshole she thought him to be.

  “I don’t care much what you want, Honor. And you aren’t going anywhere. Yet,” he amended, remembering his vow that he wouldn’t lie to her. Not that it would bring her any comfort or solace. But he would not lie to her. “I’ll hold you down if need be, but Conrad will tend to your injuries and you’ll endure it as pain free as we can possibly make it. And then you will sleep and heal.”

  “In a hurry to get your captive all better and good enough for the next monster you pawn me off on?” she asked, tears thick in her voice.

  Goddamn it. She was killing him. Inch by slow inch. Eating a hole in his gut, his heart. Whatever was left of his damned soul.

  He didn’t answer her question. How could he when that was precisely what he intended to do? But his not wanting to see her hurt had nothing to do with Maksimov. The Russian wouldn’t care what condition she was received in because he’d most certainly inflict his own brand of damage before tossing her like leftovers to ANE.

  But he wanted Bristow to believe that Maksimov would be deadly pissed if Honor was damaged. It bought her more . . . time. Which was cruel. He admitted that. But goddamn it, he wasn’t ready to let her go to her doom so quick
ly. He needed that additional time. Even if she didn’t want it.

  If Bristow believing Maksimov would kill him if Honor bore the visible signs of Bristow’s attack kept her safe, then so be it. And yet it hadn’t deterred the son of a bitch from jumping at the first opportunity to demonstrate his control over Honor and her fate. Or taking great satisfaction from scaring the living hell out of her. He fed off the fear of others. It was a heady aphrodisiac that fed Bristow’s sadistic fantasies. Only he made them reality.

  The only reason Hancock hadn’t taken Bristow apart with his bare hands—what he’d vowed to his men he would do if he had harmed Honor—was that he’d seen one of Bristow’s men making a discreet call when he’d seen the flurry of activity around Honor’s room, and then he’d known.

  He knew Maksimov would have a mole inside Bristow’s organization. Maksimov had eyes and ears everywhere. Hancock would have expected no less. But he hadn’t identified the mole. Until now. And his hearing, tuned to hear what most others weren’t able to hear, made him realize he couldn’t kill Bristow. Not yet.

  Because Maksimov had only just realized that Honor was in Bristow’s possession. Bristow hadn’t contacted the Russian yet to arrange the transfer. Why, Hancock didn’t know, but he had a good idea.

  Bristow wanted Honor first. Before he gave her up so readily. He might want money, power and elevated status with Maksimov, but he was a twisted son of a bitch, and every one of Hancock’s instincts told him that Bristow planned to live out every one of those sick fantasies with Honor before making the exchange.

  And so Hancock had been forced to come in at Bristow’s request. Make it appear he was exactly what he was. A cold-blooded hired killer, without any feelings, remorse or guilt, and convince Honor that he was exactly as Bristow had described him.

  He’d felt every flinch, could hear the screams of denial deep inside her when he’d called her merchandise.

  Because he couldn’t kill Bristow no matter that the urge had been overwhelming the moment he saw the damage he’d done to Honor. That not only had he destroyed her but he’d hurt her. Had purposely imposed his dominance in an attempt to break her, not realizing that she was already broken and that it had been Hancock who’d done it. Not Bristow.

  Only after Bristow staged the exchange. Nailed down all the details and named a time and location. Only then could Hancock vent his terrible rage and take him apart. His death would not be slow or merciful. He fully intended to make Bristow pay for every word he’d hurled at Honor. Every blow he’d inflicted. Every tear, every rip, every drop of blood she’d shed.

  Because it was the only way to vent the terrible rage swelling inside him, because he knew, just as Bristow would suffer, so too would Honor suffer horribly. And there wasn’t one goddamn thing he could do about it.

  His men picked up on the terrible internal war Hancock was currently waging, and their own stances relaxed somewhat, sorrow and regret rolling into their eyes. They’d hated him. For the first time, they’d hated the order he’d given them. They’d even considered rebellion. He couldn’t blame them. He couldn’t blame their hatred because he hated himself far more than they ever could.

  But now they understood that he didn’t like it any more than they did. He hated it even more because somewhere along the way, this mission—Honor—had become deeply personal. Much more so than it had been with Elizabeth, Grace and Maren. And yet he’d spared those women and he wouldn’t allow Honor the same salvation.

  He was a bastard who didn’t deserve to die with honor or dignity. He deserved to be hunted down like the animal he was and to die a long, painful death with every sin he’d ever committed rolling through his soul like a never-ending litany.

  He slid his hand up to Honor’s shoulder, hating the revolting shudder that rolled through her body the moment he made contact. Her skin was so cold and she trembled with . . . fear. She, who’d never been afraid of him. Hell, she feared nothing, though she’d dispute it and say she was a coward. He’d put that fear in her eyes, and he hated himself more with every passing second.

  He turned her, his grip firm and unyielding. She resisted and he didn’t relent, but he swore in a silent vicious storm when he saw pain momentarily rob her of breath, but also of her strength. She sagged, falling onto her back with more force than he intended.

  “Damn it, Honor,” he hissed. “Hate me. Despise me. Whatever makes you feel better. But do not cause yourself unnecessary pain by defying me. I will do whatever it takes to force your compliance. In all matters and especially when it comes to you refusing to lessen your pain.”

  “Lessen my pain?” she asked hoarsely. “Are you even human? You hurt me, Hancock. You. Not the damn bombing. Not the bullet I took for a man I believed was risking his life to save mine, not to ensure that I was hastening toward my death. You hurt me and there isn’t a damn medication or treatment on earth that will ever help that kind of pain.”

  She lay on her back, her chest rising and falling in quick succession, and around her flat lips were lines of strain. She was hurting like hell.

  He motioned to Conrad, and Honor shoved herself upward in the bed, balancing on her elbows, tears he knew she didn’t realize were there streaming down her cheeks at the pain her sudden movement had caused.

  “No sedative,” she yelled, choking off before her voice rose into hysteria.

  She turned those accusing eyes on Hancock. “You owe me something and I want answers. That’s why you wanted him to knock me out. It’s why I’ve stayed locked up in this room all this time, because you didn’t want me to find out the truth. Why? Why does it matter? And when I did find out, you didn’t want to have to answer my questions. It’s why you’ve told your minion over there to sedate me. Because you’re too much of a heartless bastard to give me the one thing I’m owed. I saved your man’s life. My repayment is the truth.”

  Hancock’s jaw twitched, because despite Honor’s rage, her outward show of strength, he saw something else just as realization hit him as to why she was so determined to be aware when Conrad repaired her torn sutures.

  She was bracing herself for pain. Preparing herself for what was to come. Because simple stitches, while painful, were mere annoyances compared to torture designed to cause as much agony possible without killing the victim. To make them endure so long until the pain took over like a madness and they begged for death. Ultimate freedom. Peace and freedom from the misery of their existence.

  So to imagine what would happen to her, knowing she was painting equally painful images in her head at the same time, made the fingers barely clinging to his own sanity threaten to finally slip.

  And all he had left at the moment was his sanity. The intelligent,