by Marie James
“I saw one guy take a shotgun blast to the vest, and he didn’t even flinch,” Rocker adds, and I know he’s thinking about taking the hits to the chest in Miami that laid him out for a couple of days. “They’re in this for the money, but they’re efficient as hell. I’m glad they’re here.”
“If you trust them, I’ll trust them.”
He nods at me, and his faith in them is all I need to have the same.
“This is going to go a little faster than we initially thought,” Kincaid says from the head of the table.
All the guys turn to statues. We’re in the window of time where all jokes, all thoughts of everything else going on in our lives have to fall to the wayside. Errors at this point can lead to death, and that’s unacceptable.
“As much as we tried to prevent it, Cortez and Jiménez know that we’re here. Although we hoped we could sneak in undetected, it’s difficult to move sixty men into a country without drawing some attention,” Kincaid continues.
Sixty men? That’s one hell of a platoon. In the Marine Corps, we took over small towns in Turkey with a lot fewer men. My confidence grows as Kincaid talks about what we’re facing.
“They’re ready for us. They’re armed to the teeth, but so are we.” We all look down at the aerial maps spread out on the table as Kincaid points out areas of focus. “Twelve men from Blackbridge Security will go to Luis Cortez’s compound. Movement around there has been minimal during the last three days. All of Cerberus and the remaining men from Blackbridge will infiltrate Xavier Cortez’s compound.”
“With the way they’ve set up their defenses,” Shadow begins as he points to the property in front of Xavier’s compound, “they’re expecting us to enter here. Team C will be bottlenecked in this area. We expect heavy fire since intel has revealed this is where they expect us to hit the hardest.”
Shadow has that glint in his eyes that I have grown to love so much. The thrill of the fight begins to seep into my veins, and all other thoughts slip away.
“The National Bolivarian Armed Forces reluctantly provided us with a few toys to ensure we’re able to breach the property here.” Shadow indicates the area at the back of the compound as far away from the front entrance as possible.
“Toys?” Jinx asks.
“Nothing major,” Shadow says with a smirk. “A couple of tanks and a few rocket launchers.”
Several of us around the table chuckle, and Kincaid waits until it dies down before he picks back up.
The final details are laid out. Each team is given their micro orders, but one question grows in my mind, and from the looks on the other guys’ faces, I know they’re thinking it, too.
“Any questions?” Kincaid asks after the tank drivers ask about specifics on structural things, so the compound doesn’t come down around us.
Several of us look around, but I finally take a step forward and speak up, “What’s the order on prisoners?”
Kincaid looks to Shadow and his brother Dominic before making eye contact with Deacon Black, the founder of Blackbridge Security.
“Take none,” he finally says when his eyes make it back to mine.
“That being said,” Dominic interrupts after a loud whoop and cheers from the other men die down. “It’s our duty to protect the women they’re holding hostage. We have a rough count of over twenty inside. If we’re lucky, they’ll all be grouped together, but we know how quick luck runs out with these guys. So be careful, and when in doubt, let God sort ‘em out.”
We all nod because that’s always understood. No matter what, we go home. That’s always the rule.
“And Gabrielle Butler?” Jinx asks.
“The CIA would like to interrogate her, but at the end of the day, she’s considered turned and is with Jiménez now. If she pulls on you, take her down.” Kincaid says the words like they don’t affect him, but I know he doesn’t take giving the kill order of a woman lightly.
We’re infiltrating at three in the morning, so we’re ushered out of the command center to a small ranch that the federal government recently commandeered under the orders of getting some rest.
With any luck, we’ll be back home in New Mexico in less than twenty-four hours.
Chapter 18
Mia
I’m startled more than I should be when my ringing phone jolts me from sleep. It hasn’t rung once since I got it.
My pulse spikes when the sound continues, but it has nothing on the way I feel when I see Ryan’s club name ‘Scooter’ on the screen.
“H-hello,” I mumble, my voice not working well since I was sleeping.
“It’s late. I shouldn’t have called.”
“No, it’s fine,” I insist as I sit up on the bed and pull the covers up to my chin.
“You were sleeping. I know how hard that is for you when…” He clears his throat. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
I know what he was going to say, and he’s right. It is harder for me to sleep when he’s not here, but I wore myself out today. I didn’t do much physically, but hanging out with the girls without my normal nap left me exhausted and ready for bed.
“I’m at Emmalyn’s,” I tell him.
“Kincaid told me you were staying there. I’m glad you spent some time with them today.”
It’s implied that he’s glad I didn’t stay holed up in the room all day.
“It’s so quiet here with everyone gone.”
I want to tell him I miss him, that I want him to come home soon. I want to let him know that I feel safe, but I’d feel better if he were lying beside me with his arms wrapped around my body. I shiver, a quick tremble working over my entire body in his absence.
“Is it too quiet?” I hear a rustling sound, and I wonder if he’s in bed, too. “I don’t want you getting stuck in your head.”
“The girls didn’t allow for it today. I don’t know what tomorrow brings, though.”
“Don’t.” He sighs, the gust of his breath filling my ear. “Stay positive. I’ll be home soon.”
“How soon?”
“I can’t—I don’t know. That’s not something I can discuss.”
“I understand.”
I do, sort of. I’m aware of what he does in the grand scheme of things. I was one of his rescues, after all. I know he’s in Venezuela, and they plan to take down the men that hurt countless other women and me in Miami. I can picture what that looks like. The gunfire before he opened the door that day still echoes in my nightmares.
“I wish I was there with you.”
His soft confession makes me smile, and I bite the inside of my cheek to hide it as if he can see me right now.
“I’m sharing a room with Jinx, and he snores like a freight train. At least you don’t snore.”
I refuse to remind him that I whimper a lot in my sleep. I know I do because it wakes me up, thankfully most nights before the nightmares can claw their way inside of me.
“Emmalyn’s guest room is lovely.” I roll my lips, unsure if I want to add the second part, but I figure his confession and the soft kiss we shared before he left is enough to make me spill my guts as well. “It would be better if you were under the covers with me.”
Silence fills the line, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far, said more than he wants to hear.
A groan breaks the silence, and it’s gravelly enough to make me quiver, the sound settling low in my gut, making me feel things I thought I’d never feel for as long as I live. It’s only a hint, but I recognize my own arousal.
And then the shame hits me.
After what happened to me, I shouldn’t feel this way. I shouldn’t want him here with his hands on my skin and his lips at my throat. I shouldn’t be able to imagine myself sharing any form of intimacy with a man.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
I shouldn’t be feeling this. That thought echoes in my head, and shame makes me pull the covers closer around me until I’m cocooned in the blanket. The soft scent of fabric
softener fills my nose, but it brings me no comfort.
I’m debating whether or not to hang up, praying that when he returns, he won’t look at me differently when I hear him shift again on his end of the line.
“I’d give almost anything to be there with you. It’s what I want, too.” He sighs again, and I don’t know if he’s frustrated with the physical distance between us or if he’s agitated that he said something he feels he shouldn’t have said.
“I put you on the spot. I didn’t mean to make things uncomfortable.”
“You know what I would do if I were there right now?” His husky voice and the thoughts running through my head make another rush of goosebumps cover my skin. “I would cup your face with both of my hands.”
I can feel his skin on mine even from hundreds of miles away. I let my eyes flutter closed so I can picture exactly what he’s describing.
“You’ll want to look away from me, of that I’m certain, but I won’t let you. I’m a patient man, Mia, and I’ll stand there for days if I have to, just taking in your beautiful face until your eyes meet mine.”
I inhale a ragged breath because I know he would. He’s more patient than any other person I’ve ever met.
“And when you do, Sweet Mia, I’ll remind you how perfect you are. I’ll remind you that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. I’ll ask you to see in yourself what I see in you every second of every day. That you’re not what happened to you, that it doesn’t define who you are going forward, and when you’re ready, you’ll overcome all of it, becoming someone stronger in the end. And I want to be there every step of the way. I want to celebrate your victories and hold you when you’re not strong enough to stand on your own two feet.”
Tears leak from my closed eyes, leaving a trail of wetness down my face.
“So, in short, you aren’t making things uncomfortable for me. You haven’t a single time since we met. You’re not putting me on the spot with your confessions. You’re giving me hope that one day I can tell you everything. One day I can confess the things you’re not ready to hear just yet. So say whatever is on your mind. Don’t hide things from me. Don’t sugarcoat your feelings. If you’re happy, tell me. If you’re missing me, tell me. If I rub you the wrong way or piss you off, tell me that, too. I want to hear it all.”
“Where did you come from?” I whisper.
Is he actually perfect, or is he so different from the men that hurt me that I’m putting him on some sort of pedestal?
“Nebraska originally, but we moved around a lot when I was younger.”
A laugh escapes my throat, and it makes him chuckle, too. I already knew he was born there. He disclosed that information during the time he was regaling me with stories of his childhood.
I’m torn between whispering the same stories of growing up and keeping my past exactly where it is, behind me.
Not everything was terrible growing up. Honestly, until we got word that Max had died in a car accident, things were pretty awesome. That was before Jason, before the abduction, before the weeks and weeks of pain and degradation.
“Will you kill them all?” I ask, instead of beginning my own trip down memory lane.
It says a lot of how much I want to avoid that topic considering the question I just asked.
“I don’t know.”
He doesn’t sigh this time. He doesn’t sound annoyed that I asked him about his work. I know he can’t say much, but I trust that he will tell me as much as he can.
“Do you want to kill them all?”
“Every last fucking one of them,” he says without pausing to think about it.
“I want that, too,” I confess. “Does that make me a vengeful bitch?”
“Not even close to one.”
“If you get the chance, kill them all.”
I wonder what that would do for his psyche. I wonder if pulling the trigger and snuffing out the life of another human being keeps him up at night. If he regrets the things he’s done to save women like me.
Even after what I’ve been through, I don’t know if I have what it takes to kill even the vilest men that hurt me personally, and I know it’s asking a lot to have someone else do that on my behalf. Most of those men met their maker in Miami, but I know Luis Jiménez somehow managed to escape. I pray he doesn’t make it out alive this time around.
“You have my word,” he vows.
“There are women also involved,” I tell him.
I’m still drained from the conversation we had last night, but he needs to know that it’s not only men capable of doing horrible things.
He does exactly what he did last night, keeping quiet and letting me speak rather than asking a ton of questions. He saw how I reacted in the hospital when the federal agents came to get my statement. They didn’t get anything out of me, and I think he fears the same.
“Gabi was already there when I arrived, but one of the girls said she was abducted just like the rest of us. Some of the girls pretended to like what the guys were doing to them, but at night they still cried themselves to sleep, still tried to hurt themselves to make it all end. Gabi was different. She somehow convinced the guys that she was exactly where she wanted to be. She helped—” a sob wracks my body, interrupting my words, and I hate myself for how weak I still am.
“Sweet Mia,” Ryan says through the phone. “God, I wish I was there to hold you. You don’t have to put yourself through this.”
But I do. I woke up this morning feeling more human than I have in a long time, and I’m sure it had a lot to do with getting some of this stuff off my chest.
“She helped them hurt us. It’s like she got off on torturing women. She’d hold us down, help tie us up, hit us with her fists, or any object she could get her hands on. She’s an awful person.” I sniffle. “I wanted you to know in case she made it out of Miami. She’s not a victim. Or at least she wasn’t by the time you guys came into the compound. She was the one who killed Sara. Sara was hiding some sort of secret about Gabi and threatened to tell one of the guards, and Gabi didn’t blink when she bashed her head in.”
An eerie calm settles over me, the numbness reminiscent of how I was beginning to feel back at the compound. It makes me feel less than human, and I hate it.
“Anyone else we need to know about?” He doesn’t grill me any further.
“They didn’t let me out of the room very often,” I inform him. “I was trouble, fighting them constantly. They had visitors all the time.”
“Visitors?”
One simple word in the form of a question. I could easily shut down the conversation right now, but I want to help them as much as I can. It could be information they need to prevent this from happening to someone else.
“The girls that were good at pretending were allowed out during their parties. Unless one of their guests asked about a girl with fight still left in her, I stayed locked away. I know an MC club visited not long ago. Raven something or other.”
“They hurt you?” The growl of his voice is low and threatening.
“No. I didn’t leave the room that night. The only reason the girls thought it was weird was because the president and vice president wouldn’t touch any of them. Luis wasn’t impressed by that at all. He doesn’t like it when people show up and don’t sample what he’s offering.”
The blanket around me is no longer enough. Somehow the cold seeps inside of me, and I miss Ryan even more desperately.
He must sense the change because he drops the subject.
“What are you wearing?”
A chuckle escapes my throat, and if he were anyone else, I’d go postal on him for asking such a question after the things I just told him about, but Ryan isn’t just anyone. He’s the man that’s been there for the darkest times of my life.
“I’m naked,” I tease, biting my lip and praying this conversation doesn’t get out of hand.
“Liar,” he huffs. “I know better than that.”
“I’m wearing your
blue t-shirt and a pair of black leggings. I had your hoodie on, but it got too hot once I was in bed. I also have on a pair of fuzzy socks that were in the bag that Jasmine brought over. What are you wearing?”
He clears his throat, and for a second, I think he’s going to lie to me. “Boxers.”
“Only boxers?”
“We don’t exactly pack for luxury when we work.”
“What color are they?”
He groans, and I hear the rustle of his sheets.
“Black.”
“Of course they are.” Ryan doesn’t have much color in his wardrobe. Honestly, from what I’ve seen of the other guys, none of them wear much other than black and gray.
I yawn, and it comes on so fast, I’m unable to pull the phone away from my mouth.
“You need to get some rest.”
“I’m not tired,” I lie, but I know he won’t believe it, so I slide down in the bed, turning to my side and tugging the pillow I was holding in his absence closer.
“We’re heading out in just a little while,” he says. “I’ll call you when I can. Sleep well, Sweet Mia.”
We hang up, and once again, the room fills with a deafening silence.
I’m unable to go back to sleep, my mind opting to worry about him instead.
Chapter 19
Scooter
“Gabriella Butler is definitely on Jiménez’s side,” I tell Kincaid the first time I see him mere hours after I got off the phone with Mia. “She helped torture the women there. Mia says she’s the one who killed Agent Sara DeMoss.”
Kincaid nods, and I know he’s still trying to wrap his head around women hurting other women and enjoying it, but this is a cruel fucking world, and it’s ignorant to think that only testosterone-riddled men are capable of gruesome things.
The next hour is spent gearing up in fatigues, strapping on weapons, and checking and then double-checking that we have everything we’ll need.
Thankfully, I’m able to find a quiet corner so I can get my head straight. That means blocking out the sound of Mia’s voice in my head, the scent of her skin, which I still swear I can smell when I breathe deeply.
