Bound to Break: Men of Honor, Book 6

by SE Jakes

  “No indication who it’s from?”

  “None. I can send it to forensics, but I thought you’d want to see it first,” Cooper told them. He’d put on rubber gloves when he touched the envelope and the CD case and the CD contained within. He put it into the computer and turned the large screen around toward Lucky and Dash. Instinctively, Lucky sat forward, and next to him, Dash mirrored his actions.

  The screen started off with a jerk, as though someone wasn’t used to holding a video camera. The background was black and then got lighter and Lucky got dizzy just watching.

  There were voices in the background. Spanish. English.

  Next to him, Dash froze. Lucky didn’t have to look at Dash to know, but he felt it instantly. He kept his eyes trained on the screen, not wanting to miss a goddamned thing, because this was important. He knew it in his bones.

  After several more minutes of nothing on the screen but dizzying movement, Lucky finally realized the person holding the camera down had been walking. Maybe hadn’t even realized the camera was on.

  That was made clearer when the user put the camera down, sideways, and Lucky saw himself and two other men on the screen.

  Cooper rotated the computer screen so they could watch the video right side up.

  Lucky realized that he looked much the way he had in the lie detector video—the long hair, the beard, but he was thinner. Pale. Bloody.

  He looked like hell on the screen. Could barely hold his head up. The men spoke to him, rapid-fire Spanish—had he known Spanish at one point? So many therapy sessions, so many points to remember.

  Josh had known so many things, had been good at them all.

  Lucky couldn’t decipher a word. It was like watching a movie for the first time. And even though doctors and Rex, Nate and Uncle had pieced together what had happened to him during his time in captivity, he didn’t know how things ended up for him, at least not after he was taken from the others and before he was dumped into the water.

  Would he find out here? Or would this be just another frustrating piece in the incomplete puzzle of his life?

  “You should turn this off,” Dash said through gritted teeth.

  “He needs to see it,” Cooper answered quietly.

  “Should’ve been vetted through me,” Dash continued.

  Lucky never took his eyes from the screen. Dynamite couldn’t have torn him away from it.

  There were bruises on his body and face, but no one hit him. Instead, they handed him a cup and he drank out of it. Asked for, and got, more.

  In Spanish.

  And then the men were talking to him and he was laughing with them. Nodding in agreement. And then he said something and one of them shook his hand and the other clapped him on the back.

  “What did I say?” he asked Dash urgently as the screen froze and the tape ended.

  “Lucky…”

  “Tell me. Fucking tell me what I said.” But he knew from the look on Dash’s face that was a losing proposition, so he turned to Cooper. “You said you wouldn’t lie to me.”

  Dash stood, like he’d bodily stop Cooper from saying anything, but he didn’t move toward the guy.

  Cooper finally said, “You told them, ‘I’m ready to do anything I need to. Just let them go, like you promised, and I’ll do whatever you need.’”

  He made Cooper rewind and continue to translate. This time around, Lucky heard “Dashiell” and “Africa” in the mix of the Spanish, and he insisted Cooper tell him every damned thing he said, even though he didn’t want to know.

  “There’s no going back,” the disembodied voice on the screen said to Josh, the voice pinging something in Lucky. He couldn’t pinpoint it and so he shook it off as merely something that was making him sick, watched himself on the screen, staring at whoever the off-camera man was and telling him, according to Cooper, “I don’t want to go back. There’s no reason to do so now—I’m where I belong.”

  Lucky was glad he hadn’t gotten out of his seat, not when his world spun and he got dizzy. Dash got on his knees in front of him. Lucky could still see the frozen computer screen over Dash’s shoulder, watched his expression of happiness on the screen.

  “Listen to me, Lucky. We talked about what a good liar you are. You were probably telling them what they wanted to hear. For survival.”

  “Rex told me that they used to promise they’d make it all stop, for all of us, if just one of us talked,” Lucky said slowly.

  “Right. So you might’ve decided to trick them.”

  That could be true, but he had no idea if it was or not.

  “Jesus, Dash,” was all he could manage.

  “He needs to stay here,” Cooper said.

  “He’s going back with me. He’s under my care,” Dash responded, never taking his eyes from Lucky’s.

  Lucky felt shattered, like if he stood, he’d break. But Dash helped him up, walked him out of the room and building and away from the goddamned video. He was vaguely aware of the car ride, hiding in the darkness.

  He liked that. When they got inside his apartment he begged Dash not to turn the lights on, and Dash complied.

  “Everything okay?” Clint asked. Normally, Rex would bitch at him, ask if he’d ask that every time Rex’s number came up.

  This time, he said, “No. Is Sawyer there?”

  “He’s not.”

  Rex forced himself to remain calm, but the terrible feeling he’d had earlier intensified. “Has Jace spoken to him?”

  He heard Clint asking Jace and then he was on speaker with both of them.

  “I haven’t heard from him since I dropped him at the boat,” Jace said.

  “We were going to spend the night on the boat, but I got called in. Sawyer dropped me off, said he’d grab some food at the diner and wait for me. I’ve been calling him and got no answer. I went to the diner. My truck’s there, but no sign of Sawyer. The waitresses don’t remember him even coming in.”

  “Rex, what were you called in about?” Clint asked.

  “That’s just it. When I got there, no one knew anything about me being called in.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lucky curled on his side on the bed. Buried his cheek against the pillow that smelled like Dash and wondered if he was going into some kind of shock. He shivered, even though the room was warm and he was both grateful and worried when Dash pressed his chest against his back, spooning him.

  They lay like that, silent, in the dark, for a long time. There was no danger of Lucky sleeping, because his mind was on overdrive.

  “Even if I do fall asleep, it won’t matter. I’m too fucked up to even have nightmares,” he told Dash now.

  Dash answered with his face pressed against Lucky’s shoulder. Rubbed the scruff of his cheek back and forth until the roughness made Lucky hard.

  “Some people dream all the time and never get anywhere close to as good of a time in real life. I’d rather have the real life than the dreams, Lucky.”

  His voice sounded husky.

  “How, Dash? How can you still want me—this—after seeing that tonight?”

  “I’m going to get fucking pissed if you ever ask me that again. Do you understand that?”

  “No, I don’t understand anything,” Lucky shouted back, and damn, that felt good. “Did you hear what I said? I told those guys I’d make sure to get revenge for them. They told me they were taking me to South Africa. I said your goddamned name, Dash.” Lucky shook, a head-to-toe tremble he couldn’t control. “I would’ve hurt your family. The only family I’ve had for the past four years.”

  “But you didn’t. And now, I know you couldn’t.” Dash didn’t seem upset, concentrated on taking Lucky’s pants off, and Lucky let him. Wanted Dash’s skin on his, wanted to know if Dash was lying.

  The man couldn’t lie during sex, not now when they’d gotten this close. Lucky’d know, once and for all, if Dash could live with knowing that Lucky might’ve been turned. That he might’ve hurt Dash’s family.

&n
bsp; He was naked on the sheets, the lights still off, when Dash’s lubed finger entered him without warning. He gasped, tried to roll onto his belly, but Dash grabbed his hip and held him firmly in place.

  Lucky remained on his side. Dash knelt so he could take full advantage of him, used his thigh to spread Lucky’s legs and pushed inside. He braced for the burn, waited for the inevitable pleasure he felt he didn’t deserve.

  Dash would give it to him anyway. Rocked against him fast, urging him to forget everything except what was happening between them. Showing him that nothing else mattered.

  For that moment, nothing else did.

  Dash pushed one of Lucky’s thighs up so he could gain better traction, sliding his cock in and out of the man easily. Lucky reached up and wound an arm around Dash’s neck, trying to gain some leverage.

  In response, Dash bent and sucked Lucky’s nipple hard, before alternately biting and licking. He also never stopping fucking the man, and Lucky’s response was to yell Dash’s name, bury his face into the pillow, rubbing it back and forth. He didn’t know which end was up, and the look in his eyes was one of dazed lust.

  It was the exact place Dash wanted him. Reality sucked for both men now, and if he could bring Lucky to a better place, he’d do it.

  He moved out from under Lucky’s arm as he began to fuck him in earnest now, the bed rocking, headboard slamming the wall. Lucky didn’t know what the hell to do with his body as it jerked helplessly with the rhythm Dash set. He put his free arm over his head, tried to turn further onto his belly, but he couldn’t. Not the way Dash held him impaled.

  Lucky’s hand traveled back to Dash’s hip, ran his fingers down to scratch his already too-hot skin as Dash drove into him. He held both of Lucky’s wrists to the side.

  “Not letting you go, Lucky,” he panted.

  Lucky shook his head, and whether he was agreeing or not, Dash couldn’t tell. And dammit, he didn’t want Lucky to have any doubts.

  “Not letting you go,” he growled now, his voice harsh, his thrusts demanding. “Look at me, dammit.”

  After a few seconds, Lucky did. The first real eye contact he’d made with Dash since they’d left Cooper’s office. Even though it was in the dark, it still made all the difference in the world.

  He could find this man in the dark. Didn’t matter that Lucky thought he could hide. Dash could see right through him, always had been able to.

  He bent down again and kissed Lucky. Hard and fast, then soft, slow and gentle, like he’d never stop. The kisses were everything, all the promises, all the reassurances Dash could give him.

  He couldn’t answer why—how—all of this happened. It was the last thing he’d have ever expected. But he and Lucky had been bound from the first moments the SEAL team stepped into the jungle to rescue him. And that bond hadn’t been cut. Instead, it tugged them closer, across oceans. Across impossible odds.

  “Lucky, I’ve got to run out for a little while. Got a call from my supervisor. Nothing to do with your case. I’ll be back and we’ll go to breakfast.”

  Lucky heard Dash’s words through his sleep haze, nodded, felt the warm brush of the man’s lips against his cheek. And then the body heat was gone and Lucky drifted back and forth between sleep, but he’d gotten his fill.

  His body remembered the Navy, even though his mind didn’t. Rex had told him that he’d never slept more than four or five hours a night, and when they went out on missions, sometimes it was four or five hours over the course of days.

  He sat up now and looked around the darkened room. It was just past five in the morning. He wondered what the hell was up in Dash’s world. Wondered if the man was being pulled into another mission, and, as selfish as it was, wondered what that would mean for the two of them.

  His mind went back to the tape. How could it not? Dash had tried his best to erase it with mind-blowing sex and had succeeded for a long while. He’d also succeeded in convincing Lucky that he didn’t care what had happened in those jungles.

  “You’re alive. So am I. That’s all that fucking matters. We didn’t let those bastards win,” he’d whispered to Lucky before Lucky heard him softly snore.

  Lucky desperately wanted to believe that he’d been faking it with those men. That he’d let his team believe he was dead because it was the only way he could help them.

  But he’d have to let that go, or it would haunt him forever.

  There’s no reason to go back there now.

  He’d said that on the tape.

  He was up out of bed, repeating the words, over and over. It wasn’t a memory of the past. Not at all.

  It was a memory of Cooper, from one of their therapy sessions. When Dash was there with him. When they were talking about recreating the torture and Cooper refused. Told Lucky, there’s no reason to go back there now.

  Coincidence? Or a trigger?

  He rubbed his arms up and down. His body froze, like it was bracing for danger.

  Because he wasn’t alone in the room anymore. “It wasn’t Dash’s supervisor who called him,” he said into the dark.

  Cooper’s voice answered him. “No. But he won’t be back for a while.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lucky woke with a cough. His head pounded. He didn’t remember anything after Cooper telling him that he’d taken care of Dash.

  But at least he fucking remembered.

  Now, he tried to move and found the ropes tight around him. He was flat on his back, a light shining in the corner. He turned his head and saw a shadow in the corner. “That you, Cooper?”

  “Glad you remembered.”

  “Fuck you. What the hell did you do to Dash?”

  “Don’t worry—he’s fine. You won’t be, but he’ll live to remember all of this.” And then Cooper repeated what Lucky assumed to be the same words. In Spanish. The same distinctive Spanish from the video, and that was what had made Dash start.

  It wasn’t the Spanish of a native speaker.

  “You were…there? You were in the room with me?” he asked as the pieces began to tumble together like a house of cards in reverse.

  “Give the SEAL a medal,” Cooper said, then spoke what seemed like the same sentence again, this time in perfect Spanish that Lucky remembered from the video. The same goddamned voice. It had jarred him in Cooper’s office, but he hadn’t known exactly why. He knew now—the man’s tone was familiar. Lucky had spoken to him several times a day for months and months now. He’d heard Cooper speak in Spanish before…but it was a hazy memory. He’d swear he’d dreamed it, if he dreamed. He frantically fought through the past months, to all the time he’d spent with Cooper. To the times Cooper sedated him.

  They’d discussed the fact that sodium pentothal wasn’t widely used anymore because it was controversial—many believed the subject would be susceptible to memories that could be planted rather than true memories. But Cooper told Lucky that he’d had good luck with it, and Lucky had been so determined to get his memories back, had trusted Cooper so much that he hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that Cooper was basically telling him he’d be vulnerable.

  He was paying attention now.

  “Yes, Lucky, I was there. I put a lot of hard work into you, and I didn’t get paid because you didn’t follow through.”

  “So why bother with all of this? You knew you couldn’t turn me again.”

  “I could’ve, if you’d been taking the medication the way you were supposed to.”

  Lucky hated those meds. Took a few the day he had to have his blood tested so the levels would show, and shunned them the rest of the time.

  “I’ve gotten Dash and Rex out of the way. And I’ve already got Rex’s new boyfriend, Sawyer,” Cooper continued. “I’ve been staking him out for weeks.”

  Lucky stared at the man he’d goddamned trusted.

  As if reading his mind, Cooper said, “The old Josh would never have trusted me.”

  “If I’m not the old Josh, why bother with this?”

&
nbsp; “I have my reasons.”

  Lucky ran through a possible laundry list of them. He couldn’t be hypnotized—or could he and Cooper had been plotting suggestions inside his mind this entire time? Same with the sodium pentothal trials Lucky himself had insisted on continuing with.

  He forced his panic down. The only way to survive—no, fuck that, he was done merely surviving. The only way to win this was to stay calm and let his operator’s instincts take over.

  He imagined they would.

  Cooper studied him, and Lucky hated that he’d trusted this man with some deep shit. Nothing had been secret, but spilling his fear was something he hadn’t minded doing with Dash.

  He’d trusted Cooper to get him through this.

  “Did you know Dash has been working with me the entire time?” Cooper asked, and then Lucky heard Cooper’s voice on tape, then Dash’s.

  “…There’s nothing suspicious. Nothing even remotely so.”

  “Except that he was dumped near my family, Cooper. How can I ever trust that he wasn’t put there to hurt them?”

  “I’m sure Dash has told you he trusts you now. Are you sure that’s true? I mean, who can you trust, Lucky? You’ve admitted your instincts were rusty. Guess I’m living proof of that.”

  Don’t react.

  And he didn’t, not even after hearing another snippet of Dash discussing Lucky as if he was a job. Because he’d known that’s what he started out being.

  But hearing it out of Dash’s mouth while he talked to Cooper stung.

  How badly could he have misjudged Dash? He’d spent time fucking the man…

  And Dash told you that it usually was all an act for him.

  But Lucky refused to buy that. Maybe it started out as that before they’d met, but Dash had been fighting his feelings from the first night. It was in the man’s touch. The way Dash had calmed him after Nate had upset him.

  The way Dash came here and stayed. Watched him.

  And that couldn’t have been an act.

  Could Dash have been pretending everything?

  And this is what Dash has been dealing with since he met me. Unsure of what was truth about Lucky and what was made-up. Unsure of what to believe, or whether or not to believe at all.