by Cindy Dees
Mission complete, he came back down and wrapped up in his bedroll at the foot of the stairs. He mustn’t give away to her who he was. Not yet.
He tried to sleep, but it eluded him. Instead, he spent the time wondering who on earth she was. How did an army officer, obviously in fighting physical shape, end up in Houma, Louisiana? There wasn’t an active military base anywhere near that town. Was she on leave, maybe? Visiting family in the area?
He could only be grateful for whatever twist of fate had thrown Piper in his path. She’d been braver and calmer than any woman should be about being kidnapped at gunpoint, thrown in a van and driven hundreds of miles into the wilderness. He just needed her to be brave for a little while longer. Just until Mahmoud revealed his orders, now that the sleeper cell had been activated.
Chapter 5
Piper was immeasurably grateful for the padding and cotton balls her friendly captor had given her, but she also was overwhelmed with dread at what it signified for her near future. As she lay in the quiet, dimly lit cellar, unable to sleep, she listened to the light, slow sound of Goldeneyes’s breathing, and mentally braced herself for the torture to come.
In her POW training, the trainees had been slapped around some, and they’d all pretended it was an approximation of the pain they might experience as prisoners of war. But as she lay here now, she settled into the grim realization that nothing could prepare her for what was going to happen to her soon. She was going to suffer a real beating—or worse—at the hands of men who wouldn’t hesitate to break her.
Her instructors had told the POW trainees that their endorphins would kick in and the pain would lessen. That women had an advantage over men because their bodies threw out more endorphins faster than men’s, as a result of being biologically designed to withstand childbirth.
But she was still scared to death.
Goldeneyes had made it clear to her that the other men thought she was some woman called Persephone Black. Should she pretend to be that person, or was she better off denying being Mrs. Black? Would she piss off her kidnappers if she insisted she wasn’t the woman they’d meant to kidnap?
But she had no idea who this other woman was. She couldn’t correctly answer any questions about her. Her kidnappers would figure out soon enough that she couldn’t possibly be the woman in question. Maybe she should just go ahead and stand by not being Persephone Black.
Of course, then her kidnappers would demand to know who she really was. And it wasn’t like she was eager to spill her true identity or the fact that she was part of a highly classified Special Forces team.
The best bet was probably to go along with being Mrs. Black for now.
Working quickly, she built up a fake identity for herself. Originally from Minnesota, she decided to pretend she was from Wisconsin. Not that she expected any of the men except Goldeneyes would know a Midwestern accent when they heard one.
She would stick with the historian cover she already used in Houma: she was researching pirates in the early days of American history, particularly those who’d run through and hidden in the bayous of Louisiana.
She knew her captors thought she was thirty years old. How long had she been married? Three years seemed like a safe enough number. If only she knew what Mr. Black did. Since these people were obviously trying to coerce him into doing something, she probably had better avoid the topic of his work. If she was lucky, her captors already knew what work Mr. Black did and wouldn’t bother to confirm it with her.
Since sleep was totally not happening in the face of impending pain, she opted to rest and meditate, practicing centering herself and separating her mind from her body. And she prayed for strength.
The long hours of the night passed, and eventually, she heard stirring overhead. Apprehension tightened across her skin, and she checked her padding awkwardly. Still in place, thank goodness.
She stood up and maneuvered the cotton balls into her palm just in case.
The door at the top of the stairs opened and daylight flooded downward. Goldeneyes stood quickly, just in time to meet three of her captors at the foot of the stairs. They held a quick, quiet conversation in Farsi, most of which she missed.
Goldeneyes threw her a single warning glance, touching his cheek briefly with his finger.
Damn. It was time for the cotton balls. Turning her back to the men, she quickly slipped them into her mouth and used her tongue to push them into place between her molars and cheeks.
“Bring her over to the chair,” Mahmoud ordered.
Goldeneyes moved over to her and released one of her handcuffs. Using them like a leash, he dragged her toward the middle of the cellar. She resisted, unable to stop herself. She simply couldn’t go meekly into whatever was coming.
She wouldn’t say Goldeneyes was exactly gentle with her, but he wasn’t rough as he forced her over to the chair and pushed her down onto it. Quickly, he threaded the handcuffs through the chair’s back slats and pulled her free hand behind her back to recuff it.
Panic ripped through her and she looked up at him in anguish.
“Courage,” he muttered without moving his lips.
Right. Courage. She was a Medusa and would acquit herself like one.
She hoped.
Mahmoud moved over to stand in front of her. He passed what looked like a video camera to Goldeneyes. “Film this.”
Great. If this was going to be theater, then she could expect big dramatic punches. Blood. Pain. Lots of pain. She was all over giving these guys the best show she could. Maybe they would stop sooner if she did a lot of screaming and wailing.
Goldeneyes took the video camera, opened the foldout screen on its side and nodded. He didn’t look up at her. Rather, he stared fixedly at the tiny monitor. Almost as if he couldn’t bear to look directly at her.
The one called Yousef stepped up in front of her. He drew his arm across his body and backhanded her across the face. Hard. She let her head snap to the side with the slap, doing her best to move with the blow and minimize its impact.
But her entire right side of her face exploded with stinging fire. Crap, that hurts.
She glared at Mahmoud, standing behind and slightly to one side of Yousef. “Aren’t you going to ask me any questions before you start slapping me around?”
The bastard’s only response was, “Again.”
Yousef struck from the opposite direction this time, smacking the other side of her face painfully. That was the same side that he’d punched yesterday at the school, and the inside of her mouth was already cut up. She was immensely grateful for the cotton ball to cushion the blow. Her eyes watered copiously, though.
She gritted her teeth, partially to keep the cotton balls hidden and partially because she was getting mad. Past her tight jaws, she ground out, “You guys are freaking cowards, hitting a woman who’s tied up and can’t defend herself. Does it make you feel like men? Because it makes you look like scared little boys.”
Yousef punched her this time, burying his fist in her left side, at belly button height. She let her body pivot in the chair as the blow landed, tensing her abdominal muscles to protect her internal organs.
She yelled a curse as pain exploded in her gut, relieved not to have passed out from a drop in blood pressure from being hit in that location.
After that, she did her best to absorb each blow with a minimum of damage, but the toll started to add up. One of her eyes swelled nearly shut, and blood ran down her chin from her nose and mouth. Soon her entire body felt like hamburger, and the pain was so loud and steady now that more blows almost failed to register.
That must be the endorphins kicking in. Thank God.
Yet again, her attacker came back with a fist aimed at her face. She closed her jaw and kept her tongue well away from her teeth, prepared to let her head snap to the side, rolling with the punch.
“Stop!” Goldeneyes yelled.
<
br /> Her eyes snapped open, and she stared at him, along with everyone else.
“What?” Mahmoud demanded.
“Unless our orders are to kill her right now,” Goldeneyes ground out, “you need to stop making a punching bag out of her. As it is, you may have already seriously injured her. If she’s got internal bleeding, hitting her again could kill her. What did your handlers tell you to do, Mahmoud? Are we here to kill her now or not?”
She looked at the leader of the cell. Fury was obvious in his eyes, but his jaw worked like he was struggling with some decision.
Goldeneyes added less belligerently, “She’s plenty softened up. She’ll answer your questions if you just give her a chance to.” He threw her a significant look as if to say, Answer his questions, for God’s sake.
Mahmoud turned to glare down at her. “What’s your name?” he asked sharply.
She might need to help out her would-be rescuer and answer questions, but she didn’t have to be nice about it. “You know my name,” she snapped at Mahmoud.
“Say it for the camera.”
She scowled at him, and only when Yousef drew back his fist, a glint of almost-sexual pleasure in his eyes, did she spit out, “My name is Persephone Black.”
Goldeneyes’s head snapped up from the video camera. She didn’t spare him more than a glance because she had to keep her eyes on Yousef and prepare as best she could for a possible blow from him.
“Who’s your husband?” Mahmoud demanded.
“Jack Black,” she replied sarcastically.
Nobody said anything. They must not know the pop culture reference to the celebrity by that name. Goldeneyes looked up again, and after a glance at his cronies to make sure none of them were looking at him, shook his head slightly at her in warning.
Mahmoud demanded, “Where is your husband now?”
“I have no idea.”
“What country is he in?”
What country? He wasn’t in America? Huh. Who was this guy, Mr. Black? Aloud, she responded, “I said I don’t know where he is.”
“What work does your husband do?”
She snorted. “Not enough, I can tell you that. I end up paying most of the bills, thank you very much. You’d think a man like him could bring home a decent living, but no. He sits around pretending to work when I’m slaving away like a dog—”
This time Yousef’s fist caught her in the left eye. There was only so much she could do to protect herself from the blow and it snapped her head back hard.
She yelled a curse at the top of her lungs and took a certain small satisfaction from her loud outburst making the men jump.
“What do you want from me?” she shouted.
Goldeneyes jumped forward and grabbed Yousef by the shoulder. “You idiot. You’re going to kill her, and then Mahmoud will be royally screwed. He’ll be lucky if they only kill him. And it’ll be all your fault.”
Yousef’s glare shifted to Mahmoud, who growled, “Stand down, brother.”
This time, Mahmoud actually moved to stand between Yousef and her before asking, “Your husband is overseas right now, is he not?”
She blinked hard, her eyes watering like crazy as. blood from a cut over her brow dripped into them. She was going to get a hell of a shiner out of this.
“Well, um, yeah, he’s overseas,” she mumbled.
Mahmoud nodded in satisfaction. “And did he tell you where he was going this time?”
“He never tells me anything,” she said bitterly. “I’m just the wife at home. I’m supposed to cook and clean and not ask any questions about his work.”
Apparently, that was the right answer, for Mahmoud nodded slightly as if that information jibed with what he already knew. He did surprise her by following up with, “What is your husband willing to do to keep you alive?”
So, this was a hostage situation, after all. She was supposed to be used as leverage against her “husband” to get him to do something. “What do you want him to do?” she asked.
“None of your business.”
She looked back and forth between Mahmoud and the video camera. “Tell me what you want him to do, and I’ll tell him to do it. You’re filming me to show this video to him, aren’t you? Let me help you convince him.”
“Shut up,” the man snapped, making a slashing gesture across his throat as a signal to Goldeneyes.
Mahmoud headed for the stairs, snatching the video camera out of Goldeneyes’s hands as he passed. “We’ll have to edit out that last part.” He devolved into Farsi cursing. Something about women who couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Maybe that they were a curse to men?
God, she hoped so. She would love to be a curse to him.
Yousef and the third guy, the one who’d driven the van most of yesterday, disappeared upstairs. Goldeneyes waited a minute, staring at the closed door at the top of the steps, before rushing over to her, swearing a blue storm under his breath.
“My God, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I had no idea they would go that far... My fault... Miscalculated terribly... You paid the price... Sorry, so damned sorry... Have to get you out of here...”
Her handcuffs popped free. Gently, he chafed her wrists, helping circulation return to her hands.
“That’s it. I’m going up there right now and killing them all,” he gritted out through clenched teeth.
Alarmed, she grabbed the front of his shirt to stop him from barging out of the basement then and there. She asked quickly, “Do you have a gun? An automatic weapon? You’ll need it to put down four men before they can jump you and take you out. And that’s assuming you’re fast as hell and surprise them.”
“No. But there are knives in the kitchen.” He tugged at her grip on his shirt, but she tightened her hold frantically. She couldn’t afford for her only protector to lose his cool and get himself killed.
“You won’t win with a knife,” she said urgently.
“But—”
She cut him off sharply. “You’re no good to me dead. As furious as you are right now, I need you to calm down. Think. Keep your wits about you and be patient. It’s the only way either one of us will make it out of this situation alive.”
He stared at her in rage that very, very slowly faded to anguish. “But look what they’ve done to you.”
“I’m alive. I was trained to survive stuff like that, and I did.”
“You shouldn’t have had to go through that—”
“Stop.” He was starting to work himself up again, and she cut off that train of thought before it could leave the station.
He exhaled hard. Closed his eyes tightly. And when he opened them again, sanity had returned.
She let out the breath she’d been holding. Thank God. He’d come down off the precipice of breaking.
“How is it you’re the one talking sense into me?” he muttered. “You’re the one who should be hysterical.”
“Oh, I am underneath. I just don’t have time to let it out right now. I have to think about staying alive first and foremost.”
He pushed her tangled hair back from her face gently. “God, you’re extraordinary.”
Their gazes met for a moment of naked honesty. She let her fear show for a second, and he let his guilt show. Then, together, they forced down the emotions in an unspoken agreement that now was not the time for either feeling.
Eventually, when their stares had both hardened into determination, he nodded once at her. She nodded back.
From here on out, they were in this together.
“Are you okay?” he asked under his breath. “Can you breathe all right? Did that bastard crack any ribs?”
“No broken ribs.”
“Teeth? Any loose? New cuts in your mouth?”
“Cotton balls worked,” she sighed, suddenly feeling so exhausted she could barely focus. That was th
e adrenaline draining away after a near-death experience.
“What can I do for you? Name it. Anything. My God, I can’t tell you how sorry I am you had to go through that. I had no idea Mahmoud would turn that sadistic bastard loose on you. I’m gonna kill them both one day soon—”
She cut him off gently. “I’ll live. I could use some ice for my eye.”
“I don’t think there’s any ice in the cabin.” He wiped the blood off her face gently and then dabbed at her eye with the hem of his shirt.
Once the blood was cleared away, he examined the cut again. “Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you to get a few stitches in that. Or I’d sew it up myself. But I don’t have any sutures. I think there’s a butterfly bandage in the first-aid kit upstairs. I’ll bring it down.”
“And maybe a styptic stick to stop the bleeding?” she asked hopefully.
“Sorry. Don’t have one.”
He jogged upstairs and returned with a tube of antibiotic cream and the butterfly bandage. Very gently, he treated the cut and taped it together carefully.
“That’s the best I can do. I wish it was more.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. You should never have been here. Never gone through that.”
She stared at him intently. Was he admitting that he’d intentionally misidentified her? That it was his fault she was here?
“Why did you—” she started.
He cut her off, muttering quickly, “Not now. Not here with them upstairs where they could hear something,”
“Who are you?”
“How’s your jaw?” he countered quietly.
“Sore.”
“Your side?”
“Same.”
“Any serious injuries you’re aware of?” he inquired.
“Why do you care?”
“Because I’m freaking trying to keep you alive and in one piece to the best of my ability,” he snapped.
“Why?” she demanded from between clenched teeth. She was really getting frustrated with not knowing what his deal was.
“I really wish I could tell you. Does it help to at least know that there is a reason?”
