But fuck, he wanted to charge into the room and break the spine of every fucker that laughed at her.
She screamed, and all his strength went with the sound.
Aidan reared back and kicked the door. The lock caught for a second, but the plywood and weak metal couldn’t hold against the force of his rage. A short, burly man in a white t-shirt held Sophie upright, one arm twisted behind her back. Blood decorated the front of her shirt, oozing slowly from a ladder of cuts on her arm.
Enraged, Aidan flew across the room and killed the man, pressed the gun so hard against his head that it left a burn on his skin. Sophie collapsed to the ground with the corpse, weeping.
He turned on the other two. One rushed forward and aimed a kick at Aidan’s ribs, connecting hard. Aidan gagged, but shot the man before he could strike again.
The other man assessed the situation and, deciding to save his skin, turned and ran from the room. Aidan raised his gun to fire, but it clicked. Empty. Fuck.
“Aidan?” Her voice was so soft that he almost didn’t hear it. Her luminous eyes were large in her pale, terrified face and he just wanted to protect her from all this. To take her somewhere warm and let her sit by the sea. To hold her in his arms and kiss her soft lips.
She’d never signed on to this life, but because of him, Sophie had endued beatings, torture and kidnapping. All the horror operatives were trained to deal with had been visited on her since the moment he pulled her from her hotel room. Pain seeped through him as he reached down to take her hand, felt it cold and small in his own.
Aidan tried to pull her up, but she screamed when he pulled on her arm. When Sophie would have crumbled back to a ball on the cool concrete floor, he wrapped his arms around her torso and pulled her up against him. His body screamed at the contact, but he didn’t say a word.
“I’m going to save you,” he insisted, moving toward the door and trying to figure out the best way out of the building. “Just take a few more steps. We’ll find a car. I’ll take you home.” He couldn’t imagine that they were so far away from other people, businesses, a road. If he could just get her outside, she’d be safe.
Her tears were hot on his shoulder, branding him for the bastard he was as he guided her down the hall, whispering reassurances in her hair. Aidan promised to make her safe, to take care of her. Each word made him feel stronger, gave him a solid purpose he hadn’t had in years. She quieted as they moved away from the hall, but whimpered when they turned and came to the bodies he’d left on the floor.
“They’re dead.” Her torso tightened against him, and Aidan worried that she would vomit. He rubbed her back soothingly. “Once we’re past and into the clean air, take deep breaths. Don’t look at them.”
He knew he could never have this woman. Not someone delicate and beautiful and brave in a way that didn’t matter in the face of carnage. Aidan knew that no matter what his future held, it would be fast and hard and violent.
Sophie wasn’t meant for a life where men were shot in the face.
Before they could clear the bodies, Milad came around the corner, backed by two other men, also armed.
“Aidan,” he said, his thin lips twisting into a smile that exposed his tobacco-stained teeth. He disengaged the safety; the slight click sounded like a resonating boom.
Aidan could smell Sophie’s roses on the air, over the copper smell of blood. There was death in Milad’s eyes, and Aidan could feel his woman’s choked breaths, her shudders against him. He knew it was over.
If he’d had one bullet, he’d have put it into Sophie’s head without hesitation to spare her what she’d suffer at their hands. But he was too weak to even reach over and break her neck, though Aidan knew it would be a better end than what she’d get from the pitiless men before them. He didn’t say anything as Milad’s eyes grew more excited and he trained the gun on Aidan. It was a Baretta, sleek and black.
He didn’t hear the blast before the bullet hit him. The sound seemed to come after the hot flash of pain in his chest. Sophie and Aidan both dropped into the gore that pooled around their shoes and he saw her roll next to one of the dead men, protecting her head with her arms. She didn’t move again.
Milad and the two men kept their guns trained on Aidan, the real threat, and ignored the whimpering girl whose arm they’d cut to ribbons.
“Fuck you,” Aidan snapped, trying to get to his feet. Then Milad fired two more shots into his torso.
The last thing he heard was Sophie screaming.
Chapter Eleven
He was dead. And didn’t it just figure that the afterlife was full of pain, too. He probably deserved it.
At least there was music. Soft jazz bleeding through old speakers and filling the space around his head.
When he opened his eyes, there was only light. Pure, white light that didn’t end in any direction. Then a figure appeared from the light, a shadow with no features. The fire in his head cooled while she whispered to him that he’d be okay, brushed the hair back from his face. The pain in his ribs overwhelmed him again and he sank back into the soft, rolling black.
“Aidan,” Sophie said softly, dribbling more water into his mouth. Three days since they’d left the warehouse and that was the closest he’d come to waking up. The first day, she didn’t think he’d make it and she hadn’t been able to get him to the hospital, because she was sure that someone would be looking for him after what had happened.
She’d managed to get her hands on some Azithromycin and morphine, thanks to finding the right clinic with a lack of security. Thankful that veiled women were the norm in Iran, she stuffed the interior pockets of her robes with the drugs, a drip line and ointments that she thought might make a difference. Then she’d retrieved the car and made it back to the hotel that she’d smuggled Aidan into, pleased to find him still breathing.
His fever had broken after a day of medication and the saline drip she kept running into his veins. Him waking was the best sign she’d seen so far, even if he wasn’t conscious in the strictest sense of the word. But he’d opened his eyes and groped for her hand while she held a cool cloth against his forehead.
Sophie found relief in each of his breaths, and in his color, which was returning. During the three consecutive hours of sleep she allowed herself, she dreamed of the men in the warehouse, what they’d done and threatened to do. More than that, she dreamed of digging into Aidan’s chest with tweezers, the first rush of blood that had flowed up from the wounds when she’d eased the bullets from his body. Closing the cuts with twine and a thick needle hadn’t been easy, but she suspected the heavy application of the cream he’d used on her face was speeding his recovery.
And he was healing faster than she’d thought possible. The relief that built in her was almost terrifying in its intensity.
For the first time in a week, she was confident that she’d see Adele and Lyle again. Each hour that she spent at the window, watching people move over the sunny street through the gauzy white curtains, she settled deeper into her earlier conclusion that Aidan would never hurt her.
She wondered if he’d realized that tears were in his eyes when he’d looked at her after he was shot, when they were both lying in the blood of dead men.
He wasn’t the kind of man who’d cry for himself, and it broke her that he’d cried for her. Maybe even cared for her a little.
That wouldn’t last. She knew it, even while she let the warmth of the realization wash over her.
His unconsciousness was a boon in some ways, though. Not having to be constantly on her guard, second-guessing herself and worried about their final destination and the man who waited to pass judgment on her gave her time to relax. To gather herself for what waited.
That afternoon, she felt confident enough to leave him alone in the room and find some food. The market was bustling, and she slid into the crowd, blending in effortlessly. She bought some fresh fruit and then found a vendor selling meat and rice. Tucking the food in a bag, she brought it back to the
hotel and ate it sitting on the window seat.
There wasn’t nearly enough food on this trip, she thought as another chunk of sweet, juicy papaya disappeared between her lips.
Hours later, she was laying on the floor reading a novel she’d purchased in the hotel lobby when she heard Aidan groan and try to roll over. Hopping to her feet, she rushed to him and used her hands to gently restrain him.
“Stop fighting. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“What happened?” His voice cracked on the second word, but his eyes were open and clear. Sophie thought that he knew where he was and who he was speaking to for the first time.
“We’re in Teheran. I’m sorry. I know it was a risk to take you so far, but I thought we’d be found too quickly in Qom.”
“Milad?”
“Dead. He’s dead.” She let her hands fall away and sat delicately next to him, taking care not to jostle him. “Do you want some water?”
He nodded, and she poured a cup from the pitcher she’d been using. It was filled with ice and the glass was beaded with drops of water. She held it to his lips and slipped her other arm behind his head so that she could tilt a little liquid at a time into his mouth.
“What happened?”
She took the cup and placed it on the bedside table. Neither spoke while she helped Aidan move to a more elevated position, then placed pillows behind his back.
“How did he die?” He held out his hand and she put the glass in it. He would have chugged the water if she hadn’t reached out and snagged his wrist, guiding him to only take a sip.
“One of the men standing behind him pulled a gun after he shot you. He killed Milad and the other man. I don’t know why—I wish I did. He just said something in a language I don’t know and pulled the trigger.” She took the glass and put it down again.
“How did we get out?” Aidan couldn’t connect the dots from the moment he’d pulled Sophie out of the room to their standoff with Milad in the corridor. Sophie had been injured, he remembered, in no shape to get him to a vehicle, to Teheran.
Her hands were folded in her lap and her clean, straight hair was hanging down in front of her eyes. Aidan hated making her remember something he was sure haunted her dreams, but he needed to know. Guilt swelled in his throat when he saw the puffy skin around the cuts she’d received in Qom.
“The man who shot them. He—he picked you up and took us to a truck. He gave me the keys and pointed me toward the gas station, but I drove all the way to Teheran, dropped you off and then went back for the car instead. It was still there.”
“Doctor.”
“I took care of you.” He saw a blush rise to her cheeks and, despite the pain in his body, brightened. “I have first aid training and everything else was common sense.”
He looked at his arm deliberately, nodding at the tube in his vein. “Common sense?”
“I stole a few things.” She blushed even more. “There’s a clinic a few blocks over and I had the right clothes.”
His mind rebelled against the images she’d painted. Sophie driving through the desert in the dead of night with blood on her shirt. Sophie sneaking into a clinic and stealing medical supplies. But the proof was right in front of him.
He looked down at his chest and saw raw, raised welts, but nothing like he should have had. He was more repaired than the woman who’d healed him.
“Why aren’t your arms healing?”
“They are.”
“My chest is closed up, but your arms aren’t.”
“There was only so much of the salve you used. I prioritized.”
He sighed. “There’s a bottle of pills in my bag. Look for an interior pocket. Take two and give me two.”
“What are they?”
“They’re like the salve.”
Once she’d located the bottle and opened it, put the pills in his mouth and given him more water, he was ready to go back to sleep. But he watched her steadily until she sighed and took two of the pills as well.
“Sophie,” he said as his eyes grew heavy.
“Yes?”
“Put whatever of the salve is left on your arms. I don’t want you to scar on my account.”
“You need it more than I do.”
“I can get more.” Aidan wanted to ask for a phone, but suddenly felt nervous. After everything he’d done, she was a fool to not have already left him. He didn’t need to make her more aware of a way to contact the outside world.
“Goodnight, Sophie.”
“I’m here if you need me,” she said, pulling back the blinds from the balcony and stepping out into the sunlight. They swished closed, leaving him alone in the dark.
She read on the balcony until the sun had set and she couldn’t see the words anymore. Inside, she checked Aidan’s pulse and found it steady and slow.
The bed was soft under her. She’d been sleeping on the floor or in chairs since she brought him in, but the mattress called to her. She relaxed against the pillows, moving a little closer to gather warmth from his big body.
It didn’t escape her notice that she was snuggling up to her captor without threats or cause. She just liked the way he felt against her. When only an inch separated them, Sophie stopped moving. The last thing she knew was that his hand was restlessly searching for hers over the blanket. Finding it, he twined their fingers together and they both slept.
Chapter Twelve
The next two days crept by, though Aidan healed quickly and grew surlier by the hour. Fresh, pink skin grew over the wounds that had caused her to fret and the sickly yellow color in his eyes faded, leaving the whites clear. Soon enough he looked as strong as he had the night he’d looked at her across the convenience store floor and silently told her to run.
The horror of the nights after that kept her awake when he slept deeply. The days weren’t the worst of her life, but Milad, whose face she would never forget, had jammed a hook-edged knife in her arm and dragged it through the flesh it punctured. He did it without asking questions or trying to get information. He did it because it was fun.
She’d never been so glad to see someone dead.
The hotel room hadn’t been easy to get as a single woman with a battered face, but a donation to the clerk’s personal treasury netted them a room under fake names. She’d managed to get Aidan inside on a luggage rack, her breath quickening at every corner. If she was found carting an almost-dead man into a hotel room, Sophie had no doubt she’d be taken to jail.
But he was getting better. Six-foot-three inches of man that was more hearty and beginning to be irritated that she was feeding him bland broths and rice, insisting that he’d heal better with steak or curried lamb. Still, he didn’t press the issue and they stayed in Teheran, though she knew he was anxious to get on the road.
Sophie bugged him about the medications they’d taken, but he wouldn’t tell her where they came from or how they were developed. She had no doubt that the average consumer wouldn’t be able to afford enough to cure as much as a hangnail, let alone the wounds Aidan was recovering from. As much as she wanted to know, she let the topic rest, content to talk about high school or favorite movies, anything but the issues cluttering both their thoughts.
He’d insisted that she give him a full account of her injuries, but she’d held some back. She’d left out the beating they’d given her, laughing, to see who could knock her down the longest. He was already blaming himself for something that he couldn’t have prevented—if it was her sister who the Russian had taken, she’d have done the same things he did, however illogical and ill-advised.
At night when he thought she was sleeping, sometimes Sophie felt him watching her. His breathing would change and he’d shift on the bed. Deep in her stomach, she wanted him to reach for her again. To make her feel the way he had in the car that night. But he never did.
He waited too long, but Aidan finally had to insist that they get back on the road.
“We need to get up early tomorrow,” he’d said, and
from Sophie’s expression, Aidan knew that she understood what he was really saying.
She didn’t move away from him on the mattress, but she craned her long, slender neck up to meet his eyes. “You’re still taking me to Oliver?”
“I have a duty to him, and he needs to see who and what you are. He might ask you some questions about Lyle.”
“Lyle isn’t the villain here.”
“Then there’s no harm in answering. Oliver is a fair man. He’ll let you go.”
“If he doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll get you out one way or another. I swear it on my life.” He was rewarded when she relaxed her head against his shoulder and her fresh scent drifted up to tease his nostrils. Now that he was finally comfortable in his own skin again, he felt a stirring to her nearness that he hadn’t felt in days. Uncomfortably aroused, Aidan stiffened his spine and tried to ignore it.
Sophie was a good woman, he told himself. A good woman didn’t deserve someone as battered as him. She deserved someone whose hands were clean. What she made him feel was enough that he’d consider walking away from fighting, from his work—if the stakes weren’t so high. If he turned his back on the people he’d sworn to protect, then he wasn’t good for her anyway.
Besides, it wasn’t like the nightmares would ever entirely disappear.
Aidan knew that deep down, he was made to be a soldier. Born to it, trained for it and there wasn’t anything else for him.
While he didn’t take pride in his skills, exactly, he knew that he was uniquely suited for the kind of work Oliver had him do. He’d left a trail of bodies in his wake from Johannesburg to Austin, but he didn’t regret it. Each death had made the world a better place, and he couldn’t ever feel sorrow over that. But it cost him dearly. His friends were mostly people he worked with. Women were no-strings lays in cheap hotels. He hadn’t spoken to his parents in almost a year.
Yes, he’d consider leaving for Sophie. But in the end, that feeling was exactly what would make him stay.
Blacklisted: Blacklist Operations Book #1 Page 10
