by Angel Payne
Garrett cracked a dry smirk. “You sure it’s not just because you blew our cover with that shirt? Maybe somebody with half a brain looked at you and realized no normal person, even a dorkgasm, would willingly dress in that.”
Z looked at his getup with a frown. “What’s wrong with the shirt?”
“Oh c’mon. It’s hideous. It’s not yours, is it? Central gave it to you, right?”
“Yeah, uhhh, right.”
Zeke followed up his hasty answer by cracking one of the shutters and feigning interest in the activity outside. Garrett rose, shoved into jeans and a plain white T-shirt, and listened to the scene that his friend beheld. Scooters zoomed, taxi drivers argued, bicycle bells dinged, and food sizzled. All in all, it was a typical day in Bangkok—probably the same kind of day that ten American aid workers had been enjoying just six weeks ago, prior to boarding a plane for their mission in Myanmar.
The five men and five women had never arrived for their flight. Two days later, the men had been returned unharmed, spelling out the abductors’ purpose with more clarity than a Soi Cowboy titty-bar sign. Undercover CIA agents had been rapidly inserted on the case, and sure enough, after ample questions were asked and money was tossed around, they were invited in on the newest trend for discerning American businessmen looking for a good time in East Asia—American girls who would do everything a native girl would, at exactly the same price.
Tonight, the assholes running the racket were going to find a new surprise waiting for their sorry dicks. Garrett’s blood surged with the anticipation of delivering that surprise. He hoisted his pack, slipped into his “lazy American tourist” loafers, and then cocked his head at Zeke.
“You gonna sit there moping because I called your shirt a fashion disaster? Come on, Fashion Sparkle Barbie. Let’s depart this fair establishment.”
To his perplexity, Zeke didn’t budge. He closed the shutter with unnerving calm. “Just another sec, Hawk.”
The gnat of suspicion in his senses morphed into a mosquito. “What is it?”
“Sit down. There’s one more thing we gotta discuss.”
The mosquito started biting. “No,” Garrett snapped, “there isn’t.”
Without looking back at Z, he went for the door and had his hand on the knob as his friend’s rejoinder hit the air.
“You don’t get to load up for the op unless we drill down on this.”
Garrett watched his fingers go white around the knob. Officially he and Zeke were equal rank, but his friend’s tone clearly pulled a top dog on him. That only meant one thing.
“Franzen put you up to this, didn’t he?”
Z lowered his legs and then balanced his elbows on his knees. When he lifted his head, deep assessment defined his stare. Garrett almost rolled his eyes in return, but he caught sight of himself in the dusty mirror over the bureau. His hair, a nice gold when it was clean but the color of a worn dishrag now, was as rumpled and long as Zeke’s brown waves. His eyes also looked like rags—blue ones that’d been used on muddy boots. His skin was sallow. He hadn’t slept well in over a year, and it showed in every wrinkled, grungy inch of him.
He scowled. If he was Franz, he’d likely have a few concerns about adding his name to the mission roster too. It didn’t matter that he’d proved himself on over three dozen ops in the last year. He knew the concern was for this trip. He didn’t have to be told why. But he’d put up with the formality anyway.
“Yeah, okay,” Zeke conceded. “The captain and I had a brief talk about your involvement on this one. You’re a key piece of the team, Hawk. We could really use you. Even though you look like crap, your reflexes are still the best on the squad. You’re able to make smart snap judgments even if the shit gets thick and the op goes sideways.”
Garrett dropped his pack and leaned against the door. “Are you planning that much on this one taking a detour?”
“No. Hell, no.” Like the protest about the shirt, his friend’s answer flew out suspiciously fast. “It’s just—we’re gonna be deep in the forest on this one, G. I wouldn’t be surprised if we come across fucking Jurassic Park or something.”
“You know Jurassic Park is technically off the coast of Costa Rica and not Thailand, right?”
“It’s sick that you know that.”
“It’s pathetic that you don’t read.”
His buddy’s stubbled chin gave way to a grin. “And it’s nice to see you getting pissy about something.” In a murmur, he added, “Maybe there’s hope for your humanity after all, Hawkins.”
“Shut up and get to your point.”
Zeke let the smile fall. “Okey dokey, Prince Charming.” He rose and crossed his arms. “To be frank, the captain and I are concerned about your focus on this one.”
A needle of irritation joined the knives in his chest. “That’s never been an issue before.”
“We’ve never been called to retrieve hostages before.”
Garrett snorted. “Yeah, what about that? The Rangers and Delta getting their nails done or something?”
“You think I know or care? The op is what it is. More importantly, the hostages are what they are. American women, many with fair hair and eyes.” Z leaned forward, intensifying his gaze. “I need to know you can keep the emo lockbox down on this, G. Complete objectivity. These girls will be terrified and traumatized, but our main objective is to get them to safety using any means necessary. The conditions will be shitty and the time frame will be worse. I need to know you can do that. I need to know you’re gonna maintain your edge.”
Garrett pushed off the door in order to take a determined stance. He bolted his stare into Zeke’s, unwavering in his purpose, unblinking in his concentration.
“You think I’m gonna go cookie crumbs on you because some girl looks like her?” He shot out a bitter laugh. “You think that alone would do it? You really don’t remember what Sage and I had, do you?”
“Why do I need to? You’re doing the job to stellar perfection for me and half the world.”
“And?”
Zeke’s eyes slid shut and his mouth tightened, his version of contrition for the accusing words. “You haven’t let go of her. You still got that goddamn ring hiding between your tags, which should be secured to your bootlaces, assface, not your sorry neck. I can write you up faster than—”
Garrett cut him off with a derisive laugh. “Oh, that would be entertaining.”
“I’ve got genuine concerns here, Garrett.”
“Got it, Oprah. Can I get you a tampon for that now?”
Zeke closed the space between them in one wide step. His jaw went harder beneath his stubble. “What you can do, damn it, is look me in the eye and swear to me that you’re squared with the personal shit and are solid to go on this op.”
Garrett notched back his shoulders and set his own jaw. He confronted the stare of his friend again. He’d seen those hazels oiled with booze, gunned with adrenaline, bleary with exhaustion, afire with exhilaration, and likely a thousand other things. But this was one look he always treated with respect. This was a stare of the guy who would be at his side out there in Jurassic Land, holding the gun that could save Garrett’s life. He’d be counting on Garrett to do the exact same.
“I’m solid,” he said. “And you know I’d tell you otherwise, Z.” The last shrouds of his dream fell away from his mind, dissolved by the salvation of mental mission prep. “Let me help you get these dick lickers.”
Zeke didn’t answer at first. He subjected Garrett to another minute of silent scrutiny. That was all right. He’d been through it before. What he couldn’t handle were the daggers Z kept trying to add to the others in his chest, to open up new parts of him so he could “move on” and “live again.” That wasn’t going to happen. Not today, not tonight, not anytime soon. The knives were his. The pain was his. As long as both were still there, he still had some part of her with him.
Finally, Zeke cracked a lopsided grin and chuckled. “All right, you charmer. Let’s get the hell out of here. Yo
u need a shower, dude. Bad.”
“Says the chump who smells like ass.”
Zeke knuckled him in the shoulder. “You sure you got everything in that pack? Did you get your Jane Austen novel off the back of the toilet?”
“I’ve got your Jane Austen at the end of my dick.”
“Hawkins, your dick is probably as blue as your balls by now.” Z snapped his fingers. “Hey! Maybe that’s where you should secure your tags, yeah?”
Garrett rolled his eyes, scooped up his pack again, and discreetly adjusted the body parts his friend had insulted with screaming accuracy. His cock was still doing its best to relax, though his balls throbbed in frustration, sending shots of erotic what-the-fucks at him. They were supposed to be enjoying some post-jackoff serenity right now, and the bastards were hitting the target damn well at reminding him of that every two seconds.
Get used to it, guys. He sent the dismal promise as he and Zeke made their way out into the sultry Bangkok afternoon. Life isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Chapter Two
Day four hundred thirty-three…
The paper’s running low. Soon it’ll be gone. I’m not sure how I’ll hang on after that, without the words to write each day…the few seconds that I have to look at them and remember that I’m real. That somewhere in the world, you’re real, and what we had was real. I think they might be moving us again today. I don’t know what will happen, but I think we’ll be sold again or killed. This time, I’m praying for the strength to leave this packet behind—and in doing so, to leave part of my heart behind with it. These pages will tell you everything. They’ll explain where we’ve been and who’s held us and maybe help you guys catch the assholes. I have to believe that someone will find this. I have to believe that they’ll get it to you somehow, and that you’ll read it all and know I never stopped loving you. I never—
“Sage! Put it away!”
Rayna’s hoarse whisper resounded through the cave—or whatever this place was—that the two of them had been transferred to and kept for the last two weeks. Sage didn’t waste time minding her friend. She slipped the note into the hidden pocket of her small pack as her friend turned to keep watch again, flipping her russet ponytail against her thin shoulders and peering through the barbed-wire wall that functioned as the front of their cell.
She and Rayna had stayed free for over a year because they’d depended on each other’s strengths, like her crossbow aim and Rayna’s wolf-perfect hearing, along with a hell of a lot of luck. The skills were all still there. It was the luck that had run out. They’d finally been recaptured, drugged, and taken God only knew where. This wasn’t Africa anymore. It was humid. Really humid. Not as wet as home, but few places were as soggy as the Pacific Northwest.
She closed her eyes for a precious moment, conjuring every detail she could remember of the condo that she and Garrett had called home in the three months before her deployment. The giant pillows in front of the fireplace. The cathedral roofs that turned the rain into music. The lake outside the windows, and the egrets that dipped gracefully over the water each morning.
The same way Sergeant Garrett Hawkins had swooped into her life and captured her heart.
“Hellooo, bitches!”
In the space of those two shrill words, her memories were blasted apart again.
Reality reigned once more in the form of the four black-clad gunmen Rayna had heard on approach. They were followed by the source of the greeting, their leader—a heartless greaseball who referred to himself as “King.” Sage had fast concluded nothing good was due to them because of that, and she’d been right. At first the man had referred to them both simply as “the investments,” leading to the conclusion that the men who’d recaptured them in Africa were simply middlemen, and King was the bigger player in this picture. Those were the days he’d held them in the warehouse, when somber-eyed women were brought in to wash and style their hair, paint their nails, shave their legs…and other body parts. Outfits were brought in to size on them, if the scraps of fabric could be called that. The treatment had left nothing to their imaginations about the fate for which they were being prepared.
One night, the “spa treatment” had gone differently. The women brought in for them snapped on surgical gloves as King selected body jewelry from a bed of jewels. When they pinned Rayna down, forced her legs open, and pierced her with brute force and an ugly needle, she’d screamed—and Sage had snapped. She’d managed to scatter the jewels, take down two henchmen with head butts to their balls, and get the “therapist” away from Rayna before a whack to the back of her head had turned the world dark.
She had no idea how long she’d been out but had awakened here in the cave, expecting to see diamonds taunting from between her own thighs. Instead, King himself was positioned there, pinning her legs with his knees as he wrenched at his fly. She’d taken a couple of steady breaths. On the third, she’d reared up enough to squeeze his sorry balls with all the strength in her arms.
Good news? King got nowhere near her again. Not-so-good news? Her hands didn’t feel like crushing anything after they spent three days shackled to the walls.
After that, she and Rayna were no longer the investments. They were the bitches.
King’s grin slanted higher as he approached the cell. “Have you rested well, bitches?” He cocked his head, looking from Sage to Rayna and back. “Hmm. Seems so. But do the flowers ever look soiled from the beautiful land of Seattle? I think not. This is a good thing. Tonight is going to be big for you. And me!”
A scythe of terror slashed her gut. Big could only mean one thing. They would no longer be under King’s thumb. That didn’t mean the next thumb would be any better. Sage focused on his leering yellow teeth—and the fantasy of whacking them out of his mouth—to control herself from glancing at Rayna. The effort failed. It was impossible not to catch Ray in her peripheral due to the trembles that now commanded every inch of her friend. They both knew the order King was going to issue next.
“The redhead goes first.” Two of the guards moved at once. After releasing the steel gate, they secured Rayna with beefy hands around her shoulders. One of them pulled her wrists together and then bound them with the thwick of a zip tie. When Rayna let out a pained whimper, Sage surged to her knees, a welcome rush of fury replacing her fear.
“Hurt her and you’ll answer to me, shitheads.”
King rolled his eyes and lifted his hand in a dismissive arc. The other two goons swept into the cell and then shoved her against the wall. One of them stuffed a rag into her mouth. He fastened it in place with a couple of zip ties around her head. He followed by securing her wrists in the same condition as Rayna’s. The other guard hauled her to her feet by pulling on her ass.
As all this happened, Rayna got pulled out of the cell. King stepped over to greet her by raising a hand to her quivering chin and using the other to pet her long copper hair.
“Eyes of a wildcat and hair of fire,” he murmured. “And yet, you have always been the sweeter of my two special candies.” He used his grip on her chin to lift her face, leaning close as if to kiss her, despite the grimace Rayna didn’t hide. “I wonder if your slit is as fiery as your hair, my lovely.”
He finished by licking the seam of Rayna’s mouth, making her jerk against his grip. Sage lunged against her captors, letting out a useless scream against her gag. King chuckled as the guards wrestled her into submission. Because her limbs were constrained, her lungs took over the task of hanging on to the rage. She sucked in huge breaths through her nose, since breathing through her mouth was not a viable option. As it had so many times in the last two weeks, her mind pulled from her body and hovered, watching all of this like some horrible scene in a movie that gave her an excuse to go for more popcorn. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be her life. She kept waiting for the shivers to stop, for the dread to go away. She stared at the cave’s cold black stones, yearning for the moment they peeled back to reveal stage lights and a director in
those funny riding pants, laughing and telling her the scene was a wrap and she could go home now…
But that wasn’t where she was going. Nor Rayna. Within a few hours, she suspected hell would be a pleasant alternative to her fate. She finally looked over at Rayna, forcing herself to take in every strong feature of the woman who’d been her best friend, her only friend, for the last year.
After tonight, she’d never see Rayna again.
Within the next year, she’d forget who she was, as well.
“I’m too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hu-hu-hurts—”
King answered his phone before the thing could play another note of the nauseating song. Instead of a greeting, the man only grunted into the phone. “What? Already?” he finally said. “So be it, then. Make everything ready. We are bringing the additional sluts now.” He shook his head and re-pocketed the phone. “It seems our buyers are here a bit early, bitches. There will be no time to pretty you up, but I am not concerned.” He turned to Sage and ran an oily finger beneath her shirt, over her nipple. “If our guests want to see what they are paying for, we’ll just let them look.”
A snarl clawed up Sage’s throat as she charged again at the pig, hoping to get in a solid head butt. King swerved, but not fast enough to avoid a spray of her spit, courtesy of the gag. An animalistic sound surged out of the bastard as he glared at the white blobs on his hand and arm. He shook the spit off, raised his hand again, and backhanded her face. Sage heard the thud of his heavy topaz ring as it connected to her cheekbone, but the sound was eclipsed by the clanging pain throughout her head.
“Sage!” The shriek was Rayna’s, sounding weirdly muffled as she got pushed in front of her friend. The guards led them down a semi-underground passageway. Though the block rocks of the cave still surrounded them, the walls on their left gave way every five or six feet to bunches of thick tropical foliage. After they’d walked a minute or so, Sage glimpsed lights through the trees. She made out the shadows of low-lying buildings and picked up on the labored sound of clunky compact car engines. Bar glasses clinked somewhere, and an old Bon Jovi song blared from tired speakers. They were in a small village, though they weren’t exactly led into the middle of town square. Across a small clearing lay a dome-shaped Quonset hut. Dim lights burned from the high windows.
