Saved by Venom: 3 (Grabbed)

by Lopez, Lolita

  Ben nodded jerkily. He swung the poor woman he held around, putting her body between his and Venom’s advancing team. The sight of a man using an unarmed woman as a shield sickened Venom but he pushed down his disgust to focus solely on the job at hand—rescuing the injured man.

  Safe behind Fierce and Threat’s shields, Venom gripped the wounded man under the arms and dragged him out of the line of fire and beyond the perimeter to the medics who waited. Two bloody streaks marked the path they had taken.

  After handing off the injured man, Venom silently delivered orders to his men with a series of hand signals. They fanned out to take their new tactical positions. As Venom moved to the spot he had picked, he caught sight of Terror. The Shadow Force operative wore a murderous expression. Venom was reminded of his friend’s quip about farmers and pitchforks. Clearly somewhere the security chain had been broken.

  “Thank you, Ben. You’re a good guy. I can tell you don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” Raze thought nothing of the sort but he was damn good at telling gun-wielding subjects whatever they wanted to hear if it mean a peaceful resolution.

  “Boss,” Cipher’s voice carried across the team’s earbuds, “we’ve got a problem. The female hostage is thirteen weeks pregnant. Her husband is a fighter pilot and he’s arrived at the perimeter. He says this Ben character was her childhood sweetheart but he was wrapped up in that League of Concerned Citizens group and she broke up with him right before she was Grabbed.”

  “What’s this league?” Raze asked the question they were all thinking.

  “Shadow Force suspects they’re a front for the Splinters.”

  “Great.” Raze’s grumbled answer mirrored Venom’s feeling. An armed and highly agitated man with possible ties to a terrorist group holding hostage a woman pregnant by the Harcos male who had taken her away from him? This had shitstorm written all over it.

  “Ben, let’s talk about what I can do to help you, okay? Because, man, you’re looking a little boxed in here. I have a feeling this day didn’t go quite the way you had anticipated but it’s all right. I can help you.”

  “You can’t help me.” Ben glanced around nervously. “I’m on my own now.”

  Now? Venom wondered at Ben’s choice of words as he moved into position. Is there an accomplice lurking in the crowd? Maybe an inside man? It would explain how he had been able to board the transport ship with a fake ID and get his hands on a weapon once aboard the Arctis.

  With the practice of so many years staring down a scope, Venom picked a spot beside a column and behind a fake potted tree. His rifle felt so natural in his hand. He treated it as an extension of his body. Painfully aware of its deadliness, he treated the rifle with the respect it deserved. This wasn’t a weapon to be used lightly. This was a weapon of last resort.

  But the tactics Raze attempted with the crazed man weren’t working. The minutes ticked by as Raze tried to build rapport but Ben couldn’t be reached. He grew more agitated and panicked. This man, this Ben from Grogan’s Mill, had boarded that transport ship earlier in the morning with one sole purpose—he wanted to kill this woman and then take his own life.

  “Boss, I have the solution.” Venom stared down the scope at the gun-wielding subject.

  “Understood.” Raze continued to attempt to reach Ben through negotiation. “Ben, put the gun down and talk to me. Let me help you find a way out of this situation.”

  Ben gripped the gun even tighter and brought it back up toward the female hostage’s face. “There’s no way out of this.”

  Venom’s finger itched against the trigger. Ben had already killed one man and attempted to kill three others. Venom wasn’t going to give this bastard the chance to hurt that woman or her baby.

  “There is, Ben,” Raze hurriedly assured him. “But you have to lower your weapon.”

  The subject swallowed and scanned the room. He let his arm fall and pulled the gun away from the woman’s face.

  “Thank you, Ben. I appreciate your cooperation. You need to remember that if that gun comes up again, you’re going to force our hands. Do you understand?”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah. I get it.”

  “Good. Ben, tell me what I can do to help you.”

  The man perked up suddenly. “You can stop taking our women!”

  Was this a politically motivated hostage situation? Venom couldn’t wrap his head around this guy. First, it seemed as though Ben had taken the woman and shot up the place because his love for her had been twisted into something cruel and dark.

  Now Venom suspected someone in that stupid league of his or even a Splinter member had wound this poor jackass up, shoved a gun in his hand and pushed him onto that transport ship on a suicide mission. There was no end to the list of people who wanted to cause problems between the Harcos warriors and the people of Calyx.

  “Ben, that’s a demand that goes above my pay grade. If I had the power to save Kate’s life by ending the Grabs, I would do it in a heartbeat.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Raze kept that smile of his plastered in place. “It’s not bullshit.”

  “You expect me to believe an officer like you doesn’t have one of our women chained up in your bedroom?”

  “I don’t have a mate anymore. The one I did have for a short while was from my home planet. She came to me of her own volition. I didn’t need to steal a woman to find a bride.”

  “That’s because you’re a real man,” Ben remarked. “You’re not like these other cowardly dicks who come down and take our women.”

  “I understand your frustration, Ben.”

  “What happened to your wife?” The arm Ben had clamped around Kate slid down a little as his grip loosened.

  Venom didn’t take his eye off the scope but he could imagine that vein in Raze’s temple jumping at the very mention of his first mate.

  “She left me.” Raze spoke the words calmly and without any hint of the embarrassment and pain his old friend still felt. “For a man from the colonies. For one of you.”

  “Because you beat on her?”

  “No,” Raze said with a sigh. “No, she left me because I failed to understand her needs.”

  “Yeah?” Ben flicked his wrist but kept the gun still pointed at the ground. His arm tightened against Kate’s throat and he curled his fingers in her hair. He pulled hard enough to make her cry out in pain. “Then you know what it feels like to have your damn heart ripped out of your chest and stomped on by the woman you loved.”

  “Ben! You don’t need to do that. Kate isn’t the one you’re angry at, remember? It’s us.” Raze touched his chest. “It was men like me who forced her into a Grab and stole her away from you.”

  Venom’s cheek twitched as he watched Raze deliberately drawing Ben’s anger—and his gunfire. Despite the bulletproof vest his friend wore, that hard head of his would make an easy target. He kept his weapon trained on the subject and his finger at the ready. Their rules of engagement required him to wait for Raze to give the final okay to take a kill shot—unless a member of the team or a victim was in immediate danger.

  “Ben—this isn’t her fault.”

  “It is! She wanted this. She traded her number with her sister. She abandoned me.” Ben let loose a guttural sob, the very sound so painfully raw that it made Venom flinch. With a rough shove, he pushed the woman to the ground. The gun remained pointed toward the floor as Kate managed to get up on her knees.

  Weeping, she begged, “Ben, please.”

  “You humiliated me, Kate. You ran out and left me. I loved you.”

  Hugging her middle, Kate pleaded, “Ben, don’t. Please. I’m pregnant.”

  The moment her condition registered, Ben’s eyes turned cold and dead. Venom recognized the signs that the subject was shutting down. He focused solely on the target, no longer thinking of Ben as a red-blooded man in the grips of a breakdown. He thought of him simply as violent, dangerous thing that needed to be neutralized.

  Venom didn’t hear whatever Ben
uttered so maliciously and nastily at Kate. Time seemed to slow as the gun lifted toward the woman’s belly. He didn’t hesitate or wait for Raze to make the call. Venom squeezed the trigger—and ended the standoff.

  Fierce and Threat rushed in with Raze not far behind them to secure the gunman and sweep the hostage to safety. Venom inhaled deep cleansing breaths as the old feelings of dread crept along his spine and gripped his throat.

  Even though he tried not to think about the growing tally of lives he had taken in the call of duty, Venom couldn’t stop the number that danced around in his head. In his early days of training to be a sniper, it was a count that would have inspired awe in him. Now? It made his stomach pitch violently.

  Across the controlled chaos, Venom met Raze’s steady gaze. His best friend understood better than anyone the burden Venom carried. After a call like this, the team would debrief and then Venom would usually go spend some time with Raze to talk and decompress.

  But Dizzy was anxiously awaiting his return—and he had no idea how the hell he was supposed to face her after taking another man’s life.

  *

  Dizzy fidgeted nervously as she waited for Venom to return. Terrible images rushed through her mind. Logically she understood he dealt with dangerous situations like these on a regular basis but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. She massaged her temples and wondered why the hell she couldn’t have been Grabbed by a damn clerk or something.

  Was this how it would be once their honeymoon was over and Venom returned to his usual duty rotation? Would she be left to sit alone in their quarters and worry about him while he was out saving the world?

  Their earlier argument in the elevator made her chest ache. She liked Venom so much but that nonsense about her not working was something she couldn’t accept. He had to realize that cultural differences went both ways. She was already making huge concessions for him to accommodate his culture. The least he could do was make one or two for her.

  Annoyed with the constant throbbing under her collar, Dizzy gingerly touched the inflamed area where the leather strip rubbed against her scars. It was driving her completely batty. Venom and his people considered these collars to be as good as wedding bands but she couldn’t stand another minute of wearing it.

  Locked inside the office, she figured it was safe to remove the collar marking her as Venom’s property. She sighed with relief as she peeled the collar away from her skin. In the last few days she had tried everything to cut down on the irritation but short of not wearing the collar, nothing had worked. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Venom’s feelings but this damn thing had to go.

  Spinning in the desk chair, Dizzy scanned the large office Venom shared with Raze. It was an extremely manly space and so very bland. Everything in the room was a shade of gray. She found it oddly disorienting.

  Her gaze dropped to her bag. She thought of her tablet and the message Naya had transferred to her device. Feeling homesick, Dizzy dug her tablet out of her bag and located the message from her friend. There was no video like the sample messages Venom had shown her when teaching her how to use the device but Ella’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “Dizzy! I’m not sure how long I have so I’ll make it quick.” Ella’s voice turned serious. “Look, I ran into your dad. He looked like he was about to cut out of town and go underground. Something isn’t right about that debt he said he owed to Fat Pete. Yesterday, I ran into some of his knee-breakers. They were asking about you and I blew them off. I have a weird feeling about it. I’m heading out to Blue Shores until the smoke clears.”

  After Dizzy’s run-in with Pierce and Torment, she didn’t know what to believe anymore. She suspected the two Shadow Force operatives knew much more about the deal that had forced her father to sell her lottery number but they weren’t going to share that information with her. Was her dad in serious trouble?

  “Anyway, I realize that none of that helps you now—but I thought you needed to know. I’m not sure what’s going on here but I’m worried about you.” Her voice grew sad. “I miss you so much. I can’t wait to see you again. Naya said that there’s a visitation program and you better put my name at the top of that list!” With a smile in her voice, she added, “I hope you’re doing well and that his new guy of yours realizes how damn lucky he is to have Grabbed you.”

  As Ella’s voice faded away, Dizzy experienced a crushing wave of sadness. The last five days with Venom suddenly seemed rather dreamlike and almost unreal. Hearing Ella and thinking about her father dragged her back to a reality that she had been avoiding. It was so easy to allow herself to be swept up in the romance and excitement of her new bond with Venom—but that didn’t mean her life on Calyx simply stopped existing.

  What was the real story between her dad and Fat Pete? What in the world could the underworld player possibly need so badly from her father?

  Dizzy didn’t want to think about the stupid blood test that said Jack Lane, the only father she had ever known, wasn’t her biological parent, but it was impossible to avoid now. How in the world was she going to bring up that topic with him? It would a painful conversation and one she would give anything to avoid.

  Footsteps in the hallway outside the locked office door caught her attention. Dizzy glanced at the door. Was Venom back?

  The door handle rattled as someone tested it to see if it was locked. Her heart leapt into her throat. Venom knew the door was locked so that definitely wasn’t him on the other side of the door. Standing perfectly still and holding her breath, Dizzy listened for any signs that the person on the other side of the door had left.

  Beeping sounds terrified her. Someone was trying to unlock the door using the keypad out there. Visions of an oversexed sky warrior breaking into the office to steal her pushed Dizzy into a panicked state. She scanned the room for a place to hide and picked Raze’s big desk.

  Grateful for her small size, Dizzy grabbed her bag, tablet and collar and scuttled around to the other desk. She slipped down underneath it, squeezing herself into the small alcove there and dragging Raze’s chair up tight against her shoulder to provide better camouflage.

  Curled into a tight little ball, Dizzy sucked the smallest, quietest breaths into her lungs. The door opened with a long squeak. Boots tapped against the floor as a man entered the office. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been this scared. Eyes closed, Dizzy prayed Venom would return soon.

  The man walked to the desk closest to the door—Venom’s desk—and started to rifle though the drawers. He tapped at the computer screen for a few minutes and made annoyed sounds. He wasn’t finding what he needed, whatever that was. She heard him moving around the office, digging through cabinets and tapping at keypads.

  When he neared Raze’s desk, she almost passed out from sheer terror. He was too close. There was no way he would miss her. If he sat down in that chair, she was dead meat.

  Suddenly her stomach started to cramp. She couldn’t tell if it was a side effect of fear or the fact that she had missed lunch. She clenched her eyes shut and prayed her belly wouldn’t make any noise. In a space this small and with the room so quiet, the intruder would never miss it.

  Her prayers weren’t going to be answered today. As the man walked away from Raze’s desk, a loud growl followed by a quick gurgle erupted from her tummy. Dizzy’s fingers curled into tight fists. She gulped nervously. Did he hear that?

  Heavy, quick footsteps pivoted back toward the desk. Before she could move the man roughly shoved the desk out of the way and forced her out into the open. Dropping her bag and tablet, she scrambled to her feet as the sky warrior leered lecherously.

  “Well, well, well. Aren’t you a pretty little thing?”

  “Stay back!” She held up her hands but it was a futile move. This soldier wasn’t quite as tall or as solidly built as Venom but he still dwarfed her. “My husband—my mate—will hurt you if you try to touch me.”

  “What mate? I don’t see a collar on that neck.”


  She gulped and reached up to touch her naked skin. She frantically glanced around the room and spotted it on the floor. Before she could reach it, the soldier cornering her grabbed it and stuffed it in his pocket. She noticed his name tag. Axis was his name. “Give me back my collar!”

  Axis shrugged. “What collar? Besides, collar or not, I don’t see this mate of yours hanging around here. You’re alone—and that makes you fair game.”

  “If you take one step closer, I’ll scream.”

  A sickeningly triumphant grin stretched his mouth. “Go ahead. No one will hear you. All of the SRU teams are deployed. We’re all alone.”

  Oh god. “Please—just leave me alone. Venom will be back soon. He’s going to be furious.”

  “He should be furious at himself for leaving such a tempting little morsel alone.”

  The way Axis licked his lips disgusted her. She had no doubt that this brute wanted to get her naked and underneath him as quickly as possible. Well—screw him. She wasn’t going down without a fight.

  Snatching the closest chair, Dizzy hefted it up with all her might and swung it right at the man who had broken into the office. She caught him off guard and slammed the chair into his shoulder. It knocked him off balance. He stumbled backward, tripped over a stack of ammo boxes and fell flat on his ass.

  Dizzy booked it.

  Out in the hallway she headed straight for the elevator that had brought her to the SRU offices but she couldn’t get it to activate. That was when she remembered her ID chip would only allow her to access certain areas. Cursing the stupid chip, she spun on her heel—and spotted an enraged Axis racing out of the office.

  She darted across the hall into the gear room. Slamming the door behind her, she tried to get it to lock but it was activated by a code she didn’t have. Grabbing a broom, she fed it through the handles of the double door and raced deeper into the gear room.

  There weren’t many places to hide—but there were more than enough weapons. She couldn’t fire a gun, of course, but there were plenty of heavy things for her to throw and sharp things for her to stab at him.