Merc released his arms, and he swung around to regard his old friend.
“I did die in Russia, Merc. I really am nothing more than a Ghost. Thanks to him.”
His head pounded, only the pain was nothing new. Zinc had an almost constant headache. Some days it was ignorable, others not so much so. The doctors all told him the same thing—head injuries had repercussions. He’d been seriously injured. For all intents and purposes, he’d died. So losing his gall bladder and having his torso covered in burn scars wasn’t such a big deal, considering. The mind splitting headaches, well, he’d had to learn to live with.
Zinc took a swig of whiskey and swallowed his pill. The headache would dim in half an hour. Ignoring the ache in his hand, well earned after breaking several bones in Steele’s face, he clicked on the Facebook profile he let himself look at no more than twice a week. Ally Norman. The girl he was supposed to have married stared back at him from her profile. In her arms, she held her first child, who would be six months old soon. A little girl she and her husband, Rick, had named Ivy.
He sat back in his seat and stared at Ally’s new profile picture. Technically, she had restricted her profile to being viewed by friends only, so he shouldn’t have been able to see her stuff. Then again, he’d never seen a website he couldn’t hack if he felt like fucking with it, and following his fiancée’s new life consumed him. A raw gaping wound which would never heal.
The pain of seeing her gap toothed grin didn’t hurt as bad anymore. Following her daily postings about playground trips and post-baby dieting was more of a remote interest in the doings of a person he’d once believed he would love for the rest of his life. She’d told him he was her love, and he’d proposed on a beach with the wind blowing her white skirt while she’d cried her yes in his arms.
Her new husband had apparently proposed on the dock of his beach house in Santa Barbara. He was some kind of yacht maker.
His phone pinged, tugging his attention from his Facebook stalking and recalling him to the present. Titanium wanted his attention. Honestly, it surprised him the man had left him alone for the forty-eight hours he had. Attacking Steele had felt great at the time, even if he was bound to find his ass chewed for it. Steele was important to Titanium, and Zinc had learned early on his own importance to the man in charge was relatively miniscule. Titanium only cared as much as Zinc was useful.
Zinc supposed he should thank him some day for saving his life.
Except he really didn’t see the heart-to-heart happening, ever.
Zinc stood and shut off his screen. There was no such thing as privacy on the compound, not for the former Ghosts anyway, and too much attention to Ally would trigger internal alarms, which might land him in either a cell or a shrink’s office. Having endured both, he knew he didn’t want either.
Locking up his place, he made his way to Titanium’s office swiftly and ignored the slight shake to his right leg. Physical therapy had healed most of the damage from the explosion, only nothing would ever make it entirely right. Mostly his leg worked fine, but similar to his head, he never did know when it might flare and make his day miserable.
“Hey.”
Zinc looked over his shoulder and chose to ignore Platinum’s call as he rounded a corner. Some of his old team had tried to reach out, and though he liked the quiet man, he wasn’t ready to talk to him—or anyone. Zinc had broken Steele’s nose, and he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t start pounding on someone else if given the chance. Better to simply stick to himself for the time being.
Titanium waited for him when he walked in his office and indicated a chair for him to sit in. Without a word, Zinc did as he was told. Titanium couldn’t see, not since the mess in Russia. And yet…Zinc would sometimes swear Titanium’s eyes functioned better than Zinc’s did.
“You all right?”
Zinc sat back in his seat. He’d never been the kid to be hauled to the principal’s office. Getting beat by his pop wasn’t worth the momentary thrill of doing whatever would have landed him there. However, he didn’t think the conversations usually began with the person doing the lecturing asking after the welfare of the guy who got in trouble.
“Fine.”
Titanium shook his head. “Liar.”
“Whatever.” Sometimes he couldn’t believe he spoke the way he did to the person who was basically his commanding officer. Only, he’d never been able to think of Titanium with the respect he’d once thrown Chrome. Titanium would be more properly called his jailor.
“How are the headaches? You still taking pills?”
“Only the ones the doctors give me, Dad.” His brief foray into recreational means to cool his head had passed. They’d not particularly helped, and his month of getting sober in Titanium’s cell had been enough. He wasn’t a drug addict. He’d simply not let himself become his father.
“Mentally? You’ve had two days to cool off. I mean you beat the shit out of Steele. We had to send him and his girl away for a while. He needed surgery for the bone under his eye.”
“Is there a point to our little talk?” Zinc had really had enough. If he wanted to talk, it wasn’t going to be to Titanium.
“A situation has developed, and I want to send you on a mission. I’m trying to figure out how fucked you are, Zinc. Can you be trusted by yourself in a situation which might blow to pieces around you?”
His pulse increased. A mission? All by himself. He’d not had a job, which didn’t involve the other Ghosts, since the coma. The idea wasn’t…unappealing. “That’s not really for me to say. You’re in charge. You tell me.”
“It’s complicated. I’m not unhappy Steele exited for a while. We’ve been tracking a lawyer for some time. A man named Walter David. He was on the payroll for Red Wolf, helped him move arms, laundered money, did whatever needed to be done to make Red Wolf’s operations look legitimate where needed.”
Zinc hated him immediately. Lawyers always had a bad rep in jokes, although most of the ones he knew were extremely ethical, following the letter of the law in order to not be sanctioned. Every once in a while, someone such as Walter David gave them all a bad name. “What do you need me to do to him?”
“Initially, we thought it would be a simple smash and grab. Break in, take his papers, bust out. Kill him if need be, although not necessarily a must do. I planned on sending Platinum in later to take him out. However, some intel we acquired has complicated matters. Mr. David, it appears, has a certain taste for women. He likes to capture unwilling ladies, keep them naked and restrained, watch them, and then eventually give them to his clients to do with as they please.”
Zinc stood. “Fuck that.”
“My sentiments exactly.” Titanium shook his head. “Look at the picture.” He pointed to the table. “Recognize her?”
He stared at the screen, and for a second, he couldn’t believe his eyes. On her knees, with her breasts pressed to her legs as the only thing blocking her from being fully nude, was Sarah Steele.
Zinc had known her for years. She was Steele’s little sister, younger by four years. Brilliant—Steele had always called her the smartest member of the family—she’d been sent away to school when they were young. Some fancy place where she had learned to speak ten languages and ran a marathon a week. She was also gorgeous and kind hearted. And had always been completely off limits to any romantic thoughts as Steele’s younger sister.
Although he’d always thought she was gorgeous as hell. Dark haired with equally dark colored eyes, she had a long face with high cheekbones he didn’t often see outside of magazines. She was tall, slender, athletic, and tough in the way the Steeles always were.
Zinc hadn’t seen her more than half a dozen times over the last decade.
“How?”
“She’s Agency. We didn’t know either.” Titanium held his hand in front of him to stop Zinc from talking when he would have exploded. How the fuck did the man know when he was blind? “Deep cover. The whole lawyer persona is real. She is a corporate attorn
ey in New York City. And yet, it turns out she is so much more too. She’s been asking the wrong kinds of questions for years about her brother’s death—yours too, for the record—and David decided to have her taken. She’s next to be his voyeuristic gift. If you’re okay for it, Zinc, I want you to go retrieve her and do all the other shit we need, too.”
Thank God Steele isn’t here to see his sister in trouble. It would kill him.
“When do I leave?”
“You understand what you’ll likely have to do, right? The man likes to watch. She knows you. Hopefully, her recognizing you will help. If you need to, break her out using whatever methods necessary. We need her alive, and we have to move now. Her time has run out, and you’re all that’s standing between her and a fate worse than death. You feel me?”
Fuck.
Sarah Steele had almost gotten used to the feeling of being naked all the time. Almost being the key word. When she got off the God forsaken island where the asshat David had kept her for the last month—and she would find her way out of there, one way or another—she’d dress in clothes for the shower, she might never be naked again.
Spending her days on her knees, nude, for the sexual titillation of a truly evil douchebag would not define her life. She simply wouldn’t let it.
I am Sarah Ambrosia Steele. I am strong, tough, and brilliant. I spoke fluent Mandarin when most of my peers were still struggling through writing English papers. I know five different types of ways to kill someone without breaking a sweat. It took four fuckers to bring me, and they only keep me here because of the God damned electric collar.
Some day, she would look back at her captivity as a blip in an otherwise well lived life. Things could always be worse, and she knew it. She’d not been raped. Yet. Though if the screams around the hall earlier in the week were any indication, the other women were not being quite as well kept.
After her initial abduction, she hadn’t been beaten. Stripped and spoken to through a speaker on the wall, yes, and there was no doubt it sucked. But she wasn’t dead.
Unlike her brother and his friends who had died because of some operation Walter David had been involved in, she still breathed air. Adam would never see another day, and neither would Zach or any of their other friends. She was alive, and where there was life, there was hope.
End of story.
She was a CIA operative and had personally been responsible for foiling nothing short of two terror threats against the United States by following the money and the business transactions her role as a high-powered lawyer afforded her access to. Damn it, she would do so again.
Pencil pushers could get things done.
She would survive. Whatever happened.
And she had killer legs and could manage to orgasm one-two-three with the help of her fingers when need be or on a hard cock when the right opportunity presented itself. Sex was always good for her.
If she could hang on to all these things about herself and not become the whining, sniveling creature after too many days spent non-consensually nude on her knees with her head bowed, she could survive this.
Whatever happened, she would not beg, she would not lose herself.
“Ms. Steele.” Walter David’s voice thundered through the room, and she jumped. Day and night, she had to stay as she was, or she would be zapped until her fingers burned, thanks to his sick collar. He could call out at any time. He liked to watch her naked and on the floor.
She also suspected he liked to see her jump when he spoke over the speaker after days of leaving her in silence with nothing except her own internal voice to keep her company.
“We have a gentleman for you, Ms. Steele. You’re to be given to him. He is on his way to your room. He will pleasure himself with you as he sees fit, and I will watch. When he is done, he will determine what happens to you next. Try to stop him or hurt him in any way, and I will electrocute you from the collar. Do you need a reminder of how the collar shocking feels?”
“No.” She shook her head. Sarah really didn’t, and acting as some kind of hard ass would prove nothing. She didn’t need to be injured when whomever the man turned out to be entered. By contrast, she should be strong and ready.
Some way or another she’d break out. As long as she lived, there was hope.
Whatever had to happen—
The door flung open, and a man appeared as David kept speaking. “Meet Terrance Monroe. He’s my new best friend. He’s taken with you, my dear. Remember what I said.”
She raised her head to study the man standing in silence. The room where Sarah had been held was totally benign. Other than her mat on the floor where she was to kneel, there was nothing to look at other than the white walls around her. Sarah had to squint to make out the new colors the broad shouldered figure brought with him.
He wore a black suit, shiny, expensive looking dark shoes, and a red tie over his white dress shirt, which was neatly starched beneath the matching suit blazer. With sandy blond hair and an imposing cleft in his chin, she almost didn’t recognize him.
Why would she? It had been years since she had laid eyes on him, and according to all reports—and hers were excellent sources—he was dead. Was she seeing a ghost? Sarah forced her heartbeat to slow. She wasn’t crazy, not yet anyway.
Her brother’s best friend, Zachery Daniels, stood before her very much alive, despite all reports to the contrary.
He raised a finger to his lips, ordering her silence.
“I want my women to be quiet. You’ll speak only when I let you, and there won’t be any questions. Understood?”
She could read between the lines. He wanted her to hush so she didn’t give away his identity. Zach standing in front of her was so far beyond the realm of anything she imagined, she could only hope his arrival would also bring with him miracle-like possibilities and rescue.
Sarah was happy to stay silent.
How is he alive? Did that mean Adam…No, she shut off her train of thought. She was a professional CIA agent. The what ifs would wait for later.
Zach sauntered toward her. She’d always been attracted to him—every woman who met him ended up either crushing on or lusting after the man. The way he walked, the slickness of his moves, wasn’t Zachery. He was a man’s man, he didn’t do smooth showing off ridiculousness, he didn’t have to. Women wanted him without him having to audition for their approval.
His presentation was all part of the show.
“As does my esteemed host, I enjoy watching. I don’t necessarily wish to touch.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Her eyes narrowed at the device. Handcuffs? For real? She could break out of them with her eyes closed in under a minute.
He quirked an eyebrow, and she said nothing. Whoever the very much alive Zachery was, he understood handcuffs wouldn’t keep her restrained. He knew she was Agency.
All at once, her nudity hit her as a ton of bricks. She shuddered, and goosebumps broke out on her skin. Her brother’s best friend, the subject of many of her earliest sexual fantasies, looked at her naked and vulnerable as she knelt on the floor. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she shivered. She wasn’t ashamed of her body. In the real world outside of David’s island hell, she chose who saw her without her clothes on.
Sarah wasn’t submissive, the contrary when she actually played, and she would never have chosen to be on her knees when Zach viewed her nude.
He knelt and took her hands in his, gently stroking her knuckles with his thumb before he locked the handcuffs around her wrists.
“Maybe I lied.” He spoke loud enough for the speakers in the room to catch his voice. “Maybe I will touch. A little.”
He smoothed a finger around the side of her skin and she shuddered. Shouldn’t her present circumstances preclude lust at such a simple action? Heaven knew she had no interest in actual intercourse. Still, Zach brought warmth with him, and when he looked her right in the eye, he wasn’t pretending, but showing her he was very much present.
She wasn’t alone.
“Off your knees,” he instructed her. “I want you on your bottom with your legs in front of you. Understand?”
Since she could follow basic directions, she didn’t find anything he said confusing. Changing his movements, he used both hands as he smoothed her skin from her legs all the way to her neck. “You wear a beautiful collar.”
She almost snorted, then managed to restrain herself. It was her prison, the only thing really keeping her from true escape.
When he ran his hands down her skin again, he placed something in her palm, gently closing her fingers around whatever it was. Zachery the magician. Yes, he’d done these kinds of tricks when they’d been younger. One summer at the lake, he had taught her how to cheat at cards and do a sleight of hand. She couldn’t look to see what he’d given her, yet her mind followed his.
He’d mentioned the collar and then stuck something in her handcuffed hands. The cuffs he knew she’d be able to rid herself of.
Zachery was telling her to escape; he’d given her the means to lose her collar. Whatever his story turned out to be, wherever he had vanished to for the last three years, she owed him a hell of a kiss.
He stood abruptly, his eyes never leaving hers. “Sarah,” he whispered her name. “Be fast.”
Whirling around, he pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot the camera. A startled yell filled the room.
She had no time to stop and react. He’d warned her. Be fast. She unhooked her hands as the first jolt to her collar hit, blinding her for a second. The door banged open, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zach run for the hall.
Shit, he left her? With shaking, electrified fingertips she jammed the metal object in her hand into the collar. Immediately the electricity stopped. Later, she’d ask him how he managed to short the thing out. After she killed him for leaving her alone.
Sarah jumped to her feet by the time Zach re-entered the room. “Catch.”
Her hands shook from, well too many things to name, still, she managed to catch the gun he threw at her.
The Men of Elite Metal: Platinum, Zinc, & Francium Page 10
