Chapter One
From behind the hood he had worn for three years to hide himself from the world, Zachery “Zinc” Daniels watched Adam Steele. The man had once been more brother than friend. Adam stroked Alanna Steele’s face. The former spook had become the love of Adam’s life. She smiled and laughed at something he said. Zinc narrowed his eyes, studying them. Funny what a difference three years made.
Once, it had been Zinc planning a wedding, touching the love of his life, and making future plans while his best friend laughed and denied he would have ever have any interest in doing the same.
The dreams died the same way Zinc had—on an icy stretch of road in Russia when a hail of bullets and a detonation dropped him. Dying hadn’t been so bad. Then Adam had left Zinc’s body behind. And never looked back.
“It’s time,” Titanium announced.
Time? Zinc regarded the man who had been both his commander and kidnapper. Titanium had once been a commander in the Marines, although the same FUBAR night, which had taken Zinc’s life, had also stolen Titanium’s legs and his eyesight. Yet, Titanium, hidden behind the kind of power only the very rich enjoyed, still led men into battle whether they agreed to be on his teams or not.
For three years, the former Elite Recon commander dictated all the terms of Zinc’s life. Where he would live, how he would act, who he would talk to. And with no warning, he wanted them to reveal themselves to the friends Titanium’s Ghosts left behind? To the people who thought them dead?
Time. It was a funny concept. Years could fly by in what felt like days, while minutes could become hours, seconds feeling as long as decades. Every minute Zinc had spent hiding beneath his hood on Titanium’s command had been akin to centuries.
There had been a time when he had been young, filled with life, and sure of his place in the world. He’d known who he was and who would always be there for him.
And all his best memories involved Adam Steele. His best friend. His brother. His fellow Marine. Oorah.
Funny, really, if Zach hadn’t pulled Steele from the wreck of twisted metal when they were fifteen, they probably wouldn’t be standing in the room at all. They’d been out racing their fathers’ cars. Neither of them had licenses. Though Steele’s father hadn’t been in love with a bottle of gin like Zach’s, both men knew how to wield a belt on their sons’ behinds when needed. Of course, his punishments tended to go on a little longer, too. Not that he’d ever shared what happened at home. Men didn’t whine about silly things such as pain.
The sound of Adam’s car slamming into a tree echoed with the frame’s unnatural crumpling and the shattering of glass—time had slowed as Zach rushed to the smoking pile of metal.
He didn’t remember getting out of his own car and rushing to his friend. Yet, there he had stood, in front of the wrecked vehicle. Blood flowed freely from the gash across Adam’s forehead. Amazingly, his eyes had been open.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. That was bad. Shit, I thought you were dead.” Adam lived. He could breathe again.
“I can’t move my legs.” Steele had grimaced. “There’s glass everywhere and I can’t make it to the door. Pretty sure I’m screwed.”
The situation was screwed, but not Adam. Although he wasn’t going to tell his friend how bad he looked. Not then, not ever. “Don’t worry, my man, we’re good. I’m going to haul you out of the car.”
“My dad’s going to kill me.”
“He won’t.” Adam’s father would be mad, for sure. He’d also be relieved his son hadn’t died. Steele’s father was cool, for a parent. He loved his children, put their welfare first. Someday when Zach had kids, he’d be the same way—take after Adam’s father and not his own. No gin. No pills. No bullshit.
In the distance, sirens wailed. The cops were on their way.
“You should go.” Adam groaned. “You don’t have to be in trouble.”
“I’ll never leave you,” Zach promised and meant it. “Hold on. I’m getting you out of there. Take my hand.” He reached through the window, cutting himself on some of the shredded glass when he did. “We’ll make it out of here together.”
His friend grinned. “You’re my brother, Zach.”
“Hold on, Adam. I’ve got you.”
Zinc blinked, returning to the present. He was a Ghost. Every record of Zachary Daniel listed him as deceased.
Only, he hadn’t died. Knowing things had the potential to go FUBAR in Russia, and believing there was a traitor on their mission, Titanium had made arrangements to have his own men rushed out to a secret medical facility if things went to hell. Too bad Titanium failed to indicate to his hired mercenaries who was a member of his team and who wasn’t.
Nearly dead on the ground, Zinc had been swept in by the so-called rescue without as much as a by your leave and awoken three months later into a world of hell.
For three long years, he had been stuck. For three long years, he had watched his former brothers- and sister-in-arms move on with their lives. Like Adam Steele. The man who should have stood at his side, been his best man when Zinc married. His brother. Buddy. Confidante. The guy who had abandoned Zinc on the cold ground in Russia to be drafted into a secret mission he would never have willingly joined.
Steele had a choice. Chrome had a choice. Copper had a choice. Platinum. Adamantium. Sterling. Silver. Hell, even poor dead Cobalt. They’d all had a damn choice. They might argue they hadn’t, they’d been relocated, forced to move on, but Zinc knew differently. The second Poppy brought them in, she offered them a choice never given to Zinc.
No one asked Zinc if he wanted his hell. They’d left him to it while they all moved on with their fucking lives.
He gritted his teeth.
After holding him hostage to the mission, Titanium decided it was time for a reveal without letting the Ghosts know ahead of time? Of course he did. When did he ever give anyone an out?
“Does it bother you?” Tungsten asked him one afternoon when they patrolled the compound. Tungsten’s real name was Brad, but Zinc barely remembered it most days. “Steele looks right at you. Last week he bumped into you when he wasn’t watching where he went. He has no idea who you are. Don’t you think, sometimes, they should know, these people who loved us? Shouldn’t they know?”
His friend had lost everything, and Zinc knew the feeling. Exactly the same as Zinc, Brad had been manipulated by Titanium when he’d not been part of his team. Together, he and Zinc were in their unasked for hell.
Unlike Zinc, however, who had distance from the woman he lost, Brad had to watch Copper fall in love. At least Zinc had been spared that special kind of hell.
“No. We’re under hoods,” he’d answered at the time. Only he did, in his worst moments, think how fucked it was that none of his team, his friend, the people he thought of as family, recognized him at all. Adam Steele should have known him anywhere.
And he shouldn’t have left his body on the ground.
With his fists clenched and his breaths coming out in hard puffs, he took off his hood. Then waited. Gasps sounded in the room and someone cried out. But not Steele. Copper took off running and behind him, Brad tried to move. Zinc couldn’t take his gaze of Steele.
Say something, he willed his friend, tell me you understand what has happened here. What you did to me when you left me there on the ground, when you didn’t bring my body home.
Nothing. Not a single reaction from the man he would give—and hell—had given his life for in Russia. Steele didn’t seem surprised. Zinc stalked forward. It was the silence that was his undoing, the non-reaction. Steele’s woman let out a cry, and Zinc’s best friend did nothing.
Zinc couldn’t take it anymore.
“How could you have left me there for these fuckers to take?” His whole body vibrated as he waited for any response, any reaction. Nothing came.
Crack. He whacked Steele’s nose, and the room exploded into sound. Who gave a shit? He wasn’t done yet. He swung at him again, hitting him harder. Why? Fuck you, why? Why did you leave me there, Steele? How could you have let them do what they did to me? I pulled you from the car. All I wanted from you was to bring my body home when it was over. Why? Why? Why?
Blood sprayed Zinc and the front of Steele’s shirt went red.
Good. Let him bleed. Let him hurt. Let him…
Whack. Zinc punched Steele again, slamming Steele square in the eye. Zinc’s hand burned. Training had taught Zinc years ago how to hit without hurting himself. Only, fuck it, Zinc didn’t care. Beating the bastard who left him behind felt too good. Years spent waiting for his moment, keeping quiet, staying in the shadows while his whole fucking world fell apart.
Strong arms hauled him backward, holding him still as only a trained operative would know how to do. He knew for damn sure it wasn’t any of the Ghosts stopping him. They all had their own battles to fight, and it took him a moment to recognize Merc as the guy halting his much-needed assault.
“Merc, you let me at him. You’ll never know, man. You’ll never get it.” Steele lay on the floor, gripping his beaten face as he continued to stare silently at Zinc. Why the fuck didn’t he say something? Why hadn’t he uttered a sound? “Why? You tell me why you let this happen, Steele. Why you didn’t make sure I was dead? Why would you have left me to my fucking hell when I would never have done the same shit to you?”
Merc hissed an answer instead of Steele. “Put a sock in this shit, asshole. He’s your brother, and you just came back from the dead. So you need to give us a damn minute.”
His words were meaningless. Another indication they were never going to understand what happened to him for the last three years. Zinc quit struggling. If Merc didn’t want to let him go, he wasn’t going to be let go. “I’m good. I won’t hit him again.” He waited a beat and still he didn’t get back the use of his arms. “I swear it. No more punching.”
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 weren’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 that 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 a 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 a cell or a shrink’s office. Having endured both, he knew he didn’t want either.
After locking up his place, he swiftly made his way to Titanium’s office 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 lower extremities worked fine, but similar to his head, he never did know when pain 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 into 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 your headaches? Are you taking pills still?”
“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.
“Good mental state? I mean, you beat the shit out of Steele. We had to send him and his woman 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 with 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 that might blow to pieces around you?”
His pulse increased. A mission? All by himself. He’d not had a job that 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 a complicated situation. 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 avoid being 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 will.”
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 kindhearted. And had always been completely off limits to any romantic thoughts as Steele’s younger sister.
Although he’d always thought she was beautiful as hell. Dark haired with equally dark colored eyes, she had a long face with high cheekbones he didn’t often see outside 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 attorney in New York City. And yet it turns out she is so much more, too. She’s been asking the wrong kind of questions for years about her brother’s death—yours, also, 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, as well.”
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 you have to.”
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 godforsaken island where the sick fuck 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 maniac 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 goddamned 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. 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 business transactions her role as a high-power 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 those 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.
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 the man entered. By contrast, she did need to be strong and ready even though it was miserably hard after being on her knees for days.
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 except 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 Daniel, 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, show-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. “I want you on your bottom with your legs in front of you. Understand?”
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 gaze 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 from the speaker above.
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.
“Sorry for the abandonment, sweetheart. I had to kill the guard in the hall.” He shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was huge, and she managed to cover herself pretty well within it. Distantly, she also noted it smelled of him—a clean cologne, which always reminded her of the ocean.
“CIA, huh? Can you run? We still have shit to do.”
“Yes.” There would be no falling apart. Later, she promised herself, after she found out what the hell was going on. Later, in private and fully dressed, she’d fall apart where no one could see.