Chapter Six
Marcus already decided they’d have to find another way into Biscayne. He wasn’t doing this. There were some lines he wouldn’t cross. Not as a Marine, a man, or a human being. Not after all he’d done and seen.
No one would make anything of him he didn’t want to be.
Except when Katarina laid her hand on his arm, the look in her eyes pleading, and a twisted version of everything he wanted laid out before him for the taking, maybe he wasn’t as good of a man as he thought he was.
He definitely wasn’t as good of a man as he wanted to be.
His body already responded to her nakedness and his adrenaline spiked when Tre pressed the gun against his head.
She leaned against him now, her bare breasts brushing his chest. “Do this,” she whispered in his ear. “No turning back.”
“We’re not a sideshow attraction.”
Tre answered, “That’s exactly what you are. Weronika Yukodvich has a weakness for the spectacle. She thinks she’s like some Roman emperor. She yanks his chain in more ways than one. You want to get close, this is how you do it. You’ll be a gift from us to them. So you better fucking perform. If you can’t do it here, you can’t do it there and we all be fucked. So do it.” Tre angled his head to the side. “Or we do her security check and you a dead motherfucker?”
So either he had to fuck her while they watched, or they’d all use her just like that girl before. Only with Katarina, they’d probably kill her when they were done. It wasn’t a pretty thought.
He’d accepted the dark things that came with this job. He understood collateral damage. He accepted the blood on his hands for the greater good.
He didn’t understand Katarina becoming collateral damage, even though this was what they’d both signed up for. The mission above all.
Only for him, it was Katarina above all.
Above the mission, above himself, above this line he’d drawn in the sand.
“Give me a condom.” He found he hated the sound of his own voice in that moment.
Tre backed away from him, the weapon still drawn, but fumbled in his pocket for a condom.
Marcus almost wished he couldn’t get hard, but his body reacted to hers. His erection was thick against the zipper of his slacks, ready for service.
Beyond the mission, he knew Katarina didn’t want this. That alone should’ve caused his erection die, but it didn’t. He wondered if he was the kind of bastard who’d remember this and jerk all the feeling out of his cock while he thought about it. Because he couldn’t stop thinking of her every time he found relief. Now, he’d know what it was like to be inside of her.
Fuck her for making him do this. The thought caused a cold wash of guilt down his back. No, not her. Fuck him for being too weak to put her needs above his own. Loving her, he would do this. This was what she said she needed. Who was he to say that he knew better? He didn’t live in her skin. He hadn’t walked in her shoes.
Nor would he want to. Those Louboutins were sexy as fuck, but looked goddamn uncomfortable.
He supposed if she could stand them, then it wasn’t his place to tell her not to. Not when it accomplished something she thought would give her peace.
Marcus stripped, showing his former brothers the scars of what they’d done to him, and the new ones he’d acquired as part of Elite. He was forged of stronger metal than they could ever imagine—even with their brotherhood.
He remembered before, the girl, but he shook it off. This wasn’t the same situation.
He ripped the foil package on the Magnum and slid the latex down the length of his cock.
Katarina lifted her chin and met his gaze and while he didn’t forget the other men in the room, it was as if they were made of fog and dust—and just inconsequential.
Marcus lifted her easily, his hands on her hips, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. He tried not to think about what was happening between them. He shut off his brain, his heart, and he fucked her.
There was no romance here, no connection, no deeper meaning.
He didn’t bother with foreplay. That would be seen as a weakness on his part, would make it obvious it was more to him than a show.
This was what she’d demanded of him, and he’d give it to her.
Marcus held her aloft as if she weighed nothing and moved her at his pleasure. She clung to his shoulders as he entered her slowly, careful even in his disregard not to hurt her if he didn’t have to.
It felt better than it should have, being buried in her tight sheath. He didn’t want to enjoy it, didn’t want to love the way her breath on his lips tasted, the sting of her nails as they dug into his shoulders or the way she clenched around him, drawing him ever deeper.
Until he looked into her eyes.
And they were dead.
Nothing of Katarina lived and breathed in her body at that moment. It was just meat, doing what meat was supposed to do.
He guessed she had that look down. It was why she was so convincing. That part of her had been stolen just like with so many other victims.
His cock wilted inside of her.
“Fucking finish it,” she hissed in his ear. “Think of earlier tonight. I am.” Her voice held a softer note.
Ah, goddamn it. She’d broken him with that.
Then she clenched around him again with a practiced rhythm that overrode his emotions and his higher ideals. She worked his cock until it was hard and thick again. With his great strength, he used her hips to rock her up and down until the sensation built low in his belly and his body was strung tight.
She seemed to understand that he couldn’t look at her eyes and she buried her face in his neck.
He thrust up into her and held her there for a long moment as his body surrendered to her and he came.
Marcus let her down easy, but suddenly his vision blurred and he realized he’d been drugged. He didn’t feel it when he hit the floor.
But he sure as hell felt it when he awoke sometime later in the dark. His head felt like D, Tre and Pook were still beating him with Louisville Sluggers. He realized he was naked, and wherever he’d been left was mobile. Some kind of truck, or shipping container.
Katarina! He had to find—her hand on his arm stilled his movements. Even in the pitch, he knew it was her.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. They didn’t hurt me.”
“Where are we?”
“The back of a semi. They’re taking us to Biscayne.”
“Is there anyone else here?” The sound of his own voice was like thunder and bass drums in his ears, echoing in concert with the thud of his heart.
He heard her swallow. “It’s disgusting what they do, Marcus. There are twenty women in here with us and they’re all in medically induced comas. So they won’t fight or try to escape. I asked D if they weren’t worried about getting pulled over and inspected and he said Yukodvich has this route secure from here to Florida with local law enforcement. Even if one of these girls managed to escape, there’d be no one to help them.”
“We’ll help them,” he said with conviction.
“Are you sure we can?” Her voice was small, almost timid. It was completely unlike her.
He took a deep breath and pushed past the pain of what seemed like his brain exploding inside of his skull. “What’s this, now? What happened to the woman who was willing to bail the ocean with a thimble?”
“It’s an ocean of tears. I know there are bad things in the world. So many of them have happened to me. But we’re here, close enough to reach out a hand and to touch these women, and we can’t do anything to help them.”
“We can. Just not yet. We’ll get them American identities with the appropriate paperwork and get them in services to help with counseling, housing.”
“There are twenty women. Even if we manage to do that for all of them, there are still thousands. Upwards of ten to fifteen thousand women and children are trafficked in the U.S. every year. That’s not even a blip on the worldwide epidemic. What are we doing?”
“Maybe it won’t make a difference to thousands. But to these twenty women? We’ll have saved their lives.”
“If we live through this ourselves. How does this happen here, Marcus?”
“There are bad people everywhere, but there are good people, too. And then there are those like us who do bad things to bad people.”
“You’re right. It’s just so much harder to be so close and not to be able to do any bad things to the bad people.”
“You will, Katarina. That’s what this is for, right?” He struggled to sit up, and moved to put his arm around her, to offer comfort.
“Yeah. It is.” Her voice had a certain grim finality to it. She moved away and resisted his touch.
“Are you in pain?” Concern welled.
“No.” She sighed. “Yes.” Katarina was silent for a moment. “It’s complicated.”
“What’s so complicated you can’t tell me?”
“It’s shitty,” she said softly.
“I think I know what it is, but tell me anyway.” He knew what she was going to say. They’d crossed a line earlier. A line she’d asked him to cross, but a line he knew she wasn’t ready to cross between them.
He wasn’t Marcus to her anymore. He wasn’t safe. It burned that she thought that of him when he’d been the one who said no. But he’d knew it would be like this.
“If I say it, I can’t take it back.”
“You don’t have to take it back, Katarina. The mission went to a place we didn’t want it to go, but we followed through anyway.”
“I’m glad we’re in the dark. I’m such a pussy, I can’t even look at you to say this.”
“Christ, Katarina. You’re one of the strongest people I know.”
“We had something. It was almost more, and now it’s gone.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. I know you. I know how your mind works. Why do you think I said no in the condo? Why do you think I tried to say no again?”
“Your touch was the only one that didn’t hurt me. Now, it does. It’s not my back that’s the problem. It’s my fucked up head.”
“After what you’ve been through, I don’t blame you.”
“No, but I blame me. What happened at D’s shouldn’t have mattered. You didn’t hurt me, you didn’t do anything I didn’t ask you to do.” She shifted next to him and whether it was to get closer or farther away, he couldn’t tell.
He imagined in a strange way, it was probably a little bit of both.
“No, I didn’t hurt you, but I’m one of them now. One of those who put his hands on you, who likes putting his hands on you. I was just Marcus, but now you’re confronted with the fact I’m a man with sexual needs and desires. My maleness was thrust in your face, no pun intended.”
She made a small sound that might have been half of a laugh.
“Okay, maybe a little pun intended.”
“Little is not the word I would to describe anything about you, Marcus.” She made that sound again. “It wasn’t terrible, you know.”
“Great. That’s what every guy yearns to hear. Hey baby, it wasn’t terrible.” He laughed.
The silence hung between them gravid with all the things unsaid, until she spoke again. “It really wasn’t. I know if things had progressed between us before, it might’ve been more than not terrible. It might’ve been good.”
“That’s over now,” he blurted, before hope could stab him any deeper.
“It is, and it breaks my heart. I’m half in love with you, Marcus. But I just…”
Since they were in the confessional, he gave voice to his own sins. “I’m all the way in love with you, Little One. Have been for a long time.”
“Jesus, Marcus. Why didn’t you say something?”
“And risk being where we are now? No. I will always be your safe place, your partner and your best friend. Having part of you is better than none of you.” He hadn’t meant to tell her, but somehow, he thought maybe instead of scaring her, it might bring her comfort now.
With a short, strangled gasp, he knew she was fighting tears. That was some serious shit because Katarina Dupree didn’t cry. She got a rocket launcher and blew up the source of her pain. Tears were tools for ops, not for use in her real life.
He wanted to put his arm around her, but she’d already pushed him away once. If she wanted his hands on her, she’d ask.
“You don’t want me, anyway. I’m too broken for the fat babies and upper middle class suburban life you dream about.”
Marcus didn’t answer her. Instead he said, “We’ll get past this. We’ll forget everything that happened. Everything that was said.”
“Is it that easy for you?”
“Fuck no, it’s not easy for me. But we’ll do it because the bond we had before this is worth it. Isn’t it?” He didn’t know what he’d do if she said no.
“Yeah, it is. But it’s going to take time.”
“I’m not going anywhere. You got plans?” He meant it from the bottom of his heart. He’d thought that maybe he’d be ready to let go, to let her go, but not really. He was just a faithful dog who’d never leave his mistress, no matter what else came along.
“Besides not dying?” She laughed. “Not really.”
“That’s a good plan. I like that plan. It works for pretty much any situation.”
“You know we might have to again,” she said.
“Not die? I thought we decided that was a catch-all.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He knew that, but he didn’t know if he could do it again. Touch her like that and watch the light in her eyes snuff out into nothingness. “We don’t have to. As soon as we get in the house, we find—”
“Come on, you know it’s not going to work like that. We’ll be held like prisoners until we’re taken to Weronika.”
“Don’t ask me to do that again.”
“Then don’t make me ask, Tin.”
“You can’t even stand to let me put my arm around you and you think our little act is going to hold water for this bitch?”
“It had better be or that whole plan about not dying? It’ll be shot to shit.”