With time my only company, it made for very long days. The stone vibrated between my fingers as I scratched it against the wall until it left a deep groove. Like soldiers marching side-by-side, each line of four had a slash across it, except for the one I’d just made, marking my sixteenth day of captivity.

I had no idea where I was. And I had no idea why I was there.

Could it be possible that it was just a mistake? Mistake or not, it didn’t change the fact I was locked in a ten-by-ten cell with nothing more than a bed, toilet, and my own company, along with a flickering bulb that didn’t do much to light up the area outside of my cell. I had no clue what lay beyond, or how big it was. There were a few other single lightbulbs off in the distance, hanging from the ceiling, but the yellow glow didn’t do much against the blackness that threatened to swallow it.

If I had to judge the distance, I’d have said each bulb was spaced at least fifty yards apart. My cell was tucked in the corner along one wall, and it sat directly across from an opening that could have been a door, staircase, or hallway. I only knew that because I’d woke once to see the outline of person who had appeared to have walked right into the wall. Since they didn’t grunt, hiss, spit, or curse, the only other explanation would be that they’d left altogether after setting a paper bowl of half-cold mush inside my cell.

I was alone, that I knew for sure. When I’d come to and found myself a prisoner, I’d shouted, calling out to see if there was anyone else around, but the echo of my voice was the only reply.

About the only thing I did know was that I felt like I’d never be warm again. As accommodating as my jailers were, their hospitality stopped at indoor heating and the ability to provide a warm blanket instead of the threadbare one that had more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

Thankfully, I had my jacket since my capturers had forced me into it. Unfortunately, I’d come off the snowmobile a few times during their hasty getaway and the back was pretty much shredded, allowing cold air to seep in.

If I put my hands in my pockets, it pulled my jacket open at the back and I froze.

If I took my hands out of my pockets, they froze.

If I moved around the tiny cell I’d been stashed in to get my blood moving and then stopped… I froze.

My patience was thin. My need to keep my composure was rapidly being eaten away by a silent rage that threatened to break me. And worse, no one came to see me. No one came to question me, or demand to know who I was.

I looked back at the wall and fumed. How many more days would I be left alone to wonder what the heck was going on? How many more days would I be stuck inside this frozen hell before I could get back to Nova? I promised her I’d come back. Through no fault of my own, I was breaking that promise.

It didn’t feel right, thinking of her in such a desolate place. It made me yearn for things I couldn’t have. And it agitated me into bouts of anger that kept me pacing the cell enough that I should have worn a hole right through the floor. I only stopped to sleep, or work my way from one end of my cage to the other, shaking the bars of my prison in hopes of loosening one. As much as thinking of her would keep me warm, it only left me feeling hollow and empty.

Ace and Aiden had no doubt found a way to get out of Siberia. I knew they were okay since I saw them with my own eyes before the heavy snowflakes created a curtain of white between us. Yet, they hadn’t come after me. Why hadn’t they come after me? There were snowmobiles there. Probably because your capturers disabled them. Ace and Aiden wouldn’t have just stood by and let them take me if there was a way to get me back. Deep down, I knew that. I also knew everyone was probably working around the clock to find me. That was the hope I kept, and the reason I hadn’t gone completely mad.

I’d never once realized what it must have truly been like for Jared when he was kidnapped. The memory made me shake worse than the cold as I remembered how he had been tortured. Would that happen to me? What the hell could they torture me for, though? I had nothing to tell them. I was a medic. I didn’t go out in the field unless it was to patch someone up after a mission was over. I had no insight on intel, or the inner workings of Cole Enterprise. So why then, of all people, was I taken?

What was worse was when the ‘what-if’ game came in to play. What if they never found me? What if I never saw Nova again? What if she needed me and I wasn’t there for her?

I shook my head to clear it and then pushed the thought away, because there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

Three days later, a man came to see me. He was short in height and big in presence. He eyed me cynically through the bars with a sneer on his face.

I sat up from the wobbly bed and clutched the blanket in my hands, unwilling to give up the small pocket of warmth I’d managed to build up. I watched him just as intently as he watched me. And then he finally spoke.

“Ve haf problem.”

“Yes, ve do,” I said, mimicking his thick accent before I could stop myself.

His eyes flickered in annoyance. “Ver is Petrov?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Had he said petrol, as in gas?

He moved two precise steps forward. “Aleksandr Petrov. Russian scientist. You are not him. Ver is he?”

There was no time to think. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

“Ve can do this easy way, or hard, but you vill tell me vat I vant to know.” He stepped to the side and gave a quick nod.

I waited, watching for someone to step out of the darkness.

It seemed like forever before anyone appeared, but I realized that was because they were dragging someone along with them, and that person was putting up one hell of a fight.

I silently cheered on whoever it was, hoping they’d break free and kick some serious Russian ass.

When the scuffling pair finally made it into view, I realized we were screwed. The person struggling was a woman. The man holding her could easily have been Thor’s body double, maybe even the Hulk given his size. He was massive, and he was angry, too. He shook the woman by her jacket, which he had balled up in his fist.

Her feet came off the floor and her fist shot out, missing her mark by a hairsbreadth. A string of foreign words, angry ones by the sound of it, were hampered by what looked like a burlap sack over her face.

“Nadia,” the other man said, flicking his fingers at the struggling pair.

Thor Jr. let go and then shoved her forward.

Nadia? Nadia! Holy hell, she’s here. Wait a minute… why is she here? I wanted to laugh, cry, and scream for her to get the hell out of there, all at the same time.

Nadia looked like a spitting wildcat when the sack was yanked from her head. She snarled, hissing words at the man in front of her, ending whatever she said by spitting on the ground as if the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth.

I caught only one word, and it sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the frigid temperature.

Ivanov.

Viktor Ivanov—Russian mafia, and all-around bad guy—was no more than five feet away, and it might as well have been five miles for all the good it did me. How long had he been on our list? My fingers twitched, wishing I could clamp them around his throat, and take him out with my bare hands.

I hadn’t been privy to many intel meetings, but Ivanov’s name had come up every so often. When it did, it was associated with things that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He was a man whose record had listed all the deplorable things he’d managed to do over the years. Drugs, guns, bombings, endless murders, and those was the less-terrorizing things.

Over the years, he’d moved his way up Cole Enterprise’s list of people to rid the world of. Unfortunately, he was also a very resourceful bastard who’d managed to evade being caught on several occasions.

Viktor strolled up to Nadia, ever mindful of staying just out of her reach, and then gave her a smile that turned my stomach to see. The man wasn’t just a terrorist—he was pure evil.

Lost in another round of Russian linguistics, I watched helplessly from the other side of the bars holding me in when Thor Jr. grabbed Nadia by the arms, hauling them up behind her.

The first punch caught me off guard. It shouldn’t have, but that was what I got for being raised to believe that men didn’t hit women. Viktor wasn’t a man, though… he was a monster.

When he hauled back his fist again, I grabbed the door to my cell and rattled it. “Hey!”

He ignored me, fist shooting out and catching Nadia in the stomach for a second time.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I bellowed, shaking the cell door as hard as I could.

His fist cocked once more.

“Stop!”

The sound of her nose breaking flipped a switch inside of me. There was no way in hell I would stand there and do nothing. Stepping back, I lined myself up with the lock on the door and then turned slightly. If Oliver had taught me anything useful, it was how to put a whole lot of power behind my foot. I shut everything down and focused. If Ivanov hit her again, I had no idea. I only had eyes for busting the damn door right off its hinges. I’d tried to break the lock when I first arrived, but the only thing I’d done was wear myself out and jar my leg hard enough that I limped for two days. With any luck, maybe I’d at least weakened the lock when I had. I hadn’t tried since then because the cold had settled deep into my bones. The last thing I’d needed to do was break a limb or injure myself, and then be unable to get away if I did get a viable chance to escape.

But now, I had no choice but to attempt it. I lost count of how many times my foot slammed into metal. Lost the feeling in my leg, and all sense of time. I’d been so focused on what I was doing that it took a second before I heard her call my name.

When her voice finally penetrated through the rage, it took me longer still to realize Thor Jr. was on the ground and wasn’t going to be getting back up again. And Nadia was fighting for her life.

“Keys!” she shouted, dodging a punch from Ivanov.

Keys? Keys! They were just outside my cell door. All I had to do was reach for them. I hit the ground, shoving my hand through the gap. My shoulder screamed as I stretched the joints until I felt the cool metal of the key ring touch the tip of my middle finger. I pushed harder, grunting with the effort, but it was no use.

“I can’t reach them! Nadia, they’re too far away,” I yelled, but there was nothing she could do to help me.

Think, Eli! There had to be something… anything. If only my arm was an inch longer, or I had something I could use to drag them closer. I turned in a full circle, eyes landing on the rusted cot.

For as rickety as it was, it took longer than I thought it would to break the frame. My leg, already tired from trying to kick my way free, felt like dead weight, but I used it anyway, and managed to bust a bolt from the frame. It would have to do.

The bolt slipped in my sweaty grip, and I almost lost hold of it as I reached for the keys again.

With the key ring safely in my hand, I forced myself to take a calming breath so I could focus on opening the lock. Eight tries later, it clicked open. I was free.

The sound of fighting had moved. It was somewhere off to my right, but I couldn’t see where due to the lack of lighting.

The keys fell from my hands when Nadia’s scream echoed off the walls.

I ran toward the sound, coming to a skidding halt when another one of Ivanov’s henchmen stepped out of the shadows. The Glock in his outstretched hand was aimed right at my face.

Nadia screamed again, only it was closer than before.

And then she moved into the light, Viktor pulling her along by the roots of her hair. She couldn’t even stand up and was forced to walk bent over while keeping her balance. Once he was closer, he yanked her up, pulling her head back until her neck was bared, stretching it back until she gurgled in response.

He barked something at his henchman, and then he spit a glob of blood on the floor. His chest heaved and his eyes were slits as his nostrils flared. I didn’t have to understand what he said to know the meaning behind his words. He was done fighting, and Nadia’s time was up.

Viktor shoved Nadia away and held his hand out for the gun.

Everything inside me stilled when I realized what he planned to do.

Nadia made it to her knees, weaving as she tried to get to her feet.

Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing. I couldn’t watch her be executed. I couldn’t let Jared’s mother die without trying my hardest to fight for her. To save her. To die for her the same way she would have died for me.

I lunged, and so did she.

The gun fired, and the henchman’s body hit the floor with a meaty thud.

“Stay down,” she said, gasping as Ivanov kicked her in the side, freeing his arm and the gun.

The hell I would. I dove in front of her as he lifted the gun and fired.

“Eli!” Her scream followed me into the darkness.

Another shot went off. The muffled sound came from far away as I drifted into a sea of ice. Cold… I was so very cold.

“Hold on, Eli. You have to hold on!”

Her hands caught mine and burned like fire, but only briefly. Then they were against my chest, pushing against waves of pain with each rise and fall.

“Stay with me,” she pleaded.

I could see her looking deep into my eyes, and I wanted to tell her that it was okay. There wasn’t any pain.

Warm rain pattered on my face.

“You can’t have him! Do you hear me? He’s mine, and you can’t have him!”

The rain warmed me as if I were standing in a sun shower. My eyes opened, eyelashes fluttering against the bright white clouds. Someone called my name, and I turned. She smiled and touched my hand, but it felt… wrong. And then, suddenly it didn’t, because I knew her. The grass under my feet was cool. Yet, I wasn’t really walking on it as I moved forward. Her voice floated behind me as she said, “A star will weep tonight.”

I nodded, understanding her completely, yet not at all.

The brightness dimmed, but only slightly. It was enough to see further than before. A smile broke on my face, and I laughed as I stepped out onto the well-worn dock. Alabama. I was home.