CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It took longer coming to this time. Shea tried to lift her head off her shoulder, but the thing was heavy. For now, the torture had ceased, but her limbs were ice. Her feet were numb. Wet clothes plastered her body. She couldn’t feel her fingers. Worse, there was no way out of this concrete chamber.

The last time she’d felt this bad had been on that beach when Cheyenne appeared to her in the angelic guise of that other little girl. The one who’d patted Shea’s bloated cheek with the tender touch of an innocent and said in the sweetest voice, “Hi, Mama. I found you.”

Only now Shea knew the little girl had probably said to her real mother, “Hey, Mama, look what I found.” That scenario made more sense, but for that one split second in time, Shea’s heart had believed. That one spark of hope was all she’d needed to remember the life she’d tossed away.

“Cheyenne,” she murmured, wanting that hope back again. How like her father Cheyenne was, both saviors, but on different dimensions in the grand scheme of things. And now she’d lost them both.

Voices buzzed around her. Angry voices. She tried to make sense of it, but the cold won. She yearned for freedom, but knew better. She would die in this chair. This was the end. And yet…

Across the room, her blurry eyes locked with—Eric?

There she is!

Shea sat strapped to a wooden chair bolted on the concrete floor over a large metal grate. Barely conscious, she was drenched and pale. Wide plastic restraints circled her forearms and ankles.

Two men sat in front of her, their backs to Eric. One smacked his open palm with a baton, the other finger tapped at his computer tablet. The son-of-a-bitch was taking a break. Playing a video game. Didn’t that add gasoline to the blazing fury already stoking Eric’s rage? Not one flicker of remorse entered his mind when he advanced on the whisper-quiet feet of an executioner. Until everything went south.

“On your right!” Jordan yelled just as some guy came out of nowhere and sent him flying. The heavy security door at the bottom of the stairwell clanged shut when Jordan hit it, shutting Eric and him inside the safe room with Shea.

Spinning around, Eric brought his AR front and center as a meaty fist hit him squarely in the face. Not enough to knock him down, but enough that he lost hold of his rifle and his nose gushed.

The man who’d hit him was a hulking monster in a black robe and brandishing a scimitar just like in the video. Bulky arms crossed over a wide, thick chest. He wasn’t the real Abdul-Mutaal though. He wasn’t even Mideastern. No way in hell. He was a punk-assed white guy with a thick, red beard who had smeared his clown make-up.

The guy was quick, though. Using the handle of that scimitar like a pair of brass knuckles, he punched Eric hard in the chest with the side of it and knocked the air out of him. Once. Twice. The guy pummeled him, shoving him backward with every blow.

Muscle training took over. Shifting his AR over his shoulder and out of his way, Eric countered with an uppercut that clipped the bastard’s chin and knocked his head back. One, two, three more fists to that whiskered face, and the wannabe fell back a few steps.

Eric reached for his right holster, but came up empty. He’d lost both pistols in the scuffle, and he barely had time to grab the blade in his boot, a pitiful match against a three-foot sword that could take his arm off, if and when this extremist got serious. The guy seemed to be holding back.

“You came for your wife,” he taunted, the scimitar now poised in his right hand, his feet spread wide. “Come get her if you think you’re man enough.”

Yeah. Not an Arab at all. Liverpool, maybe. Still going to die.

Eric jumped at the guy, feinting to the right. Startled, the Brit pulled his sword arm back, needing more room to swing than the low ceiling allowed. Wrong move. Bigger didn’t necessarily equate with better. Or faster.

In the time it took him to wield that three-foot blade, Eric charged, slicing the Brit’s arm as the scimitar parted the air at his left with a whistle. He dodged, but not before landing a solid kick in the Brit’s ribs.

The big guy lost his balance with a grunt, but stuck a solid three-point landing, one palm to the floor. Reaching into the folds of his robe, he came up grinning with two bleeding fingers. His tongue snaked out to lick his own blood. “That all you got, Yank?” he asked, his eyes wide.

This guy might just be on drugs, Eric thought as he shot back, “I’m just warming up.” His inner warrior wanted all ten of this freak’s fingers. Maybe his head, too. It seemed a fair trade.

Pushing up from the floor, the Brit toggled those same bloody fingers for Eric to come play. The scimitar shifted hands. “You must do better than that, Reynolds, or soon I’ll be licking your sweet little wife.” His lips puckered as he blew Shea a kiss. “Want to watch?”

Keep playing with me, asshole, Eric thought as he stomped a boot forward again, and I’ll carve those lips off your ugly face. Parrying a stab and a fake punch, he refused to let his emotions rule no matter how crass this clown got. This pompous Brit needed to think he had the upper hand. It kind of felt like he did.

Jordan was on his feet and heavily engaged with the two that had been sitting with Shea. He looked like he was holding his own, but Eric was too busy to go to his aid. Charging the redheaded killer, he drew up just short of that slashing blade. The tip of it caught him this time, slicing his chest, cutting shirt and skin. But that was what Eric wanted, to be inside that down stroke. Seizing that split-second window of opportunity, he thrust his blade upward, into the Brit’s bicep and he twisted. Now it was Eric’s turn to taunt. “That all you got?”

The liar groaned, but the handle of that damned scimitar caught Eric across the side of his head. He landed face first on the floor a good ten feet away. Blood trickled into his eyes. He wiped it off, along with some stars and a few flashing comets. Holy shit, this guy was built like a bull, all rock-hard muscle. But once more, the Brit had held back.

It was time to recalculate and re-strategize. Eric sucked in a deep breath, buying time. He might be faster and more agile, but his previous wounds were wearing on him. This is no way to save Shea.

Rolling to his side and breathing hard, enlightenment dawned on him. Damn it to holy hell. This is just foreplay. That was why the Brit hadn’t used his scimitar as effectively as he could have. He was toying with Eric. Playing. He meant for Eric to live just long enough to break Shea. Torturing and beheading her husband in front of her would surely do it.

That shit’s NOT going to happen.

Eric dragged his tired ass up off the floor like a guy who’d given up. He knelt on the concrete. His shoulders sagged like a weakling’s. He groaned. He frowned. Didn’t bother to wipe his bloody nose. Let the Brit get his hopes up.

The asshole stomped one boot. “You call that a fight?” he bellowed, smacking his chest with that fisted blade. “Come on, Reynolds. Up with you. Fight like a man.”

“I can’t. I give,” Eric wheezed like the pansy he was not. He lifted his hands, palms forward, not taking his eyes off this jerk for a second, but willing to play the game. “Damn it. You’re bigger than me. I can’t win. I give. Who… who are you?”

The Brit’s bushy brows lifted. “You Americans. Quitters! All of you! Nothing sporting about the lot of you. As for who I am, I’m your worst nightmare, Reynolds. The name’s Lord Piers Yeoman, if you must know, though it will make little difference at the end of this day. You’ll still be dead, but not before you serve my purpose.”

Knew you’d say that. Eric blew out a big breath. I was right. He intends to torture me to break Shea. I’ve never killed a lord before. “Why… why the torture?” he gasped, going for broke. “Why water-board a woman? Looks like you’ve got her where you want her.” You flaming asshole.

The man’s right eyelid twitched. “Why not? All is fair in war and…” He glanced back at Shea with a salacious leer, “love. Wouldn’t you say?”

Eric let him get two steps closer before he jerked his ace-in-the-hole off his back, where it had been beating the ever-loving shit out of him this whole wrestling match. Tough guy didn’t look so smug all of a sudden with a Sig Sauer pointed up his big ego. Funny how life can change in the blink of the eye of one pissed-off husband.

“That’s my wife!” Eric bellowed as his trigger finger wiped the smirk off Lord Yeoman’s ugly face.

It took four body shots to knock the bastard down. His shiny scimitar hit the floor first. While the Brit collapsed like an accordion within all those black robes, Eric sent a round into one of the men beating on Jordan. That freed Jordan to finish snapping the last guy’s neck.

“You good?” Eric asked when the battle was done, keeping his pistol ready.

Jordan sank to the floor, his bloodied hands on his knees, nodding and wheezing. “Yeah. You?”

“Will be,” Eric muttered. It took a second to get to Shea, but the plastic restraints on her forearms were thick. A metal lock secured each Flexi-Cuff, but time was running out. Eric attacked the ones at her wrists with the tip of his knife, his ears tuned to any indication of more trouble headed his way.

Still in battle-mode, Jordan returned to Eric’s side. Stabbing his blade into the locks at Shea’s legs, he muttered, “Never met one of these I couldn’t break.” With a snap, both locks opened.

“Thanks, man.” Eric wiped his face, wishing his hands were clean for this next part. “Speak to me, Shea,” he coaxed as he pulled her off the chair and into his chest. Folding her fingers in his, he brought them to his mouth to warm them. No response. He might as well have been breathing on icicles.

Jordan secured Eric’s weapons and nodded at the hidden panel next to the steel door. “No wonder Abdul Fucking-What’s-His-Name got the jump on us. Look. A secret panel.”

Eric glanced at the dead poser who’d ambushed them. That Dog-guy hadn’t come running to assist the Brit meant one thing. With the door shut, this room was soundproof. The sure knowledge that she’d suffered in this concrete dungeon and done it alone nearly broke his soul. “Get us the hell out of here.”

“Stay close,” Jordan replied. “I’ll clear the way.”

Cradling Shea’s head under his chin, Eric climbed the stairs behind Jordan, his pistol still in his hand. At the top step, she huffed into his neck, his first sign of hope.

Jordan had barely opened the door when his left arm blocked Eric’s ascent. “Shh. Your friend’s still here.”

All Eric heard was Jordan taking the silenced shot, followed by glass crashing to the floor and a heavy thud. Eric wished he could’ve watched when Dog-guy went down. Just because.

“Cheyenne!” Shea screamed bloody murder all the way back to Murphy’s, ramming her head into Eric’s shoulder until he was sure his collarbone was broken. He’d already pinned her arms. She couldn’t hurt herself, but the terror in her voice wrecked him. Every time.

She was still cold by the time Murphy lowered his garage door. Jordan hustled and provided cover from there to the house in case they’d been followed. Elsa scrambled inside as Eric hurried Shea into the guest bedroom. While Elsa provided several blankets, he stripped Shea to her birthday suit and wrapped her as tight as he dared.

Elsa took over so he could grab a quick shower. “Go on with you,” she ordered. “I’ll try to get some tea into her. Hurry. You can’t have her seeing you like that.”

Tea. The Irish cure for everything.

Elsa was right. The man staring at him from the bathroom mirror looked pretty damned scary. Eric had a black eye he didn’t remember getting, a bloody path on the left side of his head from being shot, a purple, swollen nose that didn’t work so good anymore. The thin slice across his chest from the scimitar was the least of his worries.

By the time he’d showered, he could breathe through his nose—barely—but some. Rummaging through Murphy’s medicine cabinet, he found a first-aid kit. Six butterfly bandages took care of the scimitar slice across his chest. Two more closed the split over his left eye. His nose? Well, that was another story. Wincing, his eyes watering, he managed a single strip of flesh-toned adhesive tape over the top of it. At least it wasn’t bleeding.

“Poor, poor thing,” Elsa murmured when he returned with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Jordan brought a cup of tea for her, but she’s still incoherent. We may need to transport her to a clinic. There’s a fine one in Cashel.”

“No. I’ll take it from here.”

“But Mr. Reynolds—”

He shook his head. “Leave us alone. Please. She’ll be fine.”

Elsa had the good sense to close the door behind her.

Eric dropped the towel wearing just his boxers. What Shea needed couldn’t be found in a clinic. He climbed into bed with her and wrapped her up warm and tight, using his body heat to raise her temperature.

That was his first mistake. Shea bucked and kicked, thrashed and twisted, screaming “Cheyenne!” His baby girl’s ghost was suddenly present, if only to tear at her mother’s heart.

“I’ve got you,” he crooned, squeezing Shea just enough to let her know she was safe. That he was there. The same mistake-made-twice got him another head-butt. He shed real tears that time, but he wouldn’t let her go.

Rearing back, Shea struck his forehead with the back of her head, panting and fighting to get free. Frantically sucking in air as if her lungs weren’t working. As if those bastards were still water-boarding her. The single word kept pouring out of her mouth in one long, shrill wail to the universe, her terrified keening enough to wake the dead. “Chey—enne!”

A lot of guys would’ve gotten frustrated and slapped her at that point to snap her out of it. Not Eric. He understood where her need to fight came from. Instead of using force, he did what he should have done two years ago. He held on.

Murphy hovered in and out of the bedroom. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Soon as she’s warm, I want you kids down in that bunker. Something’s wrong. I can’t reach Mother. Alex, neither,” he grumbled. “Do you think she’ll take a little broth?”

“Not yet.” Eric gathered the blankets under her chin.

“I’m sure sorry, son,” Murphy said as he left.

Eric hadn’t the time to worry about Alex, because the man posing as Abdul-Mutaal had done what he’d set out to do. He’d broken Shea. But that feeling of impending doom? Eric had it since they’d left Grover’s place. He couldn’t shake it. They might have taken Berglund and Mikkelson’s murderer out of the picture and maybe a few bad guys, but the professor was still out there. With Bagani and Carlson eliminated, Grover had to be the one in control.

Shea lay quiet for the moment with her back to Eric’s front, but whining to be let loose, her fingers fisted beneath her chin. Still crying for her baby girl after all these years. Either she wanted Cheyenne to come back to life—or she wanted to join her.

“You’re not leaving me, baby. Not this time,” Eric told her in no uncertain terms. He couldn’t tell if she heard, so he began at the beginning.

Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Those rascals loved to play in the mud. All day long they built mud pies and mud castles. Mud mountains and mud rivers. If there was water and dirt to be had, there were three dirty little pigs smack dab in the middle of it.

But more than the mud, they loved the cinnamon bunnies from the baker. And strawberry shortcake. Sweetmeats. Cotton candy, and well, they loved everything as long as it was extra gooey and nutritionally bad for them.

Shea used to smirk at that extra long word in the middle of a child’s bedtime story, but work with me here, Eric had told her. Medics love to use extra-big and long words. It makes us look smart.

He paused. “Do you remember who Mama Pig was, Shea?”

No answer other than a huff through her nose, but at least she was quiet.

Okay, so one morning the three dirty little pigs woke up with a start. They heard someone in their dirty little-pig kitchen, and that person made a lot of noise. Whoever it was rattled pans and spoons and—hummed?

Eric pinched his nose and hummed a nonsensical ditty the same as he had for his daughter at this point in the story. Cheyenne used to giggle and squeal. Not Shea.

With their little piggy eyes squinting so they looked extra-scary, and with their little piggy ears cocked forward like tiny radar dishes, the three, dirty, little critters sneaked into the kitchen. Extra sneaky like. Piggy hoof by piggy hoof. Big pink piggy ears twitching. Curly little piggy tails extra curly.

Eric smoothed a palm over Shea’s shoulder, needing her to want to live.

What a surprise! A bigger than life Mama Pig was standing at their stove and…. and…she was using it!

“I didn’t know it worked,” said one little pig.

“Me neither,” said the second.

“What’s a stove?” asked the third silly little pig.

Then something magical happened. The most delicious aroma drifted up into their little pig snouts. Their little pig mouths watered. This wonderful mama pig was cooking!

Eric pressed a kiss behind Shea’s ear. “You always gave me such a dirty look at this part of the story. Honest, honey. I wasn’t assigning any gender specific roles for Cheyenne to live up to. It’s just a fairytale.”

No answer. Eric went on with the story. Suddenly, Mama Pig stopped humming. She spotted the dirty, little piglets. Her eyes grew extra large and round, and the funniest thing happened.

“Do you know what was so funny?” he whispered, his heart too tender to go on with the telling. “Do you remember?”

Cheyenne’s spirit seemed to have drawn nearer with very word of that often-repeated fairytale. If there was a heaven, she had to be leaning over the edge of it and listening to her favorite story right now. At least, Eric hoped, she was watching her father struggle to hold onto her mother. “Cheyenne still loves you, baby. I know she does, but so do I.”

Eric mashed his nose into the side of Shea’s head, no longer able to hold back the tears. At the end of all the stories and fairytales he’d told Cheyenne, he’d always made certain there was a happy ending. Children deserved to be innocent as long as they could. They deserved to believe in magic and Santa Claus, Rudolph and the Tooth Fairy—all those tender lies parents gave credence to for as long as they could. Children deserved to believe in the stability of their parents’ marriage, too.

He’d set the example in his house. If Shea was having a bad day when he came home, he fixed it. If she needed a break from a crying baby, if she simply needed a time-out and a bubble bath, he provided. That was his job and his rule. The prince and princess lived happily ever after in his kingdom. They went to bed together, they ate dinner at the table, and that was the way it was. For as long as they had Cheyenne in their lives, she’d believed in the magic of her parents’ love. He meant that vow he’d made at the foot of that altar; to love, honor, and serve.

But now... Eric wasn’t so sure how this story would end. He couldn’t make the one woman in the world whom he adored with every beat of his heart love him back. He couldn’t fix this.

It was up to Shea to decide whether she wanted to stay in this life or—leave.