Chapter Twenty-Seven

In her dream, Dev was safe and sound. She was warm, not too warm, but just right warm. That alone should’ve alarmed her. The sudden softness beneath her head should’ve told her something was wrong. Maybe the scent of body odor in her nose, but instead she breathed deeply.

Her heavy limbs refused her brain’s halfhearted command to get up and move, to find out where she was or if she should run. Her limbs seemed locked into this incredibly, so, so soft mattress—or cloud. It could very well be a cloud as light as her head felt resting on it. She might just have died, and this place might be heaven.

Okay then. Problem solved. With a concentrated “Oomph,” she rolled to her side and fell back to sleep.

As Seth expected, the double metal doors creaked the moment Eric shouldered them aside and disappeared into the maw of black shadows beyond. The stiletto beam from his LED flashlight directed Seth to veer right, his own beam focused on the concrete floor.

Eric led the way, and Seth understood the survivor’s guilt that drove his friend’s need to be the first one in. A good man never left his buddies behind, but knowing that the other person was injured and suffering, that his buddy was a woman this time, ate at the hearts of most male warriors. Just because a guy bucked up and strapped on enough armor plating to protect his chest and gut didn’t mean any of that crap protected his heart or his soul. Hence the Stateside epidemic of PTSD and suicides from warriors returning home. This ‘job’ could suck the soul out of the strongest person. Times that by a million when a man’s innate instinct failed to protect the ‘weaker’ sex during an op gone sideways.

After traversing a maze of corridors, Eric stopped, his arm up and his fist clenched, the signal to cease and desist. Seth stopped in his tracks and cocked his head, listening for whatever Eric had heard. The far-off bang as if a hammer had just hit a nail, then a groan, came back to Seth. He strained to understand what he’d heard. Another bang. Another groan, this one rapped higher as if—

“They’re crucifying her!” Eric spat.

Or someone. Seth steeled his heart. He’d seen retaliation shit like this before. Beheadings. Crucifixions. Scalpings. All done to shock the boys and girls from America. Damned brutal shit worked.

Taking one step forward, he put one hand on Eric’s broad shoulder. “Steady. We do this right and we’re out of here in minutes. She’s on her way home with us. Understood?”

Eric’s head bobbed, but Seth caught the glistening sweat pouring down his buddy’s face. Might’ve been tears.

“Lights out,” Seth ordered as he stepped around Eric and assumed point. Crouched low, he kept his rifle tucked under his chin, its sights set to engage anything that moved ahead. After taking several steps, he glanced over his shoulder. Eric had gone scary silent, and Seth needed to know he was still there.

The pitch-black darkness gave way to the amber glow of propane lanterns hung from metal hooks protruding from the concrete walls of a rectangular room, its walls lined with jail cells, bars and all. Within each cell, more shadows, but Seth could sense the suffocating presence of more people than just the three at the center of the room between the rows of cells.

Two men and a woman, only she’d been forced to kneel on some kind of a kneeler like the ones Seth had seen within sacristies of Christian churches. Her arms were tied behind her back, and she was crying and moaning. Instead of a cushion, the kneeler consisted of a metal grate, the kind with serrated treads and a toe-kick like you’d see at construction worksites. The kind meant to scrape shit, dirt, and thorns from the tread of a workingman’s steel-toed boots, not to press kneecaps and tender flesh onto.

Shit. That thing wasn’t a kneeler. It was a rape stand, intended for degradation and depravation of the worst kind. They hadn’t nailed the woman to it, but swinging one helluva big hammer, nailing the chains around the kneeler into the ground. Laughing. Jerking at the kneeler. Testing it as if they needed to make sure it wouldn’t move. Terrorizing her.

Seth knew what would happen next. Without thinking, he took one pissed off step into that stinking room, counted his adversaries: six sweaty men, all with eyes wide-open. They hadn’t seen him coming, well that was good-god-damned fine by Seth. His index finger squeezed and—

Holy shit, Reynolds!

Before Seth got a round off, gunfire exploded to his left, all but deafening him. Eric wasn’t quiet anymore, not with the gleam of fire and brimstone in his dark eyes. Not with the rapid-fire Br-r-r-r-t-t-t-t of the most excellent weapon ever created, spitting death and vengeance from his righteous fist. It made a man proud to have an avenging angel of this caliber on his six, so Seth stood back, held his palms over his ears, and let Eric have at it.

“Kill ’em all,” he whispered, quietly urging Eric on. “Send those fuckin’ bastards to hell where they belong.”

At last, Eric ceased firing. He stood there heaving, his jaw jutted forward, his body shaking, and his teeth bared. Seth’s ears were still ringing, but it was then that the people in those individual cells stepped forward. One by one, nine women came out from the shadows, all of them gaunt, their bodies and clothes streaked with sweat and grime. All of them wide-eyed with shock and fear.

And Seth said proudly what he’d said in other foreign countries so many times before. “I’m an American soldier and you’re going home.”

One woman choked, her hand fisted to her mouth. Another stretched both of her arms through the bars. It never got better than that, seeing the pure, unadulterated relief in people’s eyes, when they realized they were in the company of guys and gals who would actually die protecting them.

Eric stepped around Seth and asked, “Cassidy Dancer? We’re looking for our friend. Do any of you know where Cassidy Dancer is? Is she here?”

A tall blonde with straggly hair pointed wordlessly to what appeared to be an empty cell across from hers. That Cassidy wasn’t standing like the other women was telling.

“No,” Eric cried out as he ran to the bars. “Shit, Seth, she’s here and she’s—”

“Not going anywhere,” a gravelly voice from out of nowhere snarled.

Seth shifted his sights on the barrel-chested, dark-haired man who’d just stepped around the wooden crates stacked in the far corner. Shit. Roland Montego. He must have had a bolt-hole hidden there.

“Wrong, asshole,” Seth spat. “She goes with us, just like the rest of these women.”

“I think not,” Montego said as he tossed his chin at Seth, then jerked a frail little waif of a boy from behind the crates to stand in front of him. Blond. Eyes brimming. The boy could’ve been an older version of Scottie.

Seth swallowed the real fear that this mission now relied one hundred percent on a messed-up man like him. Nonetheless, like the true Army Ranger he’d never been, he taunted Montego. “You think I can’t make a headshot from here, jerk-off?”

The Cuban lowlife sneered a truly ugly smile, his crooked teeth dark, and his black eyes filled with malice. “You think I sell these women and children to my people?” he asked, spitting to the side. “Not so, gringo. It is not Cubans who come to me for dirty sex with dirty women, willing little girls, and tight little boys like this one here.” He shook the frightened boy’s shoulder. “It is rich American men like you who pay me for drugs and guns, whores and babies. I am simply another capitalist” —Montego rolled his lying eyes as his voice pitched higher— “like you. Now go, before I cut this precious boy’s throat. He is somebody’s baby, no? Somebody’s only son, perhaps? Or is this why you came here to me? You know what I have to offer, si? You have heard great things about me and all I can offer you. You just want a dead body with a warm hole to satisfy your—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Eric bellowed, Cassidy forgotten for the moment and his rifle barrel snapped on target. “You say one more fuckin’ word and I’ll blow you to Hell!”

Montego tipped his head and laughed, and when he did, the boy’s head jerked back. Seth saw it then, the glint of wire circling the poor kid’s neck. Montego held a garrote that could behead this little guy in the space of a heartbeat.

Not happening.

Seth didn’t waste a breath second-guessing his will or his better judgment. Just as it had in that dark Chicago bar a million nightmares ago, his heart led the way. His muscle training took over. His fingers flexed and—He. Just. Fired.

One to the forehead.

Another dead center through Montego’s sweaty neck, right below his flabby, double chin.

With a sickening whoosh, blood and brain matter hit the wall behind him, and Seth was glad. Damn it, yes! He rejoiced in the best shot he’d ever made and the innocent life he’d saved and he’d do it again.

When Montego’s body crumbled to the floor behind the kid, the wire loosened and fell with him. The kid’s eyes went wide. His jaw dropped, but he stood there with his mouth open, frozen, and afraid to move. Afraid to breathe. Until Seth shouldered his rifle, dropped to one knee, opened his arm, and said, “Come here, little guy. I’m taking you home.”

The poor kid hit Seth’s chest like a tiny freight train, sobbing and shaking, his thin shoulders heaving as he burrowed his runny nose and sweaty face into Seth’s shirt like he wanted to hide and never come out again.

“Shush,” Seth whispered to his frantic new buddy. “I’ve got you. You’re safe and you’re going home now, but I need your help.”

“N-n-no,” the little guy cried, and that was okay. Seth had cried plenty in the past, too. He, of all warriors, understood how scary and big the world could be. But there wasn’t enough time to smother one child with security, when so many others stood patiently waiting their turn at salvation from the hellhole Montego had dragged them into.

“What’s your name, buddy?”

“Ch-Chris-toph-errrr…” the boy whined, his breaths coming fast, short, and so damned hard. It was a miracle he could speak the way he trembled.

“Well, Chris, can you help me unlock these cells, so these nice ladies can go home to their little boys, too?” Seth asked, even as his much bigger palm remained flattened over the kid’s shuddering shoulder blades to calm him.

“He’s got a key,” the brave tyke murmured more into Seth’s shirt than at Seth.

“Great. That’s terrific information. Do you know where he keeps it?”

“In his p-pocket, mister. His pants pocket. Right side. Just where my dad keeps his car keys.”

Eric pounced on Montego’s still twitching body and quickly divested the creep of a ring of keys. In minutes, all the women were freed, including the poor thing at the rape stand, and Eric was on his knees beside his fallen TEAM agent.

Still dressed in her trademark khaki shorts and the black TEAM polo—thank God!—Cassidy lay on her side, her knees bent, and her arms sprawled at her sides. Seth didn’t think he could stand it if her clothes had been torn or stained or—worse.

Eric said nothing as his hands moved methodically down her sides, over her chest and stomach, diagnosing and triaging, before he jerked his blowout bag up from one of his many pockets. By all appearances, she hadn’t been molested, but she had been severely beaten. One side of her face was mottled black and bloody. Dried blood caked around her nose and mouth. Her lovely golden locks were wet with sweat and smeared dirt, probably more blood.

Seth watched Eric work on Cassidy from where he knelt with Christopher. He hadn’t moved any closer. The boy didn’t need to see all Eric might have to do to the woman.

“Is he a doctor?” Chris asked.

“You bet. One of the best.”

“What’s your name?”

“Seth McCray, former Army,” Seth added loud enough so all could hear and know just how qualified he was to rescue them, that they were in safe hands.

Chris’s fingers knotted Seth’s shirt into two tight balls, his voice reduced to a timid whisper as he peered over his shoulder at Cassidy’s cell. “Who’s she?”

“That lady is Cassidy Dancer, and she’s one of my best friends,” Seth admitted, his heart stuck in his throat. Cassidy had only been married a year or two. She was a real spitfire if Seth had ever met one. She had to be okay. It’d kill her husband, Jude Cannon, and his daughter, Judith, if Cassidy were to die from her injuries. She and Jude hadn’t had enough time together yet. Their love story couldn’t end here, not like this.

Instantly, Seth’s mind jumped from Cuba to a quiet little bungalow on Starfish Drive, where a ferocious, white-haired pixie waited on his return. He hadn’t had enough time with Devereaux, either, and he wanted more. He wondered if she’d had to wrestle Gru into that bag she’d intended to carry him home in. That would’ve been a sight to see.

“She gonna be okay?”

“I sure hope so,” Seth answered Christopher honestly. “Do you know what happened to her?” My God, what have you been forced to endure while you’ve been here?

“He… he hit her cuz she had a knife in her boot and she kicked him with it, so he hit her, and he kept hitting her until she fell down, and then I had ta stop watching cuz he was scaring me, and she wasn’t fighting anymore. She didn’t even cry no more, but… but I cried when he’d hit me like that.” Chris sucked in a deep breath as tears streamed down his pale cheeks.

Seth tipped back, cupping the kid’s jaw and for the first time, he saw the dark bruises under Chris’s chin and on his throat. “That ass—I mean, that man—hit you? He punched you?”

Chris’s head bobbed, and his eyes brimmed. “He… he slapped me here…” Chris reached for the back of his head. “And he punched me here…” One little hand fell to his stomach before he quickly secured it inside Seth’s shirt. “And I’m glad you killed him because he was a very mean man and I wish you could kill him again and” —a gut-wrenching hiccup lurched out of Chris— “again.” His tirade ended in a pitiful whine.

God, this little man was breaking Seth’s heart. He pulled the boy under his chin and kissed his forehead, wishing he could make Chris forget the Hell he’d been through. But that was what counselors and moms and dads were for, to soften the memory, because no one ever forgot crap like this. Like Alex Stewart said, they just learned how to pack it away and carry it for the rest of their lives.

Still, Seth had to know. “Was that all he did to you?”

Chris’s head bobbed, and Seth hoped he was being honest, but again, there was nothing Seth could do to change what had happened or what might still be happening inside this sweet little guy’s heart, mind, and soul. Some scars healed, but some wounds festered until, in the end, bastards like Montego won. Hell, Latoya Franklin still paid him nightly visits, and on the rare bad day, she brought two innocent fuzzy lambs with her. Wasn’t that one helluva mind fuck?

Seth and his partner sat there and rocked while they waited on Eric. But with every ragged breath, the hollow at the base of the boy’s neck sucked in as if he wasn’t getting enough air, and that was worrisome. This kid was sick.

“Take it easy,” Seth murmured, inhaling to show Chris how to calm himself. “Take a deep breath and let it out slow. Nice and easy, there you go.”

Even as he watched Cassidy, Seth kept the steady contact between his much larger hand and the boy’s shivering back. Chris was running a fever. Seth was almost sure of it. “How old are you, Chris?”

“Seven and a half,” said every American kid ever. That half-year meant a heckuva lot when you were seven.

“You’re in what, third grade?”

Chris held up two fingers. “Only second, but I’m gonna graduate this spring, and then I’ll be a third grader, and I might get to be in Mr. Cousin’s class. He’s a good guy, and he used ta be a Marine, and I might get to go on a field trip with him to a shooting range if’n it’s okay with my mom and dad.” A long deep breath followed that tremendous amount of information.

But Seth only half-heard the child’s rambling. Cassidy hadn’t stirred yet, and all the women had now clustered around her open cell door, their own pains forgotten as they held onto each other and watched Eric treating her. One rocked another. One woman sobbed and cried, while yet another kept praying the ‘Hail, Mary,’ over and over.

But it was the grim light in Eric’s eyes and the curt shake of his head that was worrisome. Cassidy had yet to respond to any of his expert ministrations, even the smelling salts. When he peeled one of her eyelids back and shone his LED flashlight into her eyes, he bit his bottom lip and shook his head. Not good.

Seth lifted Chris with him as he shoved to his feet.

“Don’t!” Chris squealed, his fingers digging into Seth as he scrambled to attach himself to Seth’s ribs. “Don’t let me go, mister! I don’t wanna get lost no more!”

“Shhh,” Seth soothed the frightened child, rubbing a hand over his head, cupping him against his body. “Trust me, I’m not letting you go, Chris. You hear me? But you need to hang on tight to my neck when I start to move, so we can get out of here, okay?” He adjusted the boy’s body until Chris straddled his left hip, clear of the rifle slung over Seth’s right. “There. That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Ah-huh,” Chris breathed, his poor heart pounding under Seth’s arm like an entire brass band. His fingernails dug into Seth’s neck, a small price to pay to keep this kid calm. But they had to get the hell out of this viper pit, right now. Cassidy was running out of time.

Seth opened a channel and hissed into his two-way, praying Cord had his ears on. “Man down, damn it! We’re coming in hot. Cover us!”