Chapter 5
Emma
I’d decided that I could go a little longer without food, but I was so thirsty that my mouth felt as dry as a desert.
My head was pounding, and I wasn’t as alert as I’d been on day one.
They hadn’t bothered to force drugs down my throat today, so I hadn’t even gotten that tiny sip of water today.
They probably assume that I’m so weak that I’m not going to fight them.
Honestly, I was weak. Lack of sleep and water were getting to me.
I was hungry, but I was a curvy woman. I wasn’t exactly skin and bones from not eating.
However, I was on day three with very little water, and I was feeling it.
My brain didn’t want to acknowledge that I could die in this filthy prison, but I was also realistic.
A person could only go three days without water before the internal organs started to shut down.
Don’t give up, Emma.
There had to be tons of people looking for me.
As long as I was conscious, I could still be hopeful, right?
I’d been working hard to try to figure out a way to get the shackle around my wrist loose, but I didn’t have a single tool to work with, and there wasn’t even a tiny weakness in the solid steel.
I’d also gone through every link on the chain that was attached to that shackle. That sucker wasn’t coming apart without tools to cut it.
I startled as I heard the heavy metal door open.
I hadn’t seen my captors at all today, and my heart started to race.
We’re they coming in to kill me because I wasn’t useful to them?
God, I hated the fact that I couldn’t seem to control my fear anymore.
My entire body tensed up as the door opened noisily.
I blinked as my eyes tried to adjust to being exposed to more light.
“We brought you some company,” one of my captors said in heavily accented English.
Like me, the male figure I could make out had a shackle and chain attached to his left wrist, and he was pushed into the room with a force that propelled him toward the same support that held me prisoner.
I couldn’t quite make out the man’s facial features, and before I could take a better look after my vision cleared, the man was behind me. I could hear him being attached to the same support beam that I was.
A moment later, the door was closed and locked.
“Emma? Are you okay?” the man asked as he dropped to the ground beside me.
Oh, God.
That voice.
I knew it, and it certainly wasn’t Nick or some random stranger.
“Colin?” I said weakly.
The tiny window gave me very little light, but I could see the large outline of the body sitting next to me.
I couldn’t see any of his facial details, but his voice sounded exactly the same.
I wondered for a moment if I was hallucinating in my dehydrated state.
How was it possible that the man I’d spent time with fourteen years ago in Virginia Beach was here.
In Lania.
And now being held captive with me.
“It’s me,” he confirmed abruptly. “Are you okay? I didn’t get a very long look at you, but it looks like your face is bruised.”
“I-I’m fine,” I stuttered, still stunned that Colin was really here.
What in the world was he doing here?
“I’ve got water,” he said gruffly as he appeared to dig into some kind of pack that he’d brought with him into the prison. “Have they been giving you food and water?”
“Neither one,” I told him breathlessly. “I think I’m pretty dehydrated.”
“Fuck!” he said, his voice irritated as he handed me a bottle. “Drink slowly. One sip at a time. I have plenty, but you can’t have that much water hitting your system at the same time. It will probably come right back up if you do.”
I wanted to guzzle the water as fast as I could, but I did as he instructed.
I closed my eyes with gratitude as I slowly quenched my thirst.
“How is it possible that you’re here?” I said between sips. “Did they kidnap you, too?”
“No,” he answered as he pulled more stuff from that pack. “When I heard that you’d been kidnapped, I came here willingly. They think I’m here to negotiate Prince Nick’s surrender. They weren’t going to refuse having another friend of Nick’s for leverage. I’m getting you the fuck out of here, Emma.”
“You and Nick are friends?” I questioned, still confused.
I hadn’t talked to Colin in fourteen years, and I was still more than a little stunned to meet up with him again.
I’d honestly thought I’d never see him again.
“More of an acquaintance,” he clarified. “But they don’t know that. I brought food for you, but we better let that water settle in your stomach first.”
My head was spinning, but I didn’t think it was due to my dehydration anymore.
“I don’t need food right now,” I told him. “I’m still trying to figure out why you’re here. In Lania. None of this makes sense.”
I was deliriously happy to hear his voice, but I still wasn’t sure if any of this was real.
“I’m here to get you out of here,” he said calmly as he propped his back against the metal support beam.
“Emma, I’ve known Brock, Nate, Gage, and Seth for a long time, and I’ve known Wyatt Durand even longer.
The guys were worried when you didn’t check in.
When I found out that you were in Lania, I called Nick.
He told me the whole story about how you were kidnapped. That’s why I’m here.”
I took a moment to digest that information.
Okay, so he knew a lot of the same people I did, which explained a few things. “But how is you giving yourself up willingly going to get us out of here?”
I also wondered why he was doing this for a woman he hadn’t seen in way over a decade.
“I know this hellhole isn’t bugged,” Colin answered.
“This isn’t a very sophisticated operation.
So we can talk freely. I have a tracking device.
Wyatt is in San Diego tracking our location.
By nightfall tomorrow, Brock and Nate will be here to get us out of here.
Wyatt, Brock, Nate, Gage, and Seth all work with me, Emma.
We’re all part of a private rescue organization that I founded years ago that we call Last Hope.
We’ve done too many hostage rescues to count over the years. ”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Wyatt is a billionaire. He owns a parent company with luxury products.”
“He does,” he confirmed patiently. “But he and four other billionaires also work with me on Last Hope. We’re headquartered in San Diego. Wyatt and the guys in Michigan were all on the same Delta Force team.”
I knew that, but they’d all been out of Delta for years.
I had no idea that they were still running some kind of covert rescue operations.
Suddenly, all of my friends’ mysterious disappearances over the years were starting to make sense.
“Is that why they disappeared and reappear like ghosts sometimes?” I questioned softly.
“Yeah,” Colin admitted. “Keeping that secret is important. Lives depend on keeping that information quiet. Last Hope will only survive as long as nobody knows we exist, and keeping Last Hope running saves a lot of people that can’t be helped by the US Government.”
“The government doesn’t know that these operations exist?” I asked, trying desperately to put all of the information together.
“Officially, they don’t,” he said evasively.
“Meaning they do know but they won’t officially acknowledge it?” I questioned.
“Something like that,” he answered. “But your friends aren’t military anymore, and we aren’t government. We don’t step on their toes, and they ignore our existence for the most part.”
“I have so many questions,” I said honestly. “But I think I need to take in all of this crazy information first.”
“It’s a lot,” he agreed. “Just know that by tomorrow night we’ll be headed back to the US. We’ll talk about the details later. I hate that this happened to you, Emma, and I really hate those bruises on your face. Why did those bastards have to rough you up?”
“I wouldn’t answer their questions. They think I’m some secret girlfriend of Nick’s, and I wouldn’t confirm or deny.
I thought it was better to let them think what they wanted.
If I admitted I was nothing more than a friend to Nick, I was afraid they’d kill me because I wasn’t as valuable to them.
They weren’t happy with my silence. I’m fine, Colin.
Nothing is broken. They just bruised me up a little. ”
“Did they touch you in any other way?” he asked tersely.
“If you’re asking if they raped me, they didn’t.
I’ve barely seen them since they tossed me in here.
They were drugging me, but that stopped.
God, I can’t believe you’re here and I’m actually going to live through this.
I also can’t believe that you just gave yourself up to locate me. That’s completely insane.”
I swiped a lone tear from my cheek. Now that the shock was wearing off, I was flooded with intense relief.
Yeah, I was upset that he’d just put his own life in danger to locate me, but I wasn’t going to lie to myself and say that I wasn’t glad that he was with me right now.
The water he’d brought had probably saved my life.
For some reason, I felt safe now that Colin was here, even if he did seem a little distant.
Honestly, what did I expect? We were strangers to each other now.
Colin had always been gruff and stoic, but I sensed that he’d changed a little.
There was more of an edginess to him that hadn’t existed when I’d known him years ago.
“Are you crying?” he asked.
“Just a little,” I confessed. “I guess I’m relieved that I’m not going to die here. I’m not sure how much longer I could have held out without water. Thank you for coming for me.”
“It’s what we do,” he said casually. “We’ve been doing it for a long time.”
“You’ve been doing it forever,” I corrected. “I know we agreed not to share personal information in Virginia Beach, but I’m sure you were military, and I suspect you were probably special forces.”
“Why did you think that?” he questioned.
I shrugged. “You’re the most hypervigilant guy I’ve ever met. And you were intense. It was just a guess. Was I right?”
“Are we revealing our secrets now?” Colin asked cautiously.
“Why not?” I asked. “I already know one of your biggest secrets now about Last Hope. I promise I’ll never tell anyone. I understand why it needs to stay a secret.”
“I was a SEAL commander. I was stationed in Virginia Beach,” he said grudgingly. “And I wasn’t especially vigilant when I plowed you over on the sidewalk. I was fresh off a mission, and I was still reviewing everything we did in my head.”
“Yeah, you seemed pretty uptight that first day,” I agreed. “I’m not sure I would have accepted your invitation to have a drink if you hadn’t seemed so…troubled and serious.”
“Did you feel sorry for me?” he asked, sounding disgruntled.
Maybe it was a little weird for us to be talking about the past, but it was certainly better than worrying about dying here in Lania before we could be rescued.
Talking to Colin and discussing things we’d never talked about in Virginia Beach was a good distraction for me.
“No,” I said truthfully. “But my instincts told me that I could trust you. Those instincts were right. So when did you retire from the military?”
I wasn’t the type of woman who accepted invitations from strangers, but something about Colin had drawn me to him.
I realized almost immediately that we had some incredible chemistry that I’d never experienced before.
Seconds ticked by, and Colin didn’t answer my question.
It was a simple question, but something told me that the answer must be…complicated.