Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Thanks to the enhanced skills Dr. Gardner had given them, Steel and his team didn't even need to set up a surveillance system. They’d parked themselves the maximum distance away from Rose that they could while Blade could still hear her, and Dragon could still smell her.
Then all they’d had to do was wait.
As soon as Blade announced that he could hear approaching vehicles, they’d adjusted their position so they wouldn't be spotted, and then Lion had shimmied himself up a tree so he could put his enhanced vision to good use.
Before they were even close enough to be detected, they knew that five vehicles had driven up on Rose’s position.
Five men dressed in full tactical gear were in four of the vehicles, which made for twenty opponents.
Another three in gear were in the remaining vehicle, and then the doctor himself and what was clearly one of the scientist’s minions.
Twenty-three to six, Steel liked those odds.
He had no doubt that the men Dr. Gardner had brought with him were highly trained, but he was also confident that they weren't super soldiers. If the mad scientist had already created another working team, he would have sent them out after Delta Team long before now.
So whoever the unlucky teams were that accompanied the doctor, they didn't stand a chance.
Steel wouldn't have felt regret for killing them either way, since they were a threat to his little ladybug, but the fact that they had to know what the scientist was up to and were willingly backing him meant they were just as evil as far as Steel was concerned.
They deserved to die.
“Uh, Steel, man, don’t lose it,” Lion called down from up in the tree where he was perched.
There was no way he wasn't going to lose it when Lion sounded tentative and concerned. A growl rumbled through his chest because there was only one thing Lion would be worried about.
“What did he do to her?” Steel demanded.
“He made her strip,” Lion replied.
Red rage clouded his vision. Whatever Dr. Gardner had done to mess with their ability to feel normal human emotions had amplified their anger. Just because he and the rest of his team had learned how to control it over the last ten years didn't mean it wasn't still there.
A constant companion.
Simmering under the surface, waiting for something to set it off.
The words his brother had just spoken were enough to do that.
“He’s worried about trackers,” Blade added, head cocked to the side.
“She complied without fighting it, and he’s sending his lackey in to wave a wand over her,” Lion continued.
Beside him, Thunder tensed, ready to spring into action if they needed to get someone to Rose immediately. The man could close out the distance between them and Rose and the others in less than a minute, which should be enough time to prevent anything disastrous from happening.
Steel hoped.
Prayed.
“They found the one behind her ear,” Lion continued his commentary.
They all tensed as they waited to see if her brother would locate the secondary one hidden just an inch away.
“He didn't,” Lion answered the unasked question. “Guy is moving the wand down her body.”
In his mind, Steel could picture Rose’s bruised body on display to all the men surrounding her.
Her delicate skin exposed to temperatures that could easily kill her.
She’d be shaking, even though he knew she wanted to look tough in front of her brother, there was no way her system wouldn't be doing everything it could to warm her up.
Unless she’d already slipped too deep into hypothermia, where it now lacked the ability to even attempt to regulate her body temperature.
No.
Lion said she was standing and complying with her brother’s commands. She wasn't lost to hypothermia yet.
“Found the one on her ankle,” Lion told them. Then a moment later, “But just the stick on one. She still has four trackers on her.”
Their plan was to take out whoever had come with Dr. Gardner here and now, and then knock Ridge himself out and return with him to their mansion, where they could lock him up in the basement and have their fun with him before killing him.
The trackers were insurance in case Rose’s brother had done a snatch and grab.
That wasn't what they thought Ridge would do, because he believed Rose to be close to the location where they’d taken her when they kidnapped her, but since this was his woman’s life on the line, he wasn't taking any chances.
“Let’s go,” he said to the others. They’d given Dr. Gardner enough time to believe that if they were tracking Rose, they would have already launched their attack, but he didn't want to give the man too much time. The last thing he wanted was Rose alone with her brother for any reason.
His little ladybug was as tough as they came, but her brother was a damn psychopath who got off on hurting her. The man was never going to lay a hand on Rose again. It was time for her to be the one to inflict a little damage.
As soon as Lion’s feet hit the ground, they were all off, moving as one, a tight-knit group that may as well share one mind when they were on an op.
While the rest of them didn't have Thunder’s enhanced speed, they worked out for hours a day, every day, so they were fast and strong and well prepared to take on a measly twenty-three-man army.
Letting Thunder make his impressive entrance as a distraction, Steel adjusted his hold on his weapon, not wanting the fury raging inside him to control him and have him break it.
While he wanted to kill each and every one of these men with his bare hands as a punishment for daring to threaten his girl with their presence, they had to go with speed and efficiency.
Like they’d known it would, the blur of movement as Thunder rushed through the gathered group threw it into chaos.
Weapons fired, and people shouted as he and his team began to make quick work of picking off the guards one by one. Knowing his team could handle taking out all of them, Steel focused instead on Rose.
When it all boiled down to it, he would sacrifice anything to protect her.
Including his own revenge.
The thought slammed into him like a ton of bricks. It was true, he realized as he staggered slightly in his single-minded need to get to Rose, protect what was his. If he had to make a choice between vengeance and Rose’s life, he would choose his little ladybug every single time.
What was the point of killing his enemy, the man who had destroyed his life, if it cost him the only shot at a future he was ever going to have?
“You led them to me,” Dr. Gardner hissed at Rose as he grabbed her and threw her into the closest vehicle.
Whatever answer she sassed back at him, and Steel was one hundred percent certain his little ladybug had something to say to the brother she despised, was lost to him as the car sped off.
His howl of rage at Rose being taken away from him drew the attention of the closest armed men, and they quickly turned their weapons on him.
Something feral came over him, a primitive part of his brain that Dr. Gardner had been trying to find and exploit, and he gave into it. It demanded that anything that presented itself as a threat to him going after his girl be destroyed.
Tossing his weapon aside, Steel launched himself at the closest man.
Unprepared for his strength, the man dropped as Steel connected with him. Using every inch of enhanced strength the deranged doctor, who had just cowardly fled the scene of what he knew was going to be a slaughter had given him, Steel snapped the spine of the man pinned helplessly beneath him.
Picking up the body, he threw it at two men who were trying to fire at him, but also trying not to hit their colleague.
All three of them went down, and before the two still alive could manage to get out from under the weight pinning them down, Steel was there. He grabbed one man’s skull between his hands and crushed it like it was nothing in a move reminiscent of Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th franchise.
The remaining man fumbled for his weapon, fear evident in his eyes, even as acceptance filtered in. Before the man could pick up his weapon and aim, Steel slammed his foot down on his face, crushing his skull like he’d just done to the other man’s.
Silence filled the area.
No more screams, no more weapons fired.
Not even the roar of the engine from the car cowardly Dr. Gardner had fled in, with Rose as his hostage, was still audible.
The only ones still standing were him and his team. You didn't create a special ops unit of monsters and expect to be able to control them. Or at least you didn't if you were smart.
“He took her,” he snarled at his team.
“That way,” Blade said, pointing to the east.
Dragon held a tablet in his hand and nodded. “I've got her on the screen. Hold it together, we’re going to get her back, and then we’re going to make her brother wish he’d never been born.”
With a nod, Steel moved toward the closest vehicle and jumped in. Thunder might be able to chase the car on foot, but the rest of them wouldn't be able to keep up with a moving vehicle, and he needed his girl back in his arms, needed to find a way to convince her to want to be his.
January 2nd
3:18 A.M.
At her taunt, Ridge snarled and snapped out a hand, wrapping it around her arm and tugging her forward.
The move would have hurt regardless, but the wrist he grabbed was her broken wrist. His fingers tightened, and Rose would have sworn she could feel the bones shifting inside her as he dragged her half across the seat so she was almost sprawled in his lap.
“You make nice with the little monsters, sister?” Ridge sneered.
Shoving the pain out of her mind so she could focus, she met her brother’s gaze squarely. “Call them monsters all you want, they’re better men than you’ll ever be.”