Chapter 16 #2
It was more than clear that she wasn't the first woman this man had owned, because when he took her to a corner of the porch, she saw several metal cuffs already in place.
Although she struggled, it didn't do any good.
Moments later, her wrists were chained behind her back and attached to the porch railings, her free ankle was secured in a cuff, and the one already cuffed was attached to a chain.
The chain used as a leash was attached to the wall, and she was trussed up and helpless, still wearing the skimpy lingerie from the auction, dessert for these disgusting pigs.
“If you're a good girl, you’ll get something to eat at the end,” her buyer told her as he unzipped his pants, freeing a rather insipid-looking penis, although it was already hard and straining toward her.
As he shoved himself into her mouth, and there wasn't a single thing she could do to stop it from happening, Emma found her resolve strengthening. She was going to find a way to get him to kill her because she couldn’t survive this for very long without shattering into a million pieces.
August 7th
8:25 A.M.
“Relax, dude, they’re coming.”
Whirling on Falcon, Nathan glowered at him. “Would you be relaxing knowing who has your girl and not being able to do anything about it?”
“If it was Hope, I would be getting ready to rip the man who stole her from me apart limb by limb. Then destroy anyone who helped in any way, no matter how small,” Falcon said with such seriousness that it actually offered him a little comfort.
At least Falcon got it. Understood what he was going through.
Only he didn't.
Not really.
Because Hope really had been Falcon’s girl, and Emma was his nothing.
He dragged his fingers through his hair hard enough to make his scalp sting because he needed the pain to ground him, to stop him from completely losing his mind. “I have to stop calling her that,” he muttered more to himself than his boss.
“Calling her what?” Falcon asked.
“My girl. She’s not. She’s never going to be.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s a pretty safe bet, I think, given how I met her, how little time we’ve known one another, and the fact that I failed her so dramatically.”
“I didn't know Hope long before we fell for each other.”
“Yeah, but there’s a pretty big difference. You went to Colombia to save her life, I participated in holding Emma hostage.”
“You weren't holding her hostage, you were doing your job,” Falcon reminded him.
“Technicality as far as she’s concerned, I'm sure.”
“Did you ask her that?”
“Didn't really have time for a long Q and A.”
“Right. So you don’t know what she’s thinking. Besides, you said yourself that she already figured out on her own that you were different than the others. She saw the good in you even before you told her the truth.”
The thing was, Nathan wasn't so sure there was any good left in him.
A driving need to save? Yes, that would always be there.
It was who he was, and he didn't see that changing.
But so many years spent undercover had eradicated any goodness that had existed long ago.
That was the only way to explain how he was able to watch what was happening to those poor women and stand by and let it happen because the big picture meant letting them suffer temporarily in order to do the most good in the long run.
“There’s also a chance that she thinks I was lying to her,” he muttered, unwilling to voice the fear that had been eating away at him since he’d returned to the warehouse to find that Emma had been sent to auction.
“Why would she think you were lying?”
“Because I didn't do what I'd promised. I didn't get her out. Instead, I wasn't even there when they took her.” Even if Emma could forgive him for that—and that was an enormous if as far as he was concerned—he sure as hell wouldn't be forgiving himself.
“You were walking a fine line between protecting her and the others, as best you could, and maintaining your cover. I think Emma is smart enough to understand that.”
Before he could argue the point, because he would have argued it until he was blue in the face, the door to Falcon’s office swung open, and Hope led a team of eight dangerous-looking men inside.
Finally.
“I’ll be back with coffee,” Hope announced. “You can't plan a rescue mission without it.”
“Thanks, honey,” Falcon said, drawing his wife into his arms so he could drop a kiss to her lips.
“Of course. You’ve got this,” Hope said, turning her attention to him. “You’re going to get her back in your arms soon.”
Never soon enough.
“Thanks,” he said, because he really did appreciate Hope trying to keep his spirits up even if it felt like they were merely plummeting deeper and deeper with each tick of the clock.
Hope closed the door behind her on the way out, and with the ten of them standing in the room, it suddenly seemed a whole lot smaller than it had just moments ago.
But surely between the ten of them, with their years of experience that added up to over a century worth of time in the field, they’d find a way to bring Emma home.
“They’re Delta,” Falcon said. His boss had been in Delta Force before his team was betrayed, and he lost them.
It had led Falcon to disappear from his family’s lives for years as he avoided the threat still hanging over his head.
Thankfully, it had been resolved, and Falcon had been able to return to his family, and now worked at Prey along with his five siblings.
“Trigger,” a man with black hair and gray eyes announced as he stepped forward and held out his hand.
Nathan shook it, although he wasn't really interested in introductions.
It wasn't that he didn't care about these men, and he was eternally thankful that Falcon had been able to pull in a Delta Force Team at such short notice, he just wanted to get going, stop sitting around, and get to Kenya to get Emma back.
“That’s Lefty.” Trigger pointed to a man with brown hair and brown eyes.
“Brain.” He pointed to the shortest man of the group who had brown hair and light green eyes.
“Oz,” he said, moving onto the tallest, who had brown hair and gray eyes.
“Lucky,” he said, indicating the man with black hair and hazel eyes.
“Doc,” he said, pointing to the man with brown hair and blue eyes.
“Grover.” He indicated the blond with brown eyes.
“And last up is Rocket,” Trigger finished up, pointing to the man with black hair and brown eyes.
One by one, Nathan did the polite thing and shook hands with each of the warriors standing before him. If there was ever a team he’d want at his back, this would have to be it, but they were wasting precious seconds here.
“Look, I know you just want to get out there, find your girl, and get her back home,” Trigger said, his gray eyes full of understanding, not the kind that was simple empathy, but the kind that said he’d been in Nathan’s shoes at some point.
“We all get it, we’ve all been there, watched the women we love in danger, felt that same desperation.
We will do everything within our power to help, to get her back to you, but as hard as it is to accept right now, we need to do this smart or we just get your girl killed. ”
“I don’t love her,” he mumbled somewhat automatically.
Which was true, it was far too early to claim love, it was more like he felt …
pre-love. Which wasn't even a thing. All he knew was that he was being pulled toward her by an invisible string, and he didn't want to fight against that. “And she’s not mine.”
Trigger merely shrugged. “Whatever you say. We’ll get her back to you all the same.”
“Guaranteed,” Grover said, and there was something in the blond’s brown eyes that managed to convince Nathan that it might actually be true.
He might not know these guys’ stories—you didn't work deep undercover for a decade and remain in the know about special forces communities—but he had a feeling that what Trigger had said was true. These men had all been through something with the women they loved and come out the other side intact.
“It doesn’t seem like it right now, but between us and Prey’s resources, we have what it takes to find her and get her out,” Lefty told him.
“And destroy every one of the monsters who took her,” Brain added.
“We have a name, and we have a location,” Rocket reminded him.
“All we need to do is get to Kenya, scope out the place, get an idea of what we’re up against and how easy it’s likely to be to get your girl out of there, then go in and grab her.
” Rocket’s brows arched as he called Emma Nathan’s girl, daring him to disagree again.
Only he wouldn't.
Couldn’t.
Even if Emma wanted nothing to do with him once he got her back home, there would always be a part of her that would belong to him, a part of her strength, bravery, intelligence, and resilience that he would carry with him.
Fate had brought her into his path for a reason.
Just because he wasn't sure what that reason was yet didn't mean he didn't recognize that only a higher power could have pushed the two of them together and stoked up these feelings in him.
The future was uncertain, always had been, but one thing he knew without a doubt was that these men would help him get Emma to safety.
What happened next was up in the air, but he was going to ensure she was able to live a long and happy life, even if he had to give his to make sure it happened.