CHAPTER TWENTY
NOAH
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Quinn’s scent surrounds me as I hold her in my arms. My eyes are closed, but I can feel her. We are floating on a boat in the Bahamas...
I think.
“Noah,” she whispers.
I love you.
Did she say that?
I know she loves me, even if she won’t say it.
“Noah,” more insistent. “Oh God. I’m going to come for you.”
Like...sexually?
No, that doesn’t fit. It should...but she sounds worried, not aroused. I never want Quinn to be scared. I’ll protect her with my life.
My head hurts.
From too many drinks in the sun, or perhaps sunstroke? Were we playing cards?
Confusion blurs my thinking.
Where is she?
I can’t feel her as I did before.
A cold, hard surface replaces the blissful floating feeling sharply.
My eyes snap open. Piercing pain slams into my skull.
“Fuck,” I groan, blinking as the glare of a single lightbulb in the musty room greets me.
Cartel.
I’ve been captured.
“Don’t make any trouble, Marine,” a guy dressed in black tactical pants and a plain T-shirt says in broken English.
“Not a Marine.” I rub my forehead. “Who are you?”
“Someone who’s going to kill you in a few hours.” He grins and reveals stained teeth.
“Then tell me your name,” I press, because knowledge is power.
“You can call me Lucifer,” he laughs, and I swear I can smell his dirty breath from here.
I gag.
“Well then, fuck you Lucifer.” I rest back against the floor and steel myself against my pounding head.
If I’m going to die, I’m not going to be polite to these assholes, but then my brain kicks into gear.
Quinn!
I sit up, cringe at the pain and stumble to my knees. She was there. In the clearing. Unarmed.
The bullet.
Did they kill her?
“Lucifer!” I yell over and over and over when the door clicks shut.
If she’s dead, I will fucking tear that piece of shit to pieces. All of them. Slowly. Not stopping until they feel the pain I will suffer if she is gone.
Despite the decapitating pain in my skull, I search for a way out.
Quinn.
Quinn!
You better be alive.