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Lace and I make small talk for the next thirty minutes on the drive to my house. She tells me about her parents and about how she lost them in an accident, and I tell her about my dad and how I lost my mom to cancer when I was younger. We pull into the driveway and climb out of the car.
“Hello, Kiska,” a thick Russian accent says from behind us. “You’ve been naughty.”
I whirl around to stare down the intruder, and Lace freezes. We were so distracted by our conversation that neither of us noticed the dark SUV pull up.
My body jerks like it's being struck by lightning before the world tilts on its axis.
CHAPTER 1
JAXSON
“No… no… please, stop!”
Screams assault my ears the closer I get to the closed door. My team has the shack surrounded and awaits my signal to breach it. I close my eyes and silently pray before raising my boot to kick in the door. Skin slapping skin and grunting noises rise above the pleas of a woman.
“Alpha team, go,” I growl at the same time my foot connects with the flimsy piece of wood.
I’ve seen a lot of fucked up shit in my life, but the scene in front of me threatens to drop me to my knees. Five men litter the room in different stages of undress, and four of them are stroking their flaccid cocks. The fifth man is gripping the hips and thrusting wildly inside of the sobbing female who’s tied to a table on her stomach.
My eyes seek out hers. I want her to know that the good guys are here, but when she turns her head, only a vacant look stares back at me. The man rutting into her is so far gone that he hasn’t even noticed that I’ve entered the room.
The other men start screaming as the rest of my men descend. The kidnappers reach for their guns, but they’re too slow, and each one drops as a bullet hits their forehead, endingtheir miserable lives. The fucker raping the woman finally comes out of his sex-fueled haze, picks a knife up off the table, and charges toward me.
“Come on, motherfucker,” I taunt.
He swings the knife, but I grab his wrist and flip it back toward him, jabbing him in the stomach. He sags to the floor, the grin on his face nothing but pure evil.
“I broke her,” he says with a laugh. “We marked her. She’ll never be safe.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I lift my gun and fire one bullet between his eyes, watching him slump over.
“Rivers,” Thomas calls out. “She won’t let us near her.”
I rock back on my heels and turn toward Aurora. Someone already cut her free from the table. They also covered her with a blanket which she's currently cowered under in the corner, but the flimsy material isn't larger enough to hide her.
I shift toward her with my hands in the air so she can see that I don’t have any weapons and mean her no harm. “Aurora,” I call out softly.
“No, please,” she begs. “No more. Kill me. Please, just kill me.”
“Aurora,” I say more firmly. “Your dad sent us. You’re safe. We’re here to take you home.”
She shakes her head. “Can’t trust anyone.”
I lift my brows and look around at my men. Thomas shrugs and moves to grab Aurora before I can stop him. A blood-curdling scream reverberates off the walls.
“Back the fuck off, Thomas,” I grit through my teeth.
Thomas takes a step back, his hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t going to hurt her.”
“I know that, but she doesn’t.”
Keeping my hands raised so she can see them, I step forward slowly. After a few steps, I drop to my knees, my hands placedin front of me. I will my facial muscles to relax so as not to show the looming anger that threatens to rise to the surface. Those fuckers died too quickly for my liking. I wish I could’ve taken my time and made them suffer the way Aurora and the others before her have. We recovered twenty-five other women before finally locating our main target.
“You don’t know us, but I swear we’re the good guys. I’m going to take off my shirt so I can cover you up.” I toss my helmet and bulletproof vest to Thomas, who catches it with ease, and slowly pull my shirt off. Aurora flinches, smacking her head into the flimsy wall. “Fuck… are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer but watches me, wide-eyed. Now that my shoulder is exposed, she can see my ink. A skull with an oar and knife crisscrossed behind it with gnarly wings on the side. Every Marine Force Recon has one on our team.
“Winchester,” I say with a silent prayer.