Page 55 of Kai (Alpha Heroes #13)

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m going to get rid of his gear and clothes.

” He tossed orange life jacket pieces to the far corner.

“We need to make sure he doesn’t have any weapons he can use against us.

I’ve got him tranq’ed, but I won’t take risks with you on board.

We need to keep him tied even while we strip him down.

I’m not letting this fucker hurt you, not on my watch. ”

My heart did a happy flip in my chest, celebrating his protectiveness, his love.

Kai removed the life jacket. He tackled the man’s camo jacket next, slicing his blade along the seams. Ripping the shirt at the shoulders, he cut around the sleeves.

While he worked, I took off the merc’s heavy boots and peeled off his soaked socks.

I hissed at the smell. I didn’t want to touch the asshole, but the man couldn’t fight us while he was out.

The sooner we did this, the better.

Leaving the sleeves in place, Kai grabbed the front of the merc’s shirt, ripped it off, and checked it closely before he set it aside. He turned the man onto his side and cut off the pressure bandage that bound his ribs.

“Okay,” he murmured as he worked to divest the merc from the rest of his clothes. “You can check for scars on his back.”

“Scars?” I drew back, aware of the rip of Kai’s knife rendering through fabric. “Why?”

“Because he may have a geolocator implanted under his skin.” Beneath the neoprene, Kai’s biceps bulged elegantly as he tackled the man’s pants.

A grimace twisted my lips. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re a scientist, Cece, not a special operator.” Kai exhaled even as he continued his work. “Even though you’re crazy smart, you can’t foresee every single contingency in life. We talked about this. Remember?”

“Yeah,” I murmured, although breaking my lifelong patterns didn’t come easy, because they were—well—patterns.

But if Li and the NWO kept trackers on their mercs, we were in trouble. I gulped down a surge of panic.

“Easy, Sorceress.” Kai didn’t have to look at me to sense my terror. “They’re not here yet, and Bellator’s not tracking any threats. That’s something.”

“True.” I took a deep breath. “Off I go to find me some scars.”

“Check his clothing, too,” Kai instructed. “Sometimes, they stitch a tracker in their clothes.”

“Got it.”

Perching my hands on the merc’s big shoulders, I pinched the wet fabric between my fingers and peeled the shirt off his back.

Oh. My. God . I winced. “Um… Kai?”

“Yes?” he said, kneeling opposite to me, scouring the man’s beefy front.

“We have a problem. He’s got lots of scars on his back. As in lots.”

“Let me see.” Kai scooted around and settled on his shins next to me.

I waved my hand over the horrific sight before me. Between fresh scrapes, bruises, and scratches, groupings of raised lines marked his skin with chilling precision. They covered his entire back from one side to the other and got lost at the waist beneath his underwear.

Kai turned the man until he lay on his belly and whistled aloud.

“This is fucked up.” I grimaced. “His back looks like a whiteboard where someone’s been keeping score.”

“A tally.” Kai traced his gloved fingertips over a small grouping of four perpendicular lines crossed at an angle by a fifth line.

“I’ve seen this before in Africa.” He slid a small flashlight out of his tactical vest and shone it over the scars.

“I’ve also seen it in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. ”

I stared at the puckered scars. “Who does this shit to themselves?”

“This is how Bruckner mercs keep count of the people they’ve murdered.” Kai examined each grouping, one after the other. “Also, bearing the pain of the cuts is a sign of strength for these fuckers. Think of it as a rite of passage and a way to secure a promotion.”

I shook my head, disgusted. “That’s inhuman.”

“Bruckner operators are in the business of death and torture,” Kai offered. “Humanity is not a top priority for them.”

“Bruckner. ” I remember reading something about that. “You mean the Russian mercenary group that committed genocide in Africa?”

“That’s an affirm.”

“I thought they disbanded when someone assassinated their leader a few years ago.”

“Nope.” Kai scrutinized the man’s back. “The remaining mercs re-formed under the control of the Russian’s newest spy unit, The Department of Special Tasks. The Kremlin created the SSD to wage its shadow war in the West. This asshole either works for SSD or the Russians contracted him out to Li.”

Kai used his knife to rip the inseam of the merc’s pants and then, after a few more cuts, tore the fabric off his legs.

The tally scars continued. The groupings trickled down his thighs, over the back of his legs, all the way to his ankles.

When Kai pulled down the man’s underwear, more tallies neatly aligned over his buttocks.

Each tiny scar represented a person, a life smothered by violence. There were hundreds if not thousands of marks on this man. No, this wasn’t a man. He was a monster, a killing machine. I felt sick to my stomach.

“I’m gonna guess he’s one of those psychos that enjoy giving and receiving pain.” Kai turned the merc around and pointed with his blade at the neat rows of horizontal scars on his thighs. “These slices look like self-inflicted cuts.”

I shoved the sleeves down to the merc’s wrists and found similar lines on his forearms. “With all these wounds, bruises, scratches, and scars, how can we know for sure that he doesn’t have a geolocator implant somewhere?”

“Like this.”

He lifted his arm and pressed a few icons on his Tak. When it beeped, he removed it from his forearm, slid it out of the frame, and waved it slowly over the merc and his clothing. He was thorough, but he didn’t find any traces of a tracker.

“Maybe he had one here.” He examined the merc’s hand, undid a dirty bandage wrapped around his left palm, and waved his device over the crusted cut.

“The spot between the thumb and the pointer finger is a common location for subdermal trackers. Yup. If I had to guess, he had one here and dug it out himself.”

“I suppose that could be good news for us?”

“Or he did this to trick us into a false sense of security.”

“Or that.” I forced myself to swallow.

When Kai finished his search, he let the merc keep his tighty-whities and tended to the man’s injuries.

“Are you really going to take care of this monster’s wounds?” I asked.

“Even monsters fall under the rules of the Geneva Convention.”

This was Kai for you, a lethal warrior who operated on principles.

I wasn’t nearly as disciplined or as evolved as he was. “He’s a piece of shit. Has killed so many. He tried to kill you. He deserves all the pain in the world.”

“Dealing with monsters doesn’t change who I am.” Kai wrapped the man’s ribs. “In fact, it reminds me I don’t wanna turn into a beast like him.”

Leave it to Kai to teach me a lesson without entering a classroom or opening a book. He was right, of course, but when I thought of those marks, of every man, woman, and child that they represented, my fury flared and my reasoning dimmed.

“I’m tired of you being the better person all the time,” I grumbled, although I handed him a gauze pad. “Can you please be a normal asshole with rage issues like me?”

“I think we’ve established that I’m a normal asshole carrying a whole lot of shit in my bags.” His lips twitched as he bandaged the big gash on Dipshit’s head. “Besides, you may have issues, but you’re not an asshole.”

“Fine.” I grabbed some clean gauze and disinfected some of the man’s nicks and scrapes. “Go ahead, be the better person every time. I don’t aspire to the title. You can have it.”

“I appreciate your generosity.” Kai chuckled. “Also, your kindness and humor.”

“I’m not generous,” I snapped, but by now Kai was laughing openly. “I’m not kind, and dark humor doesn’t count. Don’t make me into someone I’m not.”

“A scientist in search of a cure for a deadly disease,” Kai droned on while he continued his work. “A good woman who fights for her loved ones and stands against injustice. A beloved sister and a steadfast friend. A solid partner and an adored lover. And yet she can’t handle praise.”

I rolled my eyes, but I drank his praise like sand sucked in water. Not only did Kai’s compliments please me, but they also built me from the inside out.

“It’s gonna be a while before this fucker wakes up.” He finished patching the merc and pushed up to his feet with a grunt. “I wanna secure him inside.”

Between us, we dragged the unconscious merc into the main cabin, sat him against a wall, and fastened him to a corner post with more heavy-duty zip ties, ropes, and duct tape. Between his restraints and his wounds, Dickface was going nowhere fast.

Once we’d trussed Levine, Kai and I agreed on a plan of action. It involved the good cop, bad cop routine, and a push for key information. By the time Kai ensured Levine couldn’t hurt us or himself, dawn painted the sky with fuchsia and orange streaks, announcing the new day.

“Last day at the cove.” I ambled to the window and took a moment to appreciate the cove’s extraordinary beauty. “This is not how I wanted to spend it.”

“Me, neither.” Even Kai’s adorable dimples looked tired when he smiled at me.

“We leave tonight.” I breathed a long exhale. “I’m going to miss these views, this place.”

“We can come back.” Daylight highlighted the hope in his eyes. “As many times as you like.”

An honest smile bloomed on my lips. Since when had I treasured promises? Since I met Kai. Another look at him, and my smile withered. The exhaustion stamped on his face marred his features. Even his copper skin had lost its sun-kissed glow.

He slid the gun out of my pocket, checked the mag, and returned it to me. “Keep it with you. I need to go below deck for a sec. Watch the merc. If he wakes up and makes any moves beyond blinking, shoot him. Understand?”

“Got it.” I sat down on a chair facing the merc with my gun in my hand.

Kai ambled to the stairs and disappeared into his berth. Something about his countenance niggled at me. Had I ever seen him so tired?

My eyes drifted to a trail of red drops. I’d seen the bloody smudges before on the deck as we worked on Levine. I’d assumed they came from the merc. But now, I tracked the blood across the room and to the steps. My heart skipped a beat.

Thump .

A dull crash drifted from Kai’s berth. I glanced at Levine, confirmed he was still out, and rushed to the hull.

“Kai?” I called out as I entered the room, following the trail of blood.

No reply.

I found him sprawled on the bathroom floor.

A surge of fear iced my bones as I knelt next to him.

His eyes were closed, and his pallor had turned to a sickly gray.

His tactical vest lay on the floor. He’d folded his wetsuit at the waist, exposing his bare torso.

An angry line marred his chest, gaping at an angle near his shoulder. The wound was bleeding.