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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“This is a joke, right?” MacGyver asked no one in particular.

The “mission” they’d been sent on was to fly to the other side of the world, go up in helicopters, and drop crates of weapons in strategic places so Ukrainian forces could gather them up and use them against the Russian forces attempting to occupy their country.

It wasn’t as if the SEALs hadn’t done this kind of thing before, but usually they’d been tasked to do so in the middle of a war zone. Dropping weapons and ammunition to fellow American soldiers who’d been pinned down and needed reinforcements. From what Preacher understood, the Russian army was miles away from this particular DZ, and wouldn’t be anywhere near it for at least a day or two.

The bottom line was, this drop wasn’t particularly dangerous. Any platoon could’ve done what they were doing. It made no sense. And things that didn’t make sense made every SEAL’s “oh shit” meter go crazy.

Something had to be wrong. Preacher would normally assume their intel was faulty and they were flying into an ambush. In theory, they had plenty of time to make the drop. The small city not too far from the drop zone had already been pretty heavily bombed. Most civilians had fled the area, and their intel said the Russian troops sent to flush out any remaining stragglers were in no rush. Which was the alleged reason they were dropping weapons here. The area should be safe for Ukrainian soldiers to get in and out before the enemy arrived.

Maybe the Russian forces were closer than they’d been told. Maybe that was the feeling churning in Preacher’s gut.

“This is a red herring,” Smiley muttered. “We’re being tasked to do this bullshit drop to distract us from something else.”

“Yeah. To get us out of the fucking country so Robertson can get to Maggie.”

He glanced at MacGyver. His friend sounded just as pissed as Preacher. It made it hard to swallow through the lump of emotion in his throat. The team had talked a lot while on the plane, and they all agreed that Maggie was in danger. They hated that they’d had to leave so suddenly, and everyone was extremely worried about the fact that Preacher hadn’t been able to get a hold of her before they’d gone wheels up.

And now, hearing the concern and anger on Maggie’s behalf coming from MacGyver made Preacher truly understand the meaning of friendship. Yes, he’d felt the same way when shit had happened to Remi, Josie, and Wren, but this was different. Because he was on the other side. It was his woman possibly in danger—and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“So we drop these crates then get the fuck back to California,” Smiley said firmly.

Preacher wanted that more than he wanted to breathe, but it wasn’t so easy. They were at the mercy of their government. They went where they were told and did what they were ordered. They couldn’t decide to disobey an order and just get on a plane, a plane owned by the United States, and fly back to California.

“Arriving at the DZ in sixty seconds.”

The voice of one of the pilots in his ear made Preacher flinch. Looking out the open door of the chopper, he scanned the ground, surveilling the area where they were dropping the crates. Smiley and MacGyver were in the helicopter with him, and Safe, Blink, and Flash were in a second chopper. Kevlar was on the ground, monitoring the mission from their safe point in western Ukraine.

Preacher did his best to turn his mind to the task at hand. Anger bubbled just below the surface, but remembering Tex’s warning to keep his head in the game helped him concentrate on what needed to be done right that moment.

They had six crates that needed to be offloaded. The plan was for the chopper to hover about five feet off the ground while the SEALs pushed the crates out the door onto the deserted farmlands just outside the city. The goal was to avoid them breaking apart when they landed to protect the supplies inside. Ukrainian soldiers in the area would come and collect the weapons, then disappear into the city to get ready for the Russians.

Nothing about this felt right, but at this point, Preacher simply wanted to get it done and get back across the border. The sooner they finished, the sooner he could try to get a hold of Maggie again.

“Thirty seconds.”

Smiley and MacGyver were busy with the crates, pushing them closer to the open door, readying them to be released.

“Fifteen seconds.”

The chopper began to lower closer to the ground at a high rate of speed. Just because hostile forces weren’t immediately visible didn’t mean the pilots wanted to stick around any longer than necessary.

“Go, go go!” the pilot said.

Without hesitation, Preacher moved to the side and helped MacGyver push the first crate out the door. It landed and bounced once on the grassy surface. Smiley was already pushing the next crate forward, and Preacher repeated his actions.

They quickly got five crates out the door and were on the last one.

“This one is way lighter than the others,” MacGyver commented over the headset as he pushed it toward the open door.

Preacher didn’t care. All he wanted was to be done with this asinine assignment and get back to fucking Southern California.

The pilots had moved the chopper forward several feet after each crate had dropped, so they didn’t land on each other. Preacher watched with detachment as the last crate landed in the long weeds below. The helicopter had begun to rise back into the air as soon as the crate had left the cargo area.

Instead of bouncing or rolling a few feet to a stop, the last crate cracked open upon impact. And what Preacher saw had his blood running cold.

He didn’t have time to say anything to the pilots. He ripped off his headset, grabbed the safety line that had been prepared earlier just in case they needed to evacuate the chopper at a moment’s notice, and leapt through the door, fast-roping to the ground below.

He felt more than saw the helicopter stop its ascension, but all Preacher’s concentration was focused on that last crate. He couldn’t have been more shocked by what was inside if someone had told him he’d won the lottery…when he didn’t even play.

Maggie.

He’d recognize her anywhere, and not only because she was wearing the same thing she’d had on the morning they’d argued, when he’d left the country on this fucking mission .

It was impossible. Yet, his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

Maggie had been in that last crate. And she was currently lying motionless in the tall grasses and dirt.

Preacher felt as if he was running through molasses. He couldn’t get to her fast enough. His heart was thumping hard in his chest, and adrenaline was making him shaky. Was she dead? Had Robertson killed her, and this was how he was going to dispose of her body? By making Preacher and his team do the dirty deed? The thought made him want to puke.

He had to get to her. Nothing else was in his mind. Not hostiles who might be incoming. Not the chopper hovering over his head. Not even the sound of MacGyver, yelling his name behind him.

Maggie was all that mattered.

Maggie groaned. She was so confused. She’d been through hell in the last two days. At least…she thought it had been two days. In the dark box, though, she’d had no real way of telling time. She’d been moved a few times, and even with the earplugs still in her fucking ears, she’d been able to hear the loud, unmistakable sound of a helicopter.

She had no idea what was happening or where she was, but when the box she was in suddenly became weightless for a few brief seconds, she’d let out a startled scream behind the tape.

The pain from landing was intense, and for a moment, she’d blacked out. But when she opened her eyes, Maggie was surprised that she could see. The box she’d been in had broken open.

Hands grabbed at her, and her self-preservation kicked in. Even though her own hands were still bound behind her, she fought. Using her legs to kick at whoever was hovering over her, turning her onto her side, kneeling…

The sudden light after days of darkness almost blinded her, but Maggie forced herself to look at whatever horror she’d suddenly been thrown into now—and froze.

She couldn’t be seeing what she thought she was seeing. Who she was seeing.

Shawn.

“What the fuck?”

She didn’t hear him, but she could read his lips. He began to tug at the tape around her mouth, which yanked at her hair, so she tried to pull away from him.

Then another set of hands was on her. Looking to her side as best she could, Maggie saw MacGyver. She had no idea where they were, or how Shawn and his friend had found her, but she was eternally grateful.

But panic quickly sank in. This was probably all part of Roman’s plan! Whatever he had up his sleeve couldn’t be good. Shawn was in danger. Because of her . She tried to tell him to get away from her. To leave her and go, but the damn tape was still over her mouth.

MacGyver had already managed to remove what turned out to be zip-ties around her wrists, and the relief she felt at being free was almost as overwhelming as it was painful. The blood flowing freely down her arms was like the sensation of hitting her funny bone. Hard.

Shawn’s mouth was moving as if he was talking to her, but the damn earplugs made anything he was saying impossible to hear. Turning onto her back, and groaning at how good it felt, she reached a hand up to her ear. She removed one earplug, then the other.

“What the fuck?” MacGyver said, mimicking Shawn.

“Earplugs,” Maggie said behind the tape, even though he could clearly see for himself what they were.

“Maggie! Are you all right? How the hell are you here?”

She shook her head at the same time she said, “I’m not okay yet. But I will be if you give me a minute or two to get my bearings.” That was what she tried to say, but the tape over her mouth prevented the words from being understandable.

“Here,” MacGyver said, handing something to Shawn.

It was a knife. A wicked-looking one with serrated edges. Anyone else who came at her face with that thing would’ve gotten a foot to the groin, but it was Shawn holding the deadly weapon. Maggie closed her eyes, letting him do what needed to be done.

She felt the tape loosen around her face, then Shawn said, “This is going to hurt.”

Maggie nodded but didn’t open her eyes. She’d done what she could over the last couple days to try to dampen the tape, to loosen it around her lips, but that wouldn’t help the adhesive that was stuck tight to her cheeks.

Shawn did his best to move fast, but he hadn’t been wrong. Peeling the tape off her face still hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

“Maggie?” he asked fearfully.

“Shawn,” she whispered. Her mouth was dry, she felt kind of sick from lack of water or food. But she was alive. That was all that mattered.

“Fuck!” he said. He was breathing hard, his eyes were huge, and his hands actually shook as he took her face in his hand.

Then his lips were on hers. It was a gentle kiss, but a life-affirming one.

He pulled back and immediately reached for something on his belt. “Here, drink this.”

Water .

Maggie would never take it for granted again. She tried not to gulp it down, but she could feel it leaking out the corners of her mouth as she desperately took in the lifesaving liquid faster than she should.

“Easy,” Shawn warned, pulling the canteen away from her.

Maggie made a small sound of protest in the back of her throat.

“I know. I’ll give you more in a second. You need to let that settle first.”

“Preacher, we have incoming,” MacGyver said.

Glancing at him, Maggie saw him gesture over their heads. Looking past Shawn for the first time, she saw a helicopter in the distance—coming at them fast. A second chopper, one much closer that seemed to be hovering nearby, suddenly banked hard to the left, gaining height and speed as it took off in the opposite direction.

“What the hell? Thought they weren’t coming for a couple days,” Shawn said.

“Guess our intel was wrong. Not that I’m surprised. We need to get going,” MacGyver said.

“Can you stand?” Shawn asked Maggie.

“Yes,” she told him, not knowing if that was true or not. But if the look MacGyver was giving Shawn was any indication, she didn’t have a choice. She’d fucking cartwheel her way out of here, wherever here was, if she had to.

A loud crack echoed around them, and both Shawn and MacGyver flinched and hunched over, as if trying to duck below whatever had made that sound.

“We need to get away from the crates,” MacGyver said, sounding almost calm now, when moments before he’d definitely seemed anxious.

“Hostiles or friendlies?” Shawn asked.

“Don’t know. But I’m thinking the farther away from these crates we can get, the better. I’d rather not get between two dogs and the bone they both want.”

“The Russians were supposed to be days away,” Shawn repeated.

Her head swung back and forth between the two men as if she were at a tennis match. Then what Shawn said sank in.

Russians? What the hell?

“We’ll hole up,” Shawn added. “The team’ll come back when things quiet down. ”

“Smiley and the others are gonna be pissed that we’ve been left here,” MacGyver said, sounding as if he was merely discussing where to go out for lunch.

“They’ll be back as soon as they can. They can’t risk an international incident, and they know we can take care of ourselves,” Shawn said. He looked down at Maggie. “Come on, we need to get you up and moving.”

Maggie tried to stand, and immediately found that she was extremely weak and shaky. If it wasn’t for Shawn’s arm around her waist, she would’ve fallen on her face.

“Russians?” she asked, as she prayed to get some strength back in her body.

“Yeah. We’re in Ukraine. Come on, take a few steps, see if that helps.”

Maggie’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “How…what… I don’t understand.”

“We’ll talk after we’re safe. Because we are definitely not safe right now.”

The loud cracking sound happened again, and this time Shawn put his hand on the back of her head and urged her to duck down with him and MacGyver.

“You’ll have to carry her,” MacGyver said.

“Yep.” Shawn turned around. “Climb on,” he told her.

Maggie blinked. Things were moving way too quickly. She didn’t understand anything that was happening. She was in Ukraine? The country ?

MacGyver didn’t give her time to further process anything, he simply picked her up under the arms and placed her on Shawn’s back as if she were a kid. Instinctively, she tightened her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. One of Shawn’s hands went under her ass to hold her up.

“Go!” he said urgently to MacGyver.

The other man took off, with Shawn and Maggie at his heels.

The cracking sounds, which she now understood to be gunfire, echoed around them more and more. It felt as if they ran forever, and Maggie had to close her eyes as she was jostled and bumped on Shawn’s back. The water she’d guzzled threatened to come back up, but she refused to puke all over Shawn’s shoulder and chest.

The sounds of gunfire eventually faded as they continued to run. Maggie opened her eyes and saw they were nearing what seemed to be a city. Well, what used to be a city. Now it was mostly a pile of rubble. Everywhere she looked, there were destroyed houses and buildings on the outskirts. Burnt-out cars sat in the middle of what were once roads. The smell of death and destruction was thick in the air.

Once they entered the city proper, they didn’t stop, although they weren’t running anymore. MacGyver led them over piles of rock and debris as they picked their way farther and farther into the heart of whatever city this used to be.

Every now and then, Maggie could swear she saw a person duck behind a broken window of a dilapidated building or scoot around a crumbled wall, but she couldn’t be sure. No one approached them, but maybe more importantly, no one threatened them in any way.

She was just about to beg to be put down—her feet were numb and she still thought she might throw up—when MacGyver approached what looked like just another pile of rocks.

“Wait here,” he told Shawn, before ducking under a huge piece of plywood and disappearing.

Shawn slowly lowered Maggie to her feet, and she could’ve gone to her knees and kissed the ground right then and there, but he turned, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her against his chest. She buried her nose into the space between his shoulder and head and hung on, as tightly as he was holding onto her.

One hand was at the back of her head, and the other was an iron band around her waist.

“Fuck, Maggie. Fuck .”

“You sound like Blink,” she muttered against him.

She felt more than heard him snort. Then he pulled back. “I’m sorry. I should’ve believed you without question.”

Maggie shook her head. She’d had lots of time to think about what had happened back in California. “No, you had plenty of reasons to doubt what I was saying.”

“Well, suffice it to say, I believe you now. We all do.”

“Are we really in Ukraine?”

“Yes.”

“I’m still confused about what’s happening. ”

“Me too. But we’ll talk and figure it out, as soon as MacGyver finds us a safe place to hole up.”

“Okay.”

“Here, drink some more water,” Shawn urged. He took the hand from behind her head and held out the canteen once more.

Maggie wanted to gulp it down again, but something occurred to her. Looking around, she realized there wasn’t going to be a handy faucet to deliver more clean water once the canteen was empty. And Shawn would need to drink too. Probably needed more than she would, since she was definitely out of her league right now. This was Shawn’s world, and she hadn’t ever been more grateful for someone at her side than she was right that moment. She had no idea how the hell he was there, but she wasn’t going to question her luck.

After taking a long sip, which didn’t come close to satisfying her thirst, she tried to hand it back to him.

“No, finish it,” he told her with a shake of his head, trying to bring the canteen back up to her lips.

“But you need to drink too,” she said.

“I will. After you’re taken care of.”

Maggie looked around exaggeratedly. “I’m not seeing any water fountains around here to refill the canteen,” she told him sarcastically.

To her surprise, he grinned. Then got serious quickly. “God, I could’ve lost this. Lost You .”

Maggie swallowed hard. She wanted nothing more than to burst into tears to let out some of the stress that had built up over the last couple of days, but she needed to stay strong. “Seriously, Shawn, I’m not going to drink all our water and not leave you any. Out of the two of us, I need you to stay strong the most. I’m completely useless here.”

“No, you aren’t. And we aren’t going to be here long. Kevlar and the others will arrange to come get us. Also, we can find water. I have purification tablets in my vest. We’re okay. Drink.”

With a sigh, she did as he ordered. She was thirsty, desperately so. And if he thought they would be rescued quickly, she’d believe him.

Just as she was finishing up the water, MacGyver reappeared, scaring Maggie so badly, she would’ve fallen on her ass if Shawn’s arm hadn’t still been around her.

“Easy, it’s just MacGyver.”

“It’s clean. Come on,” he told them.

Maggie was still shaky on her feet, but with Shawn’s help she was able to step over debris and crawl behind MacGyver until they’d reached a small pocket of safety between the crumbled ruins of a building.

“It’s not the Ritz, but it’ll do,” MacGyver announced. “Scrounged some stuff while I was finding this place too.” He gestured to a pile of odds and ends in the corner.

Shawn chuckled and turned to Maggie. “That’s why he’s called MacGyver. Because he somehow manages to create the most amazing tools out of nothing. Here, sit. Then we’ll talk.”

Once upon a time, those three words would’ve struck fear in Maggie’s heart. But now? She wanted to talk. Needed to. Had to find answers as to how the hell she’d ended up in freaking Ukraine in the middle of a conflict she’d only read about in the papers.

But deep down, she already knew. Roman Robertson. He’d done exactly what he’d threatened—fucked her and Shawn at the same time. She could only hope this time, things would be different. That she and the man she was definitely starting to think she was in love with wouldn’t fall prey to an evil man’s manipulations and immoral, evil plans.