Page 54 of Ravaged With You

I don’t understand what he means by any of this, but the pain is real. And I got a taste of that need for control in the way he pushed me against the wall, the feel of his hand against my throat, holding me still. “Have you talked to anyone?”

“Only everyone under the sun. They tell me it’s normal. That it’s PTSD. That I can work through it. But I’ve tried. Seven years I’ve been trying. It never gets better. It never fucking gets any better. At least after I met Marjorie—after I started sessions with her girls—at least then the nightmares stopped.”

“Red…” His words are breaking my heart.

His expression is fierce. “This is who I am now. I’ve accepted that. But I’m not taking you down with me.”

“I still don’t understand. What happened to you?”

He’s silent for so long I think that he’s not going to tell me, then he says, “We were assigned a mission to intercept a splinter cell of a terrorist organization that was using human trafficking as a source of capital.”

I nod, remembering the look on his face when Mario had mentioned that Stark Security was working on a human trafficking case, but I say nothing. Just wait for him to continue.

“It was six of us from the SOC. We were trying to track the splinter group, break them, and rescue as many victims as possible. At the same time, a small group of flight attendants had banded together to educate their peers about how to spot trafficking victims and get them safely from their captors. The group was growing, gaining interest from other airlines, and several from the group were asked to host seminars, basically spread the word.”

I stay silent, but nod for him to continue.

“Intel told us the group was attracting attention from trafficking organizations that weren’t happy with their results. For obvious reasons. So the SOC put an agent undercover with them. Her name was Lisa, and because of the nature of the work, we would meet up on occasion when she was between flights. She was deep cover, none of the other people at the airlines knew that she was anything other than what she appeared to be. But I did. We talked, we started dating.”

I feel a ping of jealousy, and hate myself for it.

I say nothing, though, except to urge him to go on even though my stomach is twisting uncomfortably. I know this story isn’t going to end well.

He tilts his head, cracking his neck, as if he can’t speak until he releases that tension. “We were a year into the job when we finally identified the leaders of the cell and their base just inside the Romanian border. The job was infiltration and capture. The powers that be wanted the leaders alive so we could get more intel.”

“Were you leading the team?”

He shakes his head. “No. That was Johnny. A good man. A good leader. But in the end, his skill, our team’s training, the fact that we had right on our side—none of it mattered. My entire team was captured, and they killed Johnny straight away. One bullet, right between the eyes.”

I wince.

“And the kicker? They simultaneously kidnapped three of the flight attendants who were on a layover, Lisa included.”

“Red, I’m so sorry.”

I’m not even sure he hears me. His voice is flat as he continues. “We were held hostage for I think two weeks before they started killing the rest of us off. I’m not sure. Time blurs, but for all that time, I was strapped to a chair.”

Tears prick my eyes as I picture that horrible scene.

“I lived in that chair for at least a month, maybe longer. My ass was raw from the excrement I was sitting in, I was in constant pain, the world a constant haze. I think I was unconscious most of the time, floating somewhere between this world and God knows where.”

He looks at me. I try not to react. And it takes all of my effort not to let the tears fall down my cheeks. But I don’t want to interrupt him. I don’t want to give him any reason to stop talking.

“They started killing off my companions. Some got off easy with a bullet to the head. Others were tortured. One man was flayed alive.”

He draws a deep breath. “When it was just me and the women, they took me out of the chair. They cleaned me up. They tended my wounds. They fed me. They waited until I was somewhat strong again. I thought perhaps they were going to release us with a message. That they didn’t want the torture to show too dramatically.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in the sounds.

“I was so fucking wrong. All they were doing was making sure I was fully cognizant when they went on to the next step in their plan.”

“What did they do?” The question is a whisper, and I’m certain I don’t really want to hear the answer.

“They forced me to watch as they raped the three women. Alice, Jennifer, and Lisa. Over and over again, brutal and hard. They killed Alice and Jennifer. One guy was fucking Alice, and another came up and sliced her neck, but not before he left the blade pressed there so that she knew what was coming. Jennifer got it easier. A man came up from behind and blew her brains out. So at least she wasn’t any more scared than she already was.”

He’s been looking down, but now he meets my eyes again. “They made me watch all of it. Every single one. Told me it would be worse for them if I tried to look away. I believed them.”

“Every day they would tell me that they were going to kill me too. That if I didn’t join them—if I didn’t use my skills to help them, that’s what they would do.” He makes another raw noise in his throat. “They told me they knew that I never would, but that I needed to know that I had an out. A true, legitimate way to save my life. But I wasn’t choosing it. I was asking for the pain, and that made it my fault not theirs.”

He draws in breath and arches back, as if trying to stretch. As if the weight of these memories has pulled his body into a small, tight ball and he has to have release.