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“Disappearing means you’re dead.” Matt’s voice is cracked, flooded with something like rage. “But I’m not dead. And I’m not beaten. Even if I let them believe that.”
“Sure you’re not,” Junior says, his voice piercing. “You’re just unarmed, in the middle of nowhere, ready to be executed. But you’re winning.”
“What is this?” I snap. “Your sick father let his depraved loser son keep my brother as a twisted fucking pet. But what’s the point of all of this?”
“You violated our deal,” Junior says. “But I’m going to give you one more chance. Finish what dad started – execute this gambling alcoholic nobody – and Kelly walks free. I might even leave her sister alone too.”
I try to keep my face composed, but the word sister has my hands clenching into tight fists. Nobody gets to touch Jennifer, threaten her, or hurt her.
Ever.
“You think I’d kill my own brother?” I whisper.
Matt’s looking steadily at me. It’s not that he’s ready to die, exactly, but I can see he’d let me.
If it came to it, he wouldn’t fight. He’d take the bullet.
Lance grunts, waving the gun in one hand, the one not holding the phone. “Not so tough now, are you?”
Junior snaps, “I know you will. Or the only woman you’ve ever cared about is gone.”
I look at Matt. “You remember that field of ash, brother?”
I’m talking about an operation we went on back in the SEALs, where we lost our weapons, but the terrain was covered in ash, layers of it from a nearby explosion.
The air was thick. We were able to use it as cover and ambush the enemy, using our hands, stealing their guns, and going to work.
“I remember,” he snarls, and I can tell he understands what I mean.
Fight, like possessed men, take their guns.
I’m wearing Kevlar, and I’ve got more weapons on me, but Matt has nothing but his hands cuffed in front of him.
Matt’s gaze flits to Lance, giving me a signal. He’ll go for him. The other two are mine. But what if they shoot Matt before we have a chance to do anything?
But there isn’t time to hesitate. I need to get back to Jennifer.
“You can catch up later,” Junior snaps. “Oh, wait, no…you can’t. I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? Execute him, Jamie, and I swear I’ll let Kelly live. I won’t go for her sister either.”
“If you hurt either of them,” I snarl, “you’re a dead man.”
Junior tries to act tough and laugh it off, but he can’t hide the warble in his voice.
“You’re making threats now.”
“I promise you,” I growl. “If you touch a single fucking hair on Jennifer’s head, I will personally murder you, Junior.”
I can’t stop the possessive rage in my voice, my thoughts flurrying with my woman, with her taste on my lips, the way she moans gorgeously when we kiss, the sassiness warring with the shyness in her every word. Her everything.
I need to get out of here.
“Jennifer,” Junior repeats. “Now here I was thinking you had a favorite sister. What’s going on, Jamie, a little three….”
“I’d never share.”
She’s just mine.
I cut off, knowing I’m revealing too much. I was going to tell him I’d never share Jennifer.
“Where is she?” I snap. “Kelly?”
“She’s a couple of miles northwest,” Matt says. “At least she was when they took me. They were holding us in the same place.”
“Can somebody fucking gag him?” Junior whines. “You incompetent idiots.”
One of the two armed men looks around, searching for something to stuff into Matt’s mouth.
They may have starved, assaulted, tortured, and kept him prisoner for years… but they can’t take his fire, not Matt.
They can’t take his training.
Even if he left the path our father carved out for us, he still knows it. He still has those skills, and can still get that focus back.
He leaps at Lance, raising his cuffed hands and looping them around the big man’s throat.
The other two men react.
I move fast.
My fist smashes the first man across the jaw, my body moving like a machine, every motion sharp, sudden.
I hear the crack of a gunshot and feel it slam in my chest, the bullet smashing into the Kevlar, but I can’t feel the pain, I push it away and then I’m on the other man. I maul him with my larger body, smother him under my weight as I drag him to the ground and grab his gun.
When I stand, I aim the gun at the two men before they can cause any further problems, my breath coming steadily. They exchange a glance, the first one leaking bright red from his busted nose.
Matt tightens his grip around Lance’s neck, then softly lowers him to the ground when he passes out.
He immediately starts patting down Lance, the movement looking strange as he does it with his hands tied. He pulls out a key and gestures to me.
