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“Feels like a bruised or cracked rib. Or three,” he says and tries to sit up.
“No, don’t move,” I tell him, placing my hands on his shoulders to keep him in place. He lays his head back down on my lap with a pained grunt and I move my hands to either side of his face. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you I called Sailor before those guys grabbed me from the safehouse. She and Maddox will find us.”
I have to believe that. The alternative is unthinkable. I just found this amazing man and I refuse to lose him.
“They will,” he murmurs. “I have a tracking chip in my watch.”
They just need to find us fast. Before something awful can happen,I think.
“So we just need to hang in there a little longer,” I assure him. Dash lifts his hand and I instantly grab onto it, carefully lacing my fingers through his, trying not to further hurt his raw knuckles. Then his teal eyes slide shut and I press a kiss to the top of his dark head. “We’re going to be okay,” I whisper.
Dash is always taking care of everyone else and now I’m going to be there for him.
Chapter Nineteen: Dash
I’m not sure how long we’re locked up and I drift off at some point during the night. When my eyes open again, it feels like I was hit by a truck. Everything hurts on an epic scale. I manage to sit up and it feels like knives stabbing my side. Truthfully, I’m surprised we’re still alive. The only reason I can think of is that Petrov is having more fun with Nik right now and that’s why we’ve been briefly abandoned.
“Lake?”
Her brown eyes open and widen when she looks at me. I’m sure I look like absolute shit because my entire body aches like a bitch. Ignoring the pain, I lightly place a hand over my midsection and try to draw in a deep breath, but it’s hard. My ribs scream in protest.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“No, but I’ve been through worse,” I tell her. Glancing down at my watch, I see it’s nearly seven A.M. and no sign of Sailor or Maddox yet. That makes me nervous and I hope to God they haven’t been caught or captured. I’d never forgive myself. Already, I’m never going to forgive myself for allowing Lake to wind up here. Petrov’s men must’ve been watching Nik and that’s how they found the safehouse.
“What happened?” she asks softly.
I know she’s referring to Syria and my entire body stiffens.No, no, no.I can’t have that conversation right now, can’t face the darkness inside of me that clings and rots. Not if we’re going to get out of here alive. Before I can say anything, heavy footsteps approach and two guards appear.
Fuck.
I’m in no condition to fight back, and while I’m trying to form a plan of action, one guard unlocks the door and orders us to get up. I’d try to overpower them if I wasn’t in such a fucking world of pain. The edge of my vision blurs each time I move and my head is pounding so hard I’m guessing I have a concussion.
Despite that, I know this might be our last chance. Compartmentalizing the pain alongside the PTSD, I get ready to overpower the asshole closest to me. The moment we step out of the cell, I send Lake a meaningful look then turn and throw all of my weight into the beefy guard. We go sailing through the air and crash down to the ground. I slam my fists into his face, ignoring the scabs that rip off my knuckles, and hope to God that Lake just made a break for it. I wish to God that I still had my tactical knife, but the bastards took it.
One quick glance up tells me Lake bolted and I redouble my efforts to knock this asshole out. But, no, wait. I’m wrong. Lake didn’t run. In fact, quite the opposite. My fierce little preschool teacher is armed with a pen and she’s repeatedly jamming the tip into the other guard and, by the looks of it, she’s gotten some pretty good jabs to his throat.
Christ, I love that woman.
The thought reverberates through my head briefly before the guard punches a meaty fist into my bruised ribs, battering them to hell, and I hunch over, struggling to breathe.
“Dash!”
I glance up and Lake is at my side, helping me stand up straighter. Goddamn, I hate cracked ribs. I slide an arm around her shoulders and she leans into me, supporting me like no one ever has before.
All of my thirty-four years, I’ve spent looking out for everyone else. And now this little slip of a woman is protecting me. My chest tightens. She’s not a spy or former military. She isn’t trained to handle weapons or withstand the duress of torture. Yet, here she is, pressed to my side, refusing to leave it, and she’s just as brave as my Charlie’s Angels.
And all I’m going to do in return is let her down. The thought kills me. Like a blade straight through my heart.
The guards are marching us up the steps and when the sunlight hits my eyes, it’s bright and unyielding. Snow flurries spiral around us and the air is so damn cold. The kind where it instantly freezes the snot in your nose. I squint, trying to see what’s going on, and when everything comes into focus my heart stops beating against my broken ribs. They shove us up against a wall and the first thing I notice is the spattering of dried blood all over the brick.
Jesus Christ.
Then I see the firing squad in front of us. Five men armed with Russian submachine guns.
Pristine snowflakes swirl around us in a macabre dance as bile rises in the back of my throat. Hard irony hits me like a sucker punch—the only person I never wanted to let down, the woman I wanted to keep safe and protected, is now going to die because I failed her on such an epic level.
I look over at Lake, knowing there’s nothing I can do. That we’ve finally come to the end of the line. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, hating myself for dragging her into this and then letting her down. The only woman I’ve ever fallen in love with. Searching her gorgeous brown eyes, lit up with golden threads in the sunlight, I grab her hand tightly and say, “I love you.”
