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PROLOGUE
Liam
I was going to die. The pain tearing through my body was unbearable. My voice was hoarse from screaming. The militants who’d taken me, thinking I was a doctor, couldn’t care less about my pain now that they considered me useless to them.
The nurse part of me dispassionately cataloged my injuries: several cracked or broken ribs, a possible orbital fracture, and internal bleeding from what was likely a ruptured spleen. The son and brother part of me wept for my mother and Sean because I would never see them again. After losing my father, they would lose me and probably never get closure because they would never find my body.
I was dragged along the ground, nearly vomiting from the agony. The militants finally dropped me in the middle of a field. I opened my eyes and saw millions of stars above me. I was always filled with wonder at how many stars I could see out here as compared to my home in New Jersey. Tears tracked down my temples at the thought of never going to the beach again. Of never watching the sunrise over the Atlantic on a clear summer morning. Of never smelling the salt air mixed with the aromas from the boardwalk eateries.
One of the men came to stand over me, blocking my view of the stars. The pistol in his hand was aimed at my head. I closed my eyes and waited for the sound of the shot. I wondered if I would hear it…or if there would be nothing but silence before I was dead.
A moment later, I heard a softpopand the sound of a body falling beside me. Shouts from the other two men were quickly silenced the same way. I opened my eyes. The stars were visible again and everything was deathly quiet. I turned my head and was greeted by the man with the pistol staring at me with dead eyes, a neat hole in the center of his forehead.
Footsteps moved quickly toward me, and I wanted to get away, but I couldn’t. My body refused to listen. Was I still going to die?
A pair of booted feet came into view before a man knelt beside me. He was huge. I couldn’t see his face in the faint light, but I could tell he had dark hair cut very short—like a soldier. When he spoke, his voice was deep and commanding. “Liam O’Neil?”
He knew my name. Oh God, he was American, and he knew my name. “Yes,” I choked out, emotion and pain clogging my throat.
“I’m Marco D’Angelo. We’ve come to bring you home.”
* * *
Marco
Fuck. They’d beaten the shit out of Liam. The left side of his face looked swollen, even in the faint light of the half-moon. His breathing was labored, and he was clearly in a lot of pain. I remembered how sweet he’d looked in his picture on Sean’s desk. Seeing him like this twisted me up inside. I heard my other teammates come up behind me.
“Jesus,” Andrea whispered.
“Fucking assholes,” Dante added.
My pilot, Pete, came in on my comms, “Hey, Chief, we’re running out of time before their buddies figure out they’re not coming back.”
“Roger that,” I said. I leaned closer to Liam. “Hey, we have to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
Liam tried to laugh as he shook his head but ended up coughing. Dark-red blood stained his lips.Shit, fuck, damn,hell. Internal injuries. “Okay. Do you have any neck or spine injuries?”
Liam shook his head. “Ribs,” he rasped. “Left side. R-ruptured spleen.”
We needed to get him out of here fast. “I’m gonna pick you up now. I’ll try to be as gentle as I can, but it’s gonna hurt.” He nodded and closed his eyes. I was already on his left side, so I slid my arms underneath him and pulled him close. He grunted and bit his lip so he wouldn’t cry out. “Let’s go.” On the comms, I said, “On our way.”
Andrea and Dante flanked me as we hurried toward the stealth helicopter I’d borrowed from an old friend in Cyprus. Yeah, I know. Who the hell had friends who owned stealth helicopters? That would be me.
Pete already had the blades going when we got there. Andrea and Dante got in ahead of me so they could take Liam. Once I was in, I slid the door closed, and Pete pulled us up. I sat next to Pete in the cockpit. “We’re going to have to go to Beirut. He’s got internal bleeding.” Pete didn’t look happy, but he nodded.
We were well up before we saw a group of militants swarm the area where Liam had been. Andrea shouldered her sniper rifle in case they decided to fire on us. But we were too far away by the time they figured out where we were. I was kind of disappointed we didn’t get to kill more of them. Maybe that made me a bad person.
Lucky for us, my friend also had contacts in Beirut, and through him, we were able to get permission to land at the military hospital. I texted Tony to update him. I was sure Liam’s mother and his brother, Sean, were losing their minds. I would be if it was my brother.
I looked back at Liam. Andrea and Dante had strapped him to a backboard to make him more stable and easier to carry. It looked like he was unconscious, which was really for the best. Busted ribs hurt like a bitch. It wasn’t like you could stop breathing to ease the pain.
The trauma team was waiting for us at the hospital. They’d heard Liam was here with Doctors Without Borders, so they gave him the VIP treatment. They triaged him right on the helipad and got him into surgery immediately. That worried me because it meant he was in bad shape. I wanted to go back to that camp and kill the rest of those motherfuckers. Liam was just trying to help people, and they tried to kill him.
I stayed at the hospital while the rest of the team went back with the helicopter. I didn’t think Liam should be alone when he woke up, especially considering what he’d been through. I must have dozed off while waiting because I woke to a hand gently shaking my shoulder. A woman I recognized from the trauma team stood beside me. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. “How is he?” I asked.
The woman smiled at me. “Mr. D’Angelo, I’m Dr. Karam,” she said in heavily accented English. “Your friend is out of surgery and in recovery. He has three cracked ribs, and we repaired his ruptured spleen. Thankfully, there were no broken bones in his face. He came through very well, despite his injuries. We expect he will make a full recovery in time.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “That’s good. That’s real good.”
