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She turned to look over her shoulder and the man who she had grabbed and held onto when she’d first met him lowered his weapon. He eyed the locker with those pretty blue eyes of his and nodded.
“Jimmy Choo,” she said, reaching for them.
“Worth killing for?”
She clutched them to her, feeling something inside her slip. She wasn’t up for this. She just wanted to be free of this terror and the threat of rape and death. Ramos’s words came to her, making her feel even more numb and detached. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, bristling at his words. It wasn’t like she’d asked for any of this. She’d been doing her job and doing it well. She’d had everything in the bag, everything she’d wanted. Now she was a fugitive in a foreign land, stripped of her dignity, her clothes, her rights, and the heels she’d earned with her first big paycheck. She didn’t care what those military guys thought.
She looked at him. “What is your name?” she asked.
He just stared at her. She sighed. Jack understood. In the world of hostage rescue and infiltrating foreign countries and impenetrable prisons, names were secrets, not social tender. “Call name then?”
“Easy.”
Well, he was sure that. Easy on the eyes. For the first time since they showed up at her cell, she took him in. Okay, he was a little bit of wow—okay, alotof wow. Six feet for sure, dressed all in black, and filling it out with a wide chest and broad shoulders, strong enough to tote that wicked-looking weapon around with a pistol strapped to his hip. She bet there was a knife somewhere, too, and explosives in that pack.
She wasn’t used to having her heart race just because a man looked at her—but she’d never had anybody look at her the way this man was.
Damn, he was such a piece of work, and she meant it as a compliment. When commandos came to rescue a girl, she wanted said commando to look like him. A bone fide warrior, the real thing, a man who was putting his life on the line for what he believed in. Yeah, rescuing her while she was insisting on them allowing her to rescue her Jimmy Choos.
They even took that in stride.
So, it was good he looked dangerous and capable of just about anything. His too-long tousled black curls peeked from beneath the helmet he wore and the dark stubble shadowing his lean jaw only added to his personal and professional threat. Then there were those stunning, piercing blue eyes of his that had the ability to go so flat and emotionless, then fierce with the ability to reach out and squeeze her heart. She had no idea what branch of the military had come to save her, but she wasn’t feeling saved right now, and a part of her knew she was losing it, being unreasonable about her designer shoes. She was sure they were all disgusted. But it was like her identity was in them and if she left them behind, she would have lost herself completely.
Easy stiffened and she could tell he was listening to that earpiece. “Protesters are moving in and jamming up the whole area. We have to go now!”
He reached her and grabbed her arm, and she cried out at the pain, but he dragged her to the door near his partner, Shark. Their eyes met and silent communication passed between them. Easy nodded and Shark pulled open the door. They stepped into the hall with the kind of precision movements that were awe-inspiring and terrifying. Her weakness, her need for these shoes she clutched to her, may have signed her death warrant…and theirs. She was immediately remorseful but still relieved she had her heels.
A siren blared, ringing throughout the prison.
“Fuck,” Shark said and the two of them started off running down the halls back the way they had come, taking such large strides she could barely keep up.
* * *
“Tangos coming your way,”came tersely over Easy’s comm. The lights went out and Easy set his night vision goggles into place. These narrow corridors were death traps and SEALs hated them. In the dark, he was going by instinct and memory. He darted left and took Jack with him. He continued to run, until the lights flashed back on and for a moment, Easy was blinded.
“Watch out,” Jack screamed, and he whirled, working to clear his vision. He sensed movement and grabbed for an arm. A shot went off and he broke the guy's wrist, twisted him into a headlock, adrenaline flooding his system, heightening all his senses and locking and loading all his survival instincts.
He couldn’t shoot the guy with his rifle. He needed two hands, and he wasn’t going to let go of him to grab for his sidearm—the guy was too squirrelly. Instead, he grabbed for his knife. The guy fought like a demon to break Easy’s hold, but Easy held on, slipping the knife up to the base of his skull and shoving it in. The guy dropped lifelessly to the floor.
Jack’s gasp brought his head around. She was staring at him frozen in shock. The look of horror on her face did absolutely nothing to ease the rush of adrenaline coursing through him, jacking him up. He knew how he looked, frighteningly fierce in expertly taking another’s life just as he had at her cell. How could she see him as anything but a killer?
When he looked around, Shark was gone. Dammit, they must have gotten separated in this maze in the dark.
He keyed his comm. “Shark!”
“Fuck, man. I lost you. Get out with her and I’ll find my way.”
They were almost to their designated exit. The uniforms and face masks were where they were expected.
“Change, Jack. Quickly.”
She stood there. She was in shock, her face white, her expression dazed, and she still held onto those shoes like a lifeline. He was moving her too fast for there to be much conversation. This woman had been through hell the last two weeks and from the look on her face, she couldn’t take much more. She looked ready to break.
He clasped her shoulders and, as calmly as he could, said, “Freedom is behind this door. We’ve gotta get out now.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “This is all my fault.”
“It doesn’t matter right now. We’ll talk about this once you're free. Come on. Get changed.”
