Stolen By Raze (Grabbed Book 4)

by Lolita Lopez

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Cipher, I need eyes in that room!” Raze fought to maintain control as the spike of adrenaline sent his heart into overdrive. “We can’t get her out of there if we can’t see what’s happening. Breach team needs to know if the place is rigged or if he has explosives or a weapon on him.”

  “Working on it,” Cipher replied. “We almost have the micro drone deployed.”

  “Easy,” Torment urged as he squeezed Raze’s shoulder.

  Raze gritted his teeth. Making sure his comms were muted, he asked, “What the hell does that creepy son of a bitch mean? How is he going to set her free?”

  “By killing everyone who has ever hurt her or tried to own her or use her,” Jolly interjected. After they had discovered her waiting for Ella, she had refused to leave and now stood with Torment who had promised to keep her out of trouble.

  Raze narrowed his eyes at her. “How can you possibly know what he’s thinking?”

  “He bombed your embassy to get you away from her. He blew up the election headquarters because they’ve been plastering her face on all of their campaign materials and have been trying to leverage her disappearance after the raid for votes.” She pointed to a series of political ads posted on a building across from the empty cotton mill. “He killed George for obvious reasons.” Her gaze drifted to the factory and she seemed suddenly sad. “The only person left that’s hurt her is himself.”

  A flash of worry showed on Torment’s face, and Raze’s stomach twisted painfully. Torment asked the question he feared most. “Would he kill her first and then himself?”

  “I don’t know,” Jolly answered honestly. “He obviously still loves her. In a weird and obsessive way, clearly.” She shook her head. “I think we’re more at risk than she is.” She glanced around the dilapidated factory grounds. “Who the fuck knows what he has stowed away in these buildings?”

  “We cleared them,” Fierce said, his gaze laser focused on the door he had been assigned to watch.

  Jolly looked down at her feet and frowned. “Underneath, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? You got here, like, ten minutes after us.”

  “Drone and ground penetrating radar.” Fierce made a face. “Does she have to keep talking, boss?”

  Jolly opened her mouth as if to tell Fierce off, but Torment touched her arm and shook his head. She clamped her lips together but wasn’t happy about it.

  “We’re in,” Cipher cut across the tense moment.

  Tapping his earbud to unmute his mic, Raze strode to Cipher’s side and looked at the screen Flare held. The images were grainy and too dark at first, but the software quickly cleaned them up and drastically improved the view. The silent, miniature drone was no bigger than a large insect and allowed the team to perform much needed recon without endangering their safety.

  He ignored the worried flare that burned low in his belly at the sight of Harkin’s hands on Ella’s face and arm. Her ex wasn’t being aggressive, but he didn’t like the idea of Ella not being able to move away quickly.

  “Hark, what are you talking about? I’m already free—”

  “No, you’re not,” Harkin argued. “Your whole life other people have been making decisions for you. Your whole life you’ve been trapped by circumstances outside your control. Just when you were finally getting your life together, getting your career going and your shelter built, they stole you. They tore you away from your life and dragged you away to their sky ships and made you some asshole’s sex slave.”

  “Hark, that’s not how it—”

  “Ella, you don’t have to parrot the lines they teach you,” Harkin insisted. “You can tell me the truth. Did he hurt you? Does he make you do the same horrible shit George did?” He reached out and dragged down the front of her jacket to bare her neck. He must have reacted with surprise at finding her neck bare because Ella pushed him away and said, “See? You don’t know what you think you know.”

  “But they stole you from that transport—”

  “Yes, they did, but they were saving me from the camps. From him,” she added, gesturing to the bloody corpse now visible via the drone. “And my man doesn’t hurt me. He’s good to me. He cares about me, and he was my friend before he claimed me. He’s…he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Shit.

  “Ella, baby, be careful,” Raze urged gently. “Don’t agitate him.”

  “Do you love him?” Harkin asked, his voice dripping with disgust and anger.

  “Yes.”

  Although Raze rejoiced at hearing her say it, he tensed as he watched the two former lovers on the screen. Had she pushed him too far? Would he react with violence?

  “More than you loved me?”

  Careful, Ella.

  “I love him in a different way,” she replied diplomatically.

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means that we were young, and our love was new and bright. With Raze, it’s deeper. It’s more mature. It’s…quiet and strong.”

  Raze held his breath and waited for the inevitable blow up.

  But it didn’t come.

  “Does he make you happy, Elsie?”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Can he protect you? Take care of you? Keep you safe?”

  “Yes.”

  Harkin rubbed his face, his movements rough and ending with him tugging at his hair. “What the fuck have I done then? I thought I was saving you from just another asshole who wanted to own you and use you, but I’ve fucked it all up again!”

  “Harkin,” Ella approached him with her hand out, the same way one would a wounded dog, “I know why you did this. I understand you. I understand what you were trying to tell me. You still love me.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed, his voice cracking.

  “I still love you, Harkin. Just because I love Raze now doesn’t mean that I don’t have space in my heart for you. All the things we experienced together? All the things we survived? That isn’t just wiped away. Those feelings I had for you don’t just disappear. I care about you, and I want to help you now. You have to tell me everything. Please.”

  His crazed gaze seemed to clear for a moment as he took her outstretched hand. “I just wanted to do one good thing for you before…”

  “Before what?” Ella asked, her other hand moving to cup his cheek. “Harkin, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I’m dying, Elsie.”

  She reacted with shock, her body stiffening. Her voice wavered as she asked, “What?”

  “The camps aren’t just for indoctrination, Elsie. They make the prisoners work in mines. There’s something in the mountains. Some kind of mineral that the government is selling to the Splinters.”

  Raze glanced at Torment who had visibly perked up at that bit of information.

  Without prompting from him, Ella asked, “A mineral? What are they doing with it?”

  “It’s an energy source, I think. It’s not as clean and pure as the energy the Harcos use in their ships and weapons, but it’s powerful. And dangerous,” he said, his gaze falling to his hands. “It makes all the prisoners sick. When I escaped, I had a bad rash and some stomach problems. It went away, and I thought I was going to be okay…”

  “But?”

  “It’s cancer now. In my bones and in my blood and my brain,” he explained. “It hurts all the time. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. Hell, I can’t even take a piss without wanting to scream. It’s all pain, all the time.”

  “There has to be something. A treatment? They have incredible medicine on the Valiant.”

  “Elsie, I’m a criminal. After what I’ve done, I’ll be lucky if I get a quick bullet between the eyes. If anything, they would only give me treatment to keep me alive so they can interrogate me, but I don’t have anything left to say.”

  She didn’t try to argue with him. She must have realized how silly that thought was. “I’m sorry, Hark. I’m so sorry.”

&
nbsp; “So am I, Elsie,” he said, crying now. “I’m sorry about all of it. The people I killed and the people I hurt—that’s not on you. That was all me. I did do it to get your attention and to get you away from him and help you leave—but I also did it to wake up The City. To wake up this planet. To get the people to open their eyes and see what is really happening here. All the corruption and greed, the filth and the abuse.”

  “I know,” Ella said, touching his jaw and smiling at him. “I’ll make sure that everyone knows. Jolly will tell everyone. Danny, too.”

  “All these years, Danny is still the only one who actually gives a shit. He actually thinks he can make a difference.”

  “He does. He is.”

  “It’ll kill him one of these days,” Harkin warned. “He’s dangerous to all the people who want power over this planet—your man’s people included.”

  “I know,” she whispered sadly.

  “I would tell you not to come back to this planet ever again, but I know you won’t listen. You’ll come back and rebuild your shelter. You’ll get involved in politics, and you’ll cause trouble.”

  “Probably,” she agreed.

  “Be careful. You have such a big target on your back. If you let the New Dawn make you the face of their movement, you’ll end up a martyr.”

  Raze hated that he agreed with her former lover. He wasn’t wrong about Danny either. The stakes were only getting higher and more serious for all of them.

  Harkin leaned down and kissed her forehead, his lips lingering for a long moment. “You need to go now, Elsie. You don’t have much time.”

  Raze tensed and met Cipher’s worried gaze. Had he planted some kind of bomb nearby? Had they missed it in their sweep?

  “What do you mean?” Ella asked.

  “I know your man is outside with his team.” He touched her ear, and the scratchy feedback echoed in Raze’s ear, causing him to wince. “They won’t wait much longer to blow in these doors to capture me and take you back.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said hurriedly. “I can talk to him. He’ll take you in the easy way. Without violence.”

  “I’m not going back to prison, Elsie.”

  Raze expected Ella to argue with Harkin, to plead with him to give himself up and allow himself to be taken prisoner, but she didn’t. She remained silent and held Harkin’s stare. It was as if she had realized there was no way out of this for him.

  Finally, she asked, “How?”

  He retrieved a gun tucked into the back of his pants.

  “Boss?” Cipher looked at him expectantly. “The drone has a pulse. I can knock them both unconscious.”

  Raze shook his head as Ella stepped closer to Harkin. “We can’t see his hands. If he has a finger on the trigger, he might hit Ella.”

  “Your hands are shaking,” Ella noted gently. “What if you miss?”

  “Considering the way my day is going?” Harkin chuckled darkly. “Pretty good chance.”

  The tension outside the cotton mill was thick as Ella unexpectedly hugged Harkin. The gun was trapped between their bodies, and the use of the pulse to render them unconscious put Ella at too high a risk of being shot. Raze and the rest of the team watched for the first opening to intervene.

  “I visited Eva this morning.” Harkin’s voice cracked as he hugged Ella even tighter. “I wish I could have seen her, even once.”

  Ella pulled back in his embrace, just enough to stare up at him. “She was beautiful. You would have fallen in love with her the moment you held her.” She started to cry. “I did.”

  “I’m sorry, Elsie.” Harkin touched his forehead to hers. “You would have been such a good mother.” After a lingering gaze, he pressed his lips to hers. “Goodbye, Elsie.”

  “Cipher, the second she’s clear, you hit that pulse,” Raze ordered, his focus fixed on the screen as he silently urged Ella to move.

  “It’s going to be okay, Harkin.” Ella cupped her former lover’s cheek. “It’s all going to be okay now.”

  The sudden bang of the unexpected gunshot startled them all. Raze flinched and hissed in pain as the feedback damn near blew up his eardrum. On the handheld screen, there was a burst of blood spatter, and Harkin slumped forward onto Ella. She sagged under his weight and dropped to the floor with him. Blood poured out of a hole in the side of his head, the side that had been obscured from the drone’s view. She guided his lifeless body to the ground. The clatter of the gun as it fell from her hand shook Raze from his stupor.

  Desperate to reach her, he raced to the entrance they had been watching. He jerked open the heavy double doors of the loading dock and jogged down the steep ramp, his steps cautious but quick.

  Ella’s hysterical sobs echoed in the large and empty space. The sound absolutely wrecked him. He never wanted to hear Ella cry like that ever again. She had been broken by this, and he swore he would do anything to protect her from pain in the future.

  “Ella,” he murmured and knelt down in front of her. He pushed the gun out of the way, sending it skittering across the floor and to a safe distance. The left side of her face was a gory mess of Harkin’s blood and brain matter.

  The pain etched into her expression made his heart break. “Raze.”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” he said and wrapped her up in his arms. He gathered her in close and tried to press all the love he had to give into his protective embrace. “I’m here, Ella. I’m right here with you.”

  “I had to do it. He had killed so many people, and I couldn’t risk it. I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. Not you or any of the men on your team.” She clung to him, her arms around his shoulders and her fingers gripping his shirt. She buried her face in his neck as she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for all of it,” she babbled, almost incoherently. “It’s all my fault. All of this. All of it.”

  “No, Ella.” He cupped the back of her head. “None of this was your fault. None of it.” He closed his eyes as he hugged her and wished he could take away all her pain. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  When he stood, still holding her in his arms, she anchored her legs around his waist. “Don’t let me go.”

  “Never,” he promised and walked out of the factory.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tired and sad, Ella stayed hidden under the thin blanket Raze had draped over her hours earlier. After he had cleaned her up and gotten her checked by a medic, he had let her decide whether she wanted to be interrogated or not. She had wanted to just get it over with and agreed to sit down in the mobile command unit with Keen and Torment.

  Once they were finished with her, she had been given a dose of pain medicine that left her sleepy and quiet. Curled up on a bench in the mobile command unit, she dozed and lost track of time, her body worn out from the surgery and everything else that had happened.

  When she finally woke up, a long time later it seemed, she didn’t move at first. Her left ear still hurt from the sound of the gunshot, and she was glad for the slight ringing that blocked out most of the noise around her. Eventually, she picked out a few familiar voices.

  “The real question is how did he know that my team would be the one to respond to a bombing in the colonies?” Raze asked.

  “We’ve had suspicions about a mole on the ship for quite a while now,” Torment said. “It’s possible that he was getting information from someone on the inside.”

  “We’ll never know now,” Keen replied, his voice harsh and low. “This will come under review, Raze. You know that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure it will,” Raze answered calmly. “I stand by my decisions.”

  “There was no good outcome here if we had breached and attempted to take him alive,” Torment said. “At best, we would have walked away with only a wounded mate. At worst, we would have been taking two body bags back to the ship.”

  Ella shuddered at the thought. Her slight movement must have garnered the men’s attention because they stopped talking and then Raze had
crouched down in front of her. He tugged the blanket out of the way and smiled warmly. “How you feeling?”

  “Tired,” she croaked, her throat dry. “Thirsty.”

  Raze stroked her face. “Let’s get you something to eat before we board our transport back to the Valiant.”

  With his help, she sat up and then waited for him to return with a bottle of water and a small food ration. The chewy bar had a pleasant berry flavor to it, and she managed to eat the whole thing. When she was finished, Raze led her to a bathroom and stood guard outside the door. While she washed her hands at the tiny sink, she surveyed her reflection and grimaced. She used a wet paper towel to clean up her face and combed her fingers through her hair before gathering it into a low bun at the back of her head.

  Raze smiled encouragingly as she came out of the bathroom. “Better?”

  She nodded.

  “You ready to head back to the ship?”

  She shook her head. “There’s something I need to do first.”

  “What is that?”

  She grasped his hand and held it tight. “Will you come with me to visit Eva?”

  His face registered his surprise. “Of course, I’ll come with you to visit your daughter.”

  “Thank you.”

  Still holding his hand, Ella allowed Raze to lead her out of the mobile command unit. Outside, he spoke with Cipher before breaking away from the rest of the men. “How far is it, Ella?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes by foot,” she said, estimating the distance from where they were. “It’s a nice walk.”

  “Are you up to it? We can flag down a transport if you’d like.”

  “I would really like to walk for a bit. If that’s okay with you,” she added quickly, suddenly realizing he may be tired. “How long have you been awake? We can take a transport if you’d rather rest your legs.”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her with a squeeze of her hand. “I want to walk with you.”

  They didn’t speak for most of the walk. It was quiet on the darkened streets. Night had fallen hours earlier, and the air was cool and slightly damp as sunrise approached. They only spotted a handful of other people out, and all of them gave a wide berth, most of them eyeing Raze with some suspicion. It couldn’t be helped. He did look strange walking the streets of The City.