Chance

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  Everyone but Sinner raised their hand, and I had to admit, that stung.

  “Sinner, what the fuck is your problem?” Knight asked.

  He shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “I say Maggie takes over.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Burg asked.

  “What? She’s tenacious, she knows how to throw a grenade, and she can manipulate any one of us to do things her way.”

  “I like this idea,” Maggie said, strutting into the room with my son, Gunner on her hip. “And my first order of business is to put Sinner in charge of babysitting duty.” She plopped Gunner in Sinner’s lap and headed to the front of the table.

  “Cap, I was just joking,” Sinner panicked. “You’re not really going to let her put me on babysitting duty, are you?”

  I smirked in his direction. “We have work to do. Let’s get to it. Sinner, he shits like clockwork at-” A loud, flatulent noise followed by a squirting sounded from my son. “Now.”

  Sinner looked to me in panic. “Cap, seriously, this reeks. I don’t even like cleaning my own kid’s ass.”

  I grinned. “You’re right. Maggie, sorry, we’ve got shit to do. Sinner, go clean the head.”

  “What?”

  I looked up at him, giving my best don’t fuck with me look. “Did I stutter? Get the fuck to work before I put you all on KP duty.”

  The guys all scrambled from the room, leaving me alone with Knight. He smirked at me, shaking his head as he walked out. Yeah, I still had it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Chance

  It had been raining constantly for days now. I could feel the weather changing every day, growing worse and worse. If I had to guess, there was a tropical storm blowing in. It had been a month since my last escape and I was finally feeling stronger, but the burns on my skin were still painful, having never been treated. Mark had come and given me another antibiotic shot, but I wasn’t sure how well it was working. I didn’t feel as strong as before, almost as if my body just couldn’t fully recover. Still, I tried to keep up with my exercise routine as much as possible.

  The rain really started pouring over the next day and my mud pit was filling up with water at a much faster rate than I had expected. I climbed the wall, which was now slick and crumbling, but I made it to the bars and shouted out for someone to help. A guard finally came over, slamming the butt of his gun down on my fingers that grasped the bars. I swung myself over to the middle of the grate where he couldn’t reach.

  “The pit is filling up with water. Get me the fuck out of here.”

  He scoffed, laughing at my predicament. “Maybe the boss cares about whether you live or die, but I don’t give a fuck. There’s a tropical storm headed right this way and it’s supposed to hit within a few hours. It won’t be hard to convince the boss that you died in the storm.”

  “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Enjoy your last few hours on Earth.”

  He grinned maniacally at me and walked away. I dropped back down into the water. It was already at waist height and the water was now steadily flowing in from the ground. At this rate, I probably had an hour at most. I climbed up to the bars again and yelled out repeatedly, but no one answered. They were probably preparing for the storm on other parts of the island. I had to hope that someone would think of me before I drowned in this place.

  I moved to the wall, digging the mud out from around the grate to see how far over the top it went. With how wet the mud was, I might be able to dig myself out if I hurried. The mud fell in chunks, but I could stretch my whole arm over the mud and the grate was still covering the ground. I continued digging, faster and faster as I saw the water rise at a much faster pace than I expected, but I wasn’t fast enough. There was no way I could move enough dirt to get myself out of here.

  The water was just inches from the grate and I laid with my head back so I could breathe for as long as possible. With my last few breaths, I called out for help again, but still no one answered. Water started to splash over my face and I took a few deep calming breaths before the water completely covered my face. Being a SEAL, I had been well trained in holding my breath underwater and had come close to the four minute mark. But that was in training and I hadn’t been in the SEALs for years. I’d had no reason to continue practicing. Now I wished I had.

  I held onto the bars, hoping that someone would come for me, but as spots started to fill my vision and my chest started to convulse as my lungs tried to draw in air, my fingers slipped from the bar and I floated down to the bottom. My lungs burned as I choked and started sucking in water involuntarily.

  Suddenly, I was being tugged to the surface and shoved onto the dirt outside the pit. The force being thrown to the ground pushed the water out of me. I choked and coughed, trying to rid my body of the water. I rolled over to keep from getting more water in my mouth. The ground was flooded and would only get worse as the storm raged on.

  “I told one of the guards to go get you. When I couldn’t find you, I came. Looks like I came just in the nick of time.”

  I nodded as I took deep breaths of cleansing air. I had never been so happy to be laying in mud in all my life.

  “Come on, we have to get back to the compound. The storm’s getting worse.”

  I took the hand he offered me and stumbled to my feet. My whole body was weak from the exertion, but I forced myself on. I could rest when I was dead. And thankfully, that hadn’t been today. When we reached the compound, Mark took me to a cell that was pretty big, but had chains hanging from the wall. I had a bad feeling about this, but at least it was dry, which was more than I had just a half hour ago.

  “Sorry about this, but I’m going to have to put you in the cuffs. It’s standard practice and it would be suspicious if I didn’t do it to you.”

  I nodded and walked over to the chains. Sitting down on the floor, I did my best not to punch Mark as he locked a cuff around my neck. The metal was jagged and I could feel it scratching me already. I would have to stay pretty still if I didn’t want to cut myself up.

  “I’ll try and get you food as often as I can. It’ll be a little difficult because there’s nowhere to hide it in here, but I’ll stop by whenever possible.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Also, I got ahold of your boss. I had to be careful because I was being watched. Some of the guards suspect that I’m up to something. I think they’ve backed off, but I still have to be careful.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He doesn’t like your plan to stay until you can get Payton, but I assured him that I was doing everything I could to help you out. Now that you’re inside, I might be able to sneak you out at night and you can figure out how you’ll get out of here.”

  I nodded, relieved that this was moving ahead like I had hoped.

  “At least he knows that I’m alive. Did he say anything else?”

  “No, he wasn’t too trusting, which I get. I would have you get on the phone yourself, but the office area is always monitored.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll just keep planning and when I have something solid, we can take it from there. Does he know where we are?”

  “Yes, I made sure to stay on the phone long enough for him to trace the call.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  He nodded. “I don’t deserve any thanks. I’m just trying to make up for all the years that I’ve been doing this shit, just watching crap like this happen. If there’s any way to redeem myself, I’m hoping that I can.”

  I wasn’t going to lie to him, while I appreciated his help, I wasn’t sure that anything he did could ever make up for the fact that he held people hostage and had them beaten on a regular basis. And that didn’t even cover the worst of his sins, holding young girls hostage. I had no idea what was happening to them. Even if I got Payton out of here, would she be okay? I knew well enough that my past had a way of coming back and haunting me. It would be no different for her.

  ✯✯✯✯✯

/>   After Mark helped me sneak out one last time, I finally had a plan in place. It wasn’t as solid as I would have liked, but without having contact directly to Cap, it was the best I could do.

  “I’ll call Reed and let him know the plan, but you’re going to have to give me something to tell him that no one else would know. Something that will convince him that it’s really you.”

  I had a hard time coming up with something that would convince Cap, but then it hit me. Those were good times and if he didn’t remember it, there would be nothing else that would convince him.

  “She says it’s not me, it’s her.” Did that seriously just come out of his mouth? I shot him a look that said ‘are you fucking serious?’. “I mean that she has to figure out what’s holding her back from committing.”

  “Dude, you’re pussy whipped. Just straight out ask her and get it over with.”

  He pulled out his phone out and dialed her number.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked, trying to pay attention to the road and figure out what the hell was going on.

  “Freckles, just tell me right now if I’m what you want.”

  I looked over at him in shock. Was he seriously fucking doing this right now? That wasn’t the way to do this. Was he suicidal? I started waving my hands at him, trying to get his attention so I could tell him to stop fucking talking, but he ignored me, focusing only on Maggie.

  “I’m tired of waiting on an answer, Maggie. It’s been months and you’re no closer to telling me now than you were when you left.”

  Oh, hell no. He might be a fucking idiot in love, but I couldn’t let him burn in flames because he couldn’t see how badly this would end. I started smacking his arm, trying to control the truck as it swerved across the yellow line. Right now, death would be preferable to what he was facing if he continued this conversation with Maggie. Cap fought me off, refusing to shut the fuck up.

  “I need you to decide. It’s not that difficult. I ask if you want me and you say yes or no.”

  I jerked the truck to the side of the road and reached across Cap’s body, pulling the phone from his ear. “He’ll have to call you back. Emergency.” I hung up the phone and threw it at him. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “You told me to ask her. You said, ‘straight out ask her and get it over with’.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t do it over the phone, you asshole. You ask her in person. That’s the same as breaking up with her over the phone. You just don’t do that shit. You’re gonna wake up one morning with your dick cut off.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t you say that then! You don’t tell someone to do something and then take it back after they already did it,” he yelled at me.

  I ran a hand down my face and shivered. “Damn, that was brutal. I can’t believe you did that shit in front of me. I’m going to be on her shit list now just because I was in the truck with you. You have to fix this now. Tell her you were just in an accident and you hit your head, you’re not thinking straight.”

  He sighed and sat back in his seat. “Fine.”

  But he didn’t fucking move. I glared at him until he finally looked at me.

  “What?”

  “Now!” I shouted.

  “I thought you said not to do it over the phone?” he yelled back.

  “You can’t fucking wait now! You just practically broke up with her. You can’t leave her hanging.”

  He rolled his eyes as he picked up his phone again and dialed.

  “I swear to God, if you’ve fucked this up for me, I’ll let the guys use you for target practice.”

  I snorted to myself. If he didn’t fix this, he wouldn’t be able to speak to give the guys those orders.

  Shit, that was a long time ago when Maggie was pregnant with her first kid. As I sat in the cell, the metal cuff digging into my neck, I had nothing to think about but what I had missed out on. Had everyone moved on with their lives? Had they found Morgan? Were they all going out on jobs again? What about Gabe and Jackson? Had they replaced me? I couldn’t stand the thought of getting back and not having my team to go back to. Then again, how was I supposed to go home and pretend that none of this shit had happened?

  There were nights that I woke up still feeling that rope around my neck or the heat of the box I had spent days in. On days when I was recovering from them torturing me, I had nothing to focus on, no drills that I could do to distract myself from the pain. Those were the worst days. They went so slow and seriously made me wonder why I hadn’t just ended it all. I was tough and I could take a lot, but there was only so much shit a person could take.

  I looked down at my skin, dried out and cracked and fucking filthy. There was nothing appealing about my body right now. Sure, I had gotten back into shape, but I had scars that would stay with me for the rest of my life. I used to be proud of my scars. They were from battle wounds that I could say meant something, made a difference in someone’s life. Maybe that was true of these too, but the scars wouldn’t be easy to hide and the mental scars would be even harder to escape.

  Sighing, I rested my head against the wall, ignoring the bite of the cuff. I couldn’t say that I regretted trying to help Morgan, but maybe I regretted my life before Morgan. Had I really lived my life to the fullest? I had given my life over to the military and married a woman that never really loved me. There were so many women after her that I never even gave a chance because I was too afraid of being made a fool again. Had I missed out on something great because of my foolish pride?

  For three days, I sat in that fucking cell, cuffed to the wall like a fucking rabid animal. I couldn’t sleep and I only ate because I had an end goal, but I was getting fucking tired. The highs weren’t quite as high anymore and the lows were really fucking low. If I didn’t make it out of here, if my team couldn’t get me out, could I keep holding on to this pitiful existence? This cell and these chains were fucking with my head, probably because it was like that fucking box. I couldn’t move unless I wanted to slice my neck open.

  I shook my head slightly. I had a plan and I needed to keep my head in the game, no matter how fucking depressing this was. I was stronger than this. I would fight back and I would fucking win. I had to because the alternative was too terrible to think about. I would get Payton and my team would get me out of here. They had to.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Morgan

  It was difficult to still look at Wes like I adored him. After what he had done, all because someone had slipped a tracker on me, how could I look at him like I was a woman in love? How could I have been so stupid to begin with? I had actually started to develop feelings for him. I was delusional to think that deep down Wes was actually a good man.

  I had slept next to Wes every night since and every night I woke up in a cold sweat, thinking I was about to be murdered. Whenever I looked at Wes now, I only saw the evil man that had punched me and had me strangled. He tried to be the man he once was, but it was too late. He had ruined what I was starting to believe we had. I had actually started to wonder what it would be like if I got my daughter back and just stayed with Wes.

  “Dushenka, you have to stop this pouting.”

  I turned to him after staring out the window for the past hour. I didn’t find pleasure in any of the things that I once had while I was here.

  “I’m not pouting.”

  “You’ve been staring out that window every day since we got back over a month ago. You don’t go for runs and you haven’t come to see me once while I’ve been working from home. What’s the problem?”

  I almost considered not saying anything to him, but at this point, what did I have to lose? He had already threatened to kill me. I was pretty sure that if he didn’t trust me when I thought I was actually falling for him, there was no way I could convince him now that I hated him.

  “I gave you everything,” I said quietly. “I fell for you. I’ve done everything you asked. I stayed in a cell with a dead body for over a week, I was shot by on
e of your guards for no reason, I was kidnapped and thought I would be raped and murdered, but still, I trusted you. I believed that you would always protect me and be there for me. But you never really trusted me. One of your guards turned on you and tried to turn you against me, and still you blamed me for what happened. You’ll never trust me and I’ll never see my daughter again. How can I possibly be happy here?”

  I was surprised when he didn’t hit me or immediately start yelling at me for being an ungrateful bitch. After all, in his world, that’s what I was. I turned back to the window and continued staring out at the beautiful grounds that I had once thought would make me happy.

  His hands brushed across my shoulders and rested against my neck. I surpassed the shudder that raced through me and tried to ignore him. I heard him sigh and then he took a seat next to me on the window seat.

  “Okay, Dushenka. I will take you to get your daughter.”

  My head snapped in his direction and I stared into his eyes. He looked sincere and almost regretful for the first time since we returned home. I wasn’t sure that I could trust him though. He was probably trying to get something in return. Wes just wasn’t a man that did something for nothing.

  “I’ll make some calls and we’ll leave in the morning.”

  “You know where she is?”

  “I’ve always known, but I was hoping that we would have more time together. I can see now that I underestimated your love for your daughter.”

  I was stunned. I hadn’t been sure that he really knew where she was and now I was pissed that he had known all along and had chosen to leave her where she was. And how could he possibly think that I would rather leave my daughter in someone else’s care than have her with me?