Linc raced down the street at top speed, moving so blindly he narrowly escaped getting hit by the only other car charging down the street, causing the driver to slam on their brakes in much the way Jason just had a few feet away. Linc didn’t even look back after the driver narrowly missed hitting him, using the hood as leverage to push himself away from the car and break into a run once more. Yellow streetlights passed him in a haze, one after the other, moving so fast they were eventually reduced to a dull blur as he took a sharp left, holding onto the gray stone railing for control, and zoomed onto the bridge.
Strangled gasps burned his lungs when the exertion of running top speed took hold of his body, but he didn’t allow the pain to slow his desperate strides, reminding himself of the world of pain Mia would surely be in if he didn’t get to her now.
This was his last chance to get to her.
So, as he made it to the middle of the bridge, just as the nose of the yacht disappeared underneath it, he wasn’t swayed by the sight of a police officer manning the otherwise empty top-tier of the boat. It didn’t stop him from climbing atop of the bridge railing. He didn’t hesitate a moment in leaping off the bridge’s edge once the nose of the yacht peeked out from the other side, sending him into a free-fall that emptied his stomach as if he were front row on a rollercoaster in the midst of its highest dive.
The pain that shot through his knees as he hit the hardwood deck of the yacht’s top floor didn’t faze him. He barely even noticed it—too busy catching the rest of the hard fall with a roll, never losing sight of the police officer who’s stunned eyes flew over his shoulder at the sound of a sudden thud. At the sight of Linc, the officer put a hand on his hip and released the lock on his gun holster. Linc came at him before he could seize the pistol however, sending a swift right hook into the officer’s eye and getting him in a chokehold when the punch sent him stumbling backward. The officer recovered quickly, kicking off against the floor of the boat, using his weight to force Linc backward into the railing.
Linc clenched his teeth. Even though this bastard was probably one of the crooked ones Mia had told him about, Linc didn’t want to kill a cop. Once upon a time, he’d been a cop. He had no way of knowing which team this guy was on—if he was an innocent outlier whose family anxiously awaited his arrival home every night. He didn’t want to kill this son of a bitch. But he would if he had to.
His years as a detective would apparently be imbedded in him for life because without so much as a second thought Linc had released the handcuffs on the back of the cop’s duty belt, popped open one of the circular strands and locked it around the cop’s wrist. Still blinded by adrenaline, a slave to his racing heart and the blood surging through his veins at a mile a minute, Linc locked the other cuff around the white railing of the boat. Rearing back with a clenched fist, he drove a knockout blow into the cop’s jaw, so powerful it sent his head flying to the side and took him off his feet. The cop crumpled down to his ass with a thud, one arm raised over his head from where his wrists were still cuffed to the railing. He was incapacitated, his head cocked to the side, chin hitting his chest, his eyes closed serenely as if he’d fallen into a deep slumber.
Bending down, Linc seized the cop’s radio and threw it overboard before snatching the gun he hadn’t been fast enough to extract from its holster. Nostrils flaring as the exertion from both the running and the scuffle continued to take hold of his body, Linc cocked the weapon and then turned toward the winding staircase behind him that led to the yacht’s lower level, where he knew the pulsing red dot he’d been staring at for the better part of the night awaited him. As well as the army that would protect that throbbing dot with their lives.
Linc had no way of knowing how many of Malik’s goons were on that boat, but with the cop’s gun in his hand and his own still awaiting him in the back pocket of his jeans—along with four fresh magazines—he wasn’t worried. He had enough ammo to sink this ship if he chose, and he intended to do just that.
With Mia in his arms.
He made his way quickly down the winding staircase to the second level and immediately caught sight of a man in a flawless tuxedo leaning on the yacht railing, gazing out at the river and the breathtaking view of London as it grew smaller in the distance. A gun hung from one of the hands he had hanging over the railing, indicating he was one of Malik’s trigger happy goons who—unlike the cop upstairs—Linc would have no problem killing.
Linc crept up behind him on a careful foot. Just as the man went to look over his shoulder in response to the rustling behind him, Linc bent down, took his ankles, and hauled him overboard. The asshole barely had a moment to yelp as he went plummeting toward the water, and his cries drowned out halfway to fruition when he hit the river and sank deep beneath the surface. By the time he resurfaced, still screaming, the yacht had already sailed too far, leaving his pleas for rescue carried away by the gentle night breeze before they could even reach the boat.
——
Mia clenched her teeth as tears spilled down her cheeks, still fighting and thrashing on top of the bed as the disgusting hands of two members of Malik’s security continued to taint her skin. One of them had her arms locked over her head in a grip so tight it cut off the circulation in her wrists, and the other was hard at work moving his ice cold hands over every inch of her body. Every stroke of his disgusting fingers sent a new chunk of bile rising up her throat, and as she looked up into the icy blue-gray eyes of the vilest goon of all, it took everything she had not to spit in his face. She managed to fight the urge, knowing that pissing him off would only make this experience ten times worse than it already was.
His callused fingers reached into her mouth, their salty flavor singing her tongue and making her gag as she imagined how long it had been since he’d washed his fucking hands. His fingers probed her mouth, lifting her tongue and even going down her throat, causing her to retch.
“Where is it?” he demanded, removing his fingers from her throat moments before she really did empty the bile that had been racing up it since the moment he’d put his hands on her.
“Fuck you!” she spat.
His eyes went alight, making it hard to tell whether her profane words had pissed him off or turned him on.
Then his rough fingers were at her knees, spreading her thighs wide, exposing her pussy, and she had her answer.
His eyes fell to the mound between her thighs, and he licked his lips. When he lifted them back to hers, they were darker, as if they’d gone from blue to black in the blink of an eye—his fingers now trembling as he softly dragged the tips down her inner thighs, drawing a singeing path toward her cunt.
“Maybe in here?” he whispered.
“Please don’t,” Mia begged, still tugging against her wrists, kicking her feet against the bed, barely containing a gut-churning scream. “Please stop.”
——
Linc’s heart was in his throat as he made his way down another staircase. The staircase that led to the lowest level of the boat. The level that had been decorated in all white finishes—white couches, white marble floors and even gleaming white cabinetry in the state-of-the-art kitchen. Wall-to-wall windows encased the entire room, giving unfiltered views of the River Thames outside. He tried to take a deep breath, but it died a rapid death halfway. As he cleared the staircase, gun primed in front of him, he was sure his heart couldn’t beat any faster. That, if it did, it might steal the last wisp of breath that remained in his burning lungs. That, if it did, it might just kill him.
Then, a scream rang out. Not just a scream.
Her scream.
It was muffled, clearly coming from down the hallway, from behind one of the many closed doors scattered all over, but Linc heard it like a bomb going off.
His wide eyes flew over his shoulder in the direction of the scream, just in time to come eye to eye with the barrel of a gun, and the crazed brown orbs of the goon who had it primed it at his head.
Drawing in a gasp, Linc swiped at the m
an’s wrist just as the gun went off, a flash of light filling the dark room as the bullet flew from the muzzle and ricocheted off the white marble floors. Then the butt of Linc’s gun thrashed the man’s forehead, crushing bone under the brute force of his battering fist. The blow of the hard metal sent the goon crumbling to the floor with one hit, his gun clanking against the marble as it hit the floor too, sliding away from his limp hand. Chest heaving, Linc looked down at the man, in a heap on the floor with his eyes closed, pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger, ensuring they stayed closed for good.
The sound of two gunshots had surely alerted Malik’s army that something was amiss on the boat. It was only a matter of seconds before they started swarming in like ants, so Linc moved into the kitchen, behind the island with a gleaming white countertop, his gun pointed and ready to shoot. Malik’s men didn’t disappoint, popping out from all angles, and he had a bullet for each of them, squinting as the gun backfired with each pull of the trigger—each bullet he sent into the head, chest, or stomach of every asshole who showed his face. The goon who came barreling down the stairs. The goon who popped out of a room in the long hallway to the east. The one who seemed to come out of nowhere on the opposite side of the kitchen island. Each of them earned a bullet that ended their life. Each of them sent Linc’s heart churning a little faster. His need to get to Mia a little stronger.
His need for her was dangerous, as proven by the bullet that went flying by his head and shattered the window behind him, mere moments after her gorgeous face had infiltrated his mind, alerting him to the goon peeking out from behind the wall that led down another hallway next to the kitchen. With a sharp breath, Linc pivoted and returned enough fire to make the man duck back behind the kitchen wall.
Linc made his way toward the wall he was hiding behind, just as several bullets pierced it in rapid-fire. He ducked down in the nick of time as the goon fired through the wall, sending chunks of plaster raining down all around him. Linc leaped to his feet to return fire but was met with the stomach-dropping click that indicated he’d was out of bullets. Hearing that unmistakable sound, the goon hurried out from where he’d been huddled on the other side of the wall.
But Linc was too fast; sensing his every move before he made it, and grabbed the goon’s gun-toting wrists before he’d even finished stepping out from the shadows. The gun went off but was pointed in the wrong direction, missing Linc as he hauled the man into the kitchen, keeping a fierce hold of his wrist with one hand while seizing a butcher’s knife from the holder mounted on the wall. With a primal scream, Linc heaved the goon’s gun-holding hand against the shattered wall, reared back with the knife and sent the gleaming blade slicing through the man’s hand and the plaster as well. Blood instantly spurted from the fat veins in his hand, dancing alongside the man’s agonized screams. Linc caught the gun that fell from his oozing hand, stepped back, aimed it at the trapped asshole’s head, and pulled the trigger three times at point-blank range.
The third bullet caught him right between the eyes, the kill shot, and sent him crumpling to the floor. The knife Linc had stabbed through his palm was still firmly implanted in the wall, however, stopping the goon from hitting the floor completely, his arm raised high above his head from where his hand was still snared between the blade and the plaster.
Silence.
Linc waited, gun primed, ready for any other asshole who wanted to try a man like him. A man who’d just heard the woman he loved—the woman his precious daughter loved—screaming at the top of her lungs. He’d already downed at least a dozen men to get to that scream, and he’d happily down a million more.
But nothing came. The silence drove him, stepping over the dead body in the kitchen and making his way across the room, stepping over the lifeless bodies he’d left scattered there too. He moved blindly in the direction he’d originally heard Mia’s heart-stopping shriek. He moved on a careful foot, checking over his shoulder periodically, always ready for some bastard to come jumping out of the shadows, but again, nothing came.
He kicked open doors as he went down the hallway, each room dark, empty. Each room promising another gun-battle, another fist-fight, another brush with death. But those promises went unfulfilled with each door that flew open.
Until he got to the last door, that is, the door at the end of the hall. Kicking it open, he was met with the sight of Mia in the master suite with tears racing down her cheeks and her gasping lips spread open wide. One of Malik’s arms was locked around her neck in a chokehold from behind. With his free hand, Malik had a pistol trained at her temple. Both their brown eyes went wide and frantic as they met Linc’s on the other side of the door, seconds after he’d kicked it open.
If it was possible, Mia’s brown orbs expanded even more at the sight of Linc—as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. As if she was watching a horror movie even, chest heaving just as wildly as his.
Malik, on the other hand, didn’t seem nearly as surprised as his wife.
“Let her go.” It took everything Linc had to move his furious gaze from Mia to Malik. “Now.” He blinked slowly, the blood of whatever goon he’d just shot at point blank range still soaking his eyelashes and his cheeks. Dots of it even decorated his trembling hands, which were locked around the gun he had primed at Malik’s head.
“I gave you what you wanted,” Malik said. “But if you believe for a second—”
Linc pulled the trigger before Malik could say another word and Mia screamed when the shot connected, sending Malik’s head flying back mere inches away from her face. His arms flew just as violently as his head, freeing Mia. The gun he’d had pointed at her temple soared across the room as the bullet he’d just caught between the eyes sent him collapsing onto the bed behind him.
Mia watched Malik hit the bed, lifeless, and stared down at him for several moments before throwing her gaze back to the door with a gasp, her eyes still soaked with disbelief as if waiting for the moment when the sight of Linc before her proved to be a mirage. Simply a product of naked delirium that had befallen a woman enslaved. The longer she stared at him, however, the harder the truth seemed to hit her that he was real.
Linc remained in the doorway for several moments—gun still pointed at Malik. Then, he pulled the trigger again, drawing another scream from Mia—another healthy leap away from the bed and Malik’s motionless body—sending a bullet into Malik’s stomach. After Mia had moved to the other end of the room, Linc pulled the trigger again, blinking against the gun’s strong backfire as he sent another bullet into Malik’s stomach. Eyes empty, blind, barely breathing, Linc finally cleared the doorway and pulled the trigger again, catching Malik in the head. He approached the bed and stood over Malik’s unmoving body, marred with bullet holes, and pulled the trigger again, sending another shot into his head. Blood flew. He pulled the trigger again and again, until the crack of each shot made his ears hum, rendering him nearly deaf. So much so that he didn’t even hear the click of the gun when he’d emptied the last of the bullets into his skull. Still pulling the trigger, over and over, long after the gun had nothing left to give, his ears recovered slowly until the click of the empty gun finally registered in his ears.
The only thing that pulled him out of the world he’d sank into—the world where he was seriously considering pulling one of the fresh magazines from his pocket, reloading the gun, and delivering a few more bullets into that scum of the Earth’s head—was her.
Her soft touch on his arm. Her sweet scent filling his flared nostrils. Her deep breathing filling his ears and warming his heart because he knew it was the sound that gave her life. The life he thought he’d lost forever.
His green orbs moved to Mia the moment her trembling fingers were on his skin, and he hadn’t even realized his limbs had gone numb the moment their eyes locked until his gun had thudded to the floor.
Mia was the first to move, launching herself at him, and wrapping her arms around his neck in a furious grip.
Their cries met i
n the quiet air of the bedroom and rose to the ceiling as Linc encased her in the strength of his arms as well. Hugging her so tightly he wondered if he might crush her bones. The warmth of her breath in the crook of his shoulder made tears fill his eyes, and it was everything he could do not to break into a sob on her shoulder.
Mia, however, didn’t have the strength to hold back her emotion, tears racing down her cheeks and she pulled away and clutched his jaw, searching his eyes, her own gaze still astonished.
“You…” Her voice broke, shaky with the emotion still spilling down her cheeks. “You came back for me.”
He shook his head at her as if he couldn’t believe that she still didn’t get it. “I told you I would.”
It was as if she hadn’t heard him. “You… you came back for me.”
“Mia…” He managed to smile for the first time in several days, and even though it was a small one, the tiniest lift at the corner of his lips, he felt the happiness that inspired it exploding all over his body, washing away all of the shadows and the blackness, leaving nothing but light. “I love you.”
Her eyes exploded to twice their size. The grip she had on his jaw went primal as the tips of her nails dug into his skin. Her own lips curled up into a smile, even as they trembled wildly.
“You what?” she breathed.
“I love you.” He knew he should have said it days ago. He should’ve said it every day. Several times a day. Every moment. Every second.
She deserved that. She deserved to be loved every day. Every moment. Every second.
To be kissed, and hugged, and cherished.
“I love you, Mia.” He kissed her lips, forcing her to draw in a gasping breath when the touch of her lips lit him up even brighter than the mere sight of her already had. Driving him to go in for another kiss: deeper, stronger, lingering for several moments before pulling away. “I love you.”
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