by Julie Miller
“Yeah, well for as much trouble as she is, it’s not all that pretty.”
“So you’ve been lookin’?”
Joe’s denial was both colorful and revealing. Interesting. So Joseph Brown, the born-again bachelor who’d sworn off women since a messy divorce, had the juice for the princess. “I just happened to be in Bozeman, following up on a rumor about a militia connection when those two guys jumped her.”
“She was lucky you were there.”
“Maybe.”
Trevor had no doubt Veronika Petrov was in safe, capable hands. Instead of giving Joe any more grief over an apparently unexpected and unwelcome attraction, Trevor went back to business. “You got a safe place where you can take her?”
“I know a place. If she’ll follow orders.” Trevor could envision the scowl that matched Joe’s voice. “I swear to God that woman’s never met a man, child or animal she didn’t want to meet and make friends with. I nearly lost her at a gas station. I sent her to the john and told her to come straight back to the truck. I knew we hadn’t been followed, but after ten minutes, when she didn’t show up, I went looking for her. I found her in the garage, talking to the mechanic.”
“From what I hear, women aren’t allowed a lot of freedom back in Lukinburg. Maybe she’s just feelin’ her oats here in the States, away from all those restrictions.”
“Yeah? Well my job would be a hell of a lot easier if she’d lock herself in the barn and stay put.”
Trevor grinned. There was only one man on the team he knew could be more stubborn than Joseph Brown, but it sounded as if Joe was giving the Sarge a run for his money. “Good luck, buddy. Keep us posted, and if you need anything, call in.”
Resigned to his princess-sitting duties, Joe eased into a more professional tone. “Will do. Hey—how’s the colonel?”
“Beat-up and worn out, but in a better frame of mind now that he’s at home with his family. He’d be a lot happier if we could hear some news about Sarge and the other hostages.”
“We all would. Let me know if there’s anything I can do at my end. You can reach me on this secure line.”
“Just keep the princess safe. We’ll bring our boys home. I promise.”
“ALL RIGHT, MR. MARTIN. Let’s try again.” The mock pleasantness in Marcus Smith’s voice underscored the soft rustling sound of a piece of paper being unfolded. Again. He thrust the worn letter with the familiar scribbles in front of Bryce’s face. “Read it.”
The blockhead needed a shave and a breath mint, and just wasn’t getting the idea. Bryce looked beyond the page, beyond the ice-blue eyes, and stared at 6-12.
Smith nodded to the man on Bryce’s right.
Damn, this was gettin’ old.
The blow to his gut hit like an explosion in his side. Pain radiated outward in aftershocks that clipped the top of his thigh, his back and lungs before fading into one dull ache in the middle of his body.
Bryce concentrated on his breathing, taking slow, shallow breaths that would keep him conscious and cognizant without hyperventilating or putting any added pressure on the burning ache in his torso muscles. Wincing, he swallowed a curse. Oh, yeah, one or both of those bottom two ribs on his right side had cracked.
Pulling his gaze away from 6-12, as he’d dubbed the chipped, moldy stone—sixth row from the top of the wall, twelfth block over—that had been his point of focus for two weeks, he let his peripheral gaze sneak a peak at Bristoe and Hodges. Marcus Smith’s two goons had switched to brass knuckles this week, probably because their own hands had taken a beating after so many days working out against his tough hide.
Bristoe hit like a girl, probably the only reason Bryce’s left side was in better shape. Hodges had either boxed Golden Gloves or grown up on the street, though, because each blow was on the mark—the same mark—time and again. But Hodges’s glass eye, probably the result of all that boxing experience, would give Bryce a maneuvering advantage—if he ever managed to free himself from these chains.
That was getting to be a big if. He was trussed up like a pig at the slaughterhouse, with his wrist chain suspended from a rusty O-ring in the ceiling. Bryce’s feet touched the floor, easing the pressure on his chest and preventing suffocation. Marcus Smith knew his business. He didn’t want his prisoner to pass out or die during an interrogation—he just wanted him to experience lots and lots of pain.
Try burying your parents when you were eight, your grandparents when you were twenty-one. Try living through second-and third-degree burns over half your body, skin grafts, shrapnel wounds, startled gasps and rude comments because you were an ugly son of a bitch. Try living with loneliness nearly every day of your adult life. Bryce knew more about pain than Marcus Smith ever would. He could handle this interrogation.
He fisted his hands where they hung above his head, then splayed his fingers and wiggled them to keep the blood circulating through his arms. For a few seconds he considered letting the tingling pinpricks of numbness settle down into his wrists and forearms. Maybe if he lost the sensation in his arms, he wouldn’t notice the raw skin chafing beneath the iron manacles.
Of course, if his arms went numb, he wouldn’t be able to keep subtly twisting the O-ring. Bristoe and Hodges were good little soldiers who only took orders. And Smith was so close to his boiling point that he hadn’t noticed the little crumblings of mortar dust that had snowed from the ceiling every now and then—ever since Bryce’s very first day in the interrogation room.
Smith huffed with impatience, wadded up the letter and chucked it at Bryce’s head. Bryce ignored the painless blow and spared little more than a blink when Smith got up in his face and hollered. “Dammit, Martin, you are gonna talk!”
Bryce sought out 6-12.
“Your buddies from Big Sky have already broken,” Smith spat in his face. “They’ve read their letters. They’re ready to make the tape.”
Bryce doubted it.
Smith’s meaty hands curled into fists at his sides. He let his hot breath wash over Bryce’s face and tried to stare him down, waiting for some kind of reaction, anything he could jump on and use against Bryce. Bryce suspected that Marcus Smith would like nothing better than for the two of them to head outside and duke it out until only one of them was left standing. He was tempted to give Smith the satisfaction. But with who knew how many other militiamen to back up his enemy, Bryce doubted it would be a fair fight.
It was a good measure of the power Boone Fowler held over all his men that Smith reined in his pride and testosterone and stuck to their plan. As self-titled security chief, Smith was charged with convincing each of the Big Sky Bounty Hunters to read a letter on videotape. The tape would condemn the UN’s resolution to send troops into Lukinburg, and apologize for any role they had played in interfering with the Montana Militia for a Free America—including imprisoning their leader and pursuing him as a criminal instead of honoring him as a patriot.
Fat chance.
Bryce kept his expression as craggy and unmoving as 6-12.
Marcus Smith stormed across the room. He picked up the wadded paper and spread it flat against his thigh before speaking again. “Tell me your name.”
That he would do. “Bryce Martin.”
“Who do you work for?”
Uh-uh. Rank and serial number were the only other information he’d share. And since Bryce was no longer military, he was done talking.
“Read this letter.”
Old 6-12 was becoming a good friend.
“I can put you on the rack.” Smith pointed to the rickety wooden structure whose antique pulleys would give out before Bryce did. “I’ll put you in the stocks.” At least Bryce would get the feeling back in his hands. “I’ll whip you with that cat-o’-nine-tails on the wall.” The guy talked too much.
“Read it!” Marcus commanded, striding back and waving the paper in Bryce’s face. “You will answer my questions and you will read these words.”
Bryce shifted his position, adjusting his arms and squinti
ng as a shower of dust sprinkled over them.
Smith nodded. Bristoe’s punch scraped the skin, but did little damage inside.
Bryce was finding 6-12 again when a metallic knock echoed through the room.
Scratching his fingers through his thick beard, Smith answered. “Enter.” A key turned in the lock and the rusted iron door groaned on its hinges. “Well, well, well, what have we here?”
The insidious delight in Smith’s voice was enough to prick Bryce’s curiosity. But he fought the urge to look.
He didn’t have to.
When the door opened into the room, he caught a whiff of home-cooked heaven. He knew it was Tasiya, even before she spoke. “Mr. Fowler asked me to deliver this message to you.”
“Come on in, sugar. You’d better wait right here until I find out whether or not I need to send a reply.” Smith swung the door open wide, giving Bryce a clear view of Tasiya’s raven-dark curls piled at the back of her head, her creamy skin and dark eyes that widened and locked instantly on him.
Bryce’s pulse rate tripped into a higher gear. He didn’t want her here. She didn’t need to see this place, didn’t need to see him like this. A spot deep inside him, softer than the one Hodges had been working over, began to ache.
Though he tried like hell to concentrate on 6-12, he couldn’t miss each dart of her eyes to every bruise, every bloody scrape, every lock and chain that held him in place.
She pressed her lips together around her hushed gasp. But that slightest of sounds seemed to fill the chamber’s dank, heavy air and settle deep into Bryce’s conscience. Marcus shifted his attention from the note and saw her distress. Even worse, those sick blue eyes saw the flinch of Bryce’s reaction to her shock.
Go away. Bryce risked making contact and silently warned her with his eyes. This was not gonna be good.
Marcus Smith smiled. “You wanna watch me work?”
Shaking her head, Tasiya tore her gaze away from Bryce and stared at the buttons on Marcus’s shirt. “I only came to deliver the message.” Her bottom lip quivered before she drew it quickly between her teeth. “What are you doing to him?”
“Why don’t you see for yourself.” Marcus reached over her shoulder and pushed the door shut, trapping her. Bryce’s blood caught fire and surged in his veins. He jerked against his chains, fighting to stay in control.
“No.” Tasiya clawed at the iron ring behind her back, caught hold and opened the door. “My duties. I have dinner to prepare.”
But Marcus’s hand reached over her and slammed it shut with a dire inevitability that shook through her.
Bryce’s fingers splayed, then fisted above his head, giving vent to his frustrated need to shield her from this nightmare. He watched her shut down her emotions like that night at his cell when she’d been terrified of something she feared more than him. Her body went still except for the quiver in her chin as she clenched her jaw too tight and put on a brave show. Bryce counted the raging heartbeats pounding in his ears as she averted her gaze and pretended she didn’t mind Smith moving closer, tangling his beard with the curls at her forehead.
When the big bastard grinned at her discomfort, Bryce made his first mistake. “Let her go, Smith.”
With his hand still braced on the door behind Tasiya’s head, the big man slowly turned. He raised a bushy eyebrow in triumph. “So—your mouth works after all, eh, Sarge?”
“She doesn’t need to see this.”
“I think maybe she does.”
Tasiya’s panicked gaze flew up to Bryce’s the instant Marcus turned his back on her. But Smith never stepped away, keeping her backed into the corner without enough room to open the door. Bryce drilled Smith’s icy eyes. He didn’t want to give the security chief any more of an advantage than he already had.
Smith flipped open the note she’d delivered, barely taking his focus off Bryce to read it. “I think we finally found the key to making him talk, boys.”
Hodges’s and Bristoe’s rowdy taunts were nothing but white noise in the background. Bryce knew where the real threat in the room lay—and that threat was too damn close to Tasiya.
He swallowed his pride, his plan and the bitter taste of capitulation in his mouth. “Let her leave and I’ll say whatever you want me to.”
Smith gestured with Fowler’s note, obviously a revised set of instructions from the head honcho. “Tell me about Cameron Murphy. We left him for dead at the Galleria Mall. Is he still alive?”
“He was in the hospital when I left Montana.”
“He still calling the shots at Big Sky?”
After two weeks in his solitary prison cell, Bryce had no clue about the status of affairs at Big Sky. He only knew his loyalties were with the colonel. “I still work for him.”
“Not what I asked, Sarge.” Smith clicked his tongue with a pitying reprimand. “Who’s making the decisions for them now? Do they have the manpower to mount a rescue?”
Why don’t you let me go and I’ll ask. But the sarcastic response on the end of Bryce’s tongue never came out. It wasn’t his way. “Send Tasiya back to the kitchen first.”
“She’s fine where she is.” Smith nodded once and Hodges nailed him in the ribs.
“No!” Tasiya cried out as Bryce swallowed a curse and fought to master the pain spiraling through him.
“Let her go.” He ground out the words on the deepest breath he could manage.
“Are you gonna read this letter now? Like you mean it?”
“When she’s gone.”
Smith turned his face to the side and spat out his chew. It was the only respite Bryce got before his captor gave the order to attack.
“No!” Tasiya screamed as Hodges and Bristoe pummeled him with their fists. There was no disguising the terror on her face now. Bryce dodged and braced as best he could. He strained against his bonds, but without his hands, he made an easy punching bag.
Marcus Smith laughed, and Tasiya snatched at his arm, begging him to listen. “Make them stop!”
Bryce took an easy shot and kicked Bristoe in the gut. But while one man doubled over, the other rammed his brass knuckles into Bryce’s exposed back, knocking him off his feet. He pulled against his chains and righted himself, but the fists kept coming.
“You are killing him!” Tasiya shouted. Instead of making a break for it while Smith watched the fight, the crazy woman shot forward, trying to help. “Stop it!”
Marcus grabbed her around the neck and shoved her up against the wall. “You watch, sugar.”
“Let her go!” Bryce ignored the coppery tang of blood in his mouth. “I’ll read it. I’ll read the damn letter!”
Smith nuzzled his lips against Tasiya’s ear, holding her by the chin and pinning her with his hip so she couldn’t look away. “Listen to him. Now he wants to cooperate.” He glanced over his shoulder at Bryce. “I don’t care what you have to say now. My boys can have at ya until they get tired.”
“Stop!” she cried.
Tears glistened in her eyes. And while they had no effect on Marcus Smith, they tore Bryce up a lot worse than Hodges’s fists. “Tasiya!” Close your eyes. Look away. “Let her go!”
“So you can take a beating, but you can’t stand to have the little lady watch it? Oh, man, this is rich,” Smith laughed. He wrapped his arm around Tasiya’s waist, pinning her arms and picked her up. Then he set her down in front of him, squeezing her chin and forcing her eyes toward Bryce. “The view’s better from here.”
“You son of a bitch!” A shower of dust rained down from the ceiling and stuck in the sweat and blood on Bryce’s skin.
He saw a flash of Tasiya’s straight, white teeth and suddenly glimpsed a rebellious spirit inside the demure cook he’d never have suspected. With a twist of her neck, she sank her teeth into Smith’s hand.
The big man yelped, cursed and threw her across the room.
“Tasiya!”
She smacked into the wall and bounced off, landing on her hands and knees.
Bryce fi
sted his hands around the chain and pulled with all his might.
Smith followed her across the room, his hand raised to strike as she pushed herself to her feet.
“Tasiya!” Chips of mortar and stone crashed down from the ceiling as Bryce ripped out the O-ring. Before his bellowing voice faded away, he’d looped the chain around Smith’s neck and jerked him away from Tasiya. He spun around, sticking Marcus in front of him to absorb the next blow from a startled Hodges. “Run!”
Dammit, she wasn’t moving. He couldn’t maintain the advantage for long. He shoved Smith into Bristoe and Hodges, knocking them into the rack and off their feet.
“Bryce Martin?”
“You can’t help me.” He grabbed her by the wrist and hustled her toward the door. “Just go.”
“But—”
Angry hands yanked him away and slammed him into the wall, knocking the air out of his already tender lungs. “Please, dammit!” he wheezed. “Get out of here!”
“Please, dammit,” Marcus mimicked.
Bryce summoned the strength to ram his fist into Marcus’s mouth, drawing blood and shutting him up—and igniting his temper.
Smith wiped the blood from his lip, called him the devil and worse. And while his thugs held on, he hit Bryce low in the gut.
As Bryce’s knees buckled, Bristoe and Hodges took him the rest of the way, pinning him stomach-down on the cold stone floor. A crack of sound that could only be the cat-o’-nine-tails snapped in the air. “You’re done, Sarge. You don’t have to say another word.”
“No! Mr. Smith—please!”
But all of Smith’s rage was focused on Bryce now, and Tasiya’s presence was blessedly forgotten.
Bryce raised his head, warning her away with his eyes, apologizing for the stark terror he saw in hers. He could only mouth one word. “Go.”
“I am so sorry.” She backed into the door, fumbled in her hurry to find the handle. “I am so sorry.”
She threw open the door and ran.
Bryce breathed an odd sense of relief that she was gone, that she’d been spared the hell that was about to claim him. He could endure this now that she was safe. He wouldn’t add to the fear in her eyes.