by Sweet, Izzy
Inside I’m screaming in agony as my head is forced up.
“Do you know how much I’ve worried about you?”
Someone’s cool breath hits my face.
“Do you know how much I’ve suffered not knowing what those pizdas were doing to you?”
I don’t care. I don’t care. It’s nothing to me.
The voice grows sharper, angrier, as if it’s in tune with my pain, finding it’s beat. “You’re mine… mine to break and tame and mold as I please.”
Fighting the grip on my hair only causes a spike of intense agony to slam into my brain.
“Tell me… Answer me honestly and I’ll give you something for the pain. Did he fuck you? Did he use what belongs to me?”
A tightness wraps around my throat, but the discomfort is insignificant compared to what I’m already experiencing.
“This is your one and only chance to be honest with me.”
Even in my nearly delirious state, I understand the significance of the question and fear answering it.
A fleeting thought whispers beneath the pain.
I’m not the only one in danger here.
Suddenly the tugging on my scalp eases, but the constriction around my neck increases.
As the seconds tick by, it becomes harder and harder to breathe.
True darkness rises up inside me, cold and black and ready to swallow me.
This darkness isn’t like the other, though, and it frightens me.
“Tell me!” the voice demands.
I’m shaken, and pure, sheer agony courses through me.
“Tell me!”
Seeking only to get the voice to stop so I can be left in peace, I manage to push out a choked whisper. “Yes.”
The grip around my throat goes slack for a moment, long enough for me to pull in some much-needed air, and then it suddenly tightens until it’s crushing the life out of me.
Pressure. There’s so much pressure.
My eyes pop open from the power of it.
Alexei’s snarling face stares down at me.
“I’ll fucking kill him.”
His face begins to blur, that darkness creeping back in until it completely swallows me up.
“I’ll kill them all!”
* * *
Something hard and cold slides inside of me.
Unlike earlier, the feeling is so jarring, so disturbing and violating, I immediately stir to full consciousness.
What the hell is going on?
It felt like it does when I go to the…
Oh god.
Immediately, I take stock of my body. Strangely, I’m no longer in any pain, but I can’t seem to move my limbs.
And there’s this a pressure… an uncomfortable pressure below my waist.
“Ah, yes…” a foreign, unfamiliar voice says from somewhere below me. “She was used.”
I begin to open my eyes only to stop when I hear Alexei’s voice.
“Used?” he clenches out.
I don’t know why, but instead of trying to fight, I stiffen, petrified of moving. It’s as if I’ve suddenly turned to stone.
“Yes, most definitely used,” the unfamiliar voice says in a detached way. “And from the micro-tearing I’m observing, she was used roughly.”
Alexei mutters a bunch of Russian words I don’t understand, and I nearly jump out of my skin when there’s a loud thud.
The terror holding me hostage tightens its grip.
“Remember, I’m Armenian, not Russian. Speak English,” the stranger grumbles.
Alexei mutters some more in Russian before taking a deep, calming breath. Then he asks, “Was she forced?”
There’s a pause.
Then the stranger answers, “You’ll have to ask her.”
Alexei’s voice is instantly cold, all the heat evaporating from his voice as he snaps, “I’m asking you, Dr. Petrosyan.”
The doctor hums under his breath and then says reluctantly, “It’s possible.”
Alexei returns to growling in Russian again.
As if suppressing a laugh, the doctor says, “If it makes you feel better, know that she is not permanently damaged, and I doubt it’s causing her any discomfort. She should be, as they say, as good as new in a few days.”
“That’s reassuring, for her sake,” Alexei says with so much malice all the little hairs all over my body stand on end.
A chuckle slips out of the doctor. “Indeed. However, we’ll need to take a few steps to ensure there’s not an unwanted pregnancy.”
Wait… what? There’s no way I’m pregnant…
“Unwanted pregnancy?” Alexei hisses.
“Yes. There’s evidence that whoever used her didn’t use protection. Given that it’s been a few days since we’ve removed her contraceptive device, there is a slim, very slim, chance she could be pregnant.”
My knee-jerk reaction is disbelief.
The doctor must be confused, because I still have an IUD…
A strange numbness suddenly tingles across my flesh.
He said they removed my contraceptive device a few days ago…
Oh god… Oh fuck.
That sick fucker must have done it when they sedated me before the wedding.
As all the implications hit me and my mind struggles to come to grips with the sick revelation, Alexei is ominously silent.
At first, I’m not even aware of it, but as time passes, it becomes more obvious, and an overwhelming sense of dread forms in the pit of my stomach.
I could be pregnant… There might be a child inside me. Gabriel’s child. And I’m stuck in this place, completely at Alexei’s mercy.
My heart begins to race and the need to escape, to get away, to protect myself and my possible unborn baby, grows with every passing second.
Just as I try to move my arms again and find them still restrained, the stranger breaks the tense silence.
“That is, if you think she’s worth the effort of salvaging.”
I freeze as I sense someone moving closer to me. Cracking my eyes open just enough to peek out of them, I see Alexei’s dark form stalking toward me through my lashes.
The look on his face is so icy, so foreboding, I squeeze my eyes shut again.
“Ah… that’s what I’m not sure of,” Alexei admits. “Is she worth the effort?”
I can’t see him, but I can sense his presence looming over me, nearly smothering me with the weight of it.
“Only you can decide that,” the doctor says quietly.
A hand touches my head and brushes my hair back. And it’s everything I can do not to squirm or giveaway that I’m conscious and aware of what’s happening.
“Explain the process and the odds of success,” Alexei says.
“Well, there are a few options,” the stranger says thoughtfully. “We could use medication to terminate any possible chance of pregnancy, but it might not take.”
Alexei sighs. “So what do you suggest?”
“A preventive termination via menstrual extraction.”
The words bang around inside my head, not making any sense.
“And, pray tell, what is that?” Alexei asks with a hint of irritation.
“A simple suction procedure that will remove anything unwanted in her womb.”
Fuck me. This guy wants to vacuum out my insides? Are you shitting me?
Sounding almost bored now, Alexei asks, “And the chance of success?”
His hand continues to stroke my hair back, and I pray to God I don’t start to break out in a cold sweat.
The doctor sounds overly cocky as he says, “In my hands, I can assure you one hundred percent.”
One hundred percent… One hundred percent chance that if Gabriel’s baby is inside me, this fucking butcher of a doctor will kill it.
Alexei’s hand stills against my hair as he asks with more interest, “And she’ll be able to have more children after the procedure?”
“Of course,” the doctor says almost cheerfully. “If y
ou like, you can begin to breed her immediately.”
Breed me?
Breed me?!
“Oh? There’s no recovery time?”
The doctor snickers. “None is needed. The procedure itself might be long and painful, but once it’s completed her body will be ready to be impregnated.”
God help me. Is there no end to this fucking madness?
“How soon can you perform the procedure?” Alexei asks, sounding eager now.
Bile rises up in my throat and I fear I might be sick. Once again, I attempt to move my arms and legs, but there’s absolutely no give.
“Immediately. Thanks to our current operation, we already have all the equipment on hand.”
“Excellent,” Alexei says, and he moves away, taking the unwanted touch of his hand with him.
Hinges creak as a door swings open, and I peek open my eyes once again.
This time Alexei’s eyes meet mine, glittering with dark amusement.
He smiles at me and then looks to the man seated between my spread legs.
“I’ll leave you to it, Doctor. Inform me when the procedure is completed.”
21
Gabriel
Racing into the warehouse parking lot, I slam on the breaks as hard as I can before yanking the gearshift of the truck into park. It’s going to kill the fucking transmission treating it like this, but I don’t have any other choice.
Every second Meghan isn’t in my protection is a second that fucker could be hurting her.
The truck swings sideways as we come to a screeching halt.
We’ve got luck on our side to the extent that the entrance to the warehouse and parking lot looks like a giant upside-down L. Trees and small buildings hide our approach, giving us the opportunity to get the jump on these dick-sticks.
Johnathan and I slide out of the driver’s side of the Lexus so we can get a good angle on the building and the two guards in front of it. Both guards stand at the office portion of the warehouse, guarding the door. So far, these are the only ones dumb enough to stand outside where we can get to them this fucking easily.
Both guards go down quickly as Johnathan and I bring our M4’s up to our shoulders and let out two suppressed shots. Blood, skull, and brain matter splat against the wall behind them before they drop to the hard asphalt.
The office portion of the building is entirely made up of bricks, with one steel-framed door for its entry. The rest of the warehouse is made of sheet metal. We knew this fucking door would be the biggest issue for us getting in.
Big issues mean big ideas. Our big idea is a shit ton of plastic explosive.
Johnathan sprints up to the door before us, his hands already moving to place the plastic explosive to take out the door frame and hopefully fuck with whoever’s in the room behind the door.
“Breach, breach, breach,” Johnathan growls out into the communication wrap that’s fitted snugly around his throat.
With those words instantly entering our ears, we all turn away from the blast zone and count down from three in our heads.
There’s a loud boom as the charges blow the door completely off the hinges, sending shrapnel flying into the room. I’m supposed to be the first guy into the building, but we have a strict protocol we follow.
So I toss a flashbang grenade into the room first. Then Andrew tosses a shrapnel grenade after mine goes off.
Disorientation and collateral damage are the keys to fucking these bastards up.
Shock and maximum carnage.
We didn’t have time to fully plot anything beyond our tactical squad order and just the roughest outlines of how the building is laid out. There simply isn’t any way to plan an operation like this without risking something bad going down with Meghan.
I can’t fucking allow that. Meghan is the one spot in my world that I base my sanity on. Without her by my side, I’m not sure I’ll be able to function. I fucking hate that I’ve put such a dependency on her.
But that’s what happened.
Somewhere between her pulling the trigger on me in the church, to when she got shoved in the car by Alexei, I’ve grown to need this woman with my very fucking being.
She’s mine. Mind, body, heart, and fucking soul.
Loving her makes me feel human again.
Knowing that Alexei has dared laid a hand on my fucking woman, on my fucking salvation, has my damn mind shutting down to a narrow fucking focus.
“In on three… two… one…” I say as I quickly move through the door with my M4 raised up to my shoulder and my finger already on the trigger.
“Following,” Johnathan says quickly behind me.
“Targets moving through the building,” James comes over the comms as I quickly aim my rifle at a staggering man.
“Hostile One down,” I say after a burst of three shots from my rifle.
“Hostile Two and Three already down on the floor from the explosives,” Johnathan reports.
Andrew grumbles into the comms as he follows us in, “Couple of shots for good measure.”
Six suppressed shots snap loudly in the room as he puts a hole in the heads and hearts of each downed target.
Nasty business that, but it ensures that we won’t have any sneaky fuckers getting up and shooting us in the back.
“Front office clear,” I say, and quickly move to the door that has a stairwell exit next to it. “Entering stairwell. Flashbang only.”
Pulling a second flashbang grenade off my vest, I wait for Johnathan to open the door before I toss the grenade inside. Pushing the door closed, we wait outside for the bang and ultrabright flash before yanking the doors open.
Finally hearing it go off, I look in and up to see if I can spot anyone. Empty.
“Stairwell empty,” I report.
“Got two guys coming up on the roof. Looking to see what they’re up to before—Holy tits!” I hear him shout before there’s a loud bang and the front of the office implodes on us.
Brick and metal shrapnel explode all around us as we rush into the stairwell for cover.
“What the fuck was that?” I yell into the comms strap around my neck.
Fuck me, I can feel a large chunk of something lodged in the back of my right shoulder. Lodged and fucking burning a damn hole in me. Pressing myself up against the wall, I pant for a moment, trying to center my mind away from the wound.
“RPG took out your car, Gabriel,” James says before I hear him start to snicker loudly in his mic. “Both targets down. Shot one in the pecker first, though, before I got a good headshot on him.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I hear Simon grumble into the comms chip in my ear.
“Get extraction vehicles out here if you can, Simon,” Johnathan says into his mic.
“Already on their way,” Simon says.
“Michael and I are fifteen minutes out,” Lucifer says into the mic.
Well, fuck me. Big man’s getting involved.
“Yay! Lily let you come out to play with the rowdy kids!” James cheers into the mic like a fucking kid.
“Shut up, James,” Lucifer says with laugh.
James isn’t as old as most of us, only a couple of years younger, so I’m guessing the fucker gets to be the fucking baby of the family. Lucifer treats the immature shit as if he’s another one of his sons anyway, from what Johnathan and Andrew say.
“I’m telling mom,” James taunts before his voice snaps into business mode. “They’ve got another guy coming up on the roof. Shooting in one… two… three. Target down. Searching the building for heat signatures.”
“We need to fucking move,” I growl into the mic.
I don’t have my brother’s fucking eloquent words or fucking analytical mind. I’m the brute fucking force. I smash through the fucking walls. I don’t sit behind and fucking work on a fucking keyboard. I’m the fucking hellhound. I’m not paid to think. I’m paid to fucking move and hurt.
All this shit’s going on and all I can do is grind my teeth at the slow fuck
ing pace we have to keep. I want to charge in and murder every fucking soul in this damn building.
Sliding along the wall, I move toward the stairs. If they haven’t decided to move toward us in the stairwell yet, they will soon. I don’t want to be a fucking fish in the barrel. I hate stairwell fights, topside always has the advantage.
“Moving up,” I say as I start sliding my body around the outside of the stairwell, trying to get the best view I can of what’s above me.
“Hold up,” Andrew says. “Fucking hell, you’re trailing blood.”
Looking back to the wall, I growl. I don’t have time to be injured. But there it is, a trail of my blood smearing against the wall as I move.
“No time to patch me up,” I grunt as he shoves his hand against the wound.
“You got a fucking chunk of metal in your shoulder, I need to get this fixed up,” Andrew says.
“After,” I say, before I feel him ripping at my shirt. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Putting a temporary bandage on there to keep you from bleeding out like an asshole,” Andrew grumbles before I feel him pushing something against my shoulder.
Pushing around the wound, he says, “It’s a compress with blood clotting shit in it. I’m going to need to remove that chunk of metal as soon as we can, though.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I mutter and wait for him to finish up.
“Looks like he stuck a maxi pad on you,” Johnathan says with a chortle.
“It’s not,” Andrew says with a small laugh himself. “But I’ve used ‘em before when I had to stop someone from dying on me.”
Moving forward, we quick-step up to the second floor of the building. It’s a three-story building, but James has seen all activity on the second floor through the heat signature scope he’s been using. I’m guessing the guys that got onto the roof used the stairwell at the opposite end of the building.
My hands start to jitter. Not good. I have to remain calm. I have to remain in perfect fucking control of my body. I can’t fucking wait for this shit to be over and done with. I need Meghan fucking safe. This waiting shit is for the birds.
“Taking target down,” James says into the comms. “They don’t seem to understand that windows are bad places to hide in front of.”