by Maya Banks
But then she refocused and remembered the objective. She reached for Cole’s shirt, shocked at how weak she was. Her fingers wouldn’t curl and she ended up flailing uselessly at his neck.
He captured her hand and held it to his lips. He quivered beneath her touch and she realized how hard he was shaking. He was losing it. Right here in front of everyone.
“The girls,” she said, rousing every ounce of her flagging strength. “He mentioned them. Said the pickup was tomorrow night.”
“I know, baby. We heard. We heard every goddamn thing,” he said in a tortured voice.
It was a reminder, a slap to her face. Yeah, she knew they’d heard, but his words just brought home how public her humiliation had been.
“Have to save them.”
Tears of pain crowded her vision, and she hated that she couldn’t be stronger. She hated that these sons of bitches had managed to subdue her and force her to submit to their depravities.
She was fading fast, and she had to make sure those girls would be taken care of. If she didn’t, she’d see their faces right alongside the faces of her rapists every night in her dreams.
“Promise you’ll save them,” she whispered. “Promise me. No matter what happens to me. You can’t let this happen to them. They’re just babies. So scared.”
She choked off before she said, “like I was.” But she knew they’d heard the unspoken words. Could hear them in her tone.
A loud clatter from the direction where Donovan and Steele had run made her teammates draw their weapons and surround her. Cole’s grip tightened on her and then Donovan was there, pressing in close.
“Talk to me, P.J.,” Donovan said in a low voice. “How are you, sweetheart?”
“C-cold.” She turned her face upward, her head so heavy she could barely manage the feat.
He all but pushed Cole out of the way and took P.J. into his own arms, lowering her to the floor.
“Get me something to wrap around her,” he ordered.
“What about the cuts?” Cole asked hoarsely.
P.J. struggled not to succumb to the blackness surrounding her. “Where’s Nelson? Did you get the bastard?”
She’d never forget the look on Donovan’s face as long as she lived. It was full of regret, rage and guilt.
“He escaped. He had a car parked behind the house, and our first priority is you. We’ll find him, P.J. I swear to you we’ll make that son of a bitch pay.”
She closed her eyes, tears leaking down her cheeks in hot trails.
“We’ll get you to the hospital,” Donovan said. “You won’t hurt much longer.”
He was wrong. So very wrong. She couldn’t imagine ever not hurting. Some hurts were so deep, beneath the skin. Soul deep.
“Not here. Take me home. He owns this city. I don’t trust anyone here. Just take me home and find those girls.”
Cole leaned down as Donovan carefully arranged a blanket over her body. He smoothed her hair back and kissed her brow. “I’ll do whatever you want, P.J. Whatever you need, baby. I swear it.”
Steele knelt and framed her face in his strong hands. His blue eyes bore into her with burning intensity.
“We’ll get the girls, P.J. But right now we’re going to take care of you.”
She nodded weakly and closed her eyes, welcoming the yawning abyss where she floated free of pain and shame.
CHAPTER 12
THEY bundled P.J. into the back of the van, and Baker hopped into the driver’s seat while Cole and Donovan took positions by P.J.
Cole managed to pry the knife from her fingers without her protest this time, but he pocketed it because she’d been adamant about keeping it. Then he closed his hand around hers, unwilling to let her think even for a moment that he wasn’t right here, by her side. That her entire team wasn’t surrounding her.
“What do you think, Van?” Cole asked, trying to control the anxiety in his voice. “That bastard cut her up pretty bad. She’s lost a lot of blood, not to mention that he . . .”
He closed his eyes and looked away, unable to say the word rape. The bastards had raped her. They’d put their hands on her. They’d brutalized her. And he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it.
“I want to get her to the airfield,” Donovan said grimly. “The sooner we get her loaded and take off, the better. I’ll work on her while we’re in the air.”
“What about Sunday? What about those girls?”
“As soon as P.J. is stable, I’m putting a call in to Sam. He’ll have to call in Rio and his team. They’ll have to be briefed so they know what they’re up against.”
“I want those bastards,” Cole said through gritted teeth.
Donovan leveled a stare at him as they raced down the highway. “Make a choice, Cole. I won’t stop you. But you have to choose. You going to stay with P.J. or are you going in with the others?”
Put that way, it wasn’t even a choice. He belonged at P.J.’s side. He’d never want her to feel like her team had abandoned her. He didn’t want her to think he’d abandoned her.
Rio and Sam would exact justice. P.J. needed him.
“I’m not leaving her,” Cole said.
From the seat just in front of them, Dolphin and Steele leaned over the top, closely monitoring the conversation.
“None of us are leaving her,” Steele said tightly.
“Hell no,” Dolphin muttered.
“We live as a team and we die as a team,” Steele said. “I want to go kick the living shit out of those assholes too, but P.J. needs us more than we need revenge. We’ll leave it to others in KGI to get justice for one of our own.”
Donovan barked up to Baker, “ETA?”
“Two minutes. Pilot is on standby.”
On time, the van pulled onto the dirt road to the airstrip on the periphery of the city. It was a regional airport, mostly used for cargo, and wasn’t a hub for passengers.
The plane was parked at an angle, ready to roll onto the runway. Baker roared onto the paved tarmac and slammed on the brakes.
The team sprang into action, opening the cargo doors to the van and making sure the hatch to the jet was open.
Donovan started to reach for P.J., but Cole brushed him off and gently gathered her in his arms, careful to keep the blanket around her to shield her nudity.
He hurried to the plane, carrying her up the three steps into the cabin.
“Bring her to the back and lay her on the couch,” Donovan said. “I’ll get my med pack, give her something for pain and then see what I can do to suture the cuts until we get her to a hospital. Tell the pilot to get us off the ground.”
To Steele, he gave a terse order. “Get on the horn with Sam and fill him in. Rio and his team need to be here in twenty-four hours and in position to intercept the shipment of girls.”
Cole bore his precious burden to the back of the plane and gently arranged her on the sofa so that she was shielded from the view of others.
The slashes to her body were horrifying. Two were deep and the flesh lay raggedly open. One carved a path down her midline between her breasts. There were two just underneath her breasts and one across her flat, muscled belly. And another two on the insides of her thighs.
The son of a bitch had carved her up and then forced himself on her because that’s how he got his rocks off.
“Damn,” Donovan murmured.
Cole focused on Donovan, trying to calm his fury. Donovan was holding P.J.’s right hand. It was swollen and bruised. Cole hadn’t noticed because it had been her left hand he’d clung to as they’d raced for the airport.
“Looks like she broke it,” Donovan said grimly.
He turned it over carefully in his palm and examined the swelling before returning it to her side.
Dolphin brought back the med pack and then took a seat across from the couch, his eyes burning with concern.
“Is she going to be all right, Van? How bad is it? Level with us. We’re going crazy up there.”
Do
novan took in a deep breath. “Physically? She’s going to be okay. Eventually. The cuts are bad but not life threatening. Emotionally? I can’t say. What she went through was horrific. P.J.’s strong, but I don’t know of any woman who can escape what she suffered unscathed.”
Cole scrubbed his hands over his face and then through his hair. “This shouldn’t have happened. I should never have let it happen. Goddamn it, I knew it was wrong. My gut was screaming at me that it was all wrong, and I let her walk into that situation.”
Donovan sighed. “It was her decision, Cole. You can’t make those for her. It was a team decision.”
“It was bullshit,” Cole spat. “It was a coward’s move, using a woman to draw out a monster. There was another way. There’s always another way, but we were too anxious and lazy to find it.”
“Try telling that to the mothers of the girls we’ll send home,” Dolphin said quietly. “And then ask P.J. if she thinks it was worth it. Knowing her as I do, I know which way she’ll go. Do you?”
Donovan gave P.J. an injection of pain medication and then numbed the area around her wounds. Afterward he began the meticulous task of stitching the wounds closed.
“This is beyond my scope,” he admitted. “There is tissue damage that needs to be repaired, but my main concern is to get the wounds closed so infection doesn’t set in.”
He checked the pulse in her injured wrist and then did another perusal of the swelling. Then he wrapped an ice pack around it and secured it so she couldn’t move it if she awakened.
Steele ducked into the back. “How is she?”
Donovan’s shoulders heaved. “I’ve patched her up. She needs care more advanced than I can provide, but she’ll do until we get to Fort Campbell. Have you gotten us clearance to land there instead of Henry County? Will sure as hell save us some time.”
Steele nodded. “Sam’s getting it worked out now. They’re pretty pissed and they want blood. He’s called up Rio and his team. This could get messy. I told him we were staying with P.J. unless he absolutely needed us. I don’t want to leave her, but I don’t want any member of KGI getting killed either.”
Cole studied his team leader for a long moment. Steele wasn’t much of a talker. He rarely volunteered more than a terse order or a very cut-and-dried summary of a situation.
But this had shaken that legendary composure of his and melted some of the rigid ice that seemed to encase him. Anger—no, fury—burned in his eyes, making them colder than ever. His jaw was set in a permanent bulge, and he looked like he wanted to physically put his hands on someone—anyone—and make them suffer a long, painful death.
But then Steele was all about the team. The team was it for him. He lived it, breathed it. He performed his duties, and he’d never failed in a mission.
Until now.
It was a weight they all had to bear. They weren’t used to failing. They always did whatever it took and they accomplished their goal.
Well, they’d accomplished what they set out to do, but one of their own had paid a very dear price, and for Cole, that was unacceptable. It was an epic fail on their part that they couldn’t keep P.J. from harm and succeed in their mission.
It was a truth they’d all have to confront, live with and deal with in their own way, but Cole knew his team and he knew this weighed heavy on their minds and would for a long damn time.
* * *
WHEN they landed at Fort Campbell, they were met by Sam and Garrett along with the base commander who’d given permission for the jet to land. A medical team hurried in with a stretcher, and P.J. was loaded and quickly hustled away.
Cole put up a fight when they wouldn’t allow him in the transport with P.J. She was still out. Donovan had kept her medicated during the flight so she’d be pain free, but Cole didn’t want her to wake up and feel like she was back in that nightmare.
Dolphin, Baker and Renshaw restrained him, pushing him back against one of the vehicles parked nearby.
Sam and Garrett both wore fierce expressions.
“What the fuck happened, Steele? What went wrong?” Sam demanded.
Steele’s demeanor was normal for him. Cold and formidable. But his eyes told another story. Usually cool, icy even, they blazed with a fury Cole hadn’t seen in all the time he’d worked for his team leader.
Steele met Sam’s gaze unflinchingly. “I failed my team.”
Garrett swore. “Bullshit.” He glanced around at all the members of Steele’s team, almost as if he could see the same thought in all their heads. “Look, I get that you’re all feeling shitty over this but you can’t get so down on yourselves. We need facts. Not guilt.”
Steele’s lip curled but he gave the report, not leaving a single detail out. Cole closed his eyes as Steele repeated what Brumley and Nelson had done to P.J. The rest of the team stood stiffly. Dolphin looked down as if he didn’t want anyone to see his eyes or expression.
Cole just wanted to get all the chitchat over with so he could go to P.J.
“Son of a bitch,” Sam swore, closing his eyes momentarily.
“What are you doing for the shipment of girls?” Steele demanded. “We belong here, with P.J. She needs her team right now.”
“Rio and his team are already en route, and Nathan, Joe and Swanny are meeting them in Vienna. They’ve been briefed. Resnick wants Brumley alive, and he might very well get him that way, but after Rio and his team heard what the son of a bitch did to P.J., I think he may be missing a few body parts when he’s delivered.”
Cole curled his hand into a fist. He wanted to be there when Brumley was taken down. He wanted it badly. He’d never wanted to hurt someone as much as he wanted to make Brumley pay.
He’d killed people when he was a SEAL and then in his time with KGI. He was a sniper. It was his job to take people out effectively. Quickly. Quietly. But it had never been personal. He did his job without emotion because it was what he was paid to do. The people he dispatched were the bad guys. He didn’t need to justify his actions, but the world was a better place without the people KGI went up against.
But with Brumley, rage was a living, breathing fireball inside him. Cole wanted to make him suffer many times over what he’d made P.J. suffer.
“If everyone’s been briefed then can we get on with this and get back to P.J.?” Cole snapped.
“Hooyah,” Dolphin said, his lips thin.
Even Steele looked impatiently at Sam and Garrett.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Sam said, motioning toward the two parked SUVs.
CHAPTER 13
P.J. opened her eyes to find her hospital room mostly dark. There was a beam of light emanating from the bathroom where the door was barely open a crack.
She glanced to the side of the bed to find Cole as he’d been for the last two days. Propped in an uncomfortable-looking chair that had been pulled up as close to her bed as it could go.
He was sleeping, a fact she was grateful for. She’d purposely taken refuge in the pain medication, not wanting to deal with her team, all gathered in her room, sympathy and anger in their eyes.
And when she was lulled into oblivion by the medication, she didn’t have to remember the leering faces of Brumley and Nelson. Didn’t have to hear their grunts, feel their bodies pressed against hers.
She closed her eyes, unable to prevent the physical reaction the memory caused.
She’d have permanent reminders of Brumley’s violation. Scars she’d wear for the rest of her life. The doctor had gently explained that some of the cuts had been too deep, too jagged, but that in time they would fade. But there would always be a mark there to signal the cuts the animal had made to her flesh.
The more she came to awareness, the more the memories crowded in until her jaw clenched and she valiantly tried to steel herself from the raw agony that clawed at her.
She stared down at her right hand, which was casted, and she was confused because she couldn’t remember how she’d broken it. Clumsily, she reached for the nurse’s call butt
on with her left, hoping she wouldn’t wake Cole. She didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to deal with the torment in his eyes. She just wanted oblivion.
A few moments later, the nurse hurried in and spoke to P.J. in low tones. She left once more but was back in less than five minutes with a syringe. She injected the medication into the port and P.J. closed her eyes and waited for the comforting lull to claim her.
The next time she opened her eyes, sunlight had flooded the room and her entire team was slouched in chairs surrounding her bed. Her brow instantly went clammy and nervousness flooded her.
She made eye contact with Steele first. Steele she could deal with. He was professional. He wouldn’t make her want to break down and weep like a damn crybaby.
“The girls,” she croaked out.
She frowned, cleared her throat and then blinked in surprise when Dolphin was there with a cup of water. He held it to her lips and she gratefully gulped half the contents.
When she was done she whispered her thanks and then leaned back against the pillows again.
“The girls,” she said again. “Did they get them out? Are they safe?”
Steele nodded, but his expression was still grim.
“Rio and his team went in with Nathan, Joe and Swanny. They intercepted the truck and brought down Wainwright and his entourage. The girls are on their way back stateside as we speak.”
“And Brumley? Did you get him?”
She held her breath, hope billowing forcefully into her chest.
Steele looked away, his jaw bulging. She glanced sideways toward Cole, who looked so coldly furious that she shivered.
“He escaped with his men onto the plane and took off,” Steele said in a quiet, pissed-off voice. “Rio had to make a choice between going after Brumley or saving the girls. They went after the girls.”
P.J. closed her eyes. She had no right to feel angry. The girls were more important than any sense of justice she felt needed to be exacted.
But the fact of the matter was she was gutted. Numb. While she lay in a hospital bed, Brumley and Nelson were out there. Free. Unpunished both for what they’d done to her and for what they’d done and planned to do to those babies.