by J. S. Scott
I leaned back against the leather headrest as Marcus’s large jet climbed to its cruising altitude. “Thank you for coming to get me,” I said in a breathless voice.
Never once had I mentioned my experience with my kidnappers. I answered questions, but I hadn’t wanted to talk about it. I still didn’t. But I’d thanked Tate before he’d left, and I knew I owed Marcus for taking such a major risk for somebody he barely knew.
“Just try to contain yourself from jumping back into another bad situation,” he answered from the seat next to me. “I get why you did it, but you had to have known that you were probably going to end up dead when you crossed the border.”
We hit turbulence while the jet was climbing, and I dug my short fingernails into the leather armrest. I’d never been a nervous flier before this trip home, but I was quickly discovering that my experiences in captivity had changed me. “I didn’t really think about it before I went,” I admitted to Marcus. “My fear for the kids who had crossed over before I did made me throw caution to the wind. I wanted to get them out. I didn’t take time to weigh the consequences.”
Yeah, maybe my actions had been reckless, but it had saved the teenagers.
If I had a choice of watching them die or risking a diversion by crossing over myself, I would do the same thing all over again.
“Think about the danger next time—before you act,” he rumbled. “You scared the hell out of your entire family. Harper was beside herself, and your brothers were ready to cross the border to find you themselves, which would have gotten them all dead.”
“It’s not like I was trying to get kidnapped,” I told him indignantly.
“Another few days of captivity probably would have killed you,” Marcus answered rigidly.
“They were already talking about killing me,” I confessed in a nervous tone, bringing up my captors for the first time all on my own.
“You understood them?”
I nodded as he turned his eyes to my face. “Yes. I speak some Arabic, but I never let on that I did. Since they weren’t getting any money, there wasn’t much reason for them to keep me alive. I guess I wasn’t even any fun to play with anymore. I was too broken down to put up much of a fight.”
“You look better,” he said huskily, his tone slightly more gentle. “What did you do to your hair?”
I ran my fingers through the short pixie cut. “Nothing. The stylist just evened out the cut, and then dyed it all back to my natural color.”
Being a detail guy, Marcus had sent me every service I needed while I was in the hospital, including somebody to fix my hair and try to heal all the cracks and breaks on my skin.
“You’re a redhead?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I thought I might have a better shot at the foreign correspondent job if I went blonde. Redheads draw a lot of attention, especially in foreign countries where that hair color is hardly ever seen. I wanted to blend in instead of standing out. I didn’t really want anybody to know who I was.”
Marcus seemed to be satisfied with my answer because he was silent for a few minutes. He wasn’t a guy who spoke just to hear himself talking, a trait I was currently grateful he had.
Once the jet leveled off, I told Marcus, “I think I’ll try to sleep for a while.” I was exhausted from just the mild exercise I’d had during the day. All I’d really done was get discharged from the hospital and made my way to Marcus’s jet. Still, I felt like I’d spent the entire day doing hard labor.
He opened his laptop computer, and without looking at me, he answered, “Bedroom is in the back. Go sleep as long as you want. It’s a long trip.”
“Thanks.” I undid my seat belt and made my way to the back of the large aircraft.
My brothers all had private planes, so it wasn’t unusual for me to see this level of comfort and convenience in a private jet. But it did feel strange to be the only other passenger in such a massive aircraft.
The sleeping area had a large king-sized bed, and a bathroom attached. I popped into the restroom to change into a nightgown. Seeing my suitcase next to the bedroom door had been no surprise. Marcus obviously demanded efficiency from his staff, and he got it without question.
“You done with the bathroom?” The sound of Marcus’s voice beside me in the bedroom nearly made me jump out of my own skin. Yeah, I knew he was still on board, but he’d startled me.
Right now, it didn’t take much to make me jumpy.
I nodded. The restroom had two entrances. One connected to the bedroom, and the other was right outside the bedroom door. A quick glance told me that the bathroom door next to the bedroom was closed, and Marcus was just politely checking to see if I was done.
I tried to calm my nerves, berating myself for being so damn jittery, and then looked up at Marcus to reassure him I wasn’t a lunatic.
His sharp, ever-changing eyes were so intense that they felt like they were prying open my soul.
Without looking away from me, he answered, “I wanted to freshen up.” He paused before asking, “Hey, are you okay? You’re really pale.”
“I-I’m fine,” I lied easily.
In truth, I wasn’t feeling well at all. My body was slowly getting stronger, but my mind wasn’t functioning as well as it used to. I obviously startled easily, and I couldn’t seem to keep my thoughts from returning to my time as a captive.
I’m safe. I’m safe.
I wondered if I kept up the mantra for a while, if I’d start to actually believe that nobody was going to hurt me.
“Bullshit,” Marcus cursed. “You look like you can barely stand up.”
He moved closer, his big body crowding me against the wall like he was ready to support me if I fell.
“I’m tired,” I admitted as I continued to look up at him, trying not to react when he put a hand on each side of the wall, leaving me trapped.
“What else, Danica? What’s bothering you? I know that look on your face. I’ve seen it before in other rescue situations.”
Marcus was my only confidant at the moment, so I either told him what was wrong, or I kept it bottled up inside. I decided on the former. “I can’t stop thinking about what happened. I was so damn certain I was going to die, Marcus. Returning to this world, knowing that I’m not going to be hurt again is pretty surreal. I’m happy. I really am. But the fear won’t go away.” The words tumbled out of my mouth awkwardly.
“That’s normal,” he told me. “You can’t survive an ordeal like you went through without developing a heavy dose of worry and anxiety. Do you want to talk about it?”
Yes!
No!
Oh hell, I didn’t know what I wanted. Maybe I needed to talk, but I certainly didn’t want to, especially to Marcus. I was too used to always keeping my guard up around him. However, he was all I had right now.
“Not really,” I murmured. “It’s in the past. I just want to be myself again.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t get to you sooner,” Marcus rumbled. “You were at those bastards’ mercy for too damn long.”
“You saved my life,” I reminded him. “And it was a considerable risk for you and the rest of the rescue team. I’m just grateful you got there before I was dead.”
Marcus lifted a hand to my face, and I automatically flinched. But he simply stroked over my bruised skin as he replied, “The assholes will pay for every damn time they touched you, Danica. I swear.”
I shook my head. “I doubt they’ll ever be found.”
“They will,” Marcus contradicted. “All of them are probably dead by now. The military was contacted the moment we moved out of the area so they could do an air strike on the compound.” He paused before asking, “They’re all dead. Does that help?”
Did it help to know that my tormentors were probably no longer alive? I wasn’t certain it made a difference. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “They’re still not dead in my mind, Marcus.”
His touch was tender on my damaged skin, and his scent and warmth was in
toxicating. Pretending I had Marcus to protect me helped. My mind was focused on him and the way he made me feel normal again.
“You’ll stay safe, Dani. Nobody is going to hurt you again,” he said with a feral growl.
Hesitantly, I wrapped my arms around his neck, shivering from just the casual contact of my fingers at the nape of his neck. “Thank you,” I whispered, my gaze getting lost in his forceful gray stare.
His head came down slowly, giving me plenty of time to avoid him had I chosen to do so. But I wanted Marcus to touch me. I wanted to feel alive.
The embrace was gentle, a coaxing meeting of mouths, Marcus trying to cajole something out of me that he couldn’t do with words.
He put his arms around me as he plundered my mouth, his hands stroking down my back and landing on my ass.
The second he pulled me forward, my scantily clad body colliding with his, I lost the sense of protection, heat, and tenderness in his kiss. His bold erection pressed against my lower abdomen, and I panicked, forgetting everything except my instinctive, visceral reaction.
My hands went to his chest, and I started to claw to get away from him. I tore my lips from his, unable to endure the flashes of memory that tore through my head. “No. Please. Don’t.”
“Dani!” Marcus said firmly, giving me a gentle shake. “What the hell happened? Open your eyes.”
His commands finally sunk into my confused brain, and I opened my eyes. I hadn’t even realized that I’d closed them to try to fend off the flashbacks, a spontaneous reaction that had just made them worse.
“Marcus?” His face was right there in my vision. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for something that isn’t your fault. I’m going to ask you one more time… Are you okay?”
Tears slid down my cheeks as I looked up at him. “No,” I answered. “I don’t think I am okay. Right now, I’m not sure I’ll ever be normal again. I feel like a prisoner in my own body. It scares me.”
“I know. Things will get better. But I can’t help you if you don’t want to talk about what happened.” He hesitated, his eyes assessing my face. “You said you weren’t sexually assaulted, but I think you’re lying.”
Breaking easily away from Marcus’s hold, I swiped the tears from my face. “It’s hard to talk about that period of time,” I answered truthfully. “I was degraded, beaten down until I didn’t even want to fight anymore. But I couldn’t not try to fend them off. I don’t want anybody to know everything that happened to me. I don’t want to keep living it over and over again.”
Every emotion I had seemed to have rocketed to the surface.
I continued, with my back to Marcus. “It was like a horrible nightmare that I couldn’t escape even when I was awake. Especially while I was conscious and fairly alert. At first, it took several men to hold me down while I was raped. Eventually, they only needed a few. As I got weaker, I became easier and easier to use and torture.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Marcus answered sharply, turning me around to face him again.
My own fury became unleashed. “I didn’t want to tell anyone. What difference would it make? It’s not like they’re going to be brought to justice in a court of law. My brothers would all want to kill the terrorists.”
Marcus’s expression was outrage. “Fuck that. I want to kill them just for touching you. Believe me, if they weren’t already dead, I’d do the job myself.”
I wrapped my arms around my own body to comfort myself. “Can you keep my secrets?” I asked in a raspy voice. “There’s really no reason for anyone to know.”
“You’ll need counseling, Danica,” Marcus answered hoarsely. “But yes, I can keep your secrets. What you tell people is completely up to you.”
I sat down on the bed, my knees ready to give out from fear. I wanted to talk to somebody, but not my family. He was right. I probably would need therapy after what had happened, but I really didn’t want to share this with my family. My sense of shame and humiliation was too raw. They all thought I was crazy to be running into turmoil and war zones. I didn’t want them to know all the consequences of my job. All it would do was worry them when I eventually wanted to go back to work.
Marcus took off his suit jacket and tossed it over a small dresser in the room, and then took a seat in a chair near the bed. “I’m listening, Danica. Maybe you can’t call me a friend, but I’m here to help if you need me.”
He was composed, seemingly ready to hear about my experience.
The pain.
The terror.
The revulsion and humiliation I’d experienced when I was raped and beaten so often that I wasn’t able to keep track of how many times it happened. And that once the rebels were finished with my body, how I’d wondered if that time would be the last.
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat as I glanced at Marcus’s unreadable expression. Uncertain whether I could keep looking him in the eyes while I dumped my entire experience with the terrorists on him, I reached over and switched off the overhead light before I sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed.
Maybe I couldn’t tell Marcus every single detail of my experience as a captive, but I knew I needed to vent and let some of my anger and fear exit my body by putting it all out in the open.
Satisfied that I couldn’t see much of his expression in the dim light, I started to talk…
As promised, Marcus listened, occasionally letting me know that how I was feeling was perfectly natural considering what had happened.
By the time the flight was over, I’d collected myself and said a brief good-bye to the man who’d been my comfort and my confidant before I joined my sister in Washington, DC.
It would be a year before we met again, and he’d be responsible for stealing me away from somebody else one more time, but in very different circumstances…
Marcus
The Present…
“What in the fuck am I doing here?” I muttered to myself irritably as I trudged down the crappy sidewalk in one of Miami’s rougher areas.
The area was dimly lit, and the caliber of the neighborhood I was walking through had gone swiftly downhill. I hadn’t been in Miami for a year or two, but it always amazed me that the affluent areas could abruptly end, and a short walk later, I’d end up in a dump.
Not that I gave a damn. I’d left my car and driver several blocks back, and in a better area. My elderly driver, George, didn’t need to get his blood pressure up any higher, and I’d badly needed to clear my head with a walk before I met up with Danica.
I wasn’t worried about my personal safety. I knew at least a hundred different ways to kill bad guys, and I was packing a loaded Glock under my suit jacket. If anybody wanted to screw with me, I’d make them sorry they were ever born. Hell, I’d actually welcome a decent fight right now. I was just that pissed off.
Dani and I had been in the same city a time or two in Europe, but we hadn’t really seen each other. Okay, maybe I’d seen her, but she hadn’t actually seen me. I’d known she was there because I’d made it a point to watch out for her and follow her work destinations. It hadn’t really surprised me when she went back to reporting soon after she’d physically recovered. She was still in hot spots all over the world. The only place I hadn’t seen her was the Middle East.
Then, a few months ago, I’d stopped seeing her altogether, and I hadn’t been able to get much information about where she was going for her stories.
Now I knew why.
I’d been in Seattle a few days ago, and I’d dropped by Jett Lawson’s place to see how he was recovering. Even though it had been a couple of years since Jett had nearly gotten killed on our last PRO mission together, he still required surgeries to repair some of his injuries. Most of the operations were cosmetic at this point, done to cover some of his scars. Unfortunately, thanks to his bitch of an ex-fiancée, some of Jett’s emotional pain wasn’t going to heal anytime soon.
But his own love life and ex-future marital partner h
adn’t been my buddy’s concern when I stopped by to visit. Jett’s thoughts had been diverted to his sister Danica’s new boyfriend.
“Son of a bitch!” I cursed in an irritated voice as I approached the block where the bar I was seeking was located. “How in the hell did she get mixed up with a loser like Gregory Becker?”
Becker was a rich bastard, but it was doubtful that much of his wealth came from his legitimate businesses. He’d been a suspect at the CIA for a long time, but as of yet, nobody could make any charges stick with solid evidence or intel.
Stopping under a dim streetlamp, I pulled out the picture Jett had given me before I left Seattle, a photo that had been taken by a local newspaper in Miami. Dani had been captured in full color right next to Becker, his arm around her waist, both of them looking pretty damn happy at a charity event the asshole had donated to a few weeks ago.
There had been other photos, and other events where Dani had been by Becker’s side. When Jett had asked Dani what she was doing in Miami, and if she was really seeing Becker, she’d told her brother that they were dating and it wasn’t all that serious. Apparently, no matter what Jett had told his little sister, she’d refused to heed his warning about Becker. There probably wasn’t a single wealthy businessman who didn’t know Gregory Becker’s reputation. Rumors were constantly flying about his involvement in human trafficking, illegal arms dealing, and a hell of a lot of drugs. He was also supplying much of that ill-gotten money to rebel troops in Syria. That little bit of info wasn’t common knowledge. I’d learned that from some of the CIA intel.
How in the hell could Dani be mixed up with somebody who supplied money to rebel groups similar to the one who had held her captive and tortured the hell out of her?
Yeah, maybe Danica wasn’t immersed in the world of international business, but she had to know about Becker. If she hadn’t discovered his dirty secrets before, Jett certainly hadn’t held back on telling her all about the new guy in her life. Shit! Didn’t she trust her own damn brother?