Her lover and a third man, whom she didn’t recognize, had stepped inside the doorway, dressed from neck to toe in black with dark camo paint covering their faces, but it wasn’t enough to prevent her from knowing instantly who Cam was. The large, black pistol in his hand was probably not the only weapon he had on him—not if her father had anything to do with the rescue, which she was sure he did. The other man held an assault rifle in his hands. The man she didn’t know kept his attention on the door and hallway, but Cameron eyed her up and down, as if trying to convince himself she was really there and okay. He whispered, just loud enough for her to hear, “Sh, baby. Be very quiet. Are you hurt? Can you run? If not, I’ll carry you.”
Stepping into his side, she hugged him tightly with her good arm, feeling safe for the first time in hours. She lowered her voice. “I’m banged up, but I can run. But we have to save Avery. I don’t know what they’ve been doing to her, but it hasn’t been good. She was screaming—”
“Don’t worry. Your dad and the others will save her. Right now, you’re my only concern—we’re gonna get you out of here. This is Kell; if he or I tell you to do something, you do it without hesitation. Got it?”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. “Yeah. Got it.”
Lifting her head, she met his gaze, and the emotion she saw in his eyes rocked her soul. He stepped back toward the door and held out his hand for her to take. “I love you, baby. No matter what happens, know that that’s a fact. Now, hold onto my belt and don’t let go unless I tell you too.”
She did as she was told, then whispered, “I love you too, Cam. I always will, and that’s a fact.”
The other man spoke for the first time. “If you’re all done with the declarations of endless love, can we get the hell out of here before the shit hits the fan?”
Chapter Thirteen
Avery’s woozy mind spun one way as her broken and bruised body rotated in the other direction. Her wrists were bound together and hanging on a hook in the ceiling, her feet about six or eight inches from the floor. Since all her weight hung on them, her arms and shoulders shrieked in agony. Her ribs and kidneys weren’t faring much better. Yeah, her legs and back were hurting too, basically, everywhere the old bastard had struck her with a leather belt. Maybe she shouldn’t have laughed at his first, weak punch, directed at her mouth. It’d hurt, but nowhere near what he’d probably intended. He must not have realized his age had caught up to him. Avery’s days of being trained to withstand torture had come rushing back to her mind as she’d been dragged from the other room into this one. The problem was, like her assailant, she was much older now, and that training had been a long time ago.
She’d been careful not to piss Lin Chao off to the point he took his anger out on Lori. As long as Avery could keep him focused on her, the younger woman was safe—for now.
How long she’d hung there, Avery didn’t know. There were no windows in the room, only a single overhead light, a small table, two folding chairs, and an empty shelving unit—none of it within reach. Chao had beaten her for what seemed like hours, while his bald watchdog observed. He’d been the one to strip her down to her bra and underwear, tie her wrists, and lift her onto the hook. Then he’d stood back while the old man had his fun. Avery tried hard not to scream when the pain became too much, but it’d been unavoidable. Thankfully, Chao had eventually tired and took a break, the two men leaving her alone to take stock of her injuries. But they’d be back. She hadn’t needed Chao’s verbal oath to know her beating would continue after he got his second wind.
Part of Avery knew Brad would find them, but the other part worried he might not make it in time. Chao had no intention of letting her walk . . . or crawl out the door when he was done with her. Nope. He was determined to make her suffer for as long as possible before ending her life.
Was there a heaven? Would she be allowed in after all she’d done in her life? Avery didn’t know, but prayed she’d somehow redeemed herself in God’s eyes—if he existed. She was still up in the air about that, despite her Catholic upbringing. There’d been many times she couldn’t reconcile the fact He existed after she’d seen all the evil that roamed the Earth.
Brad’s face appeared in her mind. Avery had never thought she’d find “the one.” She’d heard many women talk about finding theirs or read about happily ever afters in the romance novels she favored. But having gone over three-and-a-half decades into her adult life without finding hers, she’d figured they’d been the proverbial “two ships passing in the night.” Then he’d walked in her door—well, actually, Haven’s door. Avery just happened to be in her charge’s home at the time. Bradley Barton had marched in with confidence, authority, and a swaggering, rock-hard body that had made her swoon like a schoolgirl. Following a successful end to the mission they’d all been a part of, Brad had joined them for dinner, having accepted Avery’s invitation. After he’d left, Frisco had teased Avery—apparently, she’d been drooling over Brad.
She’d been surprised when the object of her ogling had called the next day and asked her out on a date. Their second dinner together had gone a lot smoother for Avery than the first. Although she’d still had butterflies in her stomach, she’d been able to draw upon her training and act like an adult instead of a wide-eyed school girl with her first crush. After walking her to her door, Brad had gently kissed her on the lips, then promptly asked her out on another date. Two nights later, they’d ended up in bed together. Never had anything felt so right. So, why was this happening now? Had she gone decades without finding love, only to have it ripped from her grasp after a few short months? She hoped not.
The door to her prison swung open, and Chao strode in, looking refreshed, followed by his bodyguard, who shut the door once more. The older man picked up the belt he’d left on a small table in the corner of the room. “Recovered from our first session yet, Ms. McNamara?”
Avery dug deep into her mind, body, and soul, and summoned a strength she hadn’t needed in years. Her jaw ached as she snarked, “Absolutely. What’s next on the agenda?”
An ugly snarl erupted from him as he stalked around her. “Bitch! You’ll be begging for death soon. When you murdered my son, it was over in seconds. I promise you, your fate will not be the same.”
He let the leather belt fly, and it struck her right hip. Pain bloomed instantly, and Avery choked on a cry. She tried hard not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt, but, like before, she knew it would get to the point where she couldn’t control it. Involuntary tears welled in her eyes, and she slammed them shut.
Chao hit her again. And again. He punctuated each blow with vile insults in both English and Mandarin. An especially-hard strike landed across her shoulder blade which was already heavily bruised and lacerated, and, this time, Avery couldn’t stop the howl that escaped her.
The door flew open with a loud bang, and three figures, dressed head to toe in black, skirted the jamb. The first one into the room fired a 9mm bullet into the forehead of the bodyguard before he ever had a chance to draw his own weapon. Despite his age, Chao moved quickly, using Avery as a shield. He suddenly had a gun in his hand and held it to the flesh covering her left kidney. If he shot her there, it was almost definite she’d bleed to death before she could get to a hospital.
“Let her go, Chao.”
Avery would have sagged in relief if she could have at the sound of Brad’s voice. Despite the black face paint, she recognized Carter, who’d killed the guard, and Jordyn as being the two people with him. All three had their weapons pointed at Chao. Unfortunately, Avery was blocking their shots.
“No!” Avery felt Chao’s spit hit her aching, bare back as he yelled in rage at the interference. “If I die today, I’m taking this murdering cunt with me! Either way, she’ll never leave here alive!”
Pounding in his chest, Brad’s heart threatened to explode. He was so close . . . so close to saving the woman he loved, but it wasn’t enough . . . not yet. He knew Lori was safe—Ca
meron and Kell were already on their way to the vehicles with her. Soon, she’d be back at the resort, safe in Cameron’s arms. The man had proven himself in more ways than one over the past few hours, and Brad would gladly give his blessing if the couple decided to get married. The young Marine would have moved heaven and earth to save Lori, and that was enough for Brad. Knowing his daughter was safe allowed him to focus all his attention on saving his own woman.
Avery was hanging from the ceiling, her nearly bare body covered in welts and bruises. Her face was coated in sweat and tears. He caught a flash of relief in her eyes, underneath her pain. Fury shot through him. Lin Chao was a dead man—he just didn’t know it yet. No, Brad would never murder the man, but when a moment of justification presented itself, and he was sure it would, then he’d take full advantage of it.
While Jordyn stayed just inside the doorway, Brad sidestepped further to his right. Carter did the same but to his left. Jase and Troy were clearing the rest of the rooms to make sure there were no surprises the team had missed.
“You’ve got the wrong woman, Lin,” Brad said, doubting he would believe the lie, but it was worth a shot.
The man’s face was red with rage. He spat what was probably a curse in Mandarin before switching to English. “She murdered my son!”
“Let her go, and you’ll walk out of here alive.” Another lie. “We’ll leave your island and never return.”
“No! She will never leave this island! I will avenge my son!”
Why Chao hadn’t already shot Avery, Brad didn’t know, but it gave them a chance to save her. He needed all his attention aimed at the man holding a gun to her back. But what he really wanted was to look her in the eyes and let her know he’d do everything he could to get her out of this mess. There was no way he was going to lose her to this devil, hell bent on revenge.
Chao closed the distance between him and Avery, trying to keep her between him and the three weapons aimed in his direction. It suddenly occurred to Brad—despite his vow to die, taking Avery with him, the bastard wasn’t ready to leave this earth. He wanted to celebrate and gloat after he killed her—something Brad would never let him do. “Do you really want your life to end right here? You were able to keep a lot of your money after you were exiled. I think a man as greedy as you would want to live long enough to enjoy every blood-red cent you made at the expense of others.”
Brad shifted again to the right. There was no way he could fire his weapon. While he was certain he could hit Chao dead between the eyes, he couldn’t risk the man pulling his own trigger. The bullet would rip Avery’s kidney to shreds, and she’d bleed out very quickly.
“I don’t care about my money! I don’t care about anything except killing her! She took my son! I loved him more than anything in this world, and she murdered him!”
“Let her go, father.”
Brad’s gaze flittered to the doorway, then back to Chao, whose eyes had gone wide at the sight of the newcomer. Zheng took two steps into the room, his voice eerily calm. “I’m sorry Delan died. I’m even sorrier knowing you wished it was me and not him. I wasn’t your firstborn. In fact, I should never have been born, but you thought the laws of China didn’t pertain to you. You just paid someone off, so mother was allowed to have me. Why? You didn’t want me. I often wondered why you didn’t put me in an orphanage. All my life, I lived in Delan’s shadow, even after his death. And now I’ll have to try to explain to my children why their grandfather is dead. But I’m not sure they’ll even care. You ignored them as much as you ignored me.”
Brad had no idea why Zheng had come back after helping free Lori, but Chao was so focused on his son he seemed oblivious to the fact Brad and Carter had inched further around the room. They needed one second, one split second, when Chao’s gun wasn’t aimed at Avery. The rage on Chao’s face increased tenfold. “You worthless piece of shit! You’re right. I wish you were dead instead of Delan. He was my firstborn. My golden child. My legacy. You will never be even a tenth of the man he was. Never!”
Zheng shook his head sadly. “I thank Buddha for that. Now let her go.”
“Never!” He pushed off Avery and stepped back, bringing his gun hand up and pulling the trigger as Brad fired his own weapon. Chao’s head snapped back, blood and brain matter splattering the wall, and his body fell to the ground.
“Avery, no!” While the thunderous shots echoed throughout the room, Brad rushed forward, desperate to reach the woman he loved. She was swinging from the force of Chao pushing her, and she cried out in pain. Grabbing her around the waist, he lifted until her bound wrists cleared the hook. Her arms dropped as she sagged against him. He quickly but gently lowered her to the floor. “Fuck! Where are you hit?”
He tossed his weapon to the side, then ran his hands over Avery, trying to find the gunshot wound to staunch the flow of blood. She couldn’t die. Damn it! Where the hell did the bullet enter?
Avery hissed, then gasped in pain. “Not . . . hit.” Her raspy words didn’t register right away over the ringing in his ears. “Brad, I’m . . . not hit.”
“Barton.” Carter tapped Brad’s shoulder and repeated his name several times until he finally looked up. The spy pointed toward the doorway where Jordyn was tending to an injured Zheng. The man had been shot in the arm and, from the looks of it, would survive.
Brad returned his attention to Avery, his panic lessening when he found her staring up at him. “I—I knew you’d come. J-Just glad you . . . made it in time.” She swallowed hard. “Do me a favor?”
His hands softly stroked her head and face, needing to touch her but not wanting to cause her any more pain. Tears filling his eyes as wished he could take away all the agony she must be in. “Anything, baby. Anything you want, it’s yours.”
“Take me home.”
Epilogue
“You may now kiss your bride,” the minister said with a grin.
Cheers and applause erupted from the occupants of the small church as Frisco, dressed in his formal uniform, wrapped his arms around Haven’s torso, dipped her, and then kissed the ever-living heck out of her. The former undercover agent had been able to shed her wheelchair for the ceremony, and Carter had escorted her the short distance from the back of the chapel to the altar, before giving her away. Aside from saying “I do,” it’d been the one thing Haven had wanted more than anything—to be able to walk instead of roll down the aisle. She’d worked her ass off to get to that point. While she was able to walk again, she tired easily and usually split her time between using the chair and crutches, but with Carter’s and then Frisco’s support, she’d been able to get through the ceremony without the devices.
It’d been a beautiful wedding, and Brad clapped along with everyone else, but his gaze wasn’t on the happy couple. It was on one of the two bridesmaids—his wife.
Nine months had passed since their vacation-turned-nightmare in Aruba where Avery had cheated the devil out of his perceived due. As they’d been preparing to transport Avery and Zheng to the clinic for treatment, Ghost, Frisco, and two other Delta operatives, Fletch and Truck, had arrived on scene. Gene McDaniel had gotten top-secret clearance for the four men to break air-speed records from Fort Hood to Aruba to serve as additional backup. His reasoning had been it was better to have their boots en route and not be needed, than the opposite, and Brad was grateful for the man’s initiative. Truck had brought a medic kit with him, and IVs were quickly placed into both victims before taking them for further treatment.
Meanwhile, Jordyn, Carter, and Jase had stayed behind and sterilized the scene. The guns that’d been fired had been swapped out for the two Chao and his guard had in their possession. The serial numbers of the two throw-away 9mms had been filed off long before they’d been used that day. The covert operatives must’ve done a good job because an online newspaper article Brad read two days later reported that Lin Chao and his bodyguard apparently had an argument of some sorts. Both men had fired their weapons, fatally striking each other in the head. Li
n Zheng had told the reporter he was devastated by his father’s death, but wasn’t surprised, given how violent the older man’s temper could be. Chao had been known for belittling his employees, and it had been only a matter of time before one of them snapped. There would be no funeral, Zheng had stated at the time, just a private memorial as his father had requested in the past.
After being rehydrated, having her injuries treated, and receiving some heavy-duty pain killers, Avery had been released from the clinic with no record of her having been there. Brad, Jordyn, Carter, and the Deltas had immediately taken her to the airport where an unmarked Army KC10 tanker was waiting to fly them back to the States. As far as the airport authorities in Aruba knew, it had been an American Airlines passenger plane that had come to pick up several company executives after their vacation had been cut short.
Jase, Kell, and Troy had left the island on the same planes they’d flown in on. Before they’d departed, Brad had thanked them tremendously and told each of them if they ever needed anything from him all they had to do was call. He’d forever be in their debt.
Once they’d heard Avery was safe and would be okay, Cameron and Lori had gathered their things, along with Avery’s and Brad’s, and met them at the airport. No one had been upset about cutting their vacation short. In fact, everyone had been relieved and anxious to touch down on US soil again. The whole flight home, Lori had checked on Avery as she slept, almost as much as Brad had. Truck had also stayed close by, monitoring Avery’s vital signs as instructed by the doctor.
Special Forces_Operation Alpha_Cheating the Devil_A Deimos/Trident Security/Delta Team Crossover Page 9