That was just wasn’t reality.
I couldn’t wish away pain and bad memories. I couldn’t give her a decent family and an easy childhood. I—
The knock came again, sharper this time.
“Boots on,” Ava said. “Two minutes ago.”
Yanking myself out of my head, I didn’t waste time by asking questions. I just yanked on my shirt, old habits making it so that I’d already put on my jeans, socks, and boots. I’d take a bare chest over bare feet any day of the week.
Turning the handle, I yanked open the door and stepped out into the hall. Ava thrust a bulletproof vest and jacket at my chest. “The beach.”
I nodded, got busy strapping everything on, then reached for my gun. “Tell me.”
Ava was checking Luna in rapid, efficient movements before breaking her down and putting her into a large beach tote. Inconvenient, yeah, but it wasn’t like we could start running through the hotel with weapons.
“Boats about a hundred meters out. Olive and Ryker have already moved into position. They spotted Sergio and Romeo moving toward the dock behind the hotel.” She lifted the bag onto her shoulder, busied herself strapping a blade to her thigh over her jeans, shoved her feet into her boots. “Laila is watching their backs at the bar while organizing the other teams.”
I quickly checked my weapons, slid them into the various holsters. Guns on my chest, knives in my boots. “Where does she want us?”
“Rendezvous point six.”
So, on the far side of the beach, behind the dock. “Got it.” I shrugged into my jacket, headed for the door, and checked the peephole.
Clear.
I flicked open the bolt, tugged open the heavy wooden panel, holding it wide and glancing back at Ava. “So, you and Luna ready for a midnight stroll?”
I’d checked the peephole.
But the peephole didn’t show everything.
And by the time I processed that there was panic on Ava’s eyes, by the time I’d recognized her reaching for her weapon, it was too late.
I spun, deflected one blow, dodged another.
Click.
“Put the gun down, Evelina.”
I glanced over at Ava, saw the indecision on her face.
“Take the shot,” I mouthed.
I knew she wouldn’t miss. It was a fact of life, just as I knew the Earth revolved around the sun, that gravity pulled objects down, that I would give her my heart, if she only asked.
The barrel of a gun pressed against my temple. Hard.
“I can’t,” she mouthed, still holding her gun, but her eyes were flicking back and forth.
Fuck.
I knew then it wasn’t that she didn’t want to take the shot, but rather it was that she didn’t have the shot.
I dropped my weight, got out of the first hold using one of the tricks I’d learned from her, spinning and kicking out, thrusting up with my elbow to knock the man who held me unconscious. Then I lurched back, intending to make it to the door, wanting it between me and Ava and the bad guys. We’d be trapped, but we would have more weapons and time to call in backup.
But there wasn’t space to be had, wasn’t space to move and maneuver.
Not when the hallway was crowded with fuckers speaking Italian and our backup wasn’t in the room next door. Not when we were alone, and I couldn’t make my way to Ava.
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and ducked.
Not fast enough.
Something hard collided with my temple, exploded into red-hot pain.
And the last thing I heard before blackness swarmed up and pulled me under was Ava crying out my name.
Unknown hrs local time
I didn’t know how many hours had passed by the time I woke up.
But I emerged from unconsciousness, carefully slitting my eyes open and finding myself in pitch-black darkness with a foggy brain and a throbbing skull.
Carefully, I flexed my fingers, slowly getting the feeling back, then worked on my toes.
“You okay?” Ava whispered.
I froze, mid-toe flex. “I’m fine. You?”
“Dan,” she warned, her voice shaking slightly. “Where are you injured?”
The shake did me in, made my heart squeeze tight, made me immediately want to repeat I was fine. But empty sentiments wouldn’t reassure her, so I forced himself to focus, to take a breath, to cautiously move my arms and legs then sit up. “Nowhere,” I said. “Besides a splitting headache, I’m good.”
“Don’t shit me.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“About five feet to your left,” she said. “Careful, the ceiling is low.”
Reaching overhead, I felt the roof of wherever the fuck we were, and found it was indeed low, and covered with or hewn out of rough stone. I made my way over to her slowly, feeling for any openings or weak points.
There were none.
And before I knew it, I’d gotten to Ava.
I found her by bumping into her, and her hiss of pain sliced through me. “Ava, I’m not the one injured. Where are you hurt?”
“Knife wound in my abdomen. Didn’t hit anything major, just I’ve lost a bit of blood.” Her voice was quiet. Serious. “Patched it with the kit,” she said, referring to the emergency supplies we all had stored in the tongue of our boots. “And the bleeding is under control. I took a bullet to my arm, only a glancing shot, so nothing to worry about there.”
“But?” I asked, hearing the unspoken word.
“But,” she said, “my ankle is broken.”
Fuck. “How?”
“I went down wrong, caught my boot on the carpet.”
I found her fingers in the dark. “How bad is the break?”
“Not good.”
Shit.
“We’ll figure it out.” A squeeze. “Any idea where we are?”
“My uncle’s special cell.”
My heart seized. Her tone was dry and falsely calm because I could sense the note of terror beneath the surface. “Ava.”
“Fate’s laughing at me,” she muttered. “I promised myself less than twenty-four hours ago that I would never be back here.” She groaned. “And I’m only telling you this because if I freeze up, I might need you to kick my ass.”
My lungs seized, but my tone was deliberately even. “Why would you freeze up?”
“Because this was where they would put me when I refused to do what they wanted, where I would sit in the dark and try my best to count the hours and sometimes the days before I heard another person’s voice.” She sighed. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this,” she said. “It’s the past, shouldn’t have any bearing on the now.”
“Except it does.” She sucked in a breath. “So, what did they want you to do?”
Silence.
A long, quiet silence. “I can’t talk about it. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
“It’s okay,” I said, touching the back of her hand. “You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”
She shifted slightly, and I wished I could see her face, but it was dark, too dark to make out anything more than the barest outline of her body.
“I wasn’t like them,” she whispered.