Abigail knew that until Ryder and his team showed up she was stuck here, but she wasn’t going to lie down and take whatever Alex dished out without fighting back. She hadn’t done that last time, and she wouldn’t be doing it this time. The first time Alex had wanted something from her, information on each of the team, did they have girlfriends, hobbies, anything that could be used against him, and his anger had stemmed from her refusal to answer.
This time all he wanted was her pain.
And she had no way of stopping him from taking it.
Already her ribs throbbed with each breath she took, and she hadn’t needed his warning that she wasn’t going to like the consequences of kicking him and goading him because she already knew it.
But Ryder would have been proud of her for fighting back, executing one of the moves he’d taught her. A move that had she not been locked in a cell might have resulted in her earning herself enough time to make a run for it.
Now she watched warily as Alex walked to the bars of the cell and called out to his men. A moment later the door to her cell clanked open, and two other men strode in. She remembered one of them, he was the one who had broken her fingers, who had snatched her off the beach, but the other man she didn’t recognize.
Fear laced her blood, but she didn’t let it show, she wouldn’t cower in terror at Alex’s feet, she would take whatever he did to her and never shed a tear, she would show her parents that she was strong, she had survived him once she could do it again.
“Our guest here needs to learn a little lesson in manners,” Alex drawled, but she could see how he moved gingerly, and she took pride knowing she was the cause.
“Once you finish off teaching me a lesson,” she would have used air quotes for that but her hands were tied behind her back, “maybe you ought to teach Alex some self-defense moves. Hit by a girl, a bound girl, what a pathetic SEAL.”
Alex glowered at her, then nodded at his men. One of them backhanded her sending her head slamming backward into the stone wall, while the other slammed his foot into her stomach so hard she gagged.
Abigail bit back a scream, no way was she giving Alex even an ounce of satisfaction. Ryder was coming, she didn’t know how long she’d been out, but she knew that the team would have followed her here. They would be forming a plan right this very second, she only had to hold out a little longer.
She could do that.
Women, money, and power, Alex had said it himself, that was all he cared about, he hadn’t joined the SEALs to save lives, he cared nothing about honor and integrity, he’d easily traded in fighting for his country to working for a powerful drug lord.
“Why did you even become a SEAL?” Abigail asked once she could draw a breath again. “Scrap that question, how did you even pass whatever psychological screening they do?”
“You think you’re so funny, don’t you, Abigail?” He squatted before her, his face inches from her own, his eye ticking as he attempted to reign in his rage, he wanted her alive when his old team arrived.
“No, I don’t see anything amusing about any of this,” she answered honestly. “I didn’t think being abducted was funny, I didn’t think what you did to me while you kept me prisoner was funny, and I don’t think you trying to kill six good men is in any way funny.”
“What makes you think they’re good?”
The question caught her by surprise. “Of course they’re good men.”
“Because they’re SEALs?” he sneered.
“Because they put themselves in danger to keep others safe.”
“How many men do you think your boyfriend has killed?”
“I don’t know, as many as he had to, to complete his missions and come home alive and not a single one more. Where are you going with this?” Abigail knew that everything Alex did he did for a reason, but what reason was there for trying to tear down the SEALs? Blaming them for him losing his job and having to flee the country was one thing but tearing them down, was there something she was missing?
“Just thinking you put an awful lot of trust in men who didn’t save you the first time around. What makes you think that they’ll save you this time?”
“Last time they didn’t know where I was,” she reminded him. He seemed to be awfully interested in trying to convince her to turn her back on the SEALs. Did he have a more personal reason for targeting her specifically out of all the family members of the men on his team he could have gone after?
“So they say.” The anger had gone from his voice, now he sounded like they were just sitting around chatting like old friends. “Maybe they just didn’t care.”
“Stop,” she said firmly. She wouldn’t doubt Ryder, or her brother, or the rest of the team. They were coming, she had the trackers on, they knew where she was, all they needed to do was figure out a way to foil whatever trap Alex thought he had put in place.
“I’m not going to stop, sweetheart, I’m going to beat you so badly that by the time your boyfriend gets here he won’t even recognize you.”
A hint of a memory whispered at the back of her mind.
Shortly after Ryder had left her the second time, she’d been out at a bar with some friends when Alex had shown up. He’d asked her out but she’d turned him down.
He had chosen her for a reason, he wanted revenge on her too.
Abigail huffed a laugh. “You can beat me, you can kill Ryder, you can even drug me and have sex with me over and over again, but you know what, Alex, I am never going to want you.”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know about that. When I had you in that cell, you were begging for someone to talk to you, begging not to be left alone. That changed, sweetheart? I bet if I toss you back into that cell, let you watch your boyfriend die a long, slow death, I bet I can break you enough that you’ll be begging me to touch you any way I want.”
“Won’t happen,” she said simply. “Ryder is my heart, my soul, no matter what you say I love him, and I know he loves me. He’s coming, and even if he wasn’t I still would never beg for anything from you because you’re nothing but a sellout. You sold out your own team, your brothers, the men who are supposed to have your back, so you could go and work for a drug cartel.”
Alex’s face turned red, and he stood and clenched his fingers into fists. “Hit her,” he ordered his men.
“Too pathetic to do your own dirty work?” she pushed, just as a shoe connected with her ribs again.
Agony sliced through her but she wouldn’t cry.
She wasn’t going to scream.
Another strike got her in the stomach and then one in the head as she slumped over onto her side. Pain exploded behind her closed eyelids but she could do nothing to protect her head and vital organs restrained as she was. The best she could do was attempt to curl herself into a ball.
The blows continued, one after the other until her entire body burned and throbbed. Her teeth were clamped into her bottom lip to keep from screaming, and she held back her tears with every drop of strength that she could muster.
She felt Ryder’s presence surround her. He might not be here in person, but she was still wearing his t-shirt, and just like at the beach when she had broken down she felt him here with her. Abigail felt his hand curl around one of hers, and that feeling of no longer facing her ordeal on her own meant that she took each and every blow with a strength she had spent a lifetime fearing she didn’t possess.