Mastered By The Mavericks (4 page)

Shay laughed again—but this time, to her shock, seemed to mean it. “No, no, no.
Zoe
makes the best scrapple.”

Brynn squeezed him one more time before rising with a tease of a glower. “We can settle
it with a little friendly competition when she’s back.”

“Yeah.” His laughter faded all too quickly. “When she’s back.”

Brynn swallowed down more rocks. They landed in the aching valley of her chest. Shay
Bommer had been a warrior, a fighter, a secret operative, and a spec ops wonder, likely
ordered to summon some crazy-ass courage for all those battles and missions—but none
compared to the bravery demanded of him right now. Brynn had a sudden yearning to
drop back down and hug him in encouragement.

Remarkably, Rebel beat her to the punch.

She looked on, wonderment growing, as Rebel embraced his friend with gruff ferocity.
“You’re going to get through this, Shay,” he said. “You
and
Zoe. You hear me?”

Brynn giggled as Shay muttered, “Yeah, yeah. Fuck you, too.”

She turned to head into the kitchen—

But was stopped short as Rhett and El bounded back into the room.

“Got ’em!” El pumped a fist into the air.

“Thanks to I-Man.” Rhett nodded toward Shay. “Sometimes it takes just a nibble of
intel. You gave us the right bite, man.”

El bounced forward again, face full of excitement. “After we determined the most likely
route those assholes would take to Henderson Executive, factoring in traffic on highway
fifteen and their need for ‘laying low’ as much as possible, Rhett got onto the city’s
mesh network and searched for cameras that had any glitches in their feeds over the
last eight hours.”

Rhett set his laptop on the ledge between the living room and the entry foyer. A digital
map of the city filled the screen, emblazoned with a glowing green path between the
Paradise area restaurant where Shay and Zoe had eaten and the tarmac of the Henderson
Executive Airport. “They might as well have dribbled paint behind them,” he remarked.

Garrett lived up to his call-sign by eyeing the monitor like a wary hawk. “Or maybe
they left the digital breadcrumbs on purpose, to throw us off?”

“Excellent question.” El nodded. “One
we
also asked,”—she paused as Rhett clicked his tracking ball, bringing up a new image—“until
we found this.”

The buoyancy drained from her tone. The next second, everyone understood why. Brynn’s
gasp was smothered by the guys’
f
bombs as a security camera feed appeared, time clock in the corner, along with the
words
Tarmac Two
. The footage wasn’t so grainy to prevent everyone from recognizing an unconscious
Zoe, her baby bump evident at the front of her tiny form, being carefully dragged
from the back of the van by a pair of muscle-heads. The second they transferred her
onto a rolling gurney, they stepped back and let a third man take over. Clad in dark
dress pants and a crisp white dress shirt, he moved swiftly over Zoe, taking her vitals—and
possessively clutching her round stomach.

‡

S
hay lunged at
the laptop. Garrett and Rebel held him back. Other than his agonized grunts, nobody
else said a thing, watching like they were subjected to a silent horror show. Though
Zoe and the mystery man were fully clothed, it was torture to watch that stranger
grope Zoe as if the unborn child were his.

Brynn’s teeth grated like nails on a chalkboard. If the footage made
her
feel like this, no wonder Shay had turned into a powder keg.

The bearded man stepped back and adjusted his glasses, nodding in satisfaction. The
new angle allowed a better view of his features. He had close-cropped dark hair, a
well-manicured beard, and gangly limbs, which added to the creepy vibe he gave off
with every movement. He reminded Brynn of some rare spider, skinny but lethal.

At least Doc Man’s distance from Zoe served to calm Shay by a fraction—until the man
motioned to one of the henchmen, curling fingers in like a tarantula. The guard stepped
forward and locked Zoe to the gurney with thick leather straps—

Officially morphing Shay from man to beast.

“Cocksucker!” His eyes bulged, his neck strained, and his body lurched, a bull at
full attack. He seized the laptop and swung it over his head, preparing to hurl it
across the room, but Rebel leapt and swept the device away in just enough time. His
reward was an elbow in the chest, Shay’s blow hurling him against the wall with a
sickening crash. Brynn choked, barely controlling the urge to race to him, but Zeke
and Kell had entered the fray so she didn’t dare. The pair grunted, fighting to restrain
Shay from his own grief and fury.

“Cocksucker!” he bellowed again. “You perverted, pathetic, depraved dick of a cocksucker!”
He snarled, kicked, writhed, and even bit Zeke’s arm. Brynn winced though Z barely
flinched. Most importantly, he didn’t relent his grip any more than Garrett or Kellan—a
good thing, since Shay’s wrath climbed higher by the second. “I should have killed
you when I had the chance. I should have listened to my gut when it told me to drive
that dagger through your neck, Royce. I should have listened. I should have
listened
!”

Rebel handed off the laptop to Rhett, the action as poetic as a pair of relay runners
passing a baton, without wavering his stare from Shay. “Wait. You know that guy, Bommer?”

The question bordered on redundant. The four-way wrestling match clearly wasn’t fun
for anyone, especially Shay—though processing Rebel’s words was the douse of logic
he needed to tether at least part of the beast. Shay went limp before surrendering
to a long groan.

“Nyles Royce.” He seethed both syllables. “He’s one of Adler’s ‘team’ though I’m pretty
sure he snatched the Doc Wonder wear off of Costume-Crazy dot com. If that monster
is a real doctor, I’m the Shah of Persia.” He stopped, forcing down hard breaths.
“The bastard knows his knives, though—and just how to use them.”

With eyes closed, he ran a hand up under his shirt, lifting the fabric as he went.
There was no way to miss the ugly row of scars beneath his trembling fingers. One,
two, three…Brynn shut her own eyes after he reached six, remembering the night Zoe
had tearfully told El and her about the cuts…which marred every part of his body.

“One day, he got careless. Left my arm unlocked while turning to clean off one of
his blades—so I took the biggest one I could find on the tray.” He let out a breath
in stumbling spurts. “I yanked the bastard down. Had his face against my stomach.
I could have slit his filthy throat, making him eat my balls as I did it. But I didn’t.
God
damn
it, I didn’t!”

Another silence wrapped around the room.

“Fuck,” Zeke finally growled.

“One way of putting it.” Kellan wrapped a hand around Shay’s shoulder. “It’s all behind
you now, brother.”

Shay whipped his head around. If glares could turn into real fire, Kell would’ve been
charcoal. “But it’s not behind
her
.” His raw rasp ripped the air. “It’s
not
behind her. And Royce…likes to play with his food. A lot. He—gets off on it.” He
moaned and whirled back as if to add to the crater collection in the wall. Instead
he braced both fists to it, dropping his head between his shoulders. “His ‘sessions’
with me…many times, we weren’t alone. He’d call in a woman. Sibelle. Long red hair.
He demanded she arrive with her hair down, wearing nothing else. He’d cut out his
‘sample’ from me then fuck her. Wouldn’t give me the painkiller until he was done
with her. Sometimes not even then. He’d want another ‘sample’. Would watch me scream
while he stuck his dick into her again. Then again. Over and over…”

“Shit.” El sobbed it before rushing toward Shay but was stopped by Zeke, who shook
his dark-haired head. Wisely, El conceded. When a soldier sensed a comrade needed
their space, they were usually right.

“What’s he going to do to her?” Shay grated. “What’s that worm going to do to my tiny
dancer and our child?” He withdrew his hand, only to let his bruised knuckles slide
down the wall. “Let it be me again.” His prayer bled out his soul for them even more.
“Please.
Please
. Let it be me again. I won’t even scream this time. I’ll let them slice and dice
all they want…for the rest of my fucking life…whatever they want…as long as it’s not
my beautiful girl…and my perfect, innocent baby…”

Rhett, now the closest one to him, pulled in a long breath. Without questioning how,
Brynn discerned his intent as if it were her own, and stepped over to take the laptop
before he hauled Shay into a tight hug. Brynn clutched the laptop to her chest, as
if it could prevent a single tear from sliding down her cheeks. Still, she didn’t
move. Stood and lent Rhett the support he needed to pull his friend through the bleak,
hard moment.

He smiled at her in thanks.

She smiled back.

Oh,
hell.

Long story short: he stole her breath.

Forget about the brilliance of his smile, the fortitude of his jaw, and the twinkle
in his dark eyes. Right now, his resplendence had everything to do with the energy
he radiated. Tenderness and concern flowed from him, securing Shay in the invisible
bond that only another man of valor could comprehend. It didn’t matter that they served
on different teams across the world from each other. Evil was evil—and right now,
it only mattered that evil had gotten past the gates then dragged two innocents into
its shadows. Wrong move, if Rhett Lange or
any
of the guys in this room had anything to say about it.

And she wondered why men like this turned her self-restraint to mush? Maybe it had
something to do with
this
shit, right here? Their shared character, honor, purpose. Their understanding of
the price their country asked of them, before putting on their uniform anyway. The
men who slogged through the hard stuff, who forged the difficult decisions then supported
their brothers-in-arms when the boots were on the other feet, without conditions,
definitions, or limits.

She and Enya used to have each other’s back like that. Through Dad’s desertion and
Mom’s withdrawal, through junior then senior high, through college and first jobs
and first loves, they’d hung in there together. Loving without question—

Until Enya pledged her submission to a Dom.

And lost the rest of herself in the deal, too.

Crying over that train won’t bring it back to the station
.
Don’t be stupid.

Another stupid move: picturing what it would be like as the woman of one of these
guys. To have all that devotion and passion showered on
her
…

Yep. Stupid.

Absurd. Impossible.

“Hey.” Rhett gave Shay an affectionate shake. “We’re going to get her back, man. You
hear me?”

Shay dipped a hesitant nod. “Okay.
Okay
.”

“Good. But we still need your help.” He tapped on Shay’s forehead. “
This
gray matter, all the way in
this
game. Got it?”

“Yeah, man. Got it.” Shay clawed a hand through his wavy russet hair. Stared at the
room’s opposite wall, only this time in remembrance instead of remorse. “Since Royce
is involved, we have to assume he’s answering to Adler, since Stock and Newport are
out of the picture.”

Everyone tensed—and rightly so. Cameron Stock and Kirk Newport had been Adler’s allies
after the government caught wind of Adler’s unorthodox methods and yanked funding
for the Big Idea lab—at least until the guys’ rescue raid for Shay, in which Newport
was apprehended. A court martial and prison sentence had followed. Stock had eluded
capture for a few months longer, but Dan—indulging a personal vendetta that also wasn’t
too popular on Brynn’s “quirky boyfriend traits” list—had found him in Mexico, bringing
him to Zoe and Shay’s wedding as what had to be the world’s most bizarre wedding gift.

Kellan hitched a hip against the easy chair. “So that rules out Area Fifty-One as
their destination.”

Shay commented on that with a dark growl. Again, nobody faulted him. Newport had abused
his military clout to get Adler a lab in a clandestine bunker inside the famous military
base on the outskirts of Vegas, where Adler had turned the middle of the Nevada desert
into the Island of Dr. Moreau—atrocities Shay had witnessed before helping to destroy
the lab. The experience had foreshadowed his own fate at Adler’s hands.

“So they took her to the old facilities in D.C.?” Rhett ventured.

“Them.” Arteries pulsed in Shay’s arms as he fisted both hands. “Where they took
them
, damn it.”

Wisely, Rhett withheld from responding.

Zeke lumbered forward, swarthy face focused. “When we were in Myanmar last week, Franzen
mentioned that the D.C. warehouse hasn’t been touched since the raid. It’s still a
possibility, though my gut says no. Homer baby is wily enough to know we’d consider
it. He also knows we’d be able to request boots from Fort McNair faster than he could
take a shit and Charmin-shine his ass. By the time he flushed, we’d have the building
peeled open like a can of stewed tomatoes.”