Stronger (The Unit Book 2) (2 page)

“He doesn’t need to worry about me. I’m here to have a good time, dance with the bride, and show my support,” Rob assured him, dismissing Tony’s concern. Although the truth was, he was miserable and seeing his best friend Michael so happy with Emma, the woman he saved instead of saving his Lizzie, only made him drink more. He had to become numb in order to support his friend. Hell, he had to become numb to stop the constant motion picture of her death looping through his mind. Although a year had past, every day he lived with the pain of losing Lizzie. Every day, every minute, he heard her muffled groans and cries as the terrorist bastards raped her to death. His mother kept telling him time heals all wounds. Well, time wasn’t doing shit for him. He took as many jobs as Blackrain Security could provide. He hoped he would get shot in the line of duty, and his misery would end. Twice he’d tried to kill himself since they found Lizzie dead; both times his brothers rescued him. He knew he was a coward, because only a coward would try and kill himself with pills and a bottle. If he were more of a man, he would put a gun to his head and get it over with. He tried many times, but could never pull the trigger. Visions of Lizzie always stopped him. He knew she would want him to be happy. She would want him to move on and forgive himself. Still, he had no idea how to do any of those things, so he drank until he couldn’t remember who he was anymore. He drank until the movie stopped playing in his mind. He drank until he passed out.

“Earth to Rob. Rob. Are you alright?” Michael asked standing in front of him. “I’m going to toss the garter now, and you need to be in that group of single men.” Rob shot Michael a look that instantly silenced him. “Look, you see that hot blond over by the bar? She’s here alone. That’s Emma’s friend, Bethany. Why don’t you talk to her? Maybe even dance with her? She will be interested from what I’ve heard from Emma. She likes your type,” Michael coaxed, doing his best to try and pull Rob out of his funk.

“Maybe I should see if she would like to fuck; I mean dance,” Rob coughed and rose unsteadily to his feet. He knew how to get Michael off of his case. “One dance, but I’m not promising anything. I need another drink anyways,” he said as he proceeded to swallow the gulp left in his tumbler. He had forgiven Michael, but he hadn’t forgotten everything that happened which inevitably lead to Lizzie’s death. He stalked off towards Bethany, stopping and standing next to her at the bar.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked Bethany as a slow, sly grin appeared at the corner of his lips.

“Well, seeing as it’s an open bar, I don’t think you can buy me anything, but I will have a drink with you,” Bethany said in her most flirtatious voice. Even though Rob was entering the comfortably numb phase of his stupor, he noticed her flirting and decided why not. It had been a good month since he had gotten laid.

“You are a very beautiful woman. What are you doing here alone?”

“My date cancelled on me at the last minute. Not enough time to find a new one,” Bethany said flushing at the compliment. She batted her eyelashes at him and said, “I have no one to dance with.”

“Would you care to dance?” Rob asked, turning on the charm.

“I would love to,” she said holding out her hand to Rob. He took her hand, smiling as the DJ played a slow song. He led her to the dance floor, and she put her arms around his neck. He could admit she was a looker. He could use her to take his mind off things tonight and get his brothers to back off for a while. They always wanted to fix him. Didn’t they realize there was no fixing his kind of broke?

In a daring move, she pressed her breasts against his tight, muscular chest. He reciprocated by lowering his hands from her waist to her hips. She pressed closer, enough for him to inhale her expensive perfume. She smelled nice. Yes, she would take his mind off of Lizzie for the night. He moved in nuzzling her neck. He felt nothing as he heard her breath catch in her throat. He knew he had her then. He moved his hands lower until they touched the top of her ass.

“Want to go back to your place?” Rob whispered into Bethany’s ear. He knew he would have hell to pay with Emma and Michael for sleeping with her and then sneaking out of Bethany’s house in the middle of the night. All he was after was a long, hard fuck: a way to release his pent-up energy. Masturbating wasn’t even a possibility anymore. Every time he tried, the movie of Lizzie’s death played in his head. The only way was to be with a woman, and there had been numerous ones over the course of the last six months. He couldn’t very well go around beating people up to release his anger and frustration like he had once done to Michael. Now, his way, the woman got a good fuck, and he released his frustration on her in a way that had left several women begging for more. Sometimes, he needed it once a month, other times, once a week. On rare occasions, two or three times a week. Because he was such an incredibly attractive man, women were always throwing themselves at him. His dark hair was short, and had the sexy, rumpled look. Like someone had just run her hands through it in a fit of passion. He had a chiseled jaw line and perfectly defined check bones. His body was cut and defined, anyone could see it through the way his button down shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and pulled at his biceps. His hips narrowed and he worked hard to maintain the V on both his front and his back. His slacks pulled across his thighs showing off his muscular legs. But what brought the ladies to him was the triple threat: his grey eyes were haunted, mysterious; his lips were bowed and god like; and his hands were masculine and calloused with close cut nails and veins popping out on the tops. When he smiled at Bethany throwing her a quirk she caught a glimpse of half a dimple in his left cheek. Panty. Dropping.

“We have to stay until they leave. If you still want to after that, I’m game,” Bethany whispered back in his ear. When the dance was over, Rob extended his hand to her. Just because he was going to fuck her and leave her, didn’t mean he still couldn’t be a gentleman about it. She took his hand and led her to the bar. Once their drinks were filled, he led her back to his table. Michael approached with a leery look in his eyes. Rob noticed the way he glanced from Bethany’s hand to his own hand resting together high up on Rob’s thigh. Rob read the warning in Michael’s eyes. Yep, Rob would have hell to pay for messing with Emma’s best friend. But hey, she was here, and she was willing, and approaching her was Michael’s suggestion in the first place. They were both consenting adults and neither one needed their friends’ approval.

“Rob, can I talk to you for a second?” Michael said motioning for Rob to follow. Once they got to a private corner Michael continued, “I asked you to dance with her not fuck her. Not with Bethany. She is Emma’s best friend. You fucking her and leaving her will hurt her.”

“I appreciate your concern, but I need this tonight. I’m happy for you and Emma, you know that, right? It’s just so hard watching you two; knowing I will never have that again. She knows what I’m all about, and she’s still game. We’re both adults capable of making our own decisions. If she wants to take me back to her place, then I’m going to go,” Rob informed his friend.

“Just make sure you explain your expectations before you leave with her. That way she knows exactly what she’s getting into,” Michael admonished Rob.

“Fine. If that’s what it takes to make you happy, consider it done,” Rob assured his friend as he laid his large hand upon Michael’s shoulder and squeezed. He didn’t want to start any sort of trouble. He would do as his friend asked because he did care about Emma and by extension, Bethany.

After watching the bride and groom cut the fragile cake covered in flowers and then delicately feed it to each other, Rob said his goodbyes and wished them a wonderful honeymoon in Aruba. If anyone deserved happiness, they did. He knew first hand everything they went through stopping the terrorist cell that had taken his Lizzie. He walked back to Bethany and asked if she was ready to leave.

“Let me grab my purse,” she said leaving him standing alone near the entrance. She returned anxiously, eager for what the night had in store. He reached for her hand and led her outside.

“I’ll bring you back to get your car tomorrow,” she offered.
Fuck, how was he going to sneak out of her bed now?
He would walk home; God knew he did plenty of walking as a former Green Beret.

Lola’s eyes felt heavy as she struggled to open them. She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious nor did she know where she was. She smelled a musty odor, like it had just rained and wherever she was, felt damp and moldy. She was lying on a lumpy mattress with her head on an even lumpier pillow, yet she still couldn’t open her eyes. Then she heard it. At first it sounded far off in the distance, but the more she came to, the closer the voices sounded. They were the voices of females talking in another language. She recognized the French from the classes she’d taken in school. Then she exhaled as she heard English coming from someone near her.

“Hey. You awake?” the voice asked. She was still too groggy to open her eyes or respond. She had to pull out of whatever lethargy the drug had caused. She never did drugs, not even prescription medicines. Under the darkness of her closed eyelids, the memories came flooding back to her.

She was fourteen when she found her mother lying on the ensuite floor, unresponsive to Lola’s pleading. Dead. She’d known about the prescription medicines, but it wasn’t until after the funeral that her father told her that her mom had abused prescription drugs.

She remembered when her mother had hurt her back and the doctor prescribed pain medication. Her initial injury healed, but she was never able to get off of the medication, and apparently, because of their wealth, she was able to get whatever she wanted with a simple phone call. It came to light that her father knew all along about her addiction to pain medication and had even tried committing her mother three times to stays at a rehabilitation facility, the best money could buy. But it was no use; she was an addict.

When she found her lying on the floor, Lola raced to her side and dropped to her knees. Tears immediately streamed down her face as she shook her and pleaded with her to wake.

“Help! Help us!” she screamed. Eventually the staff heard her cries and came running into the bathroom. “Call 9-1-1,” she cried. After what felt like forever, the ambulance finally arrived, but pronounced her dead on the scene. Lola was never the same afterwards. All of her fond memories of her mother were stained by the vision of her lifeless body lying on that floor.

Drugs robbed her of a mother. Lola swore to herself she would never touch the stuff and in her twenty years, she never had. She would suffer through headaches so she didn’t have to take a pill. She was pissed at her mother for not being strong enough to get off drugs. Pissed her mom had left her when she needed her the most, at the tender age of fourteen. Pissed she didn’t care who found her, not even if it was her only child. She never had anyone to share stories of her first kiss with, never had anyone to share any of her success stories with. She had been robbed of her childhood on that very dark day.

Now she found herself drugged and in a foreign environment. Definitely not the Ritz Carlton. She was someplace dirty and uncomfortable, and from the sounds of it – she was with other women.
What did they want from her?
Maybe everyone here was being held for ransom.

She felt herself coming back and started to blink rapidly to clear the drug induced sleep from her mind. What she saw shocked her, and she shrank back into the bumpy mattress. There was a stunning brunette standing over her asking her questions. She tried hard to make sense of her words.

“Êtes-vous d'accord?” the brunette asked.

“Qui êtes-vous?” Lola replied. “Parlez-vous Anglais?”

“Yes, a little,” the brunette responded shoulders slumping with relief that Lola was awake and alert.

“Where am I?”

“I not sure. We have no, how do you say, clue.” The brunette girl spoke with a heavy French accent. “We sit here and wait for medicine and food.”

“How long have I been here, asleep?” Lola asked the brunette as a beautiful redhead appeared and answered in perfect English.

“You have been here a while. You arrived when the sun was directly overhead and now it’s dark. We were worried when you didn’t respond right away. None of us stayed under as long as you did, once we arrived.”

Lola looked around and what she saw frightened her. She didn’t know places like this even existed in America. She noticed a straw roof which must leak when it rained, accounting for the moldy and musty smell. The walls were made of bamboo and were crawling with insects. The placed swarmed with them. She noticed a rather large bug crawling up her cot towards her. She had never seen an insect so large. She waved her arms, screamed, and with one jump was immediately off of her cot and standing on the earth-packed floor. Upon further inspection, she noticed five cots in the small hut, including hers. There was a bucket in the corner of the room. “What’s that?” She pointed to the bucket, but by the smell of urine and feces she had a pretty good idea.

“That’s the latrine,” the French girl responded.

“We try to give each other privacy by turning our backs. But, they only empty it once a night, so the smell is something you have to get used to,” the English girl replied. Morbid curiosity pulled Lola closer to the bucket. Within a foot, she began to gag on the smell. Insects covered the contents of the bucket - from princess to prisoner in the span of a day.

“I’m Lola,” she said extending her hand to the other girls, showing her ingrained good manners. The French girl just looked at her outstretched hand, but the English girl grabbed it with her same hand and gently squeezed her fingers. “How long have you been here?”

“I have been keeping track in the dirt under my bed. I have been here nineteen days,” the English girl responded pointing under her cot. “I’m Alisha.” She pointed to the red head and said, “That’s Cece. And over there is Dangani. She’s African, but she can speak French and English.” For the first time, Lola took in the African girl’s features. She looked young, not much older than fourteen. Her body had not yet matured to that of a woman.