Virtues (Base Branch Series Book 8) (12 page)

“
N
o
!” Tyler’s voice slammed into the barn walls and ricocheted with disturbing force. He tore at the binding and welcomed the rip of his flesh in turn. His broken skin, ribs, teeth, and leg were nagging bug bites in comparison to the torture of watching the woman he loved slowly die and knowing he was helpless to stop it.

This was what Markus had been after for so many hours. His agony. His relent. He’d give the man anything for which he asked if he’d save Cara. But the bastard’s brain littered the ground only feet from where Cara now lay struggling with short, gurgling breaths.

Just because he hadn’t been able to free his wrists from the bindings in the last twelve hours didn’t mean he’d give up.

Tyler contracted his biceps, pulled himself up to the rope, and gnashed at it with his teeth. The loose things pried impotently at the tightly woven threads. Muscles in his arms quaked so hard it jarred fresh blood from his mouth. Pulpy hemp mixed with copper and churned his empty stomach, but he kept at it.

The roar of an engine and the kick of gravel filled him with hope. For the duration of his torture, there had been six men. He’d accounted for them with the gunshots. That and Cara had arrived in a vehicle, which someone besides her had driven. He’d guessed Luck but hadn’t figured out why the hell the guy had abandoned her, fleeing with the car as soon as the shit hit the fan.

He let his arms give way, gritted against the stabbing pains all over his body, inhaled, and did something he’d never done before.

“Help! We need help! In here!”

Dread filled him on the second round of pleas. He didn’t worry the enemy was coming to get them. He realized that no matter how fast they drove, it wouldn’t be fast enough to save Cara.

His mouth stretched in an inhuman bellow of rage and dread.

“Tyler?” Luck rounded the open barn door and skidded to a stop. “Cara? No, shit. No.”

“Help her,” Tyler begged. Even though he knew they couldn’t save her, he refused to give up.

Logistics were his thing. Cara needed an IV. She needed the hole in her chest plugged. They could have found those things for the job in the house if those bastards hadn’t wrecked his entire first-aid stash. After that, they could drive like the devil chased their asses with flaming torches.

Rin barreled through the door. Luck turned and caught her around the waist. He tried to block the girl’s view.

There wasn’t time for grief.

“Luck, move,” Tyler barked. “Rin, you both keep your shit together. She’s not dead yet. It’s our job to keep her that way.”

Once kicked out of his stupor, Luck sprinted the distance with Rin a breath behind him. He propped Cara on her side, bullet wound down, and positioned Rin to hold her mother there. The guy flung the sawhorse near Tyler’s feet like it weighed less than a pound. When Cara dragged it from across the barn, it seemed to weigh a thousand.

“This is going to hurt like a motherfucker.” Luck climbed onto the frame and stood eye level with him.

“Do it,” Tyler ordered.

The man yanked a serrated knife from the sheath at his thigh, stretched tall, and sliced at the rope. The sharp blade and gravity did the rest. Luck banded his arms around Tyler’s torso. A bomb detonated inside his chest, but Tyler bit his lips to muffle the cry. Luck stepped down from the sawhorse. Stars twinkled and multiplied, filling Tyler’s vision.

“Tyler.” The delicate whisper pulled him back from the brink of unconsciousness. He leaned on the sturdy guy, his good leg, sought the source of the whisper, and prayed it wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him.

When he found Cara lying on the dirty ground, her eyes were closed, and her beautiful face was as white as her daughter’s shirt, where her mother’s blood hadn’t stained it.

As broken inside and out as he was, something inside Tyler fit into place in that moment of pure desperation. A sense of peace washed over him. She fought for him. He’d fight for her to the very end.

“Rin, move her shirt from over the wound. We need something plastic to place over it. Luck, look in that kit in the corner by the bodies.”

“You’ll fall,” Luck argued.

Tyler shoved the man away, surprised his body backed him up. He hit the ground like a fifty-pound sack of feed, but it kicked the other guy into action. Using elbows and one knee, Tyler crawled to Cara.

He stroked her pale face with his bound hands. Streaks of his blood colored her cheeks. Her skin cooled his fingertips. “Cara, you will live. Do you hear me? You will live.”

Tears welled in Rin’s eyes, but she bit them back with a look of sheer determination and a solid bite on her lower lip.

“Here.” Luck landed on his knees next to Rin with an unopened pack of surgical gloves.

“Lay the palm of one over the wound and hold it there.” The package shrieked open inches from Tyler’s ear. He didn’t watch Luck. Instead, he listened to Cara’s breathing and watched her face.

Luck adjusted the glove several times before suction caught with a sure pop of the thin plastic. Within seconds, the color in Cara’s lips brightened. Her breaths still came in far too shallow draws for his liking.

“We need an…” The familiar
whop, whop
of helicopter blades drove Tyler’s battered heart into his throat. “We need that bird. Luck, go wave it down. Burn the house to the ground if you have to. Just get their attention. There’s room for them to land in the field.”

Before he could say more, Luck’s boot treads retreated.

Rin’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“We can do this.” Tyler wrapped his arms around Cara. “I’ll hold her. You go to the corner and look for an unused IV. If it’s not there, you’ll have to go to the house.”

Her gaze sliced in the direction of the bodies and then jumped back. Her cheeks drooped. “They’re dead.” She hadn’t looked at Markus’s body behind her, not once, since she’d followed Luck past it.

“Thank fuck. If I could, I’d kill them again. Now go. You can do it. You’re as strong as your mother is.”

The tears clouding Rin’s eyes fell in earnest. Her head shook back and forth, but she also stood, balled her fists, and marched around the corpses.

Tyler tightened his arms around Cara, held the glove in place, and pressed his lips to her cold mouth. He levered back and watched for any reaction, but this was no fairy tale.

“I don’t see any here. They’re all used,” Rin hollered from the other side of the barn.

“Look in the house. Through the back door, in the kitchen, in the large pantry.”

Rin sprinted past the bodies and headed for the door, while Tyler willed Cara to live.

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Don’t pansy out on me now. Cara, do you want to live? Show me you want to live?” He shook her. Despair crept into his words. “Do you want to live?”

Cara’s throat bobbed once and then again.

“Promise to make it worth my trouble?” The words were reedy and took several breaths for her to complete, but they were the best words he’d ever heard.

“I promise to love you every day of the rest of my life.”

“Yes,” she breathed.

She breathed, which was all he needed her to do right now.

The beat of the HELO’s blades grew nearer. He honestly didn’t care if Luck had resorted to burning the Sanford’s house to get their attention. Knowing the stakes, the couple might have made the same decision. Maybe.

He held her as firmly and gently as he could and pressed his forehead to hers. Several seconds later, her head turned as though she were looking for something. “Tucker…”

He couldn’t make out her last word. “What about Tucker?”

“HELO.” One side of her mouth quirked into a lazy smirk.

“Thank you.” A wave of relief washed over Tyler. He thanked God. He thanked Cara. He thanked everyone who would help him save this woman.

“Found one. I think I have everything.” Rin knelt next to her mother and gasped. “You’re awake.”

“Rin.” Cara’s face didn’t show the smile in her voice.

Everything she did was sluggish and reaffirmed in him the haste gone at the moment following her consciousness.

“I don’t know how to put in an IV.” Rin looked up and down her mother’s arm.

“Swab the top of her hand.”

The girl bit her top lip, this time, narrowed her gaze, and sought the small iodine packet in the IV pack. He talked Rin through the steps of inserting the tube, securing it for transport, and elevating the bag.

“Hell of a job,” Tyler offered.

“That was all you.” Rin blew the flyaways from her forehead.

“Teamwork,” Cara offered.

“Quiet, you.” Tyler pinned her with his gaze. “Conserve your oxygen.”

Cara held up a finger.

“What is it?”

Sunlight streamed into the barn. Instinctively, Tyler covered Cara with his body. Luck ran through the large double doors with stretchers stacked one atop the other, carried on the other end by Kite, a Base Branch agent he knew by reputation only. The guy was a master of stealth incursion. And wanted dead by several enemy groups for the massive damage he’d inflicted with no warning.

Khani Slaughter rounded the corner with her gun aimed. She swept the area, assessing the threat level for herself. King Street, the man taking her back across the pond where she’d come from, covered her six.

“You couldn’t wait until I was out of the country to bleed, Tyler?” Khani scoffed.

“Sorry to disappoint, ma’am” —Tyler uncovered Cara— “but she needs your attention way more than I do.”

“Lung shot,” Khani hissed in her haughty British accent as she addressed the wound. “Nice stabilization for her. What about you?” She worked while she talked, pulling the tape from a bag and securing the edges of the glove to Cara’s chest.

“Plop me on the stretcher and let’s go.” Tyler watched the able-bodied men set down the small pallets and judge the situation.

“First, we need to cover your nuts,” King chimed in with his own British—but much less proper—accent. He pulled the green shirt from his torso, revealing his vest, and tossed the cotton at Tyler. It landed on his hip and caused a jolt of pain he hadn’t felt since grabbing hold of Cara.

Khani crouched low and leaned over Cara. “I’m going to need you two to let go so we can leave.”

Neither of their hands loosened, and actually, Cara’s tightened. She pulled his ear to her mouth. “Where are Tor and,” she stalled, “and Marina?”

“Who?” he whispered back.

“Markus’s brother and the other girl they were torturing?”

“None of the men here was his brother, and there was no one else.”

“Luck,” Cara called.

He rushed to her side looking more like an excited and simultaneously terrified boy than the tough blond-headed man he was.

“Check the premises for Tor and Marina. Watch the video on my phone and you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

Luck nodded at Cara’s orders.

“If you’re leaving with us,” Khani announced before he left the barn, “we’re wheels up in three.”

“You can let me go now.” When he didn’t release her, she added, “So we can leave.” Cara’s breath danced across his cheek.

He had a thousand questions. Who were those people and how did they calculate into her life? More importantly, did she feel at all about him how he felt about her? But now wasn’t the time.

“Just don’t leave me,” Tyler demanded.

“I won’t,” she promised.

The moment they rolled her onto her back, Cara lost consciousness.

S
omeone grabbed
Cara’s upper arm and squeezed hard. She jerked from the hold and reached for her CZ. The IV stabbing into her hand stopped her cold, along with the realization she was in a hospital bed and an automatic blood pressure cuff was the culprit strangling her arm. Deeply rooted pain pulsed through her chest and diffused through each arm. Wires sprouted out of her oh-so-sexy gown held together by one snap on her right side. A grimace contorted Cara’s face.

Then her gaze landed on the mussed brown hair and bruised forehead resting only inches from her pressure cuff. His hand lay outstretched next to his head. Thick gauze encircled his wrist.

He wore his own hospital issued ensemble, complete with legwear. A black hip-to-calf brace wrapped around his gauze-packaged leg, which he’d propped on a padless chair opposite the one on which he sat—slumped. Gooey warmth washed her pain to the recesses. Her fingers stretched out to touch him, as desperate for the contact as she’d been in the barn.

Her fingers hovered over his hair. Every place she looked, rich blue and black marks stained his skin.

A low vibration fluttered the sheets between them. The screen of her phone lit. Cara read the incoming text.

Tucker: Our boys are moving in. How’s Cara?

The information didn’t make sense. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious and what had transpired during that time. Had they found Marina? Cara lifted the phone and accessed her text log.

Something shifted in the far corner of the room, stealing her fuzzy focus. Luck reclined on a loveseat. His legs sprawled off the front because Rin snuggled to his side on the other cushion. Her daughter burrowed her sweet face under the cleft of Luck’s chin and sighed.

Cara smiled and returned to the phone and a conversation between Tyler and Base Branch director Vail Tucker. The feed started at 6:00 p.m. the previous day, and it was 4:20 p.m.—whatever day it was.

Tucker: Located the signal where Marina’s video is being transmitted in Sweden. It’s in the middle of Brödraskapet territory. Oliver and Hunter are en route.

Tyler: There’s a story here. Luck won’t talk. Says it’s Cara’s to tell.

Tucker: Any change in her condition?

Tyler: No.

Tucker: She’s a fighter.

Tyler: Hell yeah, she is.

Tucker: They landed.

Tyler: Luck says to hold them off.

Tucker: What if this girl is going through what you did?

Tyler: Tell them to watch their asses, even though they won’t listen.

Tucker: You were the sensible one in that outfit.

Tyler: Keep me updated.

Cara’s gaze caressed Tyler for several minutes. She enjoyed the rise and fall of his chest and the bump of his pulse against his neck…even if it was marred with bruises. What if Marina was going through what he did? What if she wasn’t?

No matter how much she denied it, the girl had burned her before.

She needed more information. Tucker did too.

Cara typed.

Cara: It’s Cara. Hold your boys off, it’s a trap.

Tucker: Glad you’re back. I need details.

Cara: You may reconsider hiring me once you hear them, but I’m ready to tell.

Tucker: Be up there within the hour.

She looked at Tyler and typed once more.

Cara: If you still want to hire me after you hear the story, then I have a non-negotiable condition.

Tucker: Name it.

Cara: I plan to be with Tyler. There can’t be a clause that keeps us from being together.

Tucker: If you haven’t noticed, you’re not the only couple we employ. We can accommodate you.

She set the phone on the bed and reached for the man she loved. Her fingertips grazed the unruly tips of his hair. The delicate contact trumpeted a rush of warmth and tingles up her arm. A drunken sense of peace settled over her chest. She delved deeper. Lush, knotted strands caressed her hand. Heat from his scalp radiated into her palm. Tears stung, threatening release.

Tyler yawned and then groaned. His finger stretched forward in a blind search, and when he didn’t find what he sought, he straightened with the grace of a ninety-year-old man. Her hand slid from his hair to the prickles of a sprouting beard. His closed lips buffered his grunts and grumbles. His sleepy, swollen gaze swung her way. Through the puffy, butterfly-band-aided skin, he gave her a smile that curled her toes and hugged her heart at the same time.

“You should be in a bed of your own.” Cara’s voice shook with unadulterated love for this man.

His large hand skated up the back of hers and held it firmly to his cheek.

For the first time since she’d received the horrid video, her lungs expanded with a full breath.

“We haven’t been able to keep him in it.” Rin grinned from her perch on the couch. “Maybe you can help?”

Cara knew he should go, prop his leg up on a bed on pillows, and take care of himself. She couldn’t make the orders form on her lips, nor could she let go of his handsome face.

“I think she’ll be the opposite of help. Can’t blame either one of them.” Luck stood and reached for Rin. When she grabbed his hand, he pulled her up and kissed the back of it. “I’m starved. Let’s go get some food.”

Luck tossed a wink at Cara, pulling a blush to her cheeks.

“Thank you.” Rin bounded over to the open side of her bed and kissed her forehead.

“For?” Cara caught her daughter’s hand, pulled her back, and placed a kiss on her cheek.

“Being okay.” Rin smiled.

“My pleasure.” Cara watched her kids exit the room and pull the door closed behind them. Her gaze found Tyler’s. “You really should elevate your leg higher than your heart.”

“I left you once. I’m not doing it again.” Tyler pulled her hand from his face. His fingers danced over her skin. “Push, if you want. I can handle it. We’ll take it slow. I can wait, but I won’t give up on you.”

She gritted against the agony to come and pulled her hand from Tyler’s. Both palms braced on the bed, Cara lifted her bottom off the fitted sheet and shifted toward the far side of the bed.

Tyler’s smile faltered.

Her full breaths carried her through the pain. When she could move again, she patted the bed next to her.

“I can’t wait. I’ve been stubborn and scared long enough. I’m ready for you.” A smile stretched her mouth. “Ready to snuggle, at least.”

He eyed her head to toe with a teasing grin. “I’m supposed to get up there, right next to your sweet, hot skin, and only snuggle?”

“You’re a highly capable man.”

“I hope this feat doesn’t prove you wrong.” Tyler half winked—because his eye already hung at half-mast—and hoisted himself onto the bed from the chair. He paused several times in transition, breathing in slowly through his nose and out his mouth.

Finally, his body snuggled alongside hers. He draped a bandaged arm over her shoulder and slowly eased her against him. A hiss spit from between his teeth.

“We don’t have to do this now.”

“I haven’t felt this good in two days.”

“Sounds it,” she scoffed.

“You’re not moving, Cara. I’ve lived through a ton of crazy shit, and I’ve never been as terrified as I was when you…” His words caught, and he shook his head. He cleared his throat. “A little pain in the ribs, I can handle.”

“Are they broken?”

“Nah.” He waved her off. “Only four. Markus slapped like a bitch.”

“Right.” Cara shook her head.

The door opened, and a nurse stepped into the room.

Tyler's hand shot up, stalling the man. “Her BP is seventy over a hundred and eight, temp is ninety-eight point two, heart rate is seventy-three. A little high for her, but I’m beside her, so can you blame the woman?” He gestured to their aligned bodies and waggled his puffy brow. “What can I say? I get to her.”

“Your friends tried to call me off too, but you know I’m going to have to check her.” The nurse smirked, crossed his arms, but didn’t continue into the room. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”

“Twenty,” Tyler argued.

“Twelve,” the nurse countered.

“We’ll take it.” Cara nodded her thanks. The man pulled the door closed, and she turned to Tyler. “How’d you know all that?”

“I’ve been keeping track.” His gaze hit the floor and rolled around the room.

“What is it?”

“I want to save people, not kill them,” Tyler grudgingly admitted.

“That’s something to be proud of.” She cradled his chin in her hand and pulled his gaze easily to hers.

“I don’t want you to think I’m judging you. What you, we, do, it’s ugly, but vital work. We maintain the balance.”

“And saving the good guys’ lives is part of that balance.” Cara’s heart swelled. “I’m glad you’re figuring it out. Glad we both are.” She placed a kiss on her thumb and then rubbed it over his lips.

“I really wish we were able bodied right now,” Tyler growled.

“Me too.” Her words came out more breathlessly than she would have liked. In an effort to turn down the pulse growing between her thighs, Cara steered the conversation in a different direction. “So are you planning to wear a white coat?” Because that would be damn hot too.”

“I’m not ready to give up my battle gear, even though I won’t be in it for a while. Khani is a field medic. She’s leaving soon.”

“We’ll need someone to replace her.” Cara hiked a brow. “You’d be a natural.”

“You’re taking the job?” His split lips formed a grin.

“If the job takes me.”

“It will.” He nodded. But he hadn’t yet heard her story. “Mine will take some extensive training,” he continued, “but I’m up for it. What the hell else can I do for the next few months?”

“I have a few ideas.” Cara laced her fingers with his.

“You’re bound to get me in trouble.”

She shrugged and grimaced. “My past will be swarming around the room shortly.”

“Until then, lean on me.” Tyler pulled her into the crook of his arm.

The worry over the skeletons to free fell silent. His heartbeat thumped assuredly in her ear. Hers calmed to match it. Being in Tyler’s arms was the closest thing to coming home she’d ever experienced. And she never wanted the feeling to go away.

“How about I lean here forever? And when you need to, you can lean back?”

Tyler released a shuttering breath.

“That’s good for me, darlin’.”

“I love you, Tyler.”

“I was wondering but wasn’t going to rush you.”

“I love you,” she said again.

“Hot damn. I love you too.” He kissed the top of her head and cradled her face in his big hand…

Where she’d stay forever.

M
arina Sorensen rots in a prison of her own making. The bars are the thick arms and meaty hands of Brödraskapet thugs who make money selling her body. Her guilt is the unbreakable shackle. Loneliness is her ever tightening noose. Trading her life for the survival of another is her only salvation.

For Base Branch operative Oliver Knight an eliminate and rescue mission in hostile territory against a brotherhood of brutal sons-of-bitches is another adventure. Downtime between missions in foreign locales with exotic women is worth dodging a few bullets. There is also the sense of duty and pride in a job well done.

He and his buddy rescue Marina and are blindsided by the striking, broken woman who mistakes them for Stronghold Tech. Before they can figure out how she knows about the elite securities team or find and eliminate their mark, the enemy discovers their hideout. Capture would be a fate worse than death and it looms so close Oliver and Marina can french it.

Betrayals meet harsh light and the fun-loving soldier is forced to face cruel reality. His damsel in distress is the one to blame, especially when Stronghold forces show, adding chaos to the kabooms. The dire situation turns deadly and Marina holds the key. 

If only Oliver can stop loving and hating her long enough to get the answers.

W
hen friends become enemies and enemies become lovers.

B
orn in the blood of Sierra Leone's Civil War, enslaved, then sold to the US as an orphan, Base Branch operative Sloan Harris is emotionally dead and driven by vengeance. With no soul to give, her body becomes the bargaining chip to infiltrate a warlord's inner circle. The man called The Devil killed her family and helped destroy a region.

As son of the warlord, Baine Kendrick will happily use Sloan's body if it expedites his father's demise. Yet, he is wholly unprepared for the possessive and protective emotions she provokes. Maybe it’s the flashes of memory … two forgotten children drawing in the dirt beneath the boabab tree… But he fears there is more at stake than his life.

In the Devil's den with Baine by her side, Sloan braves certain death and discovers a spirit for living.