Best if he wasn’t. Maybe he couldn’t feel the pain anymore.
Scott swallowed an excruciating lump in his throat. The asshole moved the knife to Deke’s chest, carving a line across one filthy pec.
Jesus, he was going to fucking cry. Deke was the one on death’s doorstep enduring inconceivable agony, and Scott was the one near tears.
Man the fuck up.
For Deke.
“Fuck off,” he said to their torturer, nearly vomiting as he sentenced Deke to more cruelty.
This went on until the torturer grew bored and Scott was a whole lot more fucked in the head than he had been a few hours ago. At least for the moment, Deke had the sweet relief of unconscious oblivion.
The terrorists dragged him back to his box, where he spent the next half-day losing a little more of his sanity. Then, again, he was hauled back to Deke’s hut and dumped on the floor for another round of psychological torture.
This time, the world around him wavered, fuzzy and unsteady. Worry for Deke and pain had kept him from anything more than a fitful catnap. Exhaustion muddled his thoughts and vision, making him feel as though his brain couldn’t process the input from his eyes any longer. He’d learned about heatstroke. How long before he started having delusions? Stroked out?
He forced himself to push aside the gruesome thoughts and focus on Deke. As always, they’d only have a few minutes to speak privately. No doubt Deke would run through the words he always made Scott repeat. And he’d give them to Deke, no matter how much he disagreed with their truth. He’d give his brother-in-arms and best friend anything the man wanted to give him an ounce of relief.
“What do you think, man?” he asked Deke in as strong a voice as he could muster. “Steak or burger when we get home?”
Silence met his question.
“Deke?” When his friend didn’t respond, Scott’s insides iced over. It took him a solid minute to struggle to a sitting position. “Yo, Deke, wake the fuck up, brother.” Using his absolute last morsel of energy, Scott dragged his aching body across the grimy clay floor. He froze about two feet from Deke.
“No,” he whispered.
His friend lay on his back, eyes wide open, staring at nothing. Flies buzzed around, occasionally landing on Deke’s gangrenous wounds.
Scott’s stomach lurched. He turned his head and vomited stomach acid on the ground. “God, fuck,” he whispered when the excruciating abdominal contractions ceased. He collapsed to his back as tears slipped from his eyes.
Despite all the odds, he’d held hope they’d be rescued.
And now Deke was dead. The man who’d had his back every day over the past twenty years was dead.
I didn’t kill Deke.
Bull-fucking-shit.
He may not be as guilty as these shit-ass terrorists, but Deke’s death was a stain on his soul he’d wear for eternity.
CHAPTER ONE
OLIVIA SCANNED HER fiancé’s desk as she settled her hands on the keyboard.
Home row. Ready to type in the cryptic combination of letters and numbers that would grant her access to his personal computer, searching her fiancé’s computer for evidence of cheating.
What a cliché, and not somewhere she’d ever thought she’d end up.
But there she was.
“Come to mama,” she whispered as though Lance’s password would magically flow from the ether into her fingertips.
Nothing came to her. Big surprise.
She blew out a frustrated breath and sagged against the oversized office chair with the buttery soft leather and extra-wide armrests. What else could she try? All the usual suspects had failed.
Her name.
Her birthday.
Lance’s birthday.
His mother’s maiden name.
The name of his favorite golf club—that’s right, it had a name. Casper.
Hell, she’d even tried his childhood dog’s name. He’d hated that dog.
For the past week, she’d slipped into this office each evening while Lance was ‘at the gym’ and tried two passwords. Three strikes would lock the screen and give away her sleuthing. So when her two tries failed, she left and impatiently waited for the next night.
He was cheating on her again. She knew it in her bones despite his repeated professions of loyalty and love. Six months ago, he left for work and forgot his phone. Like the sweet partner she was, she’d decided to bring it to him at his office. His day would suck without it, and if she could help, why wouldn’t she?
Well, the joke had been on her when at five minutes after nine, a text came through from his secretary saying how she could see him sitting at his desk and how she couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d done to her on that desk the day before. There was even mention of how hard it’d been to keep from screaming in pleasure and alerting the staff to what happened.
Oliva may have grown up spoiled rotten by her single-parent father, but she wasn’t nearly as soft as the men in her life believed her to be. She’d thrown Lance’s engagement ring in his face, stormed out the door, and driven straight to her father’s house. No way in hell would dear old dad let Lance humiliate her by eating out his secretary. On his desk. During the workday.