44. Two Years Earlier

TWO YEARS EARLIER

Waters

Cracks whipping against human flesh.Screams echoing off of stone walls. Sobs falling like the dripping water from the stones. Pleas begging Waters to shut down his hearing and sight. Then suddenly… silence from the punished.

My fault, my fault, my fault.

He could hear voices in Arabic. Laughter at crude jokes. While he knew enough of Arabic languages to get the gist of what was being said, his brain refused to process the horrors that were about to be performed next.

There it was. A moan so quiet it was barely audible.

No, no, no, no, no, stay quiet, don't let them know you're awake, no, please, no, make it stop.

Ripping next, as if something was being torn from top to bottom, a sound louder than any clap of thunder he'd ever heard. More laughter and the sound of a heavy table being dragged across the room. The rattling of keys and the click of shackles being opened and then closed again. More moans, a little louder than before. She was coming to.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

A clunk as her body hit the table. The harsh voices, the taunts to the woman who lay barely conscious on the table, more ripping, and an agonizing yelp of pain, the laughter and obvious joy of what was to come.

The irony that his face escaped any sort of beating was not lost on him. Broken noses, jaws, lost teeth, damaged eyes, cuts, and abrasions that took months to heal—those were the foundations of torture sessions for soldiers caught in enemy territory. But not for him. Oh no. His captor, the bastard, had wanted Waters to be able to see what he'd ordered done to her. His heart was breaking.

My fault, all my fault.

Someone crouched in front of him, holding a destroyed piece of material. Blue like the sea, silver zipper, a layered piece that had once been a kick pleat. His tormentor rubbed the remains of the filthy, bloodied garment in his face.

Waters refused to give him the satisfaction of looking up. More than that, he was afraid to. He was a coward. He couldn't bear what would happen now.

The men laughed, and his tormentor moved behind him, using the material like a noose to pull his head up and back. Waters kept his eyes closed. He would not look. How could he?

Using the other hand, his tormentor spread his fingers over the top of Waters' head and down to his eyes to pull back the lids to force Waters to see the scene unfold before him.

He forced himself to go inside his head. His eyes were open, but he refused to see what was going to happen. If he did, he'd never unsee it. It would drive him mad with grief, and he would not survive it. Not that he would want to, anyway.

And so it began. She screamed and screamed again to Waters to shut himself down. The more she yelled to him, the more the men laughed at her, taunted her, and egged each other on. He heard slaps and punches. Thumping as the table rocked with each grunt and groan that rose to a fever pitch, then stopped, then started up again but in different pitches than those that came before. Crescendo, halt, repeat. Over and over, he had no clue how many times. Eventually, the screams became muffled gurgling and gagging combined with even cruder taunts. And the other noises continued amidst the new ones, a sickening melody and harmony.

They'd been promised a reward, and in their eyes, they had certainly received it.

The man behind Waters lowered his head to Waters' ear and whispered horrific things to him, but he did not hear them. He'd managed to retreat so far back into his brain that it was all just static.

And then, suddenly, it was over. He was released from his tormentor's hold and the makeshift noose. Waters" head dropped forward, and his sight and hearing returned.

Even in this state of being beaten within an inch of death, he could actually hear a void in the room. Without asking, he knew she was gone. He hoped his own end would be brutal. He deserved it.

My fault, I caused this, all my fault.

The silence seemed to vibrate, which was odd. It was as if he could feel the ceiling shake, reverberating down through the hook in the ceiling, through the chains that held him upright on his knees, his ankles chained and shackled to bolts in the floor. Who knew that silence could be sensed through touch?

The vibrations increased, and dust from the ceiling sifted down onto him. An explosion. Rapid gunfire. Yelling in Arabic and English. Screams of surprise and pain went quickly silent with the thuds of his jailors hitting the ground.

As the dust settled, he heard fast, booted feet approaching the chamber and then a horror-filled whisper. "Jesuchristo!"

Steel.

The booted feet approached the table with the woman's body splayed upon it. Softly, the voice spoke into a throat mic, "Sarah Miller is here. She's deceased." Waters registered the slight crack in Steel's voice. "Demon, I need blankets. Sheets. Something." He walked over to Waters, blocked the view of her body with his, and lifted Waters' head. "I also have Waters. Massive trauma. TB, Demon, ándele, brothers."

Oh my god, just too late, just too late, just too late.

It didn't matter if they let him see her or not. His imagination created worse visuals than anything he would have actually seen.

Steel returned to the lifeless body of Sarah Miller. There was the clinking and clanking of chains being moved, followed shortly by running feet into the chamber. An abrupt stop. "Oh, feck!" Demon's whisper did nothing to hide the medic's agony at the sight.

"Keep it together," Steel whispered. "Give me the blanket. He can't see this. Go check on Waters." There was a rustling of materials that he knew Steel was using to cover Sarah's body.

Demon tore his gaze from the woman's body, rushed over to Waters, and began a quick examination just as TB's massive frame came through the chamber door. The terminator-sized giant grunted at the shrouded sight of Sarah Miller, then focused on Demon's examination of their teammate. The medic clicked into his Bluetooth. "Nemo, we need immediate assistance at the LZ. Shattered kneecaps; multiple broken ribs; bloodied chest; bloodied back; all open wounds look on the verge of infection; both shoulders dislocated. The lights are on, but nobody's home." He looked up at TB. "He's not walking out of here. Careful when you take him down."

Gently, TB and Demon freed his ankles from the floor bolts, then turned his body one hundred eighty degrees on the suspension hook, which burned like a sonofabitch. He'd gladly take the pain if only it meant Sarah was still alive. Now that she was dead, nothing mattered.

He felt the chains go slack, his wrists released, and someone had his body in their grasp, keeping it from falling completely to the floor. "This is gonna hurt, Boss." Waters felt himself get slung over TB's shoulders in a fireman's carry.

"Steel," Waters groaned. "He needs to—"

"Under control, Boss, he's got her. Close your eyes," TB ordered and began to carry him out of the chamber and to the waiting chopper.

As they exited, he heard a prayer being spoken in Spanish, which his brain translated.

"We beseech Thee, O Lord, in Thy mercy, to have pity on the soul of Thy handmaid; do Thou, Who hast freed her from the perils of this mortal life, restore to her the portion of everlasting salvation. Through Christ our Lord, Amen."

With that, Waters passed out.

The silenceinside the cabin was as hollow as the silence the day Sarah had died. He had no idea how long they sat there, but when he finally freed himself from the memories, the sky outside his windows was filled only with stars.

"When God recruited me for Tribe, I brought in my sister with me. Our parents had recently died. She had just graduated college. Fluent in over a dozen languages and had an eidetic memory. She was amazing. Between her skill set and mine, God had the perfect foundation for bringing in work. We set to recruit the field team.

"Two years in, we were hired to reclaim some children who had been captured by traffickers. They were set to be auctioned. We went in, broke the supply chain, and brought back fifteen girls and boys between the ages of seven and twelve, and six women in their late teens. We were careless. Thought we were untouchable and didn't clean up after ourselves. We left too many clues about who we were, and that organization somehow figured out how to find us. So they took Sarah.

"We had the intel to go get her, but God ordered us to stand down. Reminded me that I had advised a family some time earlier, in the exact same situation, that a rescue mission at that point in time would be futile. Used my own analysis against me. But it was my baby sister, so of course, it was different. I took off on my own. I convinced myself that I didn't need him or my team. That I could get Sarah back by myself.

"These assholes were notorious. Still are. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about her. About them. About what they did to her. And all because I pissed them off by intercepting a single shipment of kids and women. They used my sweet, innocent Sarah against me, and I was so angry. So blind. So stupid. The only thing that changed in the outcome was that I watched her die. I have no way of knowing if it would have been as horrifying and painful had I not been there. All I do know is that I bear the guilt of knowing that she definitely suffered because she was my sister, and I was there."

"The tattoo," Kubrick murmured. "The ‘S' is for Sarah. The Kraken is the Titan, the monster who took her. And its tentacles are the pain that squeezes your heart where you hold her memory."

He nodded.

She knows me so well.

"When I woke up back home, I understood exactly why God made the rule that he did. I vowed it was fine with me. That I supported it." Then he looked at her for the first time, seeing the tears running down her face, the horror in her expression. "For two fucking years, I have lived that goddamned rule like it was the only way to breathe. She may have been my sister, but I extended that fear to any woman who came into my orbit. No attachments. I couldn't risk another innocent woman being taken because of her connection to me. If I could, I avoided being involved directly with women clients. Then I walked into that goddamn conference room and saw you, and it all went to hell.

"I tried so hard, baby, to resist you. I really did. Then, when that failed, I told myself that I could indulge short term because I knew your high-profile job and my need to be low profile kept me from being able to be more than a short-term affair. My job is dangerous enough for me, but feeling anything for you beyond sexual attraction would make you vulnerable. Someone figures out what you are to me, they can use you to get to me, just like they did with Sarah. So I held back as long as I could." He huffed out a breath. "We both know how that ended up.

"The guys have known from day one how far into my soul you are. Midas showed them the video of that meeting, and the razzing began. Then I doubled down on how gone I was the minute you wrapped yourself around me on camera in Roatán. And back here, when they showed up at your house and saw you and I wrapped around each other in my truck, any denial I would have tried to make would have been useless. How I feel about you is no secret.

"And for the past six weeks that we were apart, I spent most of my time distracted, wondering what you were doing, where you were. I couldn't stop thinking about you. I was miserable and took endless shit from the guys, pushing, taunting, begging me to go after what I wanted."

He reached his hands out to her, which she grasped tightly, and he pulled her down onto his lap, burying his head in the waterfall of her hair below her ear. "You want to know how much I wanted to be with you? I dialed your number to call you or text you, which had to be twenty times a day, but then I refused to hit the send button, convinced I was fooling myself that you would want to hear from me. How could you after the way I left?

"Then you plummeted back into my life today asking for my help, and I knew. The moment I saw you in that bar, I was lost. And when you wrapped yourself around me in the cab of my truck, I told myself I was seriously fucked because then I had to make you mine, whether you wanted me or not. And I did not care how it happened. I swore I would find a way to be with you. To hell with high profile. To hell with God and his stupid rule.

"I love you, Kai. I should have said those words back in Roatán when you told me. I meant to. I was just so damn shocked, and then everything happened so fast after that. But I'm saying them now because I am not going to lose you again, Kai." Then he took her mouth with his, and the explosion hit.

Hell, she tastes even better than I remember.

When he came up for air, she dragged in a ragged breath, her eyes in a pleasure haze he had created there with his confession. She stroked the hair at his hairline, looking like she was memorizing every part of his face. "No takebacks, Taj."

He shivered a little at hearing his name whispered from her mouth. "No takebacks, Kai."

"No holding back, either. I want it all. I've wanted you since I met you, and when I got to have you in Roatán, my brain couldn't stop imagining all the things I wanted to do to you. With you."

He stopped breathing.

He blinked.

He felt like a captive tiger that had just been let out of his cage to roam the jungle.

And big, bad kitty wants to mark his territory.

His voice dropped again, and it sounded raw even to him. "I'm going to take you to my bed now, baby. Say no now if you're not ready. I'll wait to fuck you if today has been too much, but either way, that sweet body is next to mine tonight and every night going forward. I've had six weeks to create a whole list of things to do to you that could take days before I even think about sliding my cock into that pussy of yours."

Honestly? Could I go any more caveman on her? Fuck!

He grabbed her tightly by the hand and pulled her up the stairs to the main bedroom. Once inside, he kicked the door shut and leaned her up against it. One hand around her waist, his hips crushing hers to the door, he punched the code panel next to the door, and the locks engaged. The windows shuttered, and a blackout door slid over the bulletproof sliding glass door to the deck. Another button created a soft glow from a small light on the mantle across from his bed. "Steel enforcements in the walls? Seriously? Your bedroom is a panic room?"

"We use the cabin as a safe house occasionally." Hands bruising her hips, he put his forehead to hers, eyes seeming to blur as they bored into hers. He growled again. "Say yes or no, baby. I need the word."

She opened her mouth to answer, but he cut her off before she could push anything out of her mouth. "Say yes, and I fuck you until your throat is raw from screaming my name. Say no, and we curl up in my bed, and I hold you until you fall asleep. Either way works for me because I know that we'll get to the first option another day. But know that if you say yes, there's no going back. You. Will. Be. Mine. Not just tonight but going forward. I will not hold back tonight or any night after. If you're in my bed, you will get whatever pleasure I can give you every night. And just know, I can give you sweet, but I will take you every way you can imagine and then some. Can you handle me?"

The irony was not lost on him that the question he asked her was near the same question God had asked him three months ago.

"Bring it on, Taj."

Oh, hell, yeah. Mother. Fucking. Perfect.

Hitching her onto his hip and with a quick pivot, she was turned and beneath him on the bed as he replied with one of her catchphrases, "It's on like Donkey Kong."