36. Diego

Ifelt a renewed fire burn through my already burning chest as I saw arrow after arrow fly through the air. Roni hadn't run like I told her to; she did the opposite. She was infuriating and amazing all at the same time. I wanted to ring her neck and kiss her, all at the same time.

I didn't have time to check out all the damage we'd done together, but I knew that most of the kills were her. Her well-placed arrows were very effective, and if there were two more of her in the trees, we'd be done with the Geneva Project in no time.

But there weren't, and it didn't seem like my friends were here.

I worried for them. There was only one smoke signal, Roni's.

Did they get taken by surprise and get too caught up in fighting to light the signal? Or were they neutralized before they even knew what was coming?

No. I couldn't let myself think like that. It wasn't constructive, only distracting while I was in a fight for my life.

Roni's arrow pierced the arm of a man who had me in a choke hold. His hold loosened, and I easily pulled him over my shoulder and slammed him to the ground. I stomped on his throat, crushing his windpipe. He'd be dead in a minute.

Blood trickled down my chest and ran down my abdomen as I dodged a punch from a man twice my size. The sunlight reflected off his bald head, and his eyes were hard. He was damn near double my size. He wasn't going to be easy to neutralize, but I could do it.

I bent forward and pulled a knife out of my boot as I rolled to dodge a hit from him. I sprung up with the knife in hand and kept my arms in front of me in a defensive move. As I dodged another swing, I swiped out with the blade, getting him across his ribcage. A loud shout caught my attention, and the crowd around me thinned. Ten men turned and ran toward the forest—toward Roni.

Fuck.

I kicked out at the giant asshole who thought his size was going to win him this fight. That might have been true for any other fight he'd ever been in, but I doubted he'd been in a position to take on a cold-blooded Special Forces soldier. I'd been trained for everything, including how to win a fight with weight and height disadvantage.

He stumbled slightly, and as he recovered, I placed a series of punches aimed at the throat, the stomach, and his family jewels. He was disabled with excruciating pain, and I was able to deliver the final blow, plunging the knife in below his ribs. There was no way he was surviving that. He went down hard. Those who remained behind began to converge on me, and I felt like a mixed martial artist in a karate movie. I moved from offensive-type fighting to defensive, just trying to keep from being overpowered. I needed a path out of here. I needed Roni to let out a few more arrows aimed at the guys blocking my path so that I could get to her.

I was struck in the gut as I blocked a blow to the head. And a punch to the kidney landed as I dodged a knife aimed at my throat. Neither of those were as bad as the sight of Roni being dragged by her hair across the ground. She was bruised, scraped up, and bleeding on her arm.

My heart stopped at the realization that I was a failure.

The Geneva Project won. They had Roni by the hair, and this was it for us.

One of the men was carrying a camera, like he was going to record the show. I could only imagine what chaos and grief would come from the releasing of a tape showing the murder of the First Daughter.

And it would be my fault.

I should have moved her. Home field advantage be damned. I should have gotten us out of the country.

Regrets wouldn't save her.

Roni kicked and screamed the whole way from the line of trees to a spot in front of me. Her one hand gripped her hair, likely to try to relive some of the weight pulling on her scalp, and the other hand was reaching for her thigh, where an arrow was sticking out at an odd angle. It looked like she'd been in a close quarters struggle and someone stabbed her with it.

Or she fell onto it.

She was dragged to a spot twenty meters in front of me. Close enough that I could see her clearly, but too far to get to her without someone stepping between us. The man who dragged her the whole way signed his death wish as he mumbled, "Insufferable bitch. I can't wait to take my turn filling that mouth of yours."

My vision turned red, and I committed his face to memory. I'd make him suffer, and I'd start with the cock he'd been referring to.

I resisted against the man who'd pushed me face first into the dirt and held his boot down on the side of my head. I was pinned, and he better hope to whatever God he believed in that I didn't get free.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

She nodded with tears streaming down her face. "Fine. Can't say the same for those assholes." She gestured to the bodies around us with arrows sticking out at different angles. She had on a brave face. To reassure me, or to stick it to the men that were responsible for her pain, I wasn't sure which. She actually gave a guilty smile to the man who'd dragged her here. He kicked her in the stomach, and she held back a cry.

I was going to tear the fucker limb from limb and smile about it. He was going to suffer for every second he caused her pain.

I'd never been more proud of her. If this was the end for us, then she'd gone out as a total badass. She was a female Robin Hood, making the wilderness hers as she took down enemy after enemy. This couldn't be the end, though; it just couldn't. We'd finally reconciled years of differences. I'd fallen in love with the only woman that'd had the power to get under my skin, and here she was about to meet her end, because she wanted to save me.

We couldn't have come all this way to be denied a future together. I'd learned firsthand just how cruel the world could be, but this?

It was way too much.

Another man reached forward and grabbed the arrow still sticking from her thigh. He placed his foot on her leg and pulled on the wooden shaft. She screamed in pain as the whole arrow, minus the head, was pulled from her leg. The pitch of her screams hurt my ears, and the sound echoed around the clearing. Tears streamed down her face, and I could see she was barely holding onto consciousness.

I saw red again, my blood boiling. That was torture, but it was also an agonizing sign. Why pull the arrow from her leg if they were just going to kill her? Why torture her before they even started filming?

Because they weren't going to kill us yet. We still had time for a rescue from Wells and the others. I had time to kill all these fuckers slowly, causing them the most pain possible. I wanted her to watch, to know that I'd do anything to protect her and hurt those that hurt her.

She whimpered and panted as the shaft from the arrow was tossed on the ground next to her head. She jerked when it landed only an inch from her right cheek. "Shut the fuck up, or I'll shove that through your tongue."

Hate flared in her eyes, but she kept her mouth shut. I stared at her, and she met my eyes. Hers softened a bit, and I could see she didn't regret stopping to help me one bit.

How were we going to get out of this mess? My gun was in the house, a stupid move on my part. I'd only stepped outside to start chopping wood five minutes before Roni had come sprinting around the side of the house to say that the Geneva Project was here. I regretted not taking the few extra seconds to run through the house and grab a couple of guns.

I could only imagine how the table would have turned if I could have also helped pick the fuckers off at a distance. Between the two of us, we could have kept them from ever getting up the cliff path.

Roni's hands were left free as the fucker finally let go of her hair. She was left to lay on the ground as the men surrounded her, almost stepping on her. She clawed at her arrow wound as our captors began to discuss what was going to happen next. One was directed to get the camera ready.

Fucking hell.

Roni cleared her throat, bringing my focus from her leg to her face. She kept her tear-filled eyes on me as she kept fiddling with the hole in her leg. Didn't she know she was only going to make it worse, that she was likely to get an infection? Not that we probably had long enough for her to develop one.

She let out a pained groan as her hand balled into a fist, but the men didn't pay her any attention. She sat back on her ass and took a deep breath and stared up at the sky. One of them kicked her, and she grunted as she took the hit. One more kick took the wind out of her.

Her body shifted ever so subtly, and she slowly pulled her elbow beneath her and bent the knee on her good leg, pulling it closer to her.

No. No. No.

She was going to make a run for it, and it was going to get her killed. There was another thirty of them, at least, and she had a bad injury to her leg. She wasn't going to be able to outrun them. She was finally going to listen to me, but it was already too late.

The hole in her leg looked bad; it continued to bleed, and she was going to pass out soon if she couldn't stop the bleeding. We were in the Alaskan wilderness; I didn't have a medkit for injuries this bad, or blood bags on standby. We were in the woods a hundred miles from the closest hospital. She'd bleed out before we could get her help.

This was bad. So fucking bad.

"Run as fast as you can," I mouthed when no one but her was looking.

She nodded and then slightly opened her hand so that I could see what it held. The arrowhead.

She gestured to her hand and then to me with her eyes.

My hands?

Oh, the arrowhead was for me to slice through my ropes. She put herself through extra pain and misery to set me free.

The realization filled me with awe. The world was so wrong about her; she was so much more than the president's daughter. She was smart, creative, and loyal. She could have run through the woods to save herself, but she stayed. Again she could have made a break for it with the arrow still in her leg, but she didn't, so that I'd have the chance to free myself.

I nodded to let her know I understood what she wanted me to do. For a brief moment, those who stood around her backed off so they could stage the area how they wanted it for their video. A determination seemed to take hold as she took one final breath, pulled her bad leg underneath her, and sprung up, starling those that still stood near her.

She took off.

The limp was very obvious as she ran in my direction, with blood running down her leg. She dropped the arrowhead onto the ground right behind me as she continued in the direction of the river.

Fuck. That's the wrong way. She needed to head to the woods, toward my friends.

A large group of ten cursed and then took off after her. I silently searched for the arrowhead even though I was severely limited by the ropes that dug into my wrists. I discreetly leaned back onto my tailbone, and my fingers touched the sharp and slippery metal. I tried not to think about the fact that it was Roni's blood that coated it.

My eyes were trained on the four assholes closest to me. They whispered quietly, which allowed me to hear the shouts of the others as they chased Roni to the river. I needed to get to her, fast.

Just then Jones, Strong, Abbi, and Mendez came racing through the line of trees, and those who had been keeping their distance went running across the clearing to meet them. They came together, and the sound of grunts and fists gave me the distraction I needed to free myself.

I sliced my palm and barely winced as I sawed at the ropes that kept my wrists secured. It felt like hours before the arrow sliced through the last few fibers.

I broke free, with those standing guard to watch me distracted, watching the fighting that was going on. I didn't hesitate; I swung my arm around and lodged the arrowhead into the jugular of the man closest to me. I watched as the life drained from his eyes. I pulled the arrow free, and he dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks.

Immediately, two of the remaining three were on me. I used my thumb to slide the arrowhead across my palm and between my fingers. I dodged a mean left hook from one asshole as I punched the other in the gut then throat in quick succession, leaving puncture holes in my wake. I kicked him hard, sending him to the ground, and spun quickly to grab the other by his long hair. I kneed him in the face and used his hair to spin him around. With a hand on either side of his face, I quickly snapped his neck.

That left one last sorry soul that stood between me and those chasing Roni. I flashed him a wicked smile, because in the moment I felt a little like Strong, badass and intimidating.

He stared at me for a brief second before he turned and ran. Mendez saw the guy running, and he took off after him through the brush and trees.

The shouting from those who had chased Roni picked up, and my heart dropped into my stomach as I hauled ass to the path down the cliff.

I hoped my friends would neutralize their targets and join me soon, before it was too late for Roni.