Chapter 1

Chapter

One

March 27 th

11:10 P.M.

Was he dead?

Because it certainly felt like he had to be.

Pain, unlike anything he had ever experienced before, raged inside his skull.

Axel "Axe" Lindon was not a novice when it came to pain. The physical or the emotional kind. He'd had concussions before, been shot and stabbed, and even suffered some burns to his back in a Delta Force mission gone wrong.

But none of it compared to this.

The only thing worse than the agony tearing apart his brain was the pain that came from knowing the woman he loved no longer loved him back.

With that thought, awareness seeped back in. He wasn't dead, but he had been blown up in an explosion.

The key found at the bottom of the ocean amongst the broken remains of a yacht that had almost exploded with him and his team on board, had led them here. To a warehouse just three hours from the secluded compound where Axe lived with his friends, the other members of Prey Security's Bravo Team.

A place he lived with his wife.

All except those eight hellishly long months she had been missing.

Whatever had happened to her during those months had caused her brain to completely wipe itself blank. Beth no longer knew who she was or who he was, but worst of all, she no longer remembered the love they had shared.

Desperate for answers, any answers, anything that provided him with a bridge to reach the wife he loved and had failed, they had jumped on the key without taking the time to properly research the area, the building, or the owners.

Now, he was paying the price for that rash decision.

As was his team.

Somehow, worry for the men he considered his brothers gave him the strength he needed to stagger to his feet.

It was raining if the moisture dripping into his eyes was anything to go by. When he lifted a shaking hand to brush the water out of his eyes, his hand came away sticky.

Not water.

Blood.

His blood.

And from the way it was gushing down his face, he knew it wasn't good.

Shoving the pain into a box, Axe did his best to compartmentalize it as he did a mental check of his body. Since he was standing, he didn't think he had spinal injuries, and while he ached and throbbed all over, there was nothing other than his head that stood out as a major concern. Bumps and bruises he could work with, the head injury might be a different story, but he was conscious, aware, and could move, so it couldn't be all that bad.

Stumbling as he walked, he checked to see if his comms were still in place. Somehow, despite being thrown what had to be close to ten feet from the door he'd been entering when he set off the explosion, Axe found that it was.

"Guys, report," he said into the device, praying he got five responses. These five men meant the world to him. Next to Beth, there was nobody he loved more than the men who had served under him on their Delta Force team before targets were painted on their backs by notorious Russian oligarch and human trafficker wanted across the globe, Leonid Baranov. They were so close that after their Delta careers were tanked, they came together to work for the world-renowned Prey Security.

If any of them had died because of his impatience, he would never forgive himself.

"I'm with Scorpion, his arm is trapped beneath debris but he's conscious," Gabriel "Tank" Dawson's voice came through the comms.

Relief that two of his men were alive was only minimal.

That still left three to go.

"You injured?" he asked Tank.

"Cuts and bruises. Nothing serious," Tank replied.

"Stay with Scorpion," he ordered. Just because it appeared that the warehouse had been unoccupied didn't mean that someone wasn't waiting nearby to take them out if they survived the explosion. Mason "Scorpion" Markson had only just learned that his girlfriend was pregnant with his baby. It would break Jessica's heart if anything happened to the man she loved and would leave her once again alone to handle the responsibilities life piled onto her.

No other voices echoed down the comms line, so staggering as he went, Axe turned to his right—since Tank and Scorpion had been on his left—and began walking. Fire danced from the remains of the building, rubble and debris were everywhere, and if they hadn't already, it was only a matter of time before the local fire department would be notified.

He made it around the corner where he saw Sebastian "Rock" Rockman leaning over a prone body. It had to be either Patrick "Trick" Kramer or Rafe "Panther" Neal because they were the only two who he hadn't had an update on.

His gait was unsteady as he staggered toward the two and dropped onto his knees. Rock was kneeling beside Panther, and the man had a piece of debris embedded in his side. Panther's eyes were closed, and in the eerie red glow from the fire, he looked far too pale.

"You good?" he asked Rock. Just because the man was giving first aid didn't mean it could be assumed that he wasn't injured himself.

"Yeah, man. Cuts and bumps, nothing serious," Rock replied.

"Panther?" Whatever Rock was using to press against Panther's wounds to slow the bleeding was already soaked.

"Other than this, I couldn't see any other wounds. He's losing a lot of blood, but as long as help gets here soon, he should be fine."

Help.

Right.

He'd thought of the fire department but hadn't called this in.

They couldn't rely on someone seeing the fire.

Not when the lives of his teammates were on the line.

"You okay, Axe?"

Rock's voice suddenly seemed very far away, and the pain in his head was getting worse, not better.

But he didn't have time to not be okay.

Four of his friends were accounted for, but that still left Trick.

"Trick, got to find him," he mumbled as he shoved onto his feet, very nearly losing his balance and falling right back down again.

"You should sit down, Axe. You don't look good, man," Rock called out.

No doubt his friend was right, but he had to find Trick.

Couldn't live with himself if one of his men died because he'd come rushing in to check out this potential lead without doing his due diligence.

Should have waited.

Should have followed procedure.

It was all his fault.

Now they wouldn't find any answers in the warehouse because anything in there was destroyed, and he might have lost one of his friends.

Failed Beth.

Failed his team.

Failed.

Failure .

The words tumbled restlessly inside his head as he somehow managed to circle around the building, but there was no sign of Trick.

Had he been inside the warehouse when it blew?

Surely, if his friend had, there was no way he could have survived.

But if Trick was in there, he had to at least attempt to get him out.

"Axe, don't," Rock yelled as he stumbled toward the building.

Ignoring his friend, he went through the door closest to where Trick would have entered. The fire wasn't quite as bad back here. It was on the opposite side from where Axe had entered and set off the explosives.

Still, there was smoke and flames, and his head was hurting so badly he could barely function.

Spotting what looked like a shoe partially buried under what used to be a wall, Axe somehow managed to get over to it.

Trick.

It didn't matter if the man was already dead or still alive, either way, he had to get him out. Grabbing hold of Trick under the armpits, he began to pull him toward the door.

These men all had families. Tank was engaged to Tillie, they were getting married in just a few weeks. Rock and Ariel were getting married in the summer. Scorpion and Jessica planned to marry before their baby arrived. Trick and Stephanie were still healing from their ordeal earlier in the year and were very much in love. Panther had an eight-year-old son and had literally just found out he was having a baby with Elle, adding child number three to their soon-to-be blended family.

Whatever happened, their loved ones needed to get them back.

He might have been the first member of their team to fall in love, but now he was the only one who was alone.

Beth didn't remember loving him and didn't seem to want to try to get back to where they had been before.

Living with his wife under his roof, but not really there was hell.

It had been almost a year since she returned with no memories, and yet she hadn't made an ounce of progress getting them back.

Hopeless.

That's how the whole thing felt.

Like the best thing to do for her was to just walk away, give her a divorce, set her up anywhere in the world she wanted to be, and give her a chance at starting her life over.

When you loved someone, sometimes you had to do what was best for them even if it killed you.

And it just might kill him to let her go.

Fresh air suddenly filled his lungs.

Voices shouted.

Sirens shrieked much too loudly for his throbbing head.

The flash of red and blue lights seemed to cut right through his eyes, and then his vision just seemed to go black.

Axe knew he was falling but didn't have the energy to remain on his feet.

Blackness descended and swept him away.

March 27 th

11:27 P.M.

Was it really too much to ask for one good night of sleep?

Just because Beth Lindon didn't remember herself or her past, she didn't need to in order to know that sleep had always been something she was lacking. It was written into her body's DNA, the way it seemed to know exactly how to adjust to living on little to no sleep.

Throwing back the covers, she sat up and massaged her temples, willing her memories to return to her.

She was pretty sure everyone here on the compound believed she didn't want to get her memories back, but they couldn't be more wrong.

It was what she craved.

Knowing that mixed with the good would be a whole lot of bad made it a terrifying prospect, but that didn't mean she didn't want it.

One thing she knew was that she was no coward.

It was weird because, while she literally had no memories beyond arriving at the compound almost a year ago, she felt certain things about herself and knew them to be true even though she had no proof. It was almost like some things weren't memories, they were feelings, and her body still had access to them.

The most important being her love for Axel.

Just because she didn't remember him or the life they had shared, he was, in essence, a stranger, even if she had lived under his roof for the last eleven months, her love for him was ingrained into her.

Not that Axel would believe that.

He thought the distance between them was because she didn't know who he was and didn't want to. He hadn't said anything, but she knew he blamed himself for her being kidnapped.

But the reason she kept her distance wasn't that she didn't want to be with him, it was because she knew she was too damaged inside to be able to give him what he deserved. Eleven months without so much as a glimmer of a memory of the time before she ran back onto the compound last April was proof of that.

She kept her distance because she loved him.

Because she wanted what was best for him.

And what was best for him wasn't her.

Climbing out of bed, she rubbed at her chest above her heart as she wandered out of the guest bedroom in Axel's cabin. It hurt so badly to know that she wasn't what was best for the man she loved. But she loved him enough to let him go and find happiness with someone who could be there for him in the ways he needed. Watching the members of Axel's team—men she knew loved her like a baby sister even though she didn't remember them—falling in love had just proved that to her over and over again.

She saw the way Tillie loved Tank, the way Ariel loved Rock, the way Jessica loved Scorpion, the way Stephanie loved Trick, and the way Elle loved Panther. She saw it all and knew she was no longer capable of loving Axel that same way. She was a failure as a wife, a failure as a friend, and a failure as a person.

So, she had to keep her distance, and sooner or later, Axel would be forced to acknowledge what she already knew.

After Axel divorced her, Beth wasn't quite sure what would happen to her. He was a good man and would probably allow her to stay, but how could she live there and watch him fall in love and marry someone else? Watch him have children someday?

Finding herself in Axel's bedroom, Beth stared at the neatly made bed. Unlike the guest bedroom, which she had moved into when she showed up there a year ago, it was dark. The dark scared her, and she didn't have to remember exactly what had happened to her to know why. Whatever it was, was bad enough that her brain decided wiping out her entire memory was the preferable option rather than attempting to deal with it.

After switching on the light, she crept over to the bed.

Beth wasn't really sure why she was creeping. She was alone in the cabin, and it was close to midnight. Everyone else would be in their beds, and the other cabins were nowhere close to Axel's.

Still, she felt the need to creep, maybe because this space didn't feel like hers. The nightstand was obviously the way she had left it the day she'd been abducted. A book she must have been reading was there, and there was a framed photo of her and Axel on what was obviously their wedding day. A teddy bear was also sitting there, and a little angel figurine.

The photo of the two of them wasn't the only one in the room. There was one on the other nightstand, and a large canvas picture of the two of them on the wall above the bed. It was obvious that Axel hadn't moved or changed anything in the months she'd been missing, but why hadn't he changed them in the months she'd been back?

Didn't he realize she was already lost to him?

Didn't he know she just wanted him to be happy, which was why she was doing everything she could to show him she was no good for him?

Why was he so determined to stand by her?

By now, he should have gotten frustrated with her and told her that he wanted to divorce her and kicked her off the compound. At the least, he should have gotten angry with her and screamed at her in frustration, but he didn't do that either.

He was just always … there.

This was why when Axel was away with his team, she usually found herself in his bedroom, slipping beneath the covers and curling up surrounded by Axel's scent. While her mind had no memory of him, knew only what she had been told or managed to put together from things people had said, her body felt differently.

When Axel was nearby, she was filled with a longing to reach out to him, lay her head on his firm chest, and have those muscled arms of his wrap around her. He would offer her his strength and take her burdens so she didn't have to carry them, Beth knew that without a shadow of a doubt, but how selfish would it be of her to make him?

He had everything to offer her, but she had nothing to offer him.

Nothing was going to change that.

Unlike usual, tonight she didn't get the same sense of peace as she lay in Axel's bed. No matter how hard she tried to reach for it, it remained tantalizingly out of reach. Axel's scent was there like it always was, but for some reason, he felt so far away from her.

With a disappointed sigh, Beth climbed out of the bed, stripping off the sheets and carrying them to the laundry room. Every time she crept into his bed while he was away, she washed the sheets after. The last thing she wanted to do was leave behind the scent of her shampoo or body wash and let on that she found comfort in his bed. Leading Axel on was the last thing she wanted to do. Hurting him wasn't her goal, in fact, she was doing everything she could to minimize the damage she was inflicting.

After putting clean sheets on the bed, she threw the old sheets and all the towels into the washing machine so Axel wouldn't wonder why she was washing just the sheets from his bed, and turned it on.

Then feeling lost and so very alone, Beth walked outside onto the deck. Despite no memories, and despite knowing not only had she been kidnapped but she was still in danger, she felt completely safe out there on the compound. The woods the buildings were nestled in filled her with peace. She loved the wildlife, loved the fresh air, loved the snow, and the sunshine. A river ambled through the woods, and when the weather had been warm, she would go out there and swim or lie on the dock and soak up the sun's rays. As soon as summer returned, she was going to get back out there, drink up as much nature as she could, and figure out the rest of her life.

Because one thing had become clear to her over the last few months, watching the men of Bravo Team fall hard and fast, was that she couldn't remain there indefinitely.

Yes, this place made her feel safe, and no, she had no idea what she would do when she left. She'd never been to school and had no high school diploma, let alone a college degree. She didn't know what she was good at or how she would support herself, but being there was starting to feel wrong.

She couldn't be the woman Axel and the others wanted her to be.

That woman had died a year ago.

There was no going back, her past was gone, lost to her forever, it was time to stop hiding, time to stop waiting for something to happen. It was time for Beth to take control of her future, and unfortunately, that meant leaving the compound and Axel.