Chapter 16

Chapter

Sixteen

April 19 th

7:03 P.M.

Why was his head aching?

It took a split second for Axe's brain to come online, and once it did, his heart dropped and the heavy weight of failure clung to him.

Beth.

Moments after he'd been shot with a tranquilizer dart and dropped, leaving her vulnerable and unprotected, Beth had dropped down beside him. If he was alive then he believed that she was, too.

He had to believe that.

There was no other choice.

If he allowed himself to think, even for a second, that his wife was already dead then he would lose any control he might have.

Ignoring the lingering pain and stuffiness from the drugs, Axel went to shove to his feet only to find that he was unable to move.

Opening his eyes, he looked down his body to see that he was laid out on what looked like a hospital gurney. His ankles were cuffed to the bottom of the gurney, and his wrists were cuffed to the sides. He was still dressed in the same clothes he'd put on the morning they set out to see if Beth could backtrack to the place where she had been held. Was that today? Yesterday? Longer than that?

There was an IV in his arm connected to a bag hanging above his head so it was possible he had been drugged and kept out of it for days.

Beth.

Where was his wife?

A quick scan of the room showed that he was in an infirmary. There were three more empty gurneys on the other side of the room. And as he tilted his head sideways on the pillow, looking to his left, he saw another empty gurney. But when he turned to the right, he saw a person on that gurney.

That person was too big to be Beth, so he was about to dismiss it and start figuring a way to get off this gurney and out of there so he could go find his wife, when something about the other man caught his attention.

The man was lying flat on his back same as Axe was, and there was an IV running into his arm. Only unlike Axe, the other man was buck naked, and there was a thin tube running to a small bag attached to the side of the gurney that was filled with a yellowy liquid that looked a lot like urine.

Catheter?

Why would they need to put a catheter in the man? How long had he been kept there?

What the hell was going on in this place?

And where was his wife?

Sick of Baranov and his twisted games, Axe lifted his head as far off the pillow as he could and yelled at the top of his lungs. "Beth?"

There was no point in playing possum and pretending to be unconscious, he could see the cameras on the ceiling. Whoever was watching them would already have seen him moving, and while he could get out of the restraints, he wasn't going to get a chance if they were watching him, they'd be there before he could get himself free. As Axe saw it there was no benefit to pretending to be unconscious so he was going to focus on what was most important.

Finding his wife .

"Don't bother, you won't see her until they're ready."

The voice came from the man on the other gurney. It was a cultured voice, and one that was heavily tinted with Russian.

No.

It couldn't be.

Could it?

But that would be … impossible.

Turning his head back toward the other gurney, Axe saw that the man was now looking at him, and his suspicions were confirmed.

What did this mean?

Leonid Baranov was restrained on the gurney beside him, and from the looks of the man's gaunt face and paper pale skin he had been there for some time. Baranov had gone missing right around the same time as Beth had been abducted. Of course, it wasn't like the man could go about living a normal life when so many countries had him on their most wanted list, but there were usually sightings of him at least every month or so. With his vast resources Baranov was constantly on the move, it was how he'd managed to evade capture for so long. But there were also bounties on his head, which meant some people were prepared to face the oligarch's potential wrath and call in a tip that he had been spotted.

Those tips had ceased twenty months ago when Beth had disappeared.

Was this why?

But then who had been responsible for Beth's abduction? And why?

"What's going on, Baranov?" he growled.

The man gave him a somewhat petulantly sullen look which was ridiculous given he was cuffed to a gurney, naked, with a catheter and an IV in him. Did he really think that keeping quiet was going to help him out of this situation?

"What is going on, Baranov?" Axe repeated, allowing every ounce of hatred he felt for this man who had been responsible for such a large part of Beth's suffering ring through in his voice.

"He's not very chatty, is he?" a third voice asked. This one was female, and Axe could have sworn that he recognized it .

But why would the voice belong to Sarah Sanders?

While they had theorized that Sarah had been kidnapped by Baranov when they found her daughter's blood in the kitchen of the house Sarah was supposed to be living in under her new identity, he hadn't expected to find that Baranov wasn't responsible for her abduction.

When he turned his head toward the infirmary door, he found the woman standing there. She was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she had on a touch of makeup. Sarah looked healthy, relaxed, and happy. She wasn't being held here against her will.

"What the hell is going on here?" he bellowed, making Baranov flinch, but Sarah's smile grow.

"It didn't have to be this way you know," she said as she crossed the room to stand between their two gurneys. "We never intended for you to be hurt. We knew you were allies of sorts, but then you just wouldn't let it go and we had no choice."

"What the hell are you talking about, Sarah? This man kidnapped and tortured you. What is he doing here?"

The look the woman sent Baranov had to be the most bloodthirsty expression Axe had ever seen on a human being's face. "What's he doing here?" she said as she went to the counter running behind the gurneys and picked up a vial and a syringe. "He's here because he kidnapped and tortured me. He's here paying his penance. Isn't that right, Leonid?"

Tracking the syringe, the oligarch's skin somehow managed to pale several more shades until it was just this side of belonging to a man who wasn't dead. "Please, no," he said hoarsely.

"No? How many times did I beg you not to hurt me?" Sarah asked, there was pleasure in her tone, and Axe knew that whatever was in that syringe was going to inflict on Baranov the kind of pain he had inflicted on others.

Axe couldn't find it in him to care.

"Look, Sarah, I get it. You hate him. I hate him, too. The man is a vile, despicable excuse for a human being. I don't care that you want to get your revenge. Have at it. I'd love to get in a couple of well-placed hits myself. All I care about is Beth. Is she here? "

"She's here," Sarah answered as she injected the contents of the syringe into the IV.

Baranov thrashed in the bed as though that was going to stop the inevitable. Which of course, it didn't. Axe knew the second the drug hit Baranov's bloodstream because a howl of pain that was more animal than human echoed through the room.

Setting the syringe down, Sarah smiled as she watched Baranov scream and thrash in the bed. Whatever was in the drug was powerful enough that even without having experienced it Axe could already tell that death was preferable.

Honestly, Baranov deserved what he got, and Axe didn't have an ounce of sympathy for the man's screams of agony. Instead, he focused on Sarah. "Where's Beth?"

"You'll see her soon."

Not soon enough. "Is she okay? Did you hurt her?" Former victim or not, if Sarah had laid a single hand on Beth nothing would save the woman from his wrath.

"I never hurt her. Not once in all the months she spent with us," Sarah replied, never taking her eyes off the howling Baranov.

Obviously, their definitions of hurting someone were vastly different. Beth had been hurt while she was held prisoner by Sarah, both physically and psychologically. She'd been forced to do things that had caused her mind to shut down in an attempt to protect itself. Whatever reasons—valid ones at that—Sarah had for hurting Baranov, there shouldn't be any for hurting Beth who was a fellow victim.

What could she possibly have to gain from further tormenting Beth?

"I don't understand, Sarah," he said, frustration coursing through him.

"I know."

"I want to know what the hell you have planned and why I'm here."

"And you will."

"When?" he growled.

Finally, she tore her gaze away from her tormentor long enough to look at him. "As soon as they get here."

April 19 th

7:38 A.M.

"You," Beth said, shoving to her feet when a man appeared outside her cell. "This was all you and Sarah. I thought … I thought it was Baranov again … but it wasn't."

A part of her knew she shouldn't be speaking up to this man. He might not be Leonid Baranov, but he was a sick, twisted monster who fed off other people's pain.

Who had fed off her pain.

Tomas Butcher and Sarah Sanders were the ones who had kidnapped her twenty months ago. Who had locked her up in a small white cell like this. Who had forced her to kill people for their own amusement.

She hated him.

Hated him.

Sarah, too.

While she expected nothing less of a man who would work for someone like Leonid Baranov than to bestow pain and suffering on everyone he came into contact with, she didn't expect it from Sarah. The woman had been a victim just like she had been. They had both been subjected to Baranov's vicious torture. Why would Sarah want to make Beth suffer all over again?

They had both survived, they had both been given a second chance at life. While Beth had embraced her future and found happiness, love, and peace with Axel and Bravo Team, it seemed like Sarah had turned to the dark side.

But why?

She didn't understand.

"Baranov is barely smart enough to tie his own shoelaces without supervision," Tomas snorted as he unlocked the cell door and beckoned to her.

Ignoring him might give her a molecule of fleeting pleasure, but it wasn't actually going to achieve anything more than irritating Tomas. And an angry Tomas was not something she wanted to deal with.

So, even though her body and mind rebelled at the idea of getting close to Tomas, of leaving the relative safety of her cell, she stood and walked toward him. Beth did her best not to let her fear show, she kept her back straight, her steps even, and met and held Tomas' gaze.

There was grudging respect in the light brown eyes that looked back at her, but his grip was hard and unyielding when he grabbed her arm and began to drag her down the hallway. Once they left the corridor, Beth could see that this place wasn't exactly identical to what she remembered, so wherever they were it wasn't back at the compound she and Bravo Team had identified. It must be one of the other facilities Tomas owned.

They crossed through one corridor after another until she felt all turned around. She'd have to do better next time if she was going to figure out the lay of the land and look for weaknesses she could exploit when she attempted to escape.

Because that was absolutely her plan.

Find Axel, and then the two of them would find a way out.

That plan died in her mind when she was shoved into a room that was eerily similar to the arena where she had been forced to fight for her life half a dozen times. It wasn't the big open space surrounded by chairs though, that had fear raging to life inside her.

It was the sight of her husband strapped onto a gurney.

Tomas released his hold on her, and she didn't bother to ask for permission, she just ran to Axel's side and threw her arms around him as best as she could with him tied down on his back.

"Are you okay?" he asked roughly, and she could see his hands bunching into fists before she buried her face against his neck.

"They didn't hurt me," she assured him. "Are you okay?"

"Didn't hurt me," he gave the same assurance she had offered.

"Tomas—"

"And Sarah," he inserted.

"Did this," she finished, lifting her head. "You know?"

"When Sarah showed up in the infirmary and she wasn't restrained in any way, I realized she was involved. Since we know that Tomas was the father of Sarah's daughter—her murdered daughter—then I figured the two of them were in on it together."

"I don't understand why," Beth said helplessly. Not that it would change anything to have answers, but at least she would know why she had been made to suffer so horribly. "I didn't remember at first that they were involved. It never occurred to me. I remembered that Baranov was here watching me, but I think … I think he was cuffed to a gurney like you are right now."

"He was. He is."

When Axel nodded his head at something behind her, Beth turned to see Sarah wheeling Leonid Baranov into the arena. At the sight of her tormentor, Beth felt all the blood drain from her head. Once again, she was back in that tiny cage with a rusty metal collar around her neck waiting for this monster to come and inflict more horrors on her.

"It's okay, wisp. You got this. You're stronger than him," Axel murmured softly enough that his words were only for her benefit.

They helped enough that she was able to shove off the worst of the fear and meet Baranov's beady black eyes. "You look terrible," she told him, then looked to Sarah. "I assume I have you to thank for that at least."

"It was a pleasure," Sarah said cheerfully.

"I'm sure it was," Beth muttered not really sure why exactly Sarah was doing all of this.

"I've had my fun and now it's time for you to have yours," Sarah announced.

Glancing at Axel, Beth found he looked just as confused as she felt. It made zero sense that Tomas and Sarah would have gone to all the trouble of kidnapping her and then keeping her close to the Bravo Team compound. Even less sense that they had obviously been at that facility for years and knew it was right by Bravo Team, and yet had made zero attempts to take out the team. Which they could have done at any time.

Drop a bomb on them.

Raid the place and shoot it up.

They had the numbers on their side, yet they hadn't made a single move until she had found her way back to the facility they'd kept her locked in for eight months .

"What does that mean, Sarah? Explain yourself now, I'm getting tired of this nonsense," Axel snapped.

"I'm sorry, my wife does have a flare for the dramatic, but sometimes she forgets that not everyone can traverse her train of thought," Tomas said as he moved to stand beside Sarah, slipping an arm around her waist. "Do you want to tell them, darling, or do you want me to explain it?"

"I don't want to talk at all," Sarah huffed like a recalcitrant preschooler.

It was obvious that somewhere along the way, either during her time as Baranov's prisoner or after, the woman had lost her mind. Understandable given the trauma she had lived through. But why was she so intent on inflicting that same trauma on other innocent victims?

They had suffered at Baranov's hands together, and Beth felt betrayed to know that her fellow victim had made her a victim all over again by kidnapping her and making her kill people.

Tomas chuckled indulgently and nodded. "Very well. We'll play our little game first and then we can explain to our guests what you decided you needed to do to heal." Looking over his shoulder, the man gave a nod at some of his men, and the next thing Beth knew, she was being dragged away from Axel.

Even though she knew kicking and screaming and fighting them wasn't going to be helpful, in fact, it might make them angry enough that they would hurt her, she couldn't seem to help herself. She didn't want to do this alone, she didn't want to be made to kill someone or be killed. She didn't want to be anywhere but with Axel.

One of the men backhanded her, making her head snap to the side, and she heard Axel growl low and dangerous.

Not that anyone seemed to care. She was dragged into the middle of the arena and dropped unceremoniously. Then the men went to Baranov and began untying him.

That was who they wanted her to kill?

Of course, after everything he had done to her, she wanted him dead. She had even dreamed about hurting him the same way he had hurt her. But in the end, she didn't really want to take another life, not even Leonid Baranov's .

"I think you remember the game?" Tomas asked with a wicked smirk. "Winner takes all, nobody leaves the ring until only one is left standing. Oh, and, Beth. We thought it would be fun to add a little additional incentive, not that I think you need it, you want him dead as much as Sarah and I do. But if he kills you then Sarah will kill your husband."

Her terrified eyes moved from Tomas to Sarah and lastly to Axel.

She didn't want to do this, but she had to.

If she didn't, Axel would die.

While she wanted them to be together forever, not like this. Not in death.

"You can do it, Beth," Axel said confidently, latching his gaze onto hers. "I believe in you."

That was all well and good, but she wasn't the same woman she had been twenty months ago when she had first been kidnapped. Back then, she had trained with Tank every day, running self-defense drills. She worked out in the gym with Axel all the time, sometimes just the two of them and sometimes with the rest of the guys. Her body had been stronger, fitter, and better trained.

But she'd lived the last year with zero memories.

No running drills.

No time in the range.

No working out in the gym.

How was she supposed to take on a man twice her size and win?

"As usual, we have given you a little advantage," Tomas told her as Baranov was dragged out of the gurney, his naked body pulled over and dumped in the ring along with her.

"Advantage?" she asked, confused.

"You didn't really think you could beat all those men on your own, did you, dear?" Sarah asked condescendingly. "We always gave you an advantage because we wanted you to win. All the men you fought were loyal to Baranov so they were no use to us. A dose of a drug that causes unimaginable pain to burn through your body was always administered shortly before a fight. We didn't want them at their best. So as impressive as your skills are, you still wouldn't have walked away alive from a single one of those men. "

Right now, staring into the dead eyes of a man who had done unspeakable things to her, Beth didn't care about any of that.

"Think about every time he hurt you, wisp. Picture it, feel it, live it, let it fuel you. Let your anger at everything he stole from you save you now," Axel's voice coached.

"On that note, let the games begin," Tomas called out.

Baranov didn't waste any time, he just sprung at her.

Although she tried to dodge out of the way, she was too slow, and a fist slammed into her stomach shoving the air from her lungs.

Beth gagged and fell to her knees, trying desperately to suck in more oxygen.

Another fist caught her in the side of the head, and she saw stars. But she wasn't going to let this man get the best of her. Staying low, she struck out at his knees, managing to take him down, then pounced, getting in a couple of good blows to his head before he was able to shove her off him.

Trying to remember what she'd been taught, Beth rolled and came up on her feet. She dodged a fist, and then another before being a split second too slow to avoid the third. It slammed into her shoulder, and she felt the joint pop out of place.

Axel's roar of fury reminded her of the stakes, but she was too slow again when Baranov grabbed her and spun her around, pinning her against his chest.

"No one beats me, not even you," he snarled in her ear as one of his big hands grabbed her breast, his fingers finding her nipple through her shirt and pinching it painfully.

Just like that, all those feelings of fear, and anger, and helplessness that she had felt when he held her prisoner came rushing back.

Instead of trying to get out of his grip, she reached behind her, grabbed onto his flaccid penis, and yanked as hard as she could.

His howl of pain was like music to her ears, and Beth refused to let go of it as he released her and began to try to bat her away. She held on, imagining not just him and what he had done to her, but her father, her uncles, her brothers, her cousins, and squeezed for all she was worth.

Baranov's howls of pain intensified, and she made sure to dig her nails in as well, anything to cause him pain and take him down .

Once he was on his knees, she finally released him and started delivering blow after blow to his neck. At first, he tried to fight her off, probably got in a couple of blows of his own but she was beyond feeling right now. Beyond anything other than killing the man who had caused her so much pain because if she didn't her husband would die.

It took her a while to realize that Baranov was no longer fighting back.

A while longer to process that it was over.

That she had won.

She had killed him.

But even with her personal bogeyman dead, neither she nor her husband were any safer than they had been before.