Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

March 27 th

11:59 P.M.

Everything felt so far away.

Axe felt lost.

Like he was floating.

Trapped in the darkness and unable to find his way out.

Through the crushing pain, one thought kept screaming for his attention.

Beth.

She needed him, and yet he felt like he was being dragged away from her.

It didn't matter that this last year he had been unable to help her remember who she was and her life before she was taken. That he hadn't been able to crack through the wall she had erected around herself to keep everyone else at a distance. Every time he looked at her, it felt like losing her all over again.

All that mattered was that he knew deep down that she needed him .

Knew it.

In a way he couldn't express.

Beth was his .

That he knew.

The only family she'd had kept her locked up and abused her. Sexually, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. You name it, and it had been done to Beth from the time she was born. She'd never attended school, taken a dance class, or played a soccer game. Had no friends outside a couple of female cousins who lived the same horrific life she did.

From bad to worse, when she reached her teens, her parents grew tired of her and sold her to Leonid Baranov, a well-known buyer of trafficking victims, which was where he and his team had rescued her from six years ago.

As soon as he had laid eyes on her he knew.

She was his.

A part of him.

The other half of his heart.

His soulmate.

At the time, Axe hadn't even believed such things existed. In the world of money he had been raised in, marriage was about forming strategic partnerships that advanced both families' wealth and prestige. It had little to do with love. His parents hadn't loved one another, and they hadn't loved him. He was an heir to carry on the family name, and when he had abandoned the family real estate empire to join the military, he had been all but disowned.

His team had become his family, and he considered them all brothers, but Beth wasn't just his wife, she was a part of him.

It's why he could never leave her and had to fight now.

"Axe, come on, man, stay with us."

The voice was familiar, and he knew he should be able to place it, but he was too overcome with fear for Beth.

What would she do without him?

His team loved her like a little sister, they would take care of her, but she'd still be on her own.

Always on her own.

Sudden crushing pain in his chest stole his breath .

Stole his ability to think.

"Damn it," a voice muttered. "We're going to lose him."

Unfortunately, that was probably true.

It was weird, but he could feel his life slipping away, although he tried to cling to it for Beth's sake.

He'd never known you could feel your life like this. It always just was. But now it felt like a thing inside him, almost like he was a bottle of water someone had poked a hole in, and now that water was draining out. Only it wasn't water it was his life.

Something pressed against his chest, and the searing pain had him grunting, his eyes flying open as he tried to jerk up, dislodge whatever had caused him the pain.

The light was too bright for his eyes, and even if it wasn't blinding him, he found his vision blurry at best.

Hands grabbed at him, pressed at him, pushed him down, and held him there when he tried to fight them off.

He had to get Beth.

Had to tell her he was sorry.

Had to beg her to remember him because he didn't want to die a stranger to the woman he loved more than anything else in this world.

"Stop fighting us, man," the voice from before urged.

Rock.

The voice belonged to Rock.

And when Axe blinked his eyes and willed them to clear, he could see his friend leaning over him.

"You with me?" Rock asked.

A single nod was all the answer he could manage.

"You must have cracked some ribs when the explosion went off, and you were thrown backward. Pulling Trick out of the building must have snapped one of them and it has punctured your lung. You're in an ambulance and we put in a chest tube to help you breathe. You'll be at the hospital soon," Rock told him.

"Trick?" he asked. He'd had no idea whether his friend was dead or alive when he found him inside partially buried beneath debris.

"Concussion and some smoke inhalation, but he's going to be okay, he's on his way to the hospital in another ambulance," Rock answered .

Rock was here, so his friend seemed to be okay, but when he searched his memories, he remembered that Tank had been with Scorpion who was trapped with his arm pinned, and Rock had been tending to Panther who had something embedded in his side.

"Panther?" he asked, one-word sentences seemed to be all he could manage through the pain.

"Lost a bit of blood, he's being rushed to the hospital as well. He'll need emergency surgery to remove the piece of wood that impaled his side, but he should make a full recovery," Rock told him.

"Scorpion?"

"He's still at the scene. They're working on unpinning his arm, but it sounds like he was lucky. He's trapped, but the pressure is mostly on the debris piled around his arm, it's kind of in a bubble, he can't get it out, but it doesn't look like the damage will be too severe," Rock assured him.

His men were alive. At least his impulsiveness hadn't gotten anyone killed.

Yet.

Two of his guys were on the way to the hospital and a third would be following. Just because Rock and Tank didn't appear to have serious injuries didn't mean shock wasn't masking something.

All of this was on him.

If he had just waited, let Panther do his thing and dig up as much intel as he could on the warehouse, they wouldn't be in this position.

This was precisely why he had stepped down as Bravo Team leader when Beth was first taken. He'd known he couldn't devote the mental energy it took to successfully lead a team and keep everyone alive while his wife was missing and in danger. But after she'd come home, and as the distance between them seemed to grow, he'd slowly taken the role back over from Tank, although the two of them worked closely together.

"Sorry," he croaked through his dry throat, dry mouth, hell, even his skin felt dry.

"Not your fault," Rock assured him.

They both knew it was a lie.

Just because his team hadn't called him out on rushing in to check the warehouse out as soon as they linked it to the key didn't mean they all didn't know it had been a mistake.

A mistake that had almost cost them their lives.

A mistake that would have left the women they loved all alone and their children to grow up fatherless.

His mistake.

His fault.

"Sorry," he repeated. He wanted to say so much more, but he could still feel his life dripping away. He didn't have a lot of time and he needed his friends to know he hadn't intended to put their lives in danger.

"It's okay, Axe. We all wanted answers for Beth, we all wanted to go rushing in there. It's on all of us."

It wasn't, but he didn't have the energy or the time to argue the point.

He needed to say one more thing before he let the inevitable happen and his life slip through his fingers.

"Beth," he said.

"As soon as we get you to the hospital, we'll call her, Ariel, and the others to let them know what happened."

Axe shook his head. He wasn't going to make it that long. "Tell her … I love her …" he gasped out, the pressure in his chest increased at the same rate as the pain in his head. Already the edges of his vision were starting to go black.

"You'll tell her yourself when she gets to the hospital," Rock said firmly.

Another shake of his head. He wanted to see her one last time, make sure she knew she was the center of his world whether she remembered him or not, but he wasn't delusional. Dying, yes, but crazy, no. He could feel what was happening to his body, he just couldn't stop it.

"Take care of her," he said, managing to lift one of his hands, which felt like it was encased in concrete, and grabbing Rock's, squeezing it with every ounce of energy he had left.

Rock's gray eyes filled with empathy. "If the worst happens, man, you know we all have Beth's back. We'll take care of her and make sure she never feels alone, but you have to fight for her, Axe. She fought like hell to get home to you, you can't give up. She needs you."

He knew that.

Knew his wife was a fighter, that she would survive this like she had survived all the rest of the hell life had thrown at her.

But that was just it, he didn't want his girl to have to fight anymore.

All he'd ever wanted to do was give her the safe place she'd always lacked, the love she had been forced to live without for the first eighteen years of her life.

He'd failed.

And now he was going to fail her again.

Beth hadn't felt safe enough to let her memories return, and now he was going to die and leave her all alone.

The blackness grew, the sounds around him faded, and although he clawed to hang onto life, it was too late.

It had already drained away.

March 28 th

12:34 A.M.

Usually, the moonlight, the cool air, the soft sounds of the night, the rustle of trees in the gentle breeze, and the hoot of an owl all served to reassure her. Calm her.

But not tonight.

Tonight, Beth's anxiety seemed to be continually ramping up.

It made no sense.

This wasn't something new. Every night she couldn't sleep. If Axel was away, she would sneak into his room and get a couple of hours of sleep in his bed. If he was home, she would bake in the kitchen or come outside to stroll the grounds. Sometimes, she would paint. She wasn't all that good at it, but it was a technique her therapist had taught her, and most times painting her feelings helped.

Nothing was helping tonight though .

Not even sitting at the edge of the pier with her bare feet dangling in the cold water. Like always, the water was cold on her skin, but she liked the chill, it usually distracted her from the worries that fought constantly inside her.

It was exhausting.

Although her doctor told her not to, it was hard not to try to force her memories to return. Hours had been spent out there, sitting surrounded by nature that shared its beauty with her and didn't push any expectations on her, trying to will her memory back into existence.

The harder she tried to force it, the further away it seemed to go.

And the way that every person there who had known her before looked at her, so expectantly, like at any second she might suddenly remember all of them, just made it worse.

She was failing everyone.

Maybe it would be better for all of them, not just Axel, if she wasn't there.

Then they could be free to move on with their lives without worrying about her. She didn't want their concern. Okay, that was kind of a lie. It did help to know she wasn't completely alone, but being surrounded by people on the outside didn't help the loneliness on the inside.

The loneliness was slowly smothering her. Beth didn't need her memories to know it was a feeling she was intimately acquainted with.

Over the last eleven months, she'd picked up bits and pieces of her life, even though her doctor had said nobody should push her to remember but allow her memories to come back on their own when her subconscious felt safe enough to do so. She knew that she had no family, that her family had hurt her, then eventually, she had wound up the prisoner of the notorious human trafficker Leonid Baranov. That was how she'd met Axel and Bravo Team. They'd saved her life, and because she had nowhere else to go had also taken her under their wing.

Which they were still doing six years later.

Still looking after her like she was a broken little bird who couldn't fly on her own.

The more they thought it, the more she believed it.

And honestly, they weren't even wrong .

She had no memory, no skills, no education, and no way to support herself, she was a broken bird and no amount of wishing on any of their parts could change that.

Helplessness washed over her, and because she was alone out there, Beth allowed herself the freedom to shed a few tears. For the woman she could have been if life didn't seem so determined to break her. For the woman who had been lost along the way and might never return. For the woman she was now who was so scared, so alone, and so terrified she was broken beyond repair that a future of any sort seemed next to impossible.

"Beth?"

Startled, she quickly scrubbed at her wet cheeks and scrambled to her feet, almost slipping and losing her balance as water sloshed on the smooth wooden planks of the pier.

Who was out here calling her name at this time of the morning?

"Beth, are you there?" It was Tillie's voice, and it sounded scared.

Fear echoed inside her at the other woman's tone, and she hurried down the pier. "I'm here. What's wrong?"

So many things could be wrong, starting with Axel and the guys being off on a mission. He hadn't told her where he was going when he left, but she assumed it had something to do with her and what had happened to her while she was missing. Two children lived on the compound, either of which could have gotten sick or hurt. There were also two pregnant women, Beth prayed it was nothing to do with Jessica or Elle's unborn babies.

And, of course, there was a chance that one of Bravo Team's enemies had found them and were attacking the compound right this very second.

"Are you okay?" Tillie asked her when they met at the end of the pier. The light from the flashlight on Tillie's phone showed how worried her friend looked, but was it just because she was wondering why Beth was out here after midnight or because something was very wrong?

The sour feeling in her gut said that it was the latter.

"What's wrong?" she asked. This wasn't about her, not everything was about her, and she hated how everyone was always trying to prioritize her needs even when other people were going through trials of their own.

She wasn't so weak and pathetic she didn't know how to be there for the people she loved and cared about. And whether she remembered them or not, she loved each of the men on Bravo Team and the women they had fallen for. They were her big brothers, and she would support them any way she could if they just gave her a chance.

While she could admit she was fragile, she wasn't going to shatter into a million pieces because someone else needed care and attention.

"Tank called and said to gather everyone together," Tillie told her.

So at least it wasn't anything to do with the kids or the pregnancies. "What for?"

Fear was etched into every one of Tillie's features, evident even in the thin light of the phone and the moon. "He didn't say."

Wanting to soothe away that fear but not knowing what to say, Beth just reached out and grabbed Tillie's hand, squeezing it tightly. "At least you know he's okay, right? I mean, you talked to him so he can't be hurt or captured or anything."

How would she face these women who had come to mean a lot to her, even if they probably didn't realize it, if their men died because of her? Because they were chasing down a lead about who had taken her. They thought she needed answers to move on, and in some ways they were right, but what she needed more than that was to be a person, not just the poor young woman with amnesia.

She needed to be Beth.

Just Beth.

"Yeah, at least we know Tank is okay," Tillie mumbled, and what her friend meant clicked into place.

They knew Tank was okay. But what about the others?

What about Axel?

Fear pummeled her at the thought of anything happening to him. He had to be okay. He had to. There was simply no other option.

Now in a hurry to get to the others, both she and Tillie began to run as they headed for the main building that housed some offices, conference rooms, and the guys' hangout space. Everyone else was already there, including the kids who had been bundled up and were asleep on the couch while everyone else sat around the table.

"They're here," Ariel said into the phone at her ear, and Beth took that to mean that Rock was okay as well.

Two guys accounted for, but what about the other four?

What about her Axel?

Ariel nodded at whatever Rock said to her, and a moment later, she turned the phone around and they could all see Rock standing in what was clearly a hospital.

Beth felt her knees wobble.

It was bad news.

She knew that.

Had felt it all night.

Something was very wrong with Axel.

"The warehouse we went to tonight was rigged to explode," Rock told them. His face was dusty and smeared with blood, and his clothes were torn in places and likewise dirty and bloody.

Whose blood?

Rock's own, or one of the others?

"Tank and I are okay, minor injuries. Scorpion was trapped by his arm beneath some rubble, but I heard they almost have him free and the damage is minimal," Rock told them.

Jessica's hands flew to her face, and she choked on a sob, tears streaming down her cheeks as one of her hands moved to caress her stomach where her and Scorpion's baby was growing.

"Trick has a concussion, and Panther was impaled by a piece of debris, he's already been taken into surgery. They're both serious but stable," Rock continued.

Relief covered Stephanie and Elle's features, and both women began to cry, Elle looking over to the two sleeping children while rubbing her pregnant belly just as Jessica had done.

It wasn't until five sets of eyes—six if you counted Rock's—turned to stare at her that she realized she was taking short, sharp, panting breaths, bordering on hyperventilating. Rock was giving the news out from best to worst.

Axel was the worst .

But how bad was he?

Was he dead?

Dying even at this very second?

Her stomach churned with nausea and a headache began to pulse between her temples.

"Say it," she whispered, needing to hear whatever it was.

"Axe punctured a lung, and he has a serious head injury," Rock said gently. "His condition is listed as critical."

Critical.

She knew what that meant.

It meant she was about to lose him.