Page 32 of Fighting for Lucy

So even though he could feel her scared eyes on his back as he left the room, he didn't look back. It killed him because her fear was a tangible thing that seemed to fill the room, but keeping them both alive until he got her out took precedence over offering her a molecule of reassurance in this moment.

“Heard you got to play,” the man said as they strolled through the hall to the kitchen.

Swallowing down the bile that threatened to burn his throat, Zander pasted on a smarmy smile. “We had a thing going in the jungle, used it to my advantage. This works magic,” he added, grabbing his crotch.

The man laughed like assaulting Lucy was hilarious instead of a sadistic crime. But keeping cover often required you to do things that repulsed you. No stranger to undercover work from his years in Delta and the almost twelve months he’d been playing this role, Zander was able to force a natural-sounding laugh past his lips.

“Women all the same, yes? They are weak, let their bodies control them. Their words may say no, but their body always say yes. I cannot wait for my turn. She as hot in bed as she looks?”

Already, the other man was growing hard, and Zander quickly shoved open the fridge and pulled out a beer. It was either that or grab the man around the throat and squeeze the life out of him.

“Hottest I ever had,” he replied, knowing that was the absolute truth even though he’d never touched her. Keeping his back to her while she was in the shower, moaning and crying out her release, had been hard. But Lucy deserved her privacy and his respect, she’d been through enough and he wasn’t going to add to it by ogling her as she orgasmed over and over again.

If he ever got the chance to have a willing and consenting Lucy in his bed, he would consider himself the luckiest man in the world.

But it was more than he had a right to hope for.

After everything he’d done, he didn't deserve even a drop of happiness or a moments peace from the guilt that plagued him.

The other man was laughing and talking about all the things he wanted to do to Lucy when it was his turn with her, andZander was doing his best not to snap the man’s neck as they walked back into the living room.

Immediately, his gaze swept to the corner where Lucy was standing, on display for the men to look at, or get off to, or whatever they wanted.

Only the corner was empty.

“Take this, man, gotta go,” he mumbled, no longer caring about his cover as he shoved his beer into the hand of the man beside him and hurried back into the hall.

Lucy was gone.

Had Raul come for her?

Did he already know that she’d lied about the formula and that it wouldn’t make the Reactivator for him?

Surely they needed more time than that. Lucy had assured him it should take at least a couple of days before Raul’s scientists knew they’d been conned, and it had only been hours since he’d strolled into Raul’s office like he was top dog and handed over the fake formula.

Just like Lucy had trusted him and his expertise, he trusted hers. If she said it would take a few days, then he believed her, so if it wasn’t Raul who had taken her then who?

She knew the plan, and it was to keep pretending he was who he was pretending to be and she wouldn’t do anything to mess it up by trying to escape on her own, that he was certain of.

Which meant the only other explanation was that one of the men had decided he was done waiting.

If one of Raul’s men had violated Lucy, all bets were off.

Already, he was prepared to throw his undercover gig under the bus to get Lucy out of there alive, to hell with the consequences.

Nothing would make him happier than to kill one of these men.

There was already so much anger raging inside him, and Lucy being assaulted would be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, setting him off, unscrewing the lid, and letting all that fury explode out.

“Don’t, please. Stop!” Lucy’s voice echoed through the hall as he approached French doors leading to a paved patio area.

The unbridled terror in her voice was the match that lit the fuse.

For eighteen months, he’d been living with anger that had no outlet. The helplessness he’d felt as he was forced to watch the slow, agonizing executions of the men on his team had filled him with something dark and ugly, something that was slowly consuming him.

If he didn't let it out somehow it would destroy him.

Lucy was a speck of light in that darkness calling out to him. An anchor that was keeping him from being completely swept away.

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