Page 18 of Tactical Lies

Becca screamed and begged and pleaded.

Not that it did any good.

The two men stepped back only when Connor lay limp and unmoving on the ground at their feet.

Even then, one delivered a final kick to his still body.

“Take them,” the man in charge ordered, and the two men who had beaten Connor grabbed his arms and hauled him up. He still wasn't moving, and she worried it was because they’d either killed him or seriously injured him.

What was she supposed to do if that was the case?

How could she get herself out of this mess much less herself and an unconscious man double her size?

When another two men approached her, Becca whimpered and shrunk away from them. She didn't want them touching her. It had taken years for her to accept even the most innocent of touches from anyone. Connor’s touch had always been okay, even in those early days when her rape was still so fresh and vivid, but anyone else’s felt like spiders scurrying across her skin.

These men didn't care about that.

They reached down and grabbed her roughly, their grips around her upper arms hard enough to leave bruises. She was taken to the back of the jeep where Connor’s still limp body already lay and was tossed in beside him. Then, the armed men climbed in with them and the vehicle began to drive.

Taking her away from the village that had been her home.

Taking her away from any chance at escape.

Taking her away from life and firmly toward death.

Chapter

Five

August 17th

8:54 A.M.

Pain throbbed through his body, but it was the soft, sweeping fingers stroking his forehead that registered first.

While his mind was stuck in the haze that consumed him, Connor knew that touch.

Becca.

Something in him relaxed for the first time in twelve years.

That feeling turned out to be fleeting as his memories clicked back into place and the haze retreated. The village where Becca lived had been attacked and the two of them had been cornered. He remembered wanting to fire on the approaching vehicle full of men, but there was not a chance in hell that Becca would have survived. As soon as he started shooting, they would have shot back, and at least one of those bullets would have hit his moonlight.

Still, he’d killed the man who dared to strike her, and a rush of smug satisfaction had him lifting his hand to cover Becca’s.

She sucked in a small breath when he moved and her hand stilled but didn't pull away. Knowing that he was on thinner-than-thin ice with her, he soaked up this moment when he clasped her hand between his palm and his head.

“You're awake,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” he groaned, doing his best to compartmentalize the pain still pulsing through his system. He had no idea what had happened while he’d been unconscious, but he had to figure it out because he needed to devise a plan sooner rather than later.

“I was scared,” Becca whispered, and he could hear the strain in her tone. She was holding it together because she knew she had to, but he hated that she was once again in a position where her life was on the line.

Connor couldn’t help but feel this was his fault.

So far, he had no evidence that the strike at her village had anything to do with him. His family suspected the people involved in his mom’s rape, and her and his stepdad’s arrests and deaths were powerful. They had to be to have enough intel to have a Delta Force team ambushed and then pull strings and have two people set up as traitors.

Did they have enough power to pull off an attack on a village in Cambodia?

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