Page 43 of Brutal Collateral

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Griffin

What in fuck’s sakeis happening? How the hell isHadleighhere? Where the hell is Ava? All those thoughts get pushed aside when Hadleigh rushes toward me with a bloodied knife.

“Whoa,” I say and reach out my gloved hand to grab the knife. It falls from her hands, and I kick it away. “Hadleigh, it’s me, stop.”

Still screaming nothing intelligible, she turns in my hold, hooking her legs around mine to take me down. A practiced move I saw her being taught in BUD/S training.

I land on my back, the AR that I swung behind me digging into my lower spine. The added weight of Hadleigh on top of me doesn’t register. She’s punching me in the nose, the mouth, the jaw. Her bloodied hands keep slipping from my grip to stop her from fucking rearranging my face.

“Jesus!” Connor yells and grabs her from behind while she kicks.

I get to my feet, and feeling I have no choice, I pull my rifle forward, pointing it at her. I’m so fucking shaken and on edge.

Shane rushes in, pointing his gun, too. “What the bleedin’ hell?”

“Lass, we got you. Calm down,” Connor says, putting her in a chokehold.

She screams, the sound matching what I heard until she gasps for air and collapses like all her bones turned to rubber and melted.

Uh oh.

Connor lowers her to the floor, his eyes wide. “Shite. I’m sorry. She...”

Stunned, we stand over her. Her eyes are closed but she’s breathing. I circle her, confused as all fuck

“What the hell happened to her?” Connor says, looking around. “Holy fuck, is that Brandon?”

“Aye,” I answer, shaking. “She was carving him up when I turned that corner.”

“Look at her,” Shane says, his breath hitching. “She looks like shit. She’s skin and bones. I saw a cage in the other room. What the hell did Brandon do to her? Poor Ava.”

I swing around, and I know I’ll sound like a lunatic.

“That’s not Ava. That’s... That’s a woman named Hadleigh. I... I met her seven years ago at Coronado. She was training to be a SEAL. She had blonde hair, but those eyes...” I’d know those haunting sable eyes anywhere.

Shane and Connor cinch their foreheads at me, looking like I have ten heads.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Shane pulls his phone from his back pocket and holds it up. “That’sAva Zervas. Ares just sent me this photo of her.”

I gawk at the woman, fearing she’ll carve me up next when she wakes up. With my mind in a vortex, something catches my eye underneath all that dark hair.

My stomach doing flip flops, I bend down and brush the long, thick strands away from her ear.

A raven tattoo.

“Shane, what does this mean?” I ask, slightly terrified to be honest.

He hesitates to get close to her like she’s a bomb. She already blew my world apart. Finally, he takes a few steps to get a look behind her right ear.

After snapping a photo, he turns and runs it through databases he’s hacked from every possible source. He releases a tired sigh and then pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I believe you that she’s a woman you met in SEAL training.” Shane clears his throat. “That tattoo is a symbol of a covert CIA unit called the RAVENs. A black ops team made up of female soldiers from various branches of the military.”

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