Page 16 of Inevitable
“It’s me,” he confirmed abruptly. “Are you okay? I didn’t get a very long look at you, but it looks like your face is bruised.”
“I-I’m fine,” I stuttered, still stunned that Colin was really here.
What in the world was he doinghere?
“I’ve got water,” he said gruffly as he appeared to dig into some kind of pack that he’d brought with him into the prison. “Have they been giving you food and water?”
“Neither one,” I told him breathlessly. “I think I’m pretty dehydrated.”
“Fuck!” he said, his voice irritated as he handed me a bottle. “Drink slowly. One sip at a time. I have plenty, but you can’t have that much water hitting your system at the same time. It will probably come right back up if you do.”
I wanted to guzzle the water as fast as I could, but I did as he instructed.
I closed my eyes with gratitude as I slowly quenched my thirst.
“How is it possible that you’re here?” I said between sips. “Did they kidnap you, too?”
“No,” he answered as he pulled more stuff from that pack. “When I heard that you’d been kidnapped, I came here willingly. They think I’m here to negotiate Prince Nick’s surrender. Theyweren’t going to refuse having another friend of Nick’s for leverage. I’m getting you the fuck out of here, Emma.”
“You and Nick are friends?” I questioned, still confused.
I hadn’t talked to Colin in fourteen years, and I was still more than a little stunned to meet up with him again.
I’d honestly thought I’d never see him again.
“More of an acquaintance,” he clarified. “But they don’t know that. I brought food for you, but we better let that water settle in your stomach first.”
My head was spinning, but I didn’t think it was due to my dehydration anymore.
“I don’t need food right now,” I told him. “I’m still trying to figure out why you’re here. In Lania. None of this makes sense.”
I was deliriously happy to hear his voice, but I still wasn’t sure if any of this was real.
“I’m here to get you out of here,” he said calmly as he propped his back against the metal support beam. “Emma, I’ve known Brock, Nate, Gage, and Seth for a long time, and I’ve known Wyatt Durand even longer. The guys were worried when you didn’t check in. When I found out that you were in Lania, I called Nick. He told me the whole story about how you were kidnapped. That’s why I’m here.”
I took a moment to digest that information.
Okay, so he knew a lot of the same people I did, which explained a few things. “But how is you giving yourself up willingly going to get us out of here?”
I also wondered why he was doing this for a woman he hadn’t seen in way over a decade.
“I know this hellhole isn’t bugged,” Colin answered. “This isn’t a very sophisticated operation. So we can talk freely. I have a tracking device. Wyatt is in San Diego tracking our location. By nightfall tomorrow, Brock and Nate will be here to get us out of here. Wyatt, Brock, Nate, Gage, and Seth all work withme, Emma. We’re all part of a private rescue organization that I founded years ago that we call Last Hope. We’ve done too many hostage rescues to count over the years.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Wyatt is a billionaire. He owns a parent company with luxury products.”
“He does,” he confirmed patiently. “But he and four other billionaires also work with me on Last Hope. We’re headquartered in San Diego. Wyatt and the guys in Michigan were all on the same Delta Force team.”
I knew that, but they’d all been out of Delta for years.
I had no idea that they were still running some kind of covert rescue operations.
Suddenly, all of my friends’ mysterious disappearances over the years were starting to make sense.
“Is that why they disappeared and reappear like ghosts sometimes?” I questioned softly.
“Yeah,” Colin admitted. “Keeping that secret is important. Lives depend on keeping that information quiet. Last Hope will only survive as long as nobody knows we exist, and keeping Last Hope running saves a lot of people that can’t be helped by the US Government.”
“The government doesn’t know that these operations exist?” I asked, trying desperately to put all of the information together.
