Page 2 of Rescuing Josiah
When he began to fight against the hands of the people attempting to save his life, they tried to stop him. They didn't understand that he didn't want to live without his team.
A horrible wail filled the air. A desperate sound made of pure grief-filled agony. It took him far longer than it should have to realize it was coming from him.
“Josiah.”
The soft, sweet voice was out of place. It didn't belong here. Hadn't been there the day he’d lost his entire team.
“Wake up,” that same angel voice insisted.
Panic lashed at him, inflicting the same burning pain a whip would.
No.
She couldn’t be here. It wasn't safe. They'd get her, too. Shoot her, kill her, leave her beautiful body riddled with bullet holes on the hot sand.
He had to get his weapon, he wasn't going to let them have her, too.
Not her.
A hand touched his shoulder, trying to prevent him from getting his weapon, and he snapped out one of his hands to stop them, surprised by the sudden burst of strength he had when just moments ago his body had felt heavy and useless.
She whimpered. A muted, pained sound, and Josiah turned toward her, needing to put a stop to it. That sound hurt worse than everything else combined.
One blink changed everything.
The sand disappeared, replaced by a hard plastic chair, the heat morphed into the dry, cool of AC air, and the bodies littered around him became a couple of people giving him odd looks. Fearful looks.
Beside him stood the woman whose voice had spurred fear unlike any other to flood his system. Her hand rested lightly on his shoulder, and his much bigger hand circled her wrist in a grip he knew was causing her pain, because the face that looked down at him held a tightness that wasn't usually there.
“It’s okay,” she murmured softly, “it was just a dream. You're safe. I didn't mean to touch you, I know you don’t like that, but…” She trailed off and indicated the few people about them, all looking at him expectantly.
Right.
The wedding.
They were at the courthouse so he and one of his co-workers could get married. Not because they were in love, but because they were going undercover to try to bring down an organ trafficking ring that had been operating for several years now.
Things had taken a personal turn earlier in the year when one of their coworkers had been snatched by the ring. Ava Hendricks had managed to escape with the help of a Navy SEAL, Nathaniel Trevino. The two were now happy and in love, and wanted to start their future, but they couldn’t because of the ring.
Fellow teammate and former Delta Force operator, Tobias Ashford, had also fallen in love when he’d gone back into the field for the first time in years to help raid one of the trafficking ring’s clinics. There, he’d met imprisoned nurse Isabella Baker. Despite a rocky start, the two had also fallen in love and were expecting a baby.
Then last month, another of his teammates, Teresa Dash, was targeted. The timing had been good, or bad depending on how you looked at it, because her teenage crush had popped back into her life around the same time. The two had worked through their issues, and Teresa had decided to give Micah Hart a second chance.
Three teammates, three new relationships.
Three chances of happiness and a life that he would never allow himself to have.
They were why he was here now. Why he’d decided going undercover was their best bet at getting to the elusive head of the trafficking ring. Desiree Tilly had lost her husband and three of her four children to a rare genetic disorder that caused a proteinbuildup to affect organs. Organ failure had occurred, and they had all passed away.
All but a daughter.
One Desiree Tilly refused to let go of.
While they could all understand the desperation that had led her to start up a black-market organ ring, none of them could condone it. Hundreds of people across the globe had been abducted, killed, their organs stolen, and sold to the highest bidder. The woman had to be stopped, and he knew he could be the one to do it.
But Chelsea Pierce was not supposed to be part of it.
His plan had been for him to infiltrate the ring alone. Posing as a dying man willing to do whatever it took to live, he was going to get himself an appointment with someone inside the ring, and then work his way up the ladder until he got an appointment with Desiree Tilly herself.
