Beautifully Broken

For a moment, emotions threaten to bubble up, to drown me in the horror of what’s been done to me, but I close my eyes and focus on the emptiness that’s blackening my soul. I’d rather take the empty feelings over the memories of the nightmare I’ve been put through.

“Can you walk?’ he asks, ripping me from my dark thoughts.

I try to get up, but whatever adrenaline I had is gone now.

“Okay, no walking then,” he murmurs. His arms slip beneath me, and he lifts me effortlessly to his chest, making me feel small in his arms.

Not because he’s so much bigger than me, but because there’s nothing left of the person I once was.

When he begins to walk, I find myself not caring where he’s taking me – as long as it’s far from the container… the house… the torture.

Again my mind begins to shut down because every fiber of my being is tired of fighting.

“You’re safe. I have you now,” are the last words I hear.

Chapter 5

DAMIAN

At least everything went smoothly.

I let out a heavy breath as my gaze scans over Cara.

Jeff was already knee-deep in with the group we were watching when they brought Cara to the property. It threw a spanner in the works, and we had to move in quicker than initially planned.

My day job is rescuing kidnaped victims for payment, where it’s a hobby of sorts bringing down illegal syndicates. It was pure luck that we already had eyes on the group when they kidnapped Cara, or she’d probably be dead by now.

I only trust Jeff because he’s the one who gave me my first job. We’ve been working together for twelve years.

Fuck, it feels like a lifetime.

Jeff’s old and looks harmless, but the man can still hold his own in a fight. Since he’s retired from the FBI, he’s been working with me. He loves to get his hands dirty by infiltrating the groups, to dig his way right into the heart of the hell hole. He checks how many men, the layout, how hard it will be to extract the victim if there is one. Then, when he has all the info, he gets it to me so I can go in for the kill.

I watch as Cara slowly comes to. I’ve done this so many times, it should be second nature by now – but it never gets easier.

When it’s a paid job, I usually only stay with a victim for a day before handing them over to the person who sent me in to get them.

But not this one – not Cara Ellison. I have to keep her for a while and ensure she’s safe until I figure out what’s going on.

We’re still putting all the pieces together where Cara is concerned. All I know is that the mafia was using her to lure her uncle out of his hiding place.

I’ll have to teach her how to be a ghost so she won’t get caught again while Jeff and I try to find out more about Tom Smith and the mafia.

Cara’s eyes flutter open, and they look foggy with confusion and pain. Her ginger hair is wild and dirty, and her green eyes are haunted by the hell she endured the past four days. The red of her hair only makes the color stand out more.

But it’s her face that makes her easy to spot. Even with all the bruises and blood, she’s still beautiful.

Rage simmers in my chest as I shake my head.

Cara has a fragile kind of beauty. The kind that makes you want to protect her… but still, they beat the shit out of her.

Christ.

It’s easy for me to kill because the fuckers I take out don’t deserve to live, but fuck, I’d never be able to hit a woman.

There’s a flicker of satisfaction in my chest that I got to kill the bastards who hurt her so badly.

I used to feel a high every time I saved someone, with every bullet I fired, and with every dead body that dropped to the ground. But after doing this for too many years, the high has faded, and a coldness has taken over. It’s become a clinical thing to do. Go in, get the victim or take down the group, and leave no witnesses alive.

Cara clears her throat, and it brings my attention back to her.

There’s another punch to my gut as my eyes settle on her.

Christ, they did a real number on her.

There’s a twinge of regret in my chest when I see the burn on her cheek. That bullet was way too close.

As soon as we reached the motel, I checked her wounds and tried to clean them, but she needs to shower so I can treat them. She definitely has broken ribs, and her dire state had me contemplating taking her to the hospital.