Liam closed his eyes. The scars Serena had mentioned.
“He didn’t intend to kill me, even the doctors said that. The cuts were deep, but he apparently knew enough about human anatomy to make sure he didn’t hit any major arteries. I passed out from the pain and blood loss. When I woke up, I was in a hospital in Connecticut.”
Send her home with a message.
A message to whom and for what reason?
She had been taken for a completely different reason than what he’d thought. Selling her had likely been one of the reasons, but not the main one. Why could an NYU college student, a young woman from a small town in Connecticut, be targeted in Paris and taken to Syria? What was the real purpose of her abduction?
That was something he intended to find out.
Was that why he’d never been able to find out anything about her? Everything had been covered up. It was like she had never existed. Serena Donavan was the best in the business when it came to finding people, and she had not been able to confirm that Cat even existed.
“When you came back home, did they do any kind of investigation?”
“Yes. I talked to someone from the FBI and the State Department. I was out of it for a few days, but when I woke, I told my parents about you, about the other women. Several people came in and got details from me.
“I didn’t hear anything for several days, but when I demanded to know what was happening, I learned that the prison had been decimated. They had no information on who had taken me or why. It was just assumed it was for the money.”
And yet there had been no official record of her abduction anywhere. If that wasn’t the definition of a coverup, he didn’t know what was. They’d given her minimal information, counting on her being too damaged and unknowledgeable about how investigations worked. Showing her the destroyed prison had been their final proof to her. It’s been destroyed, those people are dead, now get on with your life.
He’d learned long ago that if something smelled like a dead rat then it damn well was a dead rat.
“Liam? What’s wrong?”
He’d get to work on that later. For now, he needed to concentrate on Aubrey. She had just shared the most painful, agonizing moments of her life. She needed him to be fully present. And he needed to hold her and reassure himself that she was here, safe and secure.
“Come here.” He tugged on the hand he was still holding and pulled her up and onto his lap. He held her for several long moments, breathing her in and cherishing the strength and fortitude of this one precious woman.
She was shaking a little, revealing that the story had completely drained her.
“I don’t know why that happened to you, and I wish I could have been there for you.”
“You were there. If I didn’t have your voice in my head, telling me to be strong, be brave, I wouldn’t have survived.”
Holding her tight, Liam closed his eyes as he envisioned the pain and terror she’d experienced.
“What about you? You said your team rescued you. Were you in the military?”
“Yeah. Special Ops. I was a SEAL. So was Xavier. We got moved from our team and put on special assignment. We were in Syria to help a small faction that was trying to infiltrate a terrorist group. Somebody ratted us out. We got nabbed to give up the names of those people.”
“Did you ever find out who ratted you out?”
“No, not really. We got some intel pointing to certain people, but nothing we could hang our hat on.”
“So you’re like Jason Bourne or maybe Ethan Hunt?”
He snorted with laughter. “Not hardly. Those guys get shot, beat to a pulp, and blown up, then show up the next day with a bruise on their chins. When I get hurt, it shows.”
“Were you injured when you escaped the prison?”
“No, not then. Although I was close to the point of insanity, thinking about finding you. I had decided to lure them into my cell and overpower them. Don’t know if that would’ve worked, but I realized they weren’t going to bring you back. My only option was to escape. Then I didn’t have to. The team came and let me out. I went looking for you. No one was there.”
“The other women were gone too?”
“Yeah. Everyone was gone except for the three men my team took down. None was ever identified.”
“It was hard for you, leaving without knowing what happened to me.”