Liam's Witness Protection (Man on a Mission 4)

“Damn it, you should have told me anyway.” Then his eyes widened and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Cate. Oh my God. Cate.” He spun around to his sister. “Vishenko’s on his way, isn’t he?” He grabbed her arms and shook her hard. “Isn’t he!”

She didn’t answer his question, just posed one of her own. “Where is Cate?”

* * *

Cate’s throat was so dry she couldn’t have spoken even if she’d wanted to. Horrifying dreams of this moment had haunted her for years, nightmare visions of Vishenko finding her. Touching her. Owning her. She would rather die than submit to him again.

Then she saw the expression in his eyes, and she knew she was going to die. The only thing she didn’t know was whether she would die in time to prevent him from raping her again.

“No,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head slightly. “No.” Her fingers tightened until they formed fists. “No.”

* * *

“I left her on the path...told her to run if she heard gunfire.” Liam made a rush for the back door but Cody blocked him with his body and pushed him backward.

“Where on the path?” Cody demanded. “Just, wait!” he ordered when Liam tried to fight him off.

“Right before the clearing. Right beside Callahan’s trap. Let me go, Cody,” he panted, desperate to get to Cate. “She’s out there alone.”

“No, she’s not. Callahan’s out there. McKinnon, too. She’s not alone.”

* * *

“You really thought you could get away with it?” Vishenko asked softly, dropping the hand with the pistol to his side as he took a step closer. As if his ego wanted to control her even without the gun, the way he’d controlled her years ago. “You really thought I would let you testify against me? You?” He laughed sardonically, and she took a step backward as he took another forward. “Ah, Caterina,” he mocked. “I always enjoyed that little game.”

She found her voice. “What game?”

“That little game you played, pretending to fight me.”

Her breath rasped in her throat. “It wasn’t a game.”

His smile widened. “Not at first, true. You fought me like a woman possessed. Your screams that first time...ahh, I can still hear them in my mind.” The sick, twisted pleasure in his voice, the avid expression on his face appalled and repulsed her, just as they had all those years ago.

“You should never have run, Caterina. You forced me to find substitutes for you.” She closed her eyes momentarily, sick to her soul, imaging the terror and agony countless other women must have suffered, just as she’d suffered.

“But none of them were as beautiful as you,” he continued. “And none of them were as satisfying because none of them fought me as you did...until you surrendered.”

Her eyes shot open and she shook her head. “Never,” she said fiercely. “I never surrendered.”

He laughed, an ugly, gloating sound. “Oh but you did, Caterina. You can’t have forgotten.”

“That was the game,” she insisted.

“Was it? You think a jury would believe it?” When her eyes widened, he said, “I have associates who will testify—truthfully—to what they saw.” He laughed again. “They don’t even need to lie under oath.”

“Never willingly. Yes, I submitted.” And had despised herself for years because she’d done so. But now—facing Vishenko—she faced the truth. The real truth. And she knew she’d been wrong to blame herself for surviving the only way she could. I did what I had to do, she told herself now. No one else was going to save me back then. I had to save myself. “I would never have escaped if I hadn’t submitted. But I was never willing.”

“We will never know who the jury will believe, will we?” He took a step closer. “Beg me, Caterina,” he said now. “I promised myself you would beg me again to let you go, just as you did the first time.”

“No.”

He gestured with the gun. “To save your life, you will not beg?”

“You’ll kill me anyway.”

He smiled and said softly, “You were always too smart for your own good.” When she didn’t respond, he admitted, “Yes, I will kill you anyway. I need to make an example of you. No one has dared testify against me for years—I can’t allow you to testify either. Even with the witnesses I have lined up to discredit your testimony, I can’t risk it.” He smiled his ice-cold smile. “But first I will make you beg...and scream.” His head inclined toward the dense woods surrounding them. “Go ahead, Caterina. Scream. No one will hear you...except me.”