Fractured Innocence (#2 IFICS) (6 page)

Was that pity in his voice?
He pushed her forward stopping in front of the dresser. He opened one of the drawers, her eyes widened in surprise and fear. There were so many vile objects. Knives, ropes, chains, whips, and things her mind could not register. Her eyes glazed over. The room spun, and her body swayed. 

When her eyes fluttered open, she was tied to the bed.
Naked.
Her legs were splayed open, the air cool against her skin. The only person who had seen her completely naked was her mother. And now who knew how many eyes had seen her body? She couldn’t even cover herself. 

She pulled her arms and kicked her legs, screaming as loud as she could. The ropes were so tight she barely moved. She jerked her hips trying to turn over and a loud chuckle filled the room. Her face flushed with humiliation and fear.

“Now that’s what I like to see.” 

The figure came closer, casting a shadow across her, but she didn’t have to see him to know it was the man with the golden eyes. His voice was unmistakable. Smooth as honey, just like the color of his eyes. Could evil really sound and look like him? 

She would soon know the answer to that question. 

“Such beauty,” he murmured. When he climbed on the bed, it moved from the weight of him. Her heart raced, and tears flowed freely down her face. She shook her head but couldn’t get the words out. She was too scared.

“Now, now. Don’t be afraid, my little flower. You’re mine, and I take care of what belongs to me. Do you understand?”

A wail escaped her throat when his skin touched hers. 

“Purity is so rare these days, let alone in someone as beautiful as yourself. How old are you my dear?” His hot fingers ran up her cold inner thigh. Her legs clenched. Her whole body tightened. 

“I asked you a question.” 

She couldn’t speak. Wouldn’t respond. She wasn’t going to give the monster anything. It was her only defense. As pathetic as that was. 

“Ah, the hard way, of course.” His voiced dripped of sweetness. Like he was enjoying himself. “I would have been disappointed if not. Would you like me to bring your brother in to watch?” 

“No, please, no!” She thrashed her head side to side. She would rather die than have her brother see her spread out like this. He was just a little boy. 

“Again, I ask. How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” she cried out. 

“Now that’s much better. It wasn’t so hard, was it, love?” His disgusting fingers wouldn’t stop touching her.

Wasn’t so hard? Was this man for real? She was tied to a bedpost and about to be raped. No, there was nothing hard about
that.
She spit in his face. 

His hand stopped moving, and his eyes narrowed. He pulled his hand away, and wiped the spit off his face. 

“Oh, petal, that was a very naughty thing to do.” 

Aaliyah shrank back at his tone. 

He stood up. She couldn’t see him from the angle she was at on the bed but she could hear the movements. The sound of his zipper going down terrified her. He kicked his shoes off, a moment before his clothing hit the floor in a soft rustle. In all her life, she had never been so afraid. And then his feet padded across the floor as he walked away. 

The drawer creaked open. Her mind went back to all the objects she had seen there. She screamed. Her breathing became labored, and sweat covered her body. Fear made the situation surreal. 

He rummaged through the drawers. What was he getting? Her body shuddered. He slammed the drawer shut. His footsteps were quiet as he approached her. 

She squeezed her eyes closed. Aaliyah could hear her own breathing, shallow and ragged in the silence. 

“Look at me. I’m not going to tell you again to obey me. Your brother is close by. Close enough to hear your screams.” 

Her eyes snapped open, her mind abruptly clear. He stood above her staring down at her. All she could see was his muscular chest. He was strong, and he could bring her pain. How did she go from walking down the street to being tied to a bed? 

“Lift your head.” 

She hesitated only for a second before obeying. 

Her lips parted to scream, but he covered her mouth with duct tape. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, even though she knew she could breathe through her nose. Her heart hammered against her rib cage. She prayed for strength to make it through what she knew to be unavoidable. 

“This could have been so much easier. If you would have just cooperated,” he said in a soothing voice that made her feel like she was the crazy one. 

She trembled uncontrollably. Despite the tape, she still tried to scream through the gag. 

“If you displease me, I will remove the tape, and your brother will hear you. You don’t want that now, do you?”

She shook her head violently. 

“See, I can be nice when I want to be.” An evil smile spread across his face. 

Terror gripped her.

And then came the pain. 

CHAPTER 6

Kaitlyn had no idea why Harrington insisted on keeping their location a secret. Her internal GPS immediately notified her when they landed in Eastport, Maine. The computer side of her brain gave her a quick breakdown of their location.

Population: thirteen hundred and fifty. 

Temperature: twenty-seven degrees. 

Local time: twelve thirty-seven. 

Eastport’s claim to fame: being the most eastern city in the United States. Images of the picturesque costal town flashed across her internal screen. Eastport appeared to be a beautiful location, but they were not there to sightsee.

A smile crossed her face, as Lucas glanced out the window of the plane.  He swore under his breath, when he saw a foot of snow blanketed the ground. Kaitlyn’s gaze dropped to his mouth. Memories of his lips on hers made her want to wrap her arms around him, but this was not the time or place. 

 “Good thing I brought my Gortex jacket,” he mumbled. He stood up, pulled his bags from the overhead compartment, and slipped on his jacket. 

He was so cute when he was annoyed. 

Erik deplaned first. They had become accustomed to thinking of Harrington as their principal, meaning they always guarded his safety first. Kaitlyn went after Harrington, with Lucas and Adams following close behind. 

A rush of excitement hit her as she stepped into the cold afternoon. Perfect snowflakes floated softly around them. The ground was slick with ice. 

Slowly, she scanned the area. Kaitlyn counted three heat sources in the small airport. From the size and shape, plus heart rate, she deduced that they were humans. 

Two large men stood waiting in front of a white van. They were dressed in khaki pants and black Arcteryx jackets commonly worn by Special Forces operators. Her sensors zeroed in. The targeting screen that was part of her internal weapon’s system placed a bull’s-eye on both of them, picking them up as potential threats. 

Harrington held up his hand. “Relax, Kaitlyn. They are our escorts, not a threat.”

She acknowledged his comment with a curt nod, but her body remained on high alert. Outsiders made her nervous. And the two men were clearly powerful and without a doubt deadly. Knuckle draggers, as Erik liked to call men in their field. 

Harrington should have had a car waiting so they could drive themselves to the undisclosed location. The five of them strode across the tarmac, black cases in hand. Lucas was on one side of her and Erik on the other. They were two men she trusted with her life and both of whom she would freely give her own life for. 

Once they were a few feet away from the men at the van, Erik increased his pace. Kaitlyn felt everything kick into high gear. What was going on? Did Erik sense something she had missed? Not a possibility.  

“Kaitlyn,” Harrington said with a trace of amusement. “It’s fine.”

Erik dropped his bag, reached his hand out to shake the other man’s hand and then pulled him into a tight embrace. Kaitlyn tried to make sense of the situation. She turned to Lucas with a questioning gaze, and he shrugged.  

After pulling away, Erik turned towards them with a rare smile on his face. “My old teammate, Ace. He saved my ass on more than one occasion.”

 It was strange to see Erik show such obvious affection. Kaitlyn was surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy. Erik was
her
partner. 

Ace clapped his hand on Erik’s shoulder, giving him a warm smile. “Erik returned the favor in kind. I believe we’re even now, but who’s counting.” 

Kaitlyn took in Erik’s old teammate. Blond hair, blue eyes, chiseled features, six foot three, two hundred and twenty-three pounds. Heart rate a steady sixty-three beats per minute. With his relaxed posture, he no longer came across as a threat on her internal screen. But Kaitlyn wasn’t sure she liked the man. 

The other hulk of a man silently slipped around and slid open the side door. Moving with the grace of an athlete, he was almost the same height and weight as Ace. He appeared older. His dark hair was graying at the temples, but he was no less formidable. His posture was ramrod straight, head on a swivel, eyes alert. He was on guard. She wasn’t sure she could say the same about Erik and Ace. 

The older stranger’s face did not reveal any thoughts or emotions. His eyes were calm and alert, his manor professional
.
He did not bother to inform them of his name, which met with Kaitlyn’s approval, as she did not think it was necessary to do so.

“It’s cold as hell. Can we get moving?” Lucas shifted on his feet, and his breath misted in the air. 

Kaitlyn gave Lucas a weary look.
Cold as hell
was one of those sayings that made absolutely no literal sense, but now was not the time to bring up that fact. 

They piled into the van, the three of them getting in the back while Harrington and Adams sat in the middle row. Kaitlyn looked at Erik, seeking to understand his sudden transformation. She didn’t care for the way Erik’s face had softened after seeing his old friend. It made her uneasy. 

As if hearing her unstated question, Erik spoke. “We go way back. I had no idea Ace had been contracted out for the security detail.”

“Thick as thieves.” Ace turned and grinned. 

A quick scan told her
thick as thieves
meant they were loyal and as close knit as a family.  Kaitlyn briefly wondered if there was anyone in her life with whom the saying would apply. Of course there was Lucas. He knew her better than anyone, and perhaps Quess. But maybe not. The saying seemed to indicate something deeper then friendship, but not quite the same thing as love. Language could be very complex. 

Harrington glanced over his shoulder at Erik, arching an eyebrow. “He came highly recommended. When I noticed his background was very similar to yours, I did some cross-references. As a trusted teammate of yours, I felt secure in hiring him for this detail. It’s as simple as that.” 

Erik seemed to accept the explanation. His relaxed posture was quickly replaced with the serious demeanor Kaitlyn had grown accustomed to. Hopefully, there would be no more lapses once the mission went live. It suddenly occurred to Kaitlyn that she also changed when in Lucas’s company. She would have to be aware of that and not make the same mistake Erik had made. Letting her guard down was not an option. The mission and her job meant too much to her. For the first time, she wondered if it was wise to have Lucas so closely involved. 

With a quick glance at his strong profile, she pushed the thought out of her mind. At the end of the day, no one knew her programming better than Lucas and in truth, no one else was capable of the job. Not even Adams. Much of her coding was specially designed by Lucas’s incredible mind. Adams was more an overseer. 

Their tires spun on the ice as they took off down the narrow unpaved driveway, and Kaitlyn wondered where their next destination would be. More importantly, she wanted to know when they would be heading to Croatia. But she wasn’t about to discuss details with the two unknown entities in the van. 

Kaitlyn gazed out the window. They turned down a freshly plowed, rural road.  Snow banks nearly four feet high lined the roads, and the van’s tires crunched on the packed snow. Several buildings were scattered around, including a small general store and pizza shop. The snow-filled trees were quite breathtaking.  

She could feel the heat from both Erik’s and Lucas’ muscular thighs pressed against hers. She found herself distracted by the unique bond she had to each of the men. 

What in the world was wrong with her? She needed to focus; her total concentration was needed. She could not allow anyone—or anything—to distract her from the most important job of her life. Her entire reputation, and that of IFICS, could be built or destroyed during this mission.

Her attention went back to the scenery blurring past her. Small picturesque homes littered the landscape. A few children played outside, making snowmen. It wasn’t long before they were in the middle of nowhere. The only things surrounding them were snow, trees and the occasional animal. Regardless of the cold, the sun shone brightly, glaring off the snow, but the tinted windows, along with polarized lenses that slid across her irises, caused her to be unaffected. Lucas squinted his eyes, and Erik pulled out a pair of sunglasses from his bag. 

They drove over the man-made causeway, and her sensors alerted her they had left the city limits of Eastport. They were traveling through an Indian reservation, and soon would cross into Perry, Maine. 

“We’re about to pass the only store for miles. Do you need me to pull over?” Ace asked. 

“No. The house is fully stocked,” Harrington replied. 

“Roger.” Ace flicked on the blinker. 

They traveled another seventeen minutes down a narrow winding side road before turning into a hidden gravel driveway, which had been recently plowed. 

Tree branches scraped across the van. Enormous trees in a mile deep forest provided adequate coverage. A huge colonial with a wraparound porch sat off in the distance. She thought it was an unusual location, but what did she know? Harrington was the brains behind the planning, while she just followed orders.