Serving the Soldier - Part 5 (An Alpha Military Romance)

Serving the Soldier

PART 5

By Helen Grey

Copyright © 2015 Helen Grey

The "Serving the Soldier" Series

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Book Description

This is Part 5 of "Serving the Soldier" – a five part Hot Alpha Military Romance Series by Helen Grey.

Kidnapped by terrorists and taken to an abandoned warehouse, Angie must rely on her inner strength to survive.

How will Jax find her? Can he? Does he care enough to try? And if he does, she knows he’ll be walking into a trap.

Trapped and helpless, she doubts all of her actions. She can’t believe she’s been so stupid. But she wants to live. She wants the chance to make things right. Now, she can only hope and pray that Jax will find her in time to save her life—and his.

Find out in the fifth steamy installment of "Serving the Soldier"!

This book is intended for a mature audience, 18+ only.

The first thing that nudged me out of a deep blackness was a pounding in my head. I couldn’t remember… the pain was horrid and made me feel sick to my stomach. Then, on the edge of my consciousness, I heard voices, distant and echoing. My ears rang. I felt uncomfortable, but didn’t know why.

Then I noticed the smell. Not acrid nor rancid, just different. Like musty library books or a strange scent. Slowly, the cobwebs hovering around clear reality began to fade and the voices became clearer. I was moving. In a car. I heard the rumbling sound of the engine.

It all came back to me in one, horrifying rush. My eyes opened and I stiffened, or tried to. Before I could even rationalize why, my heart started pounding again, so fast and so hard I thought for sure it would burst. I struggled, but couldn’t move. My hands were tied behind my back. I was sitting upright, but my chin bobbed against my chest.

I stared down at my lap and was surprised to see a brown hand on my leg, mid-thigh. I opened my mouth to scream and realized that I couldn’t—something was covering my mouth. It was dry and tasted like the smell of sweat. I fought the urge to gag. I realized I had been bound and gagged and, out of instinct, I began to struggle, to thrash. My efforts were wild, but ineffective as I realized my feet were also tied at the ankles.

Strange, mewling sounds tore from my throat. I jerked my head up and looked to my left. A man stared back at me, smiling as if amused by my efforts.

“Khalil, she’s awake.”

My thoughts still fuzzy, I could only stare. He looked like something straight out of Arabian Nights, only wearing modern clothes. His black curly hair was long, draping over his forehead. In the passing glow of streetlights and the occasional car that passed us, I saw his silhouette. High forehead. Sharp nose. Narrow lips and weak chin.

I heard the chuckle to my right and turned my head that way, regretting the movement as a new wave of pain and nausea swept through me. Oh, the side of my head hurt. If felt tight and swollen and every movement sent waves of pain shooting from the localized wound down through my neck and into my shoulders, causing me to hunch in pain.

The man who sat to my right looked older than the one to my left. He merely glanced at me before returning his gaze out the window. I didn’t get a good enough look at him to assess his features, but in a passing glow of light I did see a short-cropped beard, streaked with gray. It was black outside, still dark. He muttered something in a language I didn’t understand.

I tried to focus my thoughts, ignore the pain in my head, the stickiness that I sensed on the side of my cheek. I had been standing at the end of the hallway in Jax’s house. Something had crashed into the side of my head, just above my ear. It was obvious that the force of the blow had broken the skin and I had bled. I didn’t feel the warmth of blood, so between that and the stickiness, I knew that the wound had congealed. I wondered how long I had been out. Long enough for the blood to stop and thicken, but I was no forensic scientist who could estimate how much time had passed.

The vein in my neck throbbed in pace with my racing heart and I told myself I needed to get my blood pressure under control. Adrenaline combined with terror had me on the verge of panic and for the moment, I could do nothing but take in my surroundings. More would come later. For now, I needed to know where I was and how many of them were in the car with me.

In the front seat I saw two other men. Neither one of them glanced back as they drove down a dark… very dark road, only the narrow beams of the headlights breaking through the near black. What was I doing out here… oh my God, the realization suddenly sunk in. So much for trying to slow down my heart rate.

I had been kidnapped!

Where was Jax?

Did anything happen back at the house or had my kidnappers taken me away before he had arrived? Why take me? I couldn’t give them anything. I had no information. Did they know that? I tried to make a sound to get their attention, but my throat was dry and only a slight gurgle escaped the confines of the gag.

I fought back the tears, the swell of panic that continued to build and surge, threatening to push me over the edge. The hand on my thigh squeezed—hard—and I looked again to the captor to my left.

I tried desperately not to allow my fear to show. I knew that some bad men thrived on fear. I had watched enough murder and mayhem shows on television to know that. Sadistic bastards. These men were of the same ilk, I had no doubt of it.

“Where is Jackson Andrews?”

He spoke English, although with a heavy Middle Eastern accent. Still too stunned to speak—if I’d been able to—I merely stared at him. My eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness inside the car. The glow from the dashboard instrument panel cast a dull blue glow throughout the interior. He had thick dark eyebrows, what appeared to be black eyes, although I know the darkness just made him seem more sinister than he probably was in the light of day. Sharp nose, high cheek bones and a thin mouth, currently turned down into a frown.

The hand squeezed tighter. I winced.

“Where is Jackson Andrews?” he repeated.

I saw broken teeth, as if he’d never received any dental care. Foul breath. I tried to glare at him, but the wound in the side of my scalp tugged painfully at the skin of my temple.

How the hell was I supposed to know where Jax was? Besides, how was I supposed to answer him with the gag in my mouth? Despite my fear, I gave a slight shake of my head. He seemed to sense my conundrum and lifted his hand from my leg and tugged on the gag. The sharp tug on the fabric—a handkerchief or something—left a thread stuck in my teeth. I spat at it.

“Where is Jackson Andrews?”

“How the hell should I know?” I snapped. “I’m not his babysitter—”

The resulting slap brought tears to my eyes. I gasped. Accompanied with the throbbing in my head and now the sting of the slap on my cheek, I fought back my tears. I wasn’t brave, but I certainly didn’t want to start bawling in front of them. That would serve nothing except to amuse them perhaps, or make them angry. I didn’t want to make them angry. I hadn’t been trying to be a smart alec either, but truthfully, the words that had come out of my mouth had been perfectly natural.

The man to my right spoke.

“If you want to live, you will tell us where he is.”

Carefully, so as not to jar my head more than necessary, I turned once again to look at him. Dark hair sprinkled with gray, cheeks stubbled with a three or four day growth of beard. He wore thin rimmed glasses.

“Look,” I stammered. “I don’t know who you are or what you want… with me! I really don’t know where he is. I’m his nurse! He doesn’t give me his itinerary every time he leaves the house—”

The hand squeezed my leg again, so hard that I felt a tingling sensation below the knee. The man on my left dug his fingers so deep into the inside of my thigh muscles that he succeeded in pressing my femoral artery against my thighbone, cutting off the blood supply.

It hurt. Bad.

I barely squelched a cry of pain as I tried to jerk my leg upward to relieve the pressure. Another slap, but this time it struck my lip. I felt the blood oozing into my mouth and down my chin. Pain. I choked back a sob, my emotions roiling. I grew infuriated and glared at the man, but, squeezed between the two, could do little to avoid him.

“Where is Jackson Andrews?”

“I don’t know!” I screamed. I felt angry and terrified at the same time. What had happened? More than that, how had this happened? How had they gotten past Jax’s alarm system?

Why had they taken me?

Where were we going?

I wanted to scream, to dissolve into a puddle of abject horror, to shriek in terror and beg for my life, but deep down inside, I knew such emotions would serve no purpose. I knew that terrorists thrived on fear, and the more fear I showed, the more satisfaction my abductors would receive.

I gasped back a cry of startled pain when he grabbed my hair and pulled my face toward his. His stinking breath was in my face.

“We will see what you know,” he threatened, his lips turn down into a sneer.

His hand released my hair, but then he reached for me again. I automatically flinched. He laughed and then grabbed the gag and yanked it up and back into my mouth. My tongue tried to force it out as it lodged between my upper and lower jaw. I tried to scream past it, to vent my outrage, but for my efforts, received only another slap to the side of my head. This time his hand struck the original wound near my temple and I felt the sting of tears and a flash of white briefly interrupted my vision.

I gasped for breath and held it, trying to wait out the pain. At the same time, I tried to regain control of my emotions, knowing that if I didn’t get them under control I could start hyperventilating with anxiety. I fought against the urge to gag. I hated things in my mouth—well, certain things. I forcefully pushed my thoughts away from Jax. If I vomited now, I could aspirate, and then I’d be in big trouble.

The men in the car laughed and began speaking to one another in their native language. Farsi or something, I didn’t know for sure. I felt my pulse pounding in my neck and closed my eyes and prayed. I prayed harder than I’d ever prayed in my life. I had no idea where we were going or what they were going to do to me, but I had a distinct impression that whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Oh God, could this really be happening? How had I gotten myself into this? I didn’t blame Jax; it wasn’t his fault. But I was just a nurse! Then, a sudden thought struck me. I was supposed to have called Nancy this evening, given her an update. She would definitely notice that I hadn’t. Would she send someone to the house? Would she try my apartment? How long would she wait before she called the police—if she did? While I had never abandoned a client before, she knew how frustrated I had been with Jax the last time I talked to her. Still, she knew me better than that.

Even if the police went to Jax’s house for a welfare check, they wouldn’t likely enter unless they saw something unusual, like broken windows, kicked in doors, signs of blood or something that would alert them of anything seriously wrong. Besides, I knew that Nancy wouldn’t be able to file a missing person’s report for forty-eight to seventy-two hours. I could be dead by then. The thought chilled me to the bone.

Where was Jax? How in the world would he be able to find me? Or had he arrived before the terrorists had gotten me out of the house? Had they ambushed him, as I’d been afraid they would? Was he lying hurt or dead in his house and they were just toying with me now? So many uncertain questions, and none of them with answers.

I closed my eyes, wanting only to shut out the sight of the dark figures surrounding me. I couldn’t believe what was happening, but couldn’t keep focusing on that. I had to force myself to remain as rational as possible, seek any chance at all of escaping. I was so out of my comfort zone and my experience. This might be nothing to Jax, but I had no idea, even if I was able to get away, what I would do then. I had no experience. Then again, my instinct for survival was strong, and I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. I would just have to trust my gut… listen to the instincts that kept shouting at me to stay focused, to pay attention, and most of all, to somehow get out of this alive

***

I don’t know how long we drove, but despite my efforts to try and focus on the road, seeking landmarks, my pounding head, my fear, and the uncertainties that faced me seemed to increase with every mile. The road we were on was winding, and at an uphill slant. I had no idea where we were nor where we were going. I had no sense of direction. I had no idea, and the further we traveled, the less hope I had that Jax would ever find me. How in the world could he?

I wondered if he had gone to the house yet, or as I earlier feared, that he had gotten there before the terrorists left and walked into an ambush. Where had he been when I called? How far away from the house? I drove myself crazy wondering.

I glanced to the left, saw my captor dozing in the seat. Looking to my right, I saw the older one, Khalil, staring straight ahead. When he noticed me turn toward him, he also turned, staring at me, devoid of expression. Neither one of the two men in the front seat had so much as turned or glanced back over their shoulders at me. I couldn’t tell if the driver had even glanced in their rearview mirror because it was so dark.

Finally, after what seemed to be hours, though it must have been less, the car pulled onto a driveway that led into a cluster of warehouses. Where were we? I had no idea. The car rolled slowly to a stop in front of one of the warehouses, which looked old and abandoned.

The captor to my left jolted awake, looking out the window. Again they spoke among themselves in their foreign language. For the moment, they didn’t seem at all interested in me.

In the darkness, I couldn’t make out the writing on any of the buildings. I know we weren’t near the ocean or I would’ve smelled it. No, I think we had gone inland, up into the hills. I tried frantically to think of the possibilities, but without being able to see any landmarks I had no idea where I was or how far we had traveled from Jax’s house.

Khalil opened his door, as did the others. He stepped out of the car and then slammed the door shut, jarring my nerves. The captor to my left also opened his door and stepped out. For the moment, I was left in the car by myself. I almost heaved a sigh of relief. Just then, he reached inside and I saw the flash of a knife blade. I caught my breath and cringed, trying to lean as far to the right side of the seat as I could. He grumbled low in his throat, grasped my left leg, and then began to slash the knife at the bindings holding my feet together.