Her body hurt. She’d been shot before Joseph captured her and that had been on top of the beatings she sustained at Svetlana’s orders. Joseph had compounded her physical agony with more beatings, a few brandings, and a caning. “But I will not cut your hair, Bone Breaker. You remind me of your mother like this and I find I rather like it. The picture sustains me in the face of your betrayal,” he whispered in her ear. He’d been hoping for a response that would pit them against one another in combat. But Bone had known something he hadn’t—broken or not, she would kill him if they fought and he wasn’t only hers. He was also her sisters.’ She wouldn’t take his death from them.
Fever had sapped her reserve energy. Lack of food and water were doing their part to rush her to death. So while her body was giving up, succumbing to the torture and pain, her heart and soul rejoiced because she had found the one thing she had never known.
Love.
She pictured Dmitry, his tall body, broad shoulders, and those heart-rending eyes undoing her. She couldn’t feel his hands on her anymore and it was sad. So sad she sobbed aloud. The sibilant snap of rope teased her and she ceased her crying, pushing her pain down. For just a little while longer she wanted to imagine she was in Jericho, or at the plateau of Masada, maybe in her lover’s arms. And when the truth bit deep and reminded her it was time, then she would inhale and ride the currents like the hawk until she crashed to the rocks below.
Would anyone find her body? If so, she wanted to be buried next to Ninka. Time continued to pass, the sun beating down from a sky so cerulean it hurt. In the distance, dark clouds skirted the blue signaling rain. It wouldn’t be long now. Not long at all.
“Bayu-bay,” she whispered, breath barely moving through her body. “I see your blue-blue sky, Ninka. I am coming…”
Chapter Seventeen
They arrived in Arequipa nine hours after takeoff. Dmitry stepped off the plane, ready for anything. He was met by Grant Fielding.
“Well, well, well, three of Trident’s finest,” Grant mused, tipping his hat back and grinning like a fool. “Bullet called me—told me to get ready. So ta-da, here I am.”
“Fuck you, Fielding,” Adam returned caustically.
Rand said nothing.
“Figured you’d need some transportation,” Grant said.
Dmitry grimaced. “You figured right.”
Grant shook his head sadly. “Can’t believe my girls didn’t come.”
“They aren’t yours, motherfucker,” Adam bit out.
“They have always been mine,” Grant returned. Dmitry shivered at the possession in the other man’s voice. It was at once comforting and eerie as fuck.
Along with the possessiveness was a truth none of the men wanted to decipher. Not right now. None of them cared about Fielding’s pain. He and the United States government allowed Joseph to act with impunity. Grant Fielding had allowed their women to be hurt, to suffer.
“Let’s get on it then, she’s not for this world much longer. The ropes are fraying and it’s supposed to rain later. She won’t make it,” Fielding said and the note of finality in his voice made Dmitry want to pound something.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“On the upper cliffs,” Fielding said by way of answer. Grant looked at him then. “You know about her punishments?”
“I know she was punished and that Joseph used heights,” Dmitry admitted roughly.
Grant inhaled deeply. “You’ll have to see it to believe it.”
Dmitry wanted to drive his fist into Fielding’s face but stayed his hand. Rand and Adam got into the dilapidated Jeep Grant was driving and Dmitry followed, sitting next to Fielding in the front.
“How do we know you aren’t laying us out as a sacrificial offering?” Adam called from the back.
“I only offer virgins,” Grant told him.
Then they were off, traversing mountain passes and slick hillsides. Grant stopped them at one point and pointed to a mountaintop shrouded in clouds. “She’s up there.”
Dmitry’s heart stopped for a single beat. “It’s fucking freezing.”
“Joseph doesn’t care. He has never cared,” Grant said, starting the Jeep back up and driving on.
“Why haven’t you gotten her down?” Dmitry asked.
Grant sighed. “That wasn’t the deal we struck. I made her a promise a long time ago that if it came to this, I’d let her go. It would have damn near killed me, but I keep my promises.”
An hour later and they’d reach a level plain. Grant slid out of the Jeep and glanced around. “He knows you’ve landed but I doubt he thinks you’ll come straight here. Regardless, keep a lookout. Joseph knows I’m not his man any longer but he is so arrogant he thinks I remain under his thumb.” A moment’s silence and then, “The rocks are slippery so when you see her, be very careful. The ropes she’s tied with are frayed and it would only take a single breath for them to spill her to the river below.”
Dmitry’s mind struggled to overcome the blanket of fear the other man’s words coated it in. He’d waited too long…
“Goddamn him. What has he done to her?” Rand asked in a hard tone.
“He’s punishing her,” Grant answered and turned to Dmitry. “Click this,” he ordered, handing Dmitry a switch of some sort, “when you have her in your arms and I will begin the diversion. You’ll have to run over the mountain pass and there will be another Jeep waiting on that side. You make it to her, Asinimov. You save that girl.”
Dmitry said nothing, just took off in the direction Grant pointed.