Too bad someone hadn’t swooped in with the handy-dandy syringe with a sedative. Then she could drift away again. To nothingness.

Instead, she closed her eyes and began mentally resurrecting the walls she’d so painstakingly built during her captivity, embracing the sensation of the black void.

•   •   •

“WHEN the fuck can I bring her home?” Kyle Phillips snapped to Sam Kelly.

“As soon as we fucking blow Maksimov and ANE all to hell,” Sam bit back.

“She’s wasting away,” Kyle said with pronounced frustration.

There was a brief pause. “What do you mean? You told her she was rescued and that she and her family are being protected and that as soon as Maksimov and ANE are eliminated she’s going home, right?”

Kyle made a sound of impatience. “Do you honest-to-God think a woman who has been shit on and lied to at every turn is going to just accept that one minute she’s on a plane with a man she believes is delivering her to a terrorist group and then she wakes up and the Marines swooped in and rescued her, but oh by the way, you can’t go home yet, but you will. Eventually.”

“Describe ‘wasting away,’” Sam barked.

“You think I’m bullshitting you,” Kyle said, pissed now. “She won’t eat. She won’t drink. Goddamn it, I had to have one of my men hold her down so I could insert an IV so I could at least keep her hydrated. Yeah, that was fun. Terrorizing and bullying a woman who has already been to hell and back is right up there at the top of my list of duties. Hell of a way to serve one’s country, isn’t it?

“She doesn’t talk. She doesn’t respond. The lights are on but nobody is home, and that is not a figure of speech. She’s going to die, Sam. If something doesn’t change and change soon, she’s going to die. And the hell of it is, she’s waiting for it. She wants it. You have to care enough to fight to live, and she doesn’t give a shit what happens to her.”

Sam let out curses that would have blistered most hides. For Kyle, it was just another day in the field.

“Go time is tomorrow,” Sam said, and Kyle knew he wasn’t supposed to have told him that. “You do whatever you have to do, but you keep her alive until tomorrow, and then I’ll call and you get her the hell back to her family. She’s not going to believe anything until she sees it.”

“Now you figure it out,” Kyle muttered.

•   •   •

HANCOCK stood over Maksimov’s bloodied body with so much hatred that the man’s eyes were filled with terror and also resignation. None of the blood was courtesy of Hancock. When the attack had been launched, Maksimov had shoved several of his men in front of him, using them as shields. The result was Maksimov wearing the blood of five men behind whom he’d hidden like the coward he was.

Resnick and KGI were true to their word, and Maksimov had been left for Hancock alone. Even now Resnick was tasking the military team with rounding up the terrorists who’d survived and doing a body count of those who hadn’t.

No one but Resnick, KGI and Hancock himself would ever know how Maksimov met his end.

Hancock wanted to take Maksimov away and make his death a long, excruciating, merciless death. Torture him as he’d tortured Honor. The burn marks on her body, the mangled and shredded skin on her wrists from the manacles that had to be pried out of her wrists because they were so deeply embedded were vivid images in his memory, and he wanted to repay Maksimov in kind.

It was what Hancock would have done years ago, hell, even a month ago. But that was before Honor. Before he’d actually seen and experienced goodness. He wanted Maksimov to suffer as no man had ever suffered. He wanted to return all that Maksimov had done to Honor tenfold. But that made him no better, no different than the monster who’d brutalized Honor and countless others. He didn’t want to be that man anymore. He wanted to be a man Honor would have been proud of. He wanted to be worthy of her. He wanted to be like her.

“You deserve no mercy for what you have wrought,” Hancock said in a voice that seethed with both anger and grief. “But I am better than you. And I won’t lower myself to your standards. I will not become you.”

He turned, sparing only a quick glance at the men who’d stood guard. Who’d saved Honor. Who even now were prepared to turn their back on what he wanted to do to Maksimov and swear ignorance of his fate. Good men whom he would have dragged into hell with him if he’d carried out his vengeance.

“Hand him over to Resnick. I have no use for this pathetic piece of shit,” Hancock spat, ignoring the looks of surprise and . . . respect. He walked past them and kept walking, only wanting to be away from this place and the memories that burrowed insidiously into his mind. Closing his eyes to all he’d gained—and lost—in such a short amount of time. A lifetime.

“Hey, hold up,” Rio said, jogging after his former teammate.

Hancock stopped, but all he wanted to do was just go. To be left alone.

“Want a ride to Honor’s place? By the time we get stateside, she’ll be at her family’s house.”

For a moment he couldn’t breathe for the pain splintering through his body, heart, soul.

“No,” he finally said in a low voice.

Rio shot him a look of surprise. “What the fuck, man? You’re walking away?”

Hancock turned on him, his features savage as anger rushed hot through his veins.

“I betrayed her. I broke so many promises I can’t even count. I don’t deserve her and she certainly deserves a hell of a lot better than me. She hates me but not more than I hate myself.”

“Don’t do this, man,” Rio said, his eyes dark with sympathy. “Don’t do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

“Too late,” Hancock bit out, and he turned and walked away.

CHAPTER 42

KYLE Phillips stood in the living room of Honor’s parents’ home facing her entire family. Her mother, father, four brothers and her sister. There was stark grief in their eyes because he knew they assumed the worst.

The news had broken just the night before that the terrorist group responsible for the attack on the relief center Honor had volunteered at had been completely taken out by a joint U.S. special forces unit and SEAL teams. Her family was fully prepared to be told that their daughter’s death, although already broadcast over the news for endless days and nights immediately following the attack, could now be officially confirmed. There’d been no survivors, according to reports, though Honor’s body had never been returned. It was through that, that her family had clung stubbornly to hope. But now? They fully expected official confirmation of Honor’s death.

After formally introducing himself, Kyle asked them to sit and waited until they complied before he said what he’d come to say. There was no easy or delicate way to say what he had to say, and he wasn’t one to tiptoe around an issue. It was a lot less time consuming to get straight to the point.

“Your daughter is alive,” he said, no inflection to his tone as he took in all their faces and the sudden change from resignation to wary hope.

There was complete silence. Stunned expressions. Shock. And then it seemed to register what he was telling them. Her mother burst into tears as did her sister. Her brothers rocked forward, faces in their palms, and her father went ashen.

“W-what?” Mandie’s voice quivered as she stared at the Marine in disbelief. “But we were told she was dead. The whole country was told she was dead. It’s all the news has talked about since the attack on the relief center where she worked. What on earth are you saying?”

“She survived,” Kyle said quietly. “I understand this comes as a shock . . .”

He got no further before he was bombarded with questions.