Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) (37 page)

A door banged open and I glimpsed ancient black and white tiles and porcelain urinals. The men’s bathroom. Why would—

The chair was dropped back onto all four legs, hard enough that my teeth clacked together. While I was still reeling, Powell lifted me, cut the ziptie binding my wrists and then dropped me on my back onto a piece of board that was lying on the floor. I looked up at him and the other men, terrified.
Oh Jesus, they’re going to—

But they didn’t. They grabbed my wrists and ankles and tied them with zipties to drilled holes in the board so that I formed a “T,” my arms outstretched but my legs together. And they didn’t make any move to take off my clothes. Instead, they lifted the foot of the board so that my feet were higher than my head.

I heard a rubbery sound. Looking up, I got an upside-down view of the bearded one twisting a rubber hose onto a faucet. He adjusted it until he had a steady flow of water coming out of the tube.

That’s when I got it.

They were going to waterboard me.

Kian

We ran. But before we were even out of Emily’s bedroom, Miller was keying his radio. “All units,” he began. Then I slammed him into the wall to shut him up. He gaped at me but I was already tearing the radio from him and jerking the earpiece from his ear. “What the
fuck?”
he spluttered.

I leaned into him. “Kerrigan’s men have been ahead of you since the start. Rexortech replaced all your communications gear, remember? They’re tapped into your radios. They’ll be gone before we get there and then we’ll
never
find her. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to do it my way: off the grid.”

For a second he stared at me like he wanted to kill me. Then I saw the uncertainty take over. The guy had never disobeyed an order in his life. Freeing a prisoner and taking him on an unauthorized mission, telling no one where we were going... this was way beyond his comfort zone.

“Fine,” he said at last, and stuffed the radio in his pocket. “Come on.”

We ran on, heading for the garage, but I slowed as we passed the armory. “I need a gun,” I said. “They took mine when they arrested me.”

I expected him to grab me one of the Secret Service pistols. But instead, he unlocked a gun safe, reached in and threw me the holster and gun that were inside.

My
holster and gun. The Desert Eagle he’d taken off me the day I’d arrived. I grabbed it the way a kid grabs their favorite blanket. Then we were running again, not stopping until we were in a Secret Service SUV. Miller slammed it into gear and we tore out of the garage so fast the barrier barely had time to lift.

I just prayed we were in time.

Emily

“No,” I said.

They ignored me. The one with the beard picked up a piece of cloth and shook it out, then walked towards me.

“No,” I said again. This time it wasn’t a plea so much as a denial. I didn’t want to believe this could happen.

The bearded man settled the cloth over my face, the weave rough against my lips.

I started to pull—really pull—against the zipties but they held fast. “
No!”
I yelled through the cloth.

And the water started.

Ever since the park, I’d always felt my fear like black water rising around me, threatening to reach my mouth and nose and spill down inside me, drowning me. This was the real thing. The cold water hissed out of the tube, soaked through the cloth and spread across my forehead. My eyebrows. My nose. My—

I was drowning. I spat and coughed and gagged but there was always more water in my mouth and nose. I was inhaling it, feeling it burn its way down my airway and into my lungs and
Jesus oh Jesus I’m going to die.
The most basic fear of them all. This was worse than anything I’d ever known and there was nothing I could do to stop it—I couldn’t even speak until they chose to turn the water off.

I stopped being rational. I stopped thinking at all. I was a screaming, choking animal that only wanted it to stop. My hands tore at the air and my feet twisted and kicked so hard that I pulled something and pain shot up my leg.

Then the water went away and the cloth was lifted off my face, folded up onto my forehead and left there as a reminder. I took in a huge gulp of air and immediately choked, the air searing my lungs. I coughed and coughed. I hadn’t realized I was crying but tears were streaming down my face.

Powell leaned over me, a cruel smile on his face. “Now. Who did you tell? And did they believe you?”

I opened my mouth to tell him but stopped. I wasn’t being brave. I wasn’t trying to protect Harlan or Kian or my dad. I was way past that, way too scared. But I knew that, as soon as I told him, they’d kill me. Right now, that was frightening enough to make me hesitate but I knew that, given another session, the balance would swing the other way: death would become a welcome escape. I’d give him the names, Kerrigan would win... and I’d have helped usher in a new world where torturing innocents like this was normal.

“Okay, then,” he said.

I’m never going to see Kian again.

The cloth came down over my face.

And the black fear finally won.

Kian

It was just as the photo had shown it: a huge empty lot, filled with rubble, and the hotel standing on its own at the center. I started to see why they’d chosen this place. The windows were boarded up, so they didn’t have to worry about prying eyes, and there was enough space for a small army. The best part was, once this op was over, they’d demolish the building and any evidence would be buried underneath a new office building.

We crept closer. Around back, covered with a tarpaulin, was the same black SUV I’d seen at the museum. We were definitely in the right place.

The main door was locked but we pried off the board that covered the empty doorframe at the rear and sneaked in. A hallway led to an echoey, musty ballroom but I couldn’t see Emily or any of the bastards who’d taken her. Then Miller nodded towards a doorway, silently indicating that he’d heard something. We both crept up to it... and from inside, I heard Emily sobbing. Not
a woman
:
Emily.
I knew the sounds she made when she was scared. They’d been burned into my mind that day at the park.

I knew we should wait while we checked out the rest of the building. We had no idea how many of them were behind that door or how many others were upstairs. We should stop, assess and call for backup.

But someone was hurting
my woman.

I charged the door and kicked it almost off its hinges, yelling a wordless cry of rage. Everyone froze for an instant, startled, and I took in the scene: the board, the cloth over Emily’s face...
Jesus Christ!

Powell was bent low over her, his face inches from hers. When he looked up at me, his mouth was still twisted into a faint grin: he’d been enjoying watching her struggle.
Oh, you son of a bitch.

He focused on my face and saw the pure rage there... and his grin faltered and died.

Time seemed to slow down as I ran at him. He was too close to Emily to risk a shot, but that was fine: shooting was too good for him. As I ran, I squeezed off two shots at the two guys holding the foot of the board. My first shot hit one of them square in the chest and he went flying back against the wall. My second just clipped the other guy but, now that I had my old gun back, the force was enough to spin him around and send him to the ground clutching his shoulder.

And then I was slamming into Powell, my momentum carrying both of us to the floor. Next to me, I was dimly aware of Miller doing the same to the bearded guy.

My first punch caught him right across the jaw. I followed up with another and another, the anger pouring out of me like lava and bringing words with it. “
You don’t touch her!”
I bellowed. “
Nobody touches her!”

I was fighting wild, without any thought to tactics or defending myself. When I’d been a kid, my brother Aedan had been into boxing and he’d won every play-fight we had because I was too angry, too undisciplined. It had never been a problem before, when I had to tussle with some drunk idiot who was threatening a senator, or some guy in a crowd who got too close to Emily. But Powell was ex-military, like me. He’d been trained.

His fist caught me in the kidneys and I felt one whole side of my body go weak as pain flashed up and down my spine. Then we were rolling over and over until we whacked into the white-tiled wall with him on top. Now
I
was taking the blows, the room spinning as his fists pounded me.
Shit.
I managed to get a few more hits in but brute strength wasn’t cutting it, now. I glanced at Emily, still helpless on the board. The cloth still covered her eyes: she couldn’t even see what was going on. She must be
terrified.
The thought of it pumped more anger into my veins but anger wasn’t helping either.

Aedan’s words came back to me across the years, memories I’d pushed to the back of my mind until Emily got me to open up. “
Keep your guard up, you feckin’ idiot. Wait for an opening.”

I lifted my arms and started absorbing the blows, going against my instincts and reigning in my need to hit back. I made myself wait, letting Powell grin and get cocky, thinking he’d won. I waited until he drew his arm back to put me down for good.

And then I got in my one good hit, catching him right in the face.

He flew off me as if he’d been hit by a truck and lay groaning. I got up and, next to me, Miller was getting to his feet as well, the bearded guy unconscious under him. We looked at each other, panting, and then nodded.

I could hear boots thumping in the hallways above us. There must be more men here, upstairs, and they’d heard the shots. I raced to free Emily, wrenching the zip ties free from the board and then pulled her into my arms. She was bruised where she’d strained against her bonds and she couldn’t speak yet, still coughing up water, but she was alive and we were together again. The pain from the beating I’d taken seemed to fade away. As long as she was safe, everything was okay. “It’s alright,” I whispered in her ear.