2-Stroke (SEAL Team Alpha #14) - Zoe Dawson Page 0,3

wait while they saved their teammates. The brotherhood was stronger than any other oath he’d taken. No man left behind. No man forsaken.

They entered into a wide-open space. If these were her living quarters, she was taking shabby chic to a new low. Their footsteps were hollow as they walked across the concrete floor. “That’s far enough,” she said, her voice coming out of the shadows.

“We don’t have time for games, Quell. All we need is your answer.”

He sensed movement in other dark places of the cavernous room. His hand dropped to his waist, reaching back, but she spilled from the swirling shadows like a dark angel, a wicked looking handgun in her grip pointed at him. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“What is this?” He raised his hands. “You on Darko’s payroll for more than cage fighting?” He stepped forward and she held her ground. He came up against the muzzle of the weapon, pressing it into his chest right over his heart. Coming to a sudden, tight-jawed halt, he took big fistfuls of her stretchy tunic and sleek black jacket and hauled her up to meet his glare. Nothing but her tiptoes touched the floor. “Don’t,” he said in his best I’ll-eat-you-for-breakfast voice. “Not if you want to get out of here alive.”

“What do you want with him?” she asked without one shred of fear. “I’m only going to ask once.”

Somewhere in Croatia, The Balkans

Chry stared straight ahead, her cheek resting against the grit and dirt on the metal bars that had been her scenery for…she’d lost track of time. Her head felt full, and her breath came in small gasps, like life-saving hiccups of the oxygen that Zasha and Darko’s sadistic minions had cut off when they’d repeatedly dunked her head into a barrel of water. Her diaphragm still hurt from the press of the wooden frame against her torso.

Zasha wanted the new codes into the CIA database, and Chry’s refusal to give them to her was the only thing that was keeping her alive. She heard footsteps, and her eyes barely moved when those familiar boots, a small nick in the heel, showed up. He ran a metal baton along the bars and crouched down so she could see his face.

Young and already messed up, leering at her like he wanted to not only hurt her but get off on her pain. She clenched her jaw. All she needed was five minutes…less than that to break his perverted neck.

Fear of Darko and Zasha was the only thing that kept him at bay.

She dismissed him as he rose. “One day, beautiful, then you will be fair game,” he murmured in the heavy accent of the Bosnian language, his slow footsteps retreating. She was certain she would hear them in her nightmares.

She hadn’t seen 2-Stroke since she’d been thrown in this cell, and she was sick with concern about what they were doing to him.

Zasha had wanted something from him. Chry was certain of that.

The sound of a door clanged open, then closed. The snick of the lock made her tense. Then two guards came in dragging a man between them. They opened the door in the cell adjacent to hers.

For a moment, she didn’t recognize him. But as soon as she glimpsed the line of his beautiful jaw, she realized it was 2-Stroke.

“Neo,” she croaked, shocked at the rusty sound of her own voice.

They threw him inside and he rolled. Right now, he was clothed in only a pair of pants, but the guards threw in a shirt on top of his body. She clutched at her threadbare shirt, thankful to be clothed after being nude in the preliminary days of their captivity.

“Neo,” she tried again, louder, but he was lost as he gasped and groaned, pulling into a fetal position, shaking and wrapping his arms around himself as if he were trying to hold his essence inside. Then he went limp.

“Oh, God. What have they done to you?”

She closed her eyes, so tired, so scared. She dozed off into a fitful sleep but woke with a start at the sound of anguish. Opening her eyes, she saw him in the same position, but this time his heavenly blue eyes were a bit far away, his lids closing and opening again. Drugs. They’d given him drugs. For what purpose?

She pushed up and crawled to the bars separating them. Zasha and Darko had made a grave mistake. Together they were stronger, together they could come up with an