Retribution

The GenTech Chronicles: Book 2

Lea Griffith

Published 2013

ISBN: 978-1-62210-042-2

Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © Published 2013, Lea Griffith. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Liquid Silver Books

http://LSbooks.com

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

She is a woman lost but now found.

Sasha has spent her life dedicated to the freedoms of others. Used to helping, she isn’t prepared to be the one in need. As she holds the hand of death, alone in a courtyard of suffering, she discovers salvation is but a breath away.

He is a man conveniently at the right place, at the right time.

A battle-hardened spec ops soldier, Dray has been sent on a mission he doesn’t understand. Sitting in the hills above a terrorist’s compound, he discovers a woman who is knocking on death’s door and everything clicks. Rescuing her is never a question. Keeping her safe becomes his number one priority.

Evil has taken form, and hell hath no fury like this madman’s twisted mind.

Dempsey isn’t above using whatever or whomever he can to enact payback for a perceived slight. And he revels in his ability to instill fear and pain on those he deems beneath him. His goal is vengeance, and yet he has no idea what he’s set in motion or the lengths Dray and Sasha will go to protect themselves and eliminate him in the process.

They are on a collision course that will change their lives in ways none could anticipate. How much can love take when evil stalks?

Dedication

To my very first readers. You asked for more. Here it is.

To Nana, Chunk, and Bitty—go on girls, DO YO’ THANG!

And as always, to Griff. You know why.

Acknowledgements

A big THANK YOU to the following people.

David Bridger—There’re no words, ObiWan. There’re just no words.

Sidney Bristol—Your support has meant and continues to mean the world. In for a penny, in for a pound—we’ll be rich for sure, yeah?

Becca Jameson—For allowing me to drop ‘f’ bombs indiscriminately and even in polite company, you have my friendship and loyalty for-effing-ever.

Mama—Your support is unwavering. Your non-stop belief in me makes you the best mother in the world.

Lacey Thacker—Editor extraordinaire and obviously the most knowledgeable comma user in the entire history of the world. I’ll be talking colloquialisms all day long. There’s a test later, ’k?

This book wouldn’t be what it is without you. I’m glad I got you for CE’s. Hope I’m lucky enough to get you again.

Debra Gillen, aka the Commakaze—You are quite simply amazing. How one author could get lucky enough to have two comma aficionados on one book, I have no idea, but I hit the jackpot. It’s as if—almost like I—ah, never mind—I’ll never understand that rule. I’m glad I got you for FLE’s. Thank you for taking my words and making them shine brighter.

And again to my readers—Thank you for letting me spill my words into your mind. I hope you enjoy the hell out of it and come back to me for more.

2011

Afghanistan

Laid out in the dirt, gaze lifted to a starless night, Sasha ignored the numbness that crawled through her body. Silent and deadly, the chill spread its tentacles and struck deep, relentlessly pursuing all the strength she had left.

The sun had descended thirty minutes ago behind the towering mountains of the Hindu Kush, taking any hint of warmth with it. As darkness stole across the land, blistering winds and tiny crystalline drops of water fell to the earth. Almost as if the sky wept for her.

She struggled to draw breath, the air catching in her lungs, thick and frigid, painful. War and terror owned the nights in Kabul, and the wind scolded her lack of diligence. Being attentive kept you fed and safe. Action kept you alive. Paralysis via indecision? That got you dead. She’d been taken almost three days ago, though she’d had warning from the youngest daughter of her friend Kharima. Sasha had chalked it up to Lily’s fears and let the caution go unheeded.

She regretted that now.

Her insides quivered in memory of the pain her kidnappers had inflicted on her the last few days. They’d broken her body with an ease that had fear burrowing into her soul. They’d almost broken her mind.

A
thud
followed by a
snap
sounded off to her right, bringing her to the present. Her heart, sluggish and heavy, kicked into a frantic beat as fear stalked her. Her instinct to flee pummeled her, demanding obedience.

Her body refused to respond. Soft, mewling sounds reached her ears but seemed to come from within. Terror coated her mind as her choppy breath left white wisps in the air. If they were coming back, she wouldn’t last long.

Sasha’s gaze sought the source of the sound as panic pounded inside her skull. She tried desperately to slow her breathing. If they thought her dead, perhaps they wouldn’t bother with her anymore. Maybe the noise had been some animal.

Her vision was hazy at best, but she appeared to be in some type of courtyard surrounded on two sides by high concrete walls. In the distance, mountains rose up like jagged rips into the fabric of an early night sky. No moon tonight, and she couldn’t tell where the backdrop of tinny light came from in the distance.

What did it matter anyway? She was going to die here, cold and alone.

Several seconds and no more sounds later, she worked to rein her breathing. The effort cost her a few moments of lucidity before the wind pulled her back from a black void. It was cold as hell, and her life drained as surely as her fight to live, down into the hard Afghan soil. Blood coated the sharp rocks around her. Where had it all come from?

She moved her head, and vicious railroad spikes of pain sliced into her mind. Nausea rolled and she gagged. She opened her eyes, focused to her left. Rage, pure and unadulterated, poured into her veins even as the breath stripped from her lungs.

Kharima.

Bludgeoned almost beyond recognition, her friend lay on the ground a few feet away, a heinous, blood-crusted grin bisecting her throat. Her beautiful black hair blew in the wind, the strands lifting to the sky in supplication. Her left hand, still bearing the cross ring Sasha had given her five weeks ago, lay palm up as if she reached for Sasha in death.

The ground wasn’t saturated with Sasha’s blood but rather that of the wonderful, brave woman who’d fought for freedom alongside her.

She remembered the pledge she’d made to Kharima not even two days ago, and she began to shake not just with cold but with a virulent wrath and potent sense of failure. It was all for naught. Her pain, her work…none of it mattered.

Her brain froze as it tried to process the enormity of her situation and loss. She opened her mouth to beg forgiveness but had no idea if anyone heard her. The truth sank in slowly. Moments ago just a fleeting thought, it became a knowledge she couldn’t deny.

She’d die here in this hell of a country. All of her fight was gone.

Sasha turned that awareness over in her mind and held out her hand to the encroaching darkness. It welcomed her, and giving over, she sighed as it ushered her into oblivion.

*

Dray stared through the night scope. Two fucking hours. No one could survive that long in these dropping temperatures. And snow had begun falling over an hour ago.

The muscles in his neck burned, mostly from the urge to move, to get her. He and his team had been sent to recon el-Din. And, as Command had reminded him, that was his primary objective, not some woman foolish enough to get her ass captured and staked out in the snow.

And what the hell were
he and his men
, one of the highly specialized Black Ops teams, doing sitting on an abandoned compound in the middle of Bumfuck, anyway?

He adjusted his scope. Had she just moved?

Nah. She wasn’t moving. Dray’s mind drifted back to something that’d been bugging him for several days. As team leader, he reported to General Post, took his orders from Post. Not this time. This time his orders came from Command. And they’d been ordered to stand down and not engage once movement had been spotted.

Why?

El-Din was small potatoes. So why had they been given orders to not interfere as they’d witnessed the torture of two women, one clearly an American? His men, hardened as they were, had nearly lost it as they’d been forced to watch and listen as hour after hour the first woman had been brutalized. They’d come damn close to rebelling. Hell, so had he.

When the bastards slit the Afghani woman’s throat, finally putting an end to her pain and humiliation, Dray had come perilously close to ordering Itchy, their sniper, to put a bullet through the head of the man wielding the knife.

She’d died as silently as she’d suffered. It had been one of the bravest acts Dray had ever witnessed.

Activity within the compound had calmed for about twelve hours after that, and then this woman had been brought in.

Two men dragged her into the compound and dropped her onto the hard, frozen dirt. One man spit on her, and the other had taken special measures to walk around and kick her right hip. A small, keening cry had ripped from her as the bastard kicked her. The sound echoed into the surrounding hillsides and took root in his mind. He’d hear that cry forever.

It hadn’t been simply pain. Defiance sang in its notes and called to Dray.

Over the mic, Itchy snarled.

“Stand down,” Dray commanded.

“Beg pardon, sir, but this is bullshit.”

His sniper was right; it was bullshit.

Her appearance, so small between the two men, led him to initially believe it was a child they’d dragged in. Once they threw her down and she’d settled, it was plain to see that though she was small, lightweight, and compact, she was very obviously a grown woman. Her clothes were matted with blood and dirt, and her feet were bare. Her right hand, the fingers all at odd angles, lay uselessly on the ground beside her. Her hair had been hacked off just inches below her ears, but from what he could tell of the color, it seemed to be light brown. It, too, was muddied with blood and dirt, but it could be dark blonde.

Tension coiled like a snake through their links. His men had reached the same conclusion he had—she was not Afghani. The shit had been close to hitting the fan, so he’d tapped his comm link twice to signal they should calm down.

That’d been two hours ago.

Below him, she stirred in the filthy compound. His chest tightened as he scoped her.

Even through the eerie green halo of the night ocular, he was able to see high, arching brows over large, expressive eyes. She had a strong jawline and pert nose that tipped up slightly at the end. She was bruised and bloody, a broken rag doll, half-lying on her left side, pale and struggling to breathe. He passed the scope over the yard and then back to her.

She turned her head and looked directly at him.

He pulled the eyepiece away, looked back again. His breath stopped in his chest and gooseflesh rose on his arms. Her eyes were desolate pools of agony. Logically, he knew there was no way she could see him, but the tie had been established. His mind struggled with that truth even as his body shuddered under the force of the connection.

A single instant of contact through the lens of his scope had tagged his soul. Dray was going after her one way or another.

“Forgive me.”

Even with their sophisticated equipment, her words were faint, barely audible. He wasn’t sure what she needed forgiveness for, but one thing was certain—she’d suffered enough.

It was time to get her the fuck out of there.

“Itchy, move two meters toward the south wall. Surrey, you go four meters to his right.” One by one, Dray positioned his men.

He glanced in the scope again. Her eyes were closed. Dead or unconscious? Everything in him rejected the former.

No. After all she’d undergone, she’d damn well live.

One click of the comm link from each man signaled confirmation of the order.

“Surrey, lock down the gate between the walls. Bleak, get the west wall. Con, you’re with me.”

His men positioned themselves, and he met Connor in a slight depression about ten meters from the woman. They had to get her out soon, or it would be body recovery only.

“Surrey, any movement?”

“Negative, sir.”

“Itchy?” The question in Dray’s voice was enough. His men knew him.

“Negative, sir. I’m in position.”