Variations (Base Branch Series Book 9) Read online

  No. No. No.

  A shiver wracked her body. The processor slipped from her fingers and back onto the bed sheet. She was so close to getting the shattered thing back together. She was also close to death.

  In a room with no reflective surfaces except a cracked cell screen, she'd looked at it the day after the beating three days ago and then again that morning. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the festering wound again. A fuzzy lump formed in her throat simply thinking about it.

  The prison reeked of infection, dried blood, and sweat.

  They didn’t care.

  Marina Sorensen wasn’t a woman to beg, but she’d shoved her pride into a dark corner of her soul and wept on her knees for antibiotics, some salve, or a goddamned sanitary wipe. They’d laughed, beyond pleased with themselves for finally breaking her.

  Why did she care? Death would be a welcome relief to the existence she’d survived the last two years and twenty-five days. And wasn’t that the crux of it. She’d survived. Through the dark nights. Through the heavy hands, hot breaths, and uninvited cocks. Through the terror of losing those close to her. Through it all, she was a survivor.

  Let yourself die, Marina.

  The stiff bedding caught her sob.

  Cara hadn’t saved her. Why would she? The woman had risked her life to rescue Marina from the Brotherhood once before, only to be stabbed in the heart. Betrayed. Guilt clogged her windpipe. Tears careened down her nose, forming a puddle on the scratchy sheet.

  The bastards had tied Marina in front of a green screen and beaten her so thoroughly, she’d thought she’d never been hit before, and she had. Too many times. So many times. They’d sent the video to Cara as a torture tactic.

  How unbelievably stupid they were.

  Cara probably warmed a bag of popcorn, pulled up a front-row seat, and cheered while watching the misdeeds on repeat.

  Marina couldn’t blame her. Not at all.

  Time to give up.

  Her knees tucked under her chin, and her arms covered her face. Pathetic. Why had she even been born? Her dad was right. She was a waste of good fresh air.

  Shouts reverberated through the bar, past the offices and storage room, and into her prison. The noise jerked her from her self-pity stupor. Her eyes locked on the cell phone pieces scattered across the bed. A giant had used her chest as a kneepad.

  Sure, fashioning a screwdriver out of a bedspring would take more time, but so long as breath rattled in her lungs, she’d take it one step at a time until she could use that damn phone again.

  Marina listed to the side and scooted the parts toward her pillow with the back of her hand. She heaved a straw stuffed breath. Her body quaked at the effort, but she sat and shoved one piece at a time through the hole she’d cut in the cushion. Each component was spaced far enough apart they wouldn’t clank together when she grabbed her pillow to her chest during her evening check.

  The imbeciles overlooked the pillow. They’d overlooked her until she’d gotten caught with the phone the first time.

  Down the hallway, the pitch of voices grew high. Footsteps rumbled out the front door. When would those stupid radicals learn not to screw with the Brotherhood?

  Marina should have learned that lesson when she was ten—when her father bought into their brand of terror and shit his life away. She should have learned it at fifteen, after the son of a bitch died in an arms deal gone wrong, and she, her sister, and mother lost the sliver of protection between them and the Brödraskapet. Sixteen brought her another opportunity for life lessons. No one gives a shit about you. Not even your own mother.

  The woman who’d given birth to her, fed her, and acted as the only buffer she had between her and her father and then the band of bastards, tossed her to the wolves. Marina’s giver of life offered her as a distraction while she ran the other way and dragged Marina’s twelve-year-old sister along behind her.

  She should have run. Had Marina known her fate, she would have bolted as if the house was on fire. It had been slowly burning to the ground while she huddled inside. Only she hadn’t noticed. Terror had batted her emotions around like a cat’s ball of yarn. What would happen to her if she left the only home she’d ever known? What if her mother came back for her?

  Right.

  The Brotherhood hadn’t been what it was today. They hadn’t put her to immediate use. The group had been contented with prison and city block domination. They’d been ready to implode with the two sides fighting against the middle.

  Until mass immigration.

  Competition came in hot by the hundred thousands. The sand-rats, as the Brotherhood called them, interrupted their arms trafficking and then honed in on their drugs. They spouted about taking over the world. Damn, but it had unified the flailing Brotherhood. It gave them a common enemy and a goal. Run the country. At least it wasn’t the world, but it had been her world.

  3

  “Waiting on me?” Oliver extended his hand toward his friend.

  “Yeah, you overgrown child.” Hunter smacked his palm to Oliver’s and yanked.

  His topknot of beach-blond hair wobbled but held firm. A few permanent flyaways framed the baby face he hid behind a beard. He kept his beard grizzly between missions but slightly more civilized when dealing in guns, bulletproof vests, and explosives. The whole look exemplified his footloose and fancy-free attitude.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Hunter shoved him toward the building like the big brother-from-another-mother he was. “If you don’t stop the crazy-kid routine, you’re going to end up dead.”

  “I have seven lives left.”

  Oliver rushed the bar door, gun in holster, still playing the part of the tourist. His eyes adjusted quickly from the blinding sun to the candle lamp and TV lit interior. Tall, abandoned stools lined a brass-railed mahogany bar that ran the width of the building.

  “Where’s the bartender? I need a drink,” Oliver poked.

  “Look here, asshole, I only have one life.”

  Guilt flailed inside Oliver’s chest, splashing and crying his name until it slowly slipped under the surface. He gulped a breath and then another.

  The wall at the opposite end of the bar anchored him to the present. Nearly a thousand bottles stood on prettily painted shelves. Brilliantly backlit, they sparkled green, blue, and opalescent like the shining gates of heaven.

  “A thousand bottles of beer on the wall. A thousand bottles of beer. You take one down. You pass it around. Nine hundred ninety-nine bottles of—”

  “Shut up, Ollie. There are a thousand damn bottles, but I don’t need that damn song stuck in my head.”

  “Killjoy.”

  Several clusters of leather-pleated sofas and chairs filled the surprisingly haughty establishment. Small mahogany tables formed their focal points and boasted unfinished pints in chilled mugs and, yes, more bottles. They’d spent some money on the place, re-doing the wall with decorative wainscoting and crown molding in rich green atop the raw brick. It was a place he wouldn’t mind chilling and draining a few, if it weren’t run by dickless wonders.

  Oliver’s legs ate the floor in two strides and cleared the high bar with little more than a finger on the shiny top for balance.

  “Fuck you very much, Legs.” Hunter glared at him, ran at the bar, and used a stool as a hand up over the high surface.

  “It’s not my fault you’re short.”

  “I’m not short,” Hunter snarled.

  “Fine. It’s not my fault I’m tall.” Oliver rolled his eyes and turned toward the back.

  They pushed past the door, leading to the back, and both men pulled their weapons. Tribal two-toned Sig Sauers that matched from the P226 to the .40 caliber and everything between.

  Oliver had plopped the box in front of Hunter three days after he’d saved Hunter’s life on their first op. Hunter had made a rookie mistake, and he’d been there from the word go.

  The gift had confused Hunter. He insisted it should have been the other
way around. Then he’d opened the package.

  Oliver replayed his words. ‘Who the fuck cares if the silver slide catches the light. The sorry sucker unlucky enough to see the glint won’t be alive long enough to do a damn thing about it. This gun will never choke on your ammo. This gun will never leave you high and dry. Neither will I.’

  Hunter still didn’t get the real meaning behind the guns. Hunter didn’t know he’d allowed Oliver to repay a lifelong debt because he didn’t know about Oliver’s past. Hunter knew that Oliver would never abandon his brother, no matter the antics. Never again.

  They swept the john. Nothing but a stench to note. The storeroom held boxes and…”

  “A thousand bottles of—”

  Hunter quieted him with a glare. They backed out into the corridor. Two closed doors remained in the long hallway.

  “Flip you for it,” Oliver whispered.

  In unison, they nodded to the door on the left. They counted with head bobs. Three. Two. Go. Instead of kicking it in, as he wanted, Oliver tried the handle. The small brass knob twisted under his hand.

  Oliver went high. Hunter low.

  A quick glide of his Sig showed no hostiles and a boon. Three large computer screens cluttered a desk connected to a large tower underneath.

  Hunter pulled a device from his pocket while Oliver kept an eye on the door. He slid the backless jump drive into the slot Cord Strong—their new tech genius on high dollar loan from Stronghold Tech, who looked more like a fucking SEAL than a computer nerd—had shown them. The thing nested easily and blended into the black exterior. One objective down.

  “Let’s move,” Hunter whispered

  One room left. Hopefully, it held Marina. Then they’d only have one more to go.

  Oliver led them through the hallway and to the door. Locked. He pulled a pick kit from his pocket and made quick work of the old handle.

  Caustic fumes of dead flesh shot up his nostrils and stained his tongue before he crossed the threshold into the stark room. Oliver’s stomach roiled and the adrenaline he fed on through missions drained from his fingertips. They were too late. He should have insisted they move sooner. Hunter’s rules be damned.

  They might have saved her.

  His boots rounded the threshold and braced, but nothing could have prepared Oliver for the sight before him. Labored breaths heaved from Marina Sorensen’s tattered form.

  The waif of a woman curled into the fetal position. Stringy white blond hair clung to the tops of her shoulders. Near her forehead, sweat tarnished its light color. A threadbare white tee soaked in perspiration molded to the gentle curve of her bottom and the caps of her knobby shoulders. Brilliant green bruises contrasted with the dirty white. The savagery covered the tops of her arms and her legs…

  God in heaven. Her legs.

  Rage bubbled to the point of brimming Oliver’s veins. He’d like to pull a U-turn, center the cobblestone street, and play target practice with every fucker who’d come out of this place.

  Oliver crossed the room on wobbly legs and crouched on the balls of his feet in front of her cot. He lifted his hand to soothe her but didn’t know where to touch without inflicting pain. He didn’t know what to say to reassure her. His mouth gaped like an idiot. His rage didn’t know exactly what to do. Only he was bound by international laws and shit that didn’t make much sense at the moment.

  His fists pressed against the floor, causing the muscles in his forearms to bulge. His shoulders stretched the sleeves of his T-shirt, and ridges of tightly bound veins and meat strained in his neck. He tried to move the earth, to make every wrong thing right again. Too damn bad he didn’t succeed.

  Only the wide blue eyes that stared back from the cartoon she’d formed kept Oliver from exacting bare bones revenge. They captivated him as surely as an electric chair. Back straight. Tendons taut. Hairs on end.

  Both of Oliver’s knees hit the ground in front of the bundle of abused femininity, yet he maintained a tentative distance. His hand unfurled from the concrete floor, palms up, and he offered them to her with a string of Finnish in a gentle, measured cadence.

  A small knit formed between the girl’s big blue eyes. Hell, he assumed she had a second eye under that curtain of hair and hands.

  “I don’t speak Finnish.” The wispy, sarcastic words bled out through the protective barrier.

  “But you speak English.” A small chuckle rumbled from Hunter’s chest behind him. Hilarious.

  At least, she had some spunk. She’d need it before all was said and done because they were far from safe.

  “Yes.” She pushed up to one hip with a quaking arm and held the other around her stomach. The curtain fell from her face, and Lord, if she wasn’t the most beautiful pale thing he’d seen. Nothing like his type—tanned or darker, and curves for days—but bewitching as all hell. Both her sky blue peepers shifted from him to Hunter and back. “Who are you?”

  “We’re here to save you. Can you walk?” Oliver stood slowly, continuing to show her his hands.

  “Where’s Tor Royan?” Hunter asked.

  Oliver’s head snapped around. A glare found his friend in its crosshairs.

  Hunter shrugged as if he wasn’t seeing the girl Oliver was but only the objective. After all, an objective was an objective.

  “Where’s Royan?” Hunter prodded.

  “Dude, chill,” Oliver warned.

  “You chill. We have three objectives,” Hunter explained.

  Too quickly, Oliver was finding an outlet for his anger. He dredged a deep breath, set his shoulders, and turned on his buddy.

  “Are you from Stronghold?” The question came from the woman shivering on the bed.

  Both men froze for longer than they should’ve, stunned into a stupor, not for the first time by this tiny lady. Oliver hitched a brow at him in question, and Hunter gave an imperceptible shake.

  Not a fucking clue, Brother.

  How would a tart know about the contract-based private securities group that paraded as a tech company? Hell, most of the private securities companies they bid against didn’t know Stronghold dealt in securities. The wizard leader, Taylor Strong, engineered it that way. The world knew them as Stronghold Tech, a boutique tech firm that dealt in all things geek.

  Most of the shit Stronghold pulled was below the books. Not that everything Base Branch did was the broad daylight type, but Branch represented the United Nations, and the UN represented a shit-ton of countries. So their paperwork got shuffled where their op was most legal. Stronghold Tech was privately owned, meaning they only had to answer to their head honcho—Taylor Strong—and the US government.

  And Strong had most of them by the short and curlies.

  “How do you know about Stronghold?” Oliver turned and studied the source of their bewilderment more closely.

  “I…” She swallowed, her head canting forward as if the move hurt. “I don’t really. I’ve just overheard what the Brödraskapet said and assumed…” Her white lips pressed together.

  “What did they say?” Hunter demanded. Oliver shot another glare over his shoulder. They needed to know what she knew, but growling wasn’t the way to get it. Since when? It was usually his go-to. That and his fists.

  Since he’d laid eyes on Marina.

  “They talked about the assholes with big guns who saved another girl they’d held captive in this room. They told me that Stronghold Tech would never save me.”

  Well, Oliver hoped that made his friend feel like a big hairy ass.

  Who was the girl they’d saved? What rich SOB contracted Stronghold to do the job? Why hadn’t they come back for Marina in the—holy fuck, that was a shitload of tick marks on the wall next to him—more than two years she’d been held here? There was more to the story.

  Hunter finally spared him a glance that wouldn’t make a grown man cry. The simple look told Oliver that his friend felt like shit, and he also knew there was more too, but it wasn’t the time to push.

  “Where’s Royan?”
Hunter whispered.

  “Dipshit.” Oliver offered a bone-melting glare.

  “What? I didn’t ask about Stronghold.” Hunter shrugged.

  “There are two Royan brothers. Neither are here.” Marina shook her head but faltered. Her elbow buckled. Oliver caught her by the back of the neck.

  “I’m going to look around,” Hunter announced. “Get her out and I’ll meet you around back.”

  Skin to skin contact rippled up Oliver’s arm. Her thick, chalky lips parted on a moan that had nothing to do with the ecstasy. Rapture should be the only thing forcing those sounds from such a majestic creature. Heat suffused his palm and sank deeper, softening his bones. Damp hair caressed his fingers. Wide eyes the color and pattern of a sunny day speckled with gauzy clouds pulled him under. So much for keeping his distance. He’d known from the moment he walked into the room that she was trouble. It was the worst kind of trouble when the world disappeared except for a stunning face.

  His partner mumbled something in the background. It failed to register for too long in such a vulnerable location. “Get her out. Meet around back.”

  Bruises marred her pretty skin, and the rotten gash wrecked the back of her thigh. What hadn’t they done to her? His guts twisted into a slipknot that threatened to strangle him. Oliver didn’t know where to touch her. A primal urge yanked him by the collar, demanding he scoop her to his chest, shield her from the world, and bring her home.

  What the fuck?

  He slung chicks over his shoulder, smacked their asses, and told them to hang on for the ride of their life. He protected everyone he rescued, but this slight beauty knocked him back a step. Maybe it was her size or perhaps her state. She was so vulnerable. So broken. So beautiful. And that made her dangerous.

  How’d she know about Stronghold? What had she done to Cara and Luck? They’d rescued her once before from the Bastardhood, only to be stabbed in the backside and have her end up back where she’d started.

  His plan to pawn her off on Hunter crashed and burned with his bro’s retreating footfalls. Time to man up.