Colleen flipped and grabbed Anjali around the shoulders, hugging her. “You’re all right. You’re okay. I’m so sorry I got you into this. I never should’ve introduced you to Jian. I never should’ve gone with Tristan. I would never have talked to him if I’d have known it would end up like this. Are you okay?Did they hurt you?”
Anjali was hugging Colleen back and sobbing into her shoulder. “I knew you would come back for me. I was afraid they’d captured you and were using you to get me to open the door. They wouldn’t let Jian talk to me anymore after he told me to keep the door closed when they were beating him. I was afraid they’d get you.”
“Did they hurt you? I will murder those assholes if they hurt you.” She pushed Anjali back to look at her. “I was sitting outside, waiting with the guys who blew the windows in, and I imagined terrible things.I will murder every single one of them.”
Purple and brown bruises smudged Anjali’s left eye and around her throat and upper arms. “I’m okay.”
“Did they—” Colleen swallowed the sick in her throat. “Did they assault you?”
Anjali shook her head, and the shake seemed earnest enough to be honest but not like she was going overboard to hide it. “No. They hit me. He choked me. They said they would rape me if Jian did not tell them where Tristan King was. Then the next time they let me go to the bathroom, I unscrewed the toilet from its footings and pushed it against the door. With that, I could brace myself against this wall and hold it there with my feet. I was so afraid, and I almost came out when they started beating Jian, except he kept yelling at me not to come out. I know some Malay because a friend of mine in India was born in Malaysia and she taught me, so we have been talking in Malay when we didn’t want them to know what we were saying. Jian said that Tristan would come for us. He said to have hope because Tristan wouldn’t forget his friends. And I told him that you are my best friend in the world and that you can shoot a gun, and that you would come and kill these men. That’s how we kept our hopes up.”
Colleen was crying again by the time Anjali had finished, and they were hanging onto each other’s necks. “You’re not wrong. I swear to God, if they touched you, I was going to murder every one of them. Please tell me you’re all right.”
“I’m all right. I’m okay.”
“How long have you been in here?”
“Since this afternoon.”
“Tristan is right outside, and so is Jian. We can go out now. It’s safe.”
Anjali nodded, and Colleen braced herself and used her legs to shove the toilet far enough aside that they could squeeze out the door. “Jeez, is the water tank still full?”
“I stuffed rags in it and then refilled it to make it heavier.”
“Anjali, you did such a good job. I’m so proud of you.”
She blinked a lot and sniffled.
When they emerged from the bathroom, Tristan was sitting on the bed with his arm around Jian’s shoulders.
Anjali rushed over to Jian and hugged him. Jian was slow to put his arms around her and winced as he moved his arm. “I am so sorry, Anjali, my heart and soul. I have failed you.”
With the kidnappers secured, the commandos had removed their night-vision goggles. All of them were absurdly tall, which Colleen chalked up to self-selection for athletic and special forces types.
A man leaned in through the open door. “It is time to go. The police have been called and will arrive shortly. Our technical person has already uploaded the footage of what we found to the police. The video and audio that we have turned over to them is more than enough to charge and convict them. A complaint was already filed.”
His accent was the Dutch lilt that Colleen had recognized from when she’d arrived at the camp and had been trying to convince them to let her go on the assault. In the dark and with the NVGs obscuring the top half of his face, she hadn’t realized that Magnus Jensen had ice-blue eyes, black hair, and a stern handsomeness that was absolutely startling.
He continued, “Anjali and Jian, it is your choice whether to stay here and talk to the police or leave with us. You can talk to them later. However, my operators would prefer not to be here when the police arrive.”
Another guy leaned in from the other side of the door and said with the Irish accent she recognized from Eian Summerhays, “How are you now, then? Are you ready to leave?”
Eian was another absolutely gorgeous specimen of a man with high fae features, gold hair curling around his face and bound at the back of his head, and sage green eyes.
Colleen must be reading too much romantic fantasy. All Eian was missing were pointy ears and the crown of the Spring Court.
Where had all these gorgeous guys been when Colleen was single, though?
Not that she wasn’t single now.
Jeez, she and Tristan should talk about what the hell was going on.
But for just then, Colleen rested her arm around Anjali’s shoulders. “Honey, what do you want to do?”
Anjali had stood up and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk to anybody.”
Tristan said, “Then you’re coming with us. Jian, do you want to give your statement to the police or leave with us for the time being?”
