Prologue
Kirkuk, Iraq
Eight Years Ago...
“Who sent you? What do you want?”
The policeman’s accent made his words guttural and hard, but they were nothing compared to the granite fist that smashed into Christian Watson’s nose. A geyser of blood gushed over his lips and seeped into the cut on his chin that had come courtesy of the first round of questioning.
Which had been…what?Twenty minutes ago? Two hours?
Time slowed when you were getting the sodding shit beaten out of you.
One of Christian’s eyes was swollen shut. The other was split in the corner so when he opened it, the crust that had formed over the wound cracked and burned. The pain was worth it to see the fury and impotence on the policeman’s face.
“My name is Christian Watson. I am a corporal inHer Majesty’s Special Air Service.” He rattled off his serial number before clamping his jaws shut. That was all the information the Geneva Conventions required of him. He would give no more.
Another blow landed on his cheek, making his eye feel like it would explode out of its socket. Following that was a punch that drove deep into his gut, precisely over the spot where the bullet had gonethrough and through. The accompanying pain was a living thing that chewed at his intestines with hungry, needle-like teeth.
Dizziness and nausea crashed over him. He might have retched had the chair he was tied to not toppled backward with the force of the blow. When it collided with the floor in the tiny interrogation room, the sound his skull made as it bounced off the tiles was sickening,even to his own ears.
Darkness closed in on him, a malevolent specter hovering at the edge of his vision.
For the first time since he’d opened fire at the roadblock, fear tried to take root in his heart. He could not lose consciousness. Loss of consciousness was a loss of control. Loss of control terrified him worse than any corrupt Iraqi police officer ever could.
He struggled againsthis restraints as his head swam sickly. Trying not to gag at the iron-rich smell of his own blood, he narrowly opened his one good eye to glare up at the policeman. His assailant wore a nasty smile. The hateful expression reminded Christian of a man from long ago. A man who had inflicted pain for the simple pleasure of it. A man who—
The space around Christian shimmered and changed, meltinginto a new, more terrifying whole. Suddenly he was six years old, inside his boyhood room. Gone were the scents of blood and sweat and dry wind heavy with dust. They were replaced by the smells coming from the hulking shadow looming over him: whiskey and smoke, with an underlying hint of rot.
The shadow reached for him. Massive, ham-hock hands curved into brutal, inescapable claws.
Christianwhimpered, scooting backward. But there was no place to go. Nowhere to run.
“Mum!” he yelled, his voice hoarse with terror. “Mum, please!”
But she would not come. It was too late. She was too far gone. He knew she would not come.
A telltaleshhhhnicksounded as a lighter flamed to life. Orange light flickered in the darkness, licking fire into the brutal eyes of the shadowy man. Nowhe looked like what he was. Sadistic. Cruel.Evil incarnate.
Christian braced himself for what would come next. Even so, the first sizzle of fiery pain shocked him with its intensity.
Tossing back his head, he screamed…
* * *
Port Isaac, Cornwall, England
“Wake up, damnit! Wakeup!”
Christian bolted upright in bed. For a couple of confusing seconds he’d lost the plot, notknowing where he was.Whenhe was. There was only darkness and the lingering memory of agony. There was only…her. Emily Scott. The woman who had crawled under his skin and made a home for herself there.
Tunneling up his nose was the exotic smell of her shampoo. It caused him to snap back to the here and now as if he’d been fired from a slingshot.
Buggering hell, he thought at the sametime Emily said, “Holy fucking shit!”
The woman had a mouth on her that never failed to delight him. He might have smiled, had the words she’d spoken not been thick with recently disturbed sleep and something more. Something he thought might be fear.
No doubt he’d been screaming his fool head off. Which would scare the socks off of a seasoned operator, much less a pretty pipsqueak of anoffice manager who had somehow managed to embroil herself in a mission she had no business being part of.
