Every protocol he’d ever learned went out the window. The room, the door, the zip ties—none of it mattered. All that mattered was getting to her.
He moved without thinking, scooting across the concrete on his knees because his hands were useless behind his back. The rough floor scraped through the fabric of his jeans, and his bruised ribs screamed with every shift of his weight, but he barely registered it. Six feet had never felt so far.
“Viv.” His voice came out like gravel, barely more than a rasp. He knocked his shoulder against hers. “Vivi, come on.”
No response. But her chest rose and fell, shallow and steady. Breathing. Alive.
Relief made him lightheaded. Or maybe that was the tranq still pumping through his bloodstream.
She’s okay. She’s okay.
Except she wasn’t okay, because they were both zip-tied in an underground bunker and he didn’t know who had them or what they wanted, and the last time he’d been this scared?—
No. He’d never been this scared.
He’d been scared in the field. Scared during that mess in Kyrgyzstan when their extraction went sideways. Scared when the call came in about Brennan missing in action. But those fears had training between him and the panic. This didn't.
This was different. This was Vivianna. His Vivi. And the terror wasn’t tactical. It was animal, primal. It bypassed every trained response and went straight for the throat.
His gaze kept returning to the blood on her temple.
This was his fault. He never should have talked to her in that club. Never should have let her buy him that drink. Never should have taken her to his car like some horny teenager who couldn’t keep it in his pants for ten goddamn minutes.
Everything was always his fault when it came to Vivi.
“Viv.” He nudged his shoulder harder against hers. “Wake up. Please.”
A sound. Low, barely audible. A groan that started somewhere deep in her chest and worked its way out throughclenched teeth. Her head shifted, her hair sliding across her face, and then her brow furrowed—that particular furrow he knew so well, the one that meant she was fighting something.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Come on, Viv. Open those beautiful eyes for me.”
She groaned again, louder this time, and her bound hands twitched in her lap. Slowly—agonizingly slowly—she lifted her head and blinked. Her eyes were unfocused and glassy, the green barely visible in the low light. She looked at the ceiling first. Then the walls. Then down at her wrists.
Then at him.
For a moment, she just stared. Her expression moved through confusion to recognition to fear, and then locked down.
“Dom.” Her voice dragged, thick with whatever they’d been dosed with. She blinked again, harder, and shook her head. Winced, tried to touch her temple, and only then realized her hands were bound. “What?—”
“We were drugged. Grabbed from the car.” He kept his voice casual, like this was no big deal and he already had a plan to escape.
He didn’t.
Not the first fucking clue.
She stared at him for another beat. Then her eyes flashed. She was done being disoriented and was ready to be furious instead.
There she was.
His Vivi.
No.
Fuck.
Not his.
He’d told himself a thousand times he wouldn’t go there again with her. Which was ironic, considering what they’d been doing in the backseat of his car before they were abducted.
