Page 39 of Her Captivated Hero

Gray couldn’t tell which woman it was. He looked at her hair. The strands were so dank, matted and sweat-soaked, that he couldn’t tell if it was Kelley’s brown hair or Chantelle’s blond hair.

“Miss, I’m with the United States Navy. I’m going to get you out of here.”

They had her tied to one of the pipes that ran across the ceiling. Her hands were swollen and dried blood coated her wrists. Gray pulled out his knife and cut her down. She collapsed over his shoulder, and he laid her gently onto the floor. He put his fingers to her neck. Her pulse was weak.

“Aiden. You got anything?” he growled into his mic.

“Nada,” his second-in-command answered immediately.

“Get your ass down to the tank deck. Got one of the women. She’s in really bad shape.”

“Roger.”

She whimpered, it was so low he almost thought he’d imagined it.

“We’re going to get you out of here.” He saw the incomprehension on her face.

Tenderly he cupped her cheek. “Safe. You’re safe now.”

“Give me a report,” Dex said quietly into his ear.

“I don’t know which woman it is. She’s bad, Dex.”

“Fuck,” he heard Griff whisper sadly in his ear.

He watched a tear track down her face.

Gray sprang up and found the man slumped outside the door. He hadn’t moved a muscle. When he saw the rage in Gray’s face he covered his head with his hands and begged for mercy. “Not me. It wasn’t me,” he wailed.

“But you knew, didn’t you? You heard?”

“Faizon. It was him. Him and his son.”

“But you heard,” Gray reiterated.

Gray kicked him. Hard. He grabbed the undershirt that was beside the man and ripped it up, quickly gagging and hogtieing him, like he had the other engine mechanic.

“Where is she?” Aiden asked as Gray finished tying the mechanic up.

The big blond man was by his side, and Gray led him inside the room. Aiden was on his knees next to the injured woman before Gray could even blink.

He heard a spurt of gunfire over his receiver. “Found the other guard,” Hunter said.

“She’s bad,” Aiden said. He pulled out a kit from his small waterproof pack. He rolled it out and inserted a needle into a vial, carefully measuring out some liquid.

“Can’t give her too much,” Aiden muttered to Gray. His friend’s eyes told him all he needed to know. She wasn’t going to make it if they didn’t get her to a hospital…fast.

Gray and Aiden’s heads shot up as they heard a woman’s screams. Both of them looked at the woman on the floor who was barely conscious, then realized it was coming over their receiver.

“Hunter, get to the upper deck. I’m at the bow. In the most forward cabin. Get here yesterday,” Griff ground out. “I’ve got the Ambassador’s daughter.”

At least Gray now knew that Aiden was caring for Chantelle.

“Anybody else?” Dex asked.

“Two pukes stupid enough to still be begging for help. They’re nothing but corpses, who’re taking too long to die.”

Griff had never sounded like that before. Never. Aiden glance snared Gray’s. This was not good.