Page 74 of Duty Bound

Blade had sacrificed himself for her. He'd willingly given up his life for hers.

“Who does that?” She was crying so hard she could hardly speak. “Who gives up their life for a hostage they barely know.”

“A Green Beret,” said Stitch simply. “He’s just doing his job.”

She shook her head, blinded by tears. “They’ll kill him.”

Stitch scowled, and she noticed how white his knuckles were as he gripped the wheel. “He's trained to withstand interrogation. He’ll drag this out. It will take them a while to figure out exactly who he is.”

“Do you think they’ll realize he rescued me?”

“If they do, they’ll question him about you. That’ll take some time. Once they figure out you were in the car with me and they let you go?—”

He hesitated. “They’ll launch a man hunt for the Land Rover.”

“Won’t they know it’s registered to you?”

“I’m not that stupid.”

She sniffed. “They can’t trace anything back to you?”

“No, Lily. We made sure of that.”

She covered her face with her hands. It was too much. “I know what they’re going to do to him,” she murmured. “Spade told me stories.”

Stitch knew too. She could tell by the way he ground his jaw.

Lily imagined Blade being stripped naked and beaten until he was semi-conscious. She pictured him hunched over, his glorious body bruised and broken, eyelids swollen, blood seeping from multiple wounds.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Really?”

She nodded and opened the door.

Stitch waited, engine still running, as she threw up the contents of her stomach. Even when she was done, she kept retching.

“Lily, we have to go. We have to put some distance between us and the checkpoint.”

He was right. She knew he was right.

Lily gave a surly nod.

Stitch put his foot down and the Land Rover growled into gear. He increased the speed until they were racing toward the road to Kabul.

The miles flashed by. Lily barely noticed. Her head was filled with Blade. How he’d held her. How he’d kissed her.

How he’d given his goddamn life for her.

Stitch said very little, focusing on the road. Twenty minutes later, they turned onto the Kabul highway. It wasn’t big enough for a highway, more of a main road with lots of traffic squeezed into two lanes heading in each direction.

Stitch drove a couple of miles toward Kabul, then cursed under his breath, and pulled over into what looked like a make-shift rest area. The only thing there was a small store selling fruit.

Lily turned to him. “What are we doing?”

“Wait here.”

He climbed out of the car and approached the store. A man and a woman were standing in front of the fruit display, picking out some fresh produce.

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