Page 36 of Harry

“We’ll do something. We just have to have a reason. We can’t go in without a reason.”

Harry moved, and Wild’s hand slid off his shoulder. “Maybe I need to go do it by myself.”

“I didn’t hear you say that,” Orin called out as Harry left the room.

He heard someone following and glanced back, seeing Andy. “Fuck!”

“Hey,” Andy said as he caught up and slung his arm over Harry’s shoulder. “Get it together. You know you can’t go off half-cocked and take down this guy. He has to be doing something illegal, and we’ll find it. We know who has her, and we have a connection with human trafficking. There will be something in the file that makes it national security.”

“Fuck,” Harry whispered. “How the fuck do I live with this?”

“The same way we live with everything else.”

“But it’s Rory.”

Andy pinned him with a hard stare. “Listen up, Harry. I know we’re told not to make it personal, but every person we’ve ever rescued or opened a path so someone could go in and retrieve their body had someone who loved them. Few people are totally unredeemable. Everyone deserves to live free. We live with this shit every fucking day of our lives. We aren’t immune to this crap, and you know it. We have boxes. This is a box that you can figure out over time. But put this in a box and work to get her free. Blowing up and doing something stupid because this hurts won’t save Rory. In fact, it might make it worse for her. We know where she is. Now, let’s work on bringing her home.”

The words sifted through Harry’s mind, and it took a second for them to settle enough for him to make a rational decision. Andy was right. They dealt with this every fucking day. They killed terrorists because they would hurt others. They put down evil people and rescued others. They had to make tough decisions, and it hurt people. He could hold himself together for Rory.

He pulled Andy close and held on, fighting the urge to implode and let his emotions run wild. It took a moment, but he was back in the room where everyone was working, trying to find enough evidence to rescue Rory.

Midnight came, and he felt like they would never figure anything out when Jax tapped his computer screen.

“I got it!” Jax declared.

“What?” Orin asked.

“The thing that ties it into national security. This bastard who has Rory is selling arms to a terrorist group.”

“Well, that should help,” Orin said.

“We have to make it so it not only helps but works. We have to go save her,” Harry said.

“We’ll make it happen,” Wild said.

Harry hoped they made it happen, but he wasn’t sure how they could force the issue. The operation would have to be signed off by someone who didn’t care about Rory. He just hoped they cared enough to stop the sale of weapons to a terrorist group.

If this didn’t work, if they couldn’t convince the brass to take this on, he would have to find a path where he could go in and get Rory on his own. He wouldn’t let her spend the rest of her life in captivity. He just prayed they moved fast enough to save her. If they didn’t bring her home, he wasn’t sure he could live with the knowledge that they knew where she was but didn’t rescue her.

Chapter 30

It was her third time in the cage. She wasn’t much for being kind or doing what Sultan wanted. She didn’t care if he held her life in his hands. Some amount of self-preservation kept her from telling him to kill her, but how long would that last? No doubt, he was close to giving her to the guards. Whatever they cooked up for her, at least she would be dead by the end of the week.

Her only regret was not being able to stretch fully in the cage. Sultan had stopped limiting her food because when they’d force-fed her with a tube, she’d thrown up everything and almost choked to death. He iterated more than once he didn’t want her dead, that he just wanted her to obey.

She’d made a few friends with the women in the compound, but she didn’t blame the ones who avoided her. They were doing the best they could to survive. She was the problem, and she knew it.

As she was drifting off, she heard a noise she recognized. She couldn’t be right, though. There was no way that sound was real. She had eaten food today, though it wasn’t much, just some flatbread and vegetables, so she wasn’t starving. But that sound reminded her of her time in the military. She must be hallucinating. Maybe they’d drugged the bread, and she hadn’t picked up on it.

The noise sounded again, and she moved, sitting up as much as she could in the tight cage. The metal dug into the flesh of her rump, but she ignored the pain and glanced around. She couldn’t see much, just a thin sliver of sky outside the window. It was pitch black out, so maybe it was the middle of the night.

What was going on?

Then she heard screaming and someone firing a gun. She flinched at the sound, wishing she could move behind a wall and hide. Being locked in the cage meant she had no defense other than curling into a ball as she lay helpless on the cage floor.

Was this an invasion or a rescue? Tears filled her eyes. In one way, she was glad this would be over, but she didn’t want to die yet. She wanted to be able to tell Harry she cared deeply for him. If she could make sure he would be okay, she would be happy dying.

The noise increased as gunfire was returned. After a few minutes, maybe twenty, everything went silent. She didn’t move. She hadn’t been hit, but she was waiting for the blowback of the compound being raided.

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