Page 100 of Shadow Redemption

Fantastic. Nothing like being under scrutiny for as long as it took Shadow to find her and mount a rescue. Ignoring the cretin by the door, Ruth shifted her attention to the older woman hovering nearby, hands clasped together in a tight grip. Fear? Maren had reason to be afraid. “My name is Ruth.”

The woman froze for a moment, then lifted her head to stare at Ruth. “Why do they call you Roxanne?”

Ruth looked into familiar eyes. Ben’s eyes. Davidson was truly evil. “Roxanne is the name I use for my work. I’m a model.”

“You shouldn’t have come to this place,” Maren whispered. “You’re not safe.”

“Davidson had me kidnapped.”

A subtle flinch. “Why?”

“He’s using me as bait to draw the man I love into a trap, a man you know very well, Mrs. Barrett.”

Maren’s eyes widened. She glanced over her shoulder at the thug glowering at the two of them and moved close enough that they wouldn’t be overheard. “How did you know my name? Who is the man?”

“Your son, Cameron. He goes by the name Ben now.”

The woman’s face drained of all color. “No. He mustn’t come. The prophet will kill him.”

“Ben is a hard man to kill. I have only one question for you.”

A frown. “What?”

“Will you help him or betray him again?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“Do you have a death wish?” Josh Cahill, Durango’s leader, scowled at Ben. “Your plan is lousy, Martin.”

He didn’t like the operation himself but what choice did he have? Ruth had been in Davidson’s hands too long. If she was involved with someone different, the crazy cult leader wouldn’t have waited to make her his. Because she was Ben’s, the old man would want to taunt him to twist the knife deeper.

Nausea churned in his gut. What if he was wrong? “You have a better idea?”

“I thought being a SEAL taught you patience.”

He shifted closer to the Delta Force soldier. “Davidson has had Ruth for four hours. If your wife was in his hands of a known rapist, would you wait to hammer out a perfect plan?”

“Of course not, but I hope I’d be smart enough to have a good plan and listen to good counsel. This is a suicide mission for you.”

“After surviving what Hugo Torino did to Ruth, I can’t let Davidson destroy what she’s reclaimed.”

Josh dragged a hand down his face. “All right. Before we take on the whole camp, let’s swing the odds in our favor. Are all the men in Eden armed and trained? If they are, we’ll need more help.”

“From what I’ve been able to learn, Davidson kept to his standard operating procedure. Thirty to forty armed men carry out his orders and protect the encampment. No one else will be armed. The civilian men don’t know until they’re inside Eden that the only way out is death. No one is allowed to leave.”

“You did,” Nico said, voice soft.

“As far as I know, I’m the only one.” What did that mean for his mother and sister?

Josh’s second in command, Alex Morgan, shook his head. “How can people be that gullible?”

Nate, their EOD man, grimaced. “It’s why we have job security.”

“Let’s go over the plan again,” Nico said. “If no one offers suggestions to make the mission safer, we go with what we have.”

Thirty minutes later, Quinn, Durango’s spotter, said, “Are you sure this is the only way, Ben?”

“Offering anything else in a bargain won’t work. The prophet wants me because I killed his son.”

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