Page 45 of Fast Vengeance

“Oh, God, Brock,” she whispered, her shoulders hitching as her voice crumbled. She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t stand to think of him being tortured and eventually killed, and it was worse that she knew exactly what that kind of fear and pain felt like.

He owned her, heart, soul and body. Leaving him behind when she flew out of D.C. tomorrow was unbearable enough, but this? Leaving when he was in peril and she would never know what had happened to him?

Her stomach pitched. The muscles beneath her jaw tightened, saliva pooling in her mouth. She sank to the floor and swallowed repeatedly, willing the nausea to pass. Think, Victoria, think.

If Nieto had taken him, then it meant he planned to use Brock for something. Torturing and killing him as a fuck you to the DEA and the rest of the government proved nothing. He wanted something. He wanted—

His daughter.

Victoria put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no.” Gabe’s message was now all too clear. She had to find Oceane, explain what had happened and then…

God, it was so selfish of her, but she wanted Oceane to do whatever it was they asked. What kind of horrible human being was she, to want her friend to endanger herself for Brock?

But I love him.

A tear slipped down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away with the side of her hand and stood, intending to call one of the marshals on her security detail. Her thumb was poised above the button when her phone buzzed in her hand.

The marshal she’d been about to call. “Hey, I was just—”

“Where are you?”

“On my way back from Oceane’s room.”

“Commander Taggart has called a remote emergency meeting. They want you in the third-floor conference room in five minutes.”

Her stomach sank like a brick. She stopped, set her free hand on the wall to hold her up. Because if Taggart was calling them together to announce that Brock was dead… “Is Brock dead?” She could barely force the words out of her tight throat.

“No.” He paused, and she could breathe again. “I hadn’t realized you’d heard about him already.”

She ignored the second part and hurried for the elevator, praying Nieto hadn’t hurt Brock. She would do anything to save him. “Meet you at the conference room in five.”

Chapter Thirteen

“What’s happened? Something about my father?” Oceane asked as one of the marshals assigned to her security detail hustled her down the hall to the conference room. He’d tracked her down in the WITSEC Safesite library where she’d been looking for a book.

“Yes.”

Her stomach knotted. What had he done now? “Why does Commander Taggart want to talk to me?”

“There’s a situation unfolding,” was all he said, and opened the door for her.

DEA and WITSEC officials filled the room. Across the long, rectangular table in the center of the room, she spotted Victoria. Her friend looked up at her, face pale, her dark eyes haunted.

The knots pulled tighter. What the hell was happening? She headed straight for the table, concerned for her friend. “Are you all right?”

“Honestly?” Victoria shook her head. “No. Brock’s been taken hostage.”

Oceane gasped and stopped in her tracks. “How is that even possible?”

“FAST Bravo is in Veracruz to help with an op. He was taken there.”

No. “When?”

“A few hours ago.”

She swallowed, her pulse thudding in her throat. “My father is behind it?”

The pity on Victoria’s face gave her the answer.

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