Page 34 of A Damaged Soul
"I should warn you... "
I didn't let the man finish before I was pushing the door open. I didn't get the chance to make it all the way to the bed before I stuttered to a stop and gasped.
"I tried to warn you."
Rhett's entire face was swollen and covered in bruises. He had two black eyes and a split lip. He was hardly recognizable under the thin sheet.
"What the hell happened to him?"
"He was captured and tortured along with the rest of his team," Zack spit out, and there was no mistaking the underlying fury in his tone.
"Is he going to be okay?" I couldn't see the rest of his body, but I imagined it looked similar to his face.
"A few broken ribs but no internal bleeding, thank God."
"How long has he been here?" Some of the bruising looked fresh, so I doubted it was long.
"My team rescued his team last night." There was nothing but shame in Zack's eyes as he looked down at his brother. "He kept mentioning your name whenever he would gain consciousness, so I had our technical analyst go through his phone records. That's how we found you."
"I appreciate it. I've been so worried." I looked up and found Zack was no longer looking at his brother but instead intensely staring at me.
"I can tell. No offense but what are you to my brother because he’s never mentioned you."
I dry laughed at that. "I guess you could say we're friends, although I'm still trying to convince your brother to even be that."
Zack didn't say anything at first. He looked at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle, so instead of making him ask, I gave him a little more information.
"We met at a bar. I needed rescuing from a jerk who wouldn't take no for an answer, and Rhett seemed like a good man."
"And he went along with it."
This time when I laughed, it was more of a snort. "Reluctantly. I asked him to give me an hour of his time. Pretty sure he would've ditched me if he could have, but in the end, he was a good sport about it."
"But he willingly told you about his life?" Zack appeared surprised.
"Hell no. I spent most of the time talking about myself. I mean, I knew he had siblings, but he would shut down whenever I asked about his life."
It was Zack's turn to snort. "Now, that sounds more like my brother."
"I take it he didn't tell you about the assignment he was on."
The same torment I saw in Rhett's eyes the first time I met him stormed through Zack. "I didn’t even know what he was doing for work."
I felt bad for the man who clearly blamed himself for what happened.
"I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure the only reason he told me anything was because I guilted him into it after he stood me up for coffee one day."
That didn't seem to help. At least not if the guilt in Zack's eyes was any indication. I was about to say more but was stopped when a noise from the bed caught our attention.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rhett
"You can stop talking about me now."
For the last few minutes, I had heard voices floating around the room, but it took my head clearing a bit for me to recognize who they were coming from and what they were saying.
"Rhett!"
