Darkest Before Dawn (KGI #10)(101)

Rio swore. “Not without backup. Don’t even argue with me.”

Hancock smiled faintly. “You don’t lead me anymore, Rio.”

“That doesn’t mean you still aren’t goddamn mine,” Rio said in a savage tone.

“Rio and I will have your six while the others clear a path,” Conrad said, siding with Rio.

“Vehicle is stopped. Three men. No one else. They’re all inside. We need to move now,” Nathan said.

“Go,” Sam barked.

And all hell broke loose.

Gunfire erupted. Explosions rocked the earth, nearly knocking Hancock to his knees, but Rio and Conrad were there to anchor him as they rushed inside the house, looking for the way down below the main floor.

Resnick’s teams flooded the rooms, taking down every target in their way. Hancock’s only focus was on finding the way down. Rio and Conrad flanked him, but he didn’t slow or wait for their cover. He carried an assault rifle in one hand and a pistol in the hand on the side where he’d taken a bullet to his shoulder.

An initial sweep of the downstairs brought them exactly nothing and Hancock swore viciously. What were they overlooking?

“Calm down and focus,” Rio said quietly. Then he said into the com, “Sky, can you give us a position of the heat signature in the sublevel? We aren’t coming up with shit. We need your eyes.”

“Center. Dead center,” came Skylar’s calm response. “You’re standing right over it. It’s there.”

Hancock dropped to his knees, as did Conrad and Rio, and they felt along the floor for any sign of an entry. Then Hancock’s gaze rose and scanned the walls. A switch, of course. There wasn’t an obvious doorway and the flooring was seamless.

“Get the switches,” he barked to Conrad. “Try them all. There’s a row of half a dozen on the right side of the room. One of them has to open the subfloor.”

Conrad hurried and one by one began flipping the switches. On the last one, Rio nearly stumbled and fell right through the floor when a section smoothly began to slide open, revealing a set of stairs.

Hancock wasted no time. Light was beaming upward, the tiny room flooded with bright light. He stormed down the stairs, prepared for the worst, but not even that could have prepared him for what he discovered.

His knees locked and his stomach lurched when he saw the impossibly small cage suspended from the ceiling and Honor’s body curled into a tight ball, barely fitting into the prison.

The cage began to lower and he glanced over in surprise to see Rio flipping a switch that made the cage slowly descend from the ceiling.

Hancock rushed forward, his heart in his throat, and then it was nearly torn out of his chest when he got a good look at her.

Her wrists and ankles were raw and bloody, her skin torn from the too-tight manacles. Why? She would have no way of escaping the cage. But then Maksimov enjoyed inflicting pain and misery.

Oh God.

He made a sound of a wounded animal and didn’t even realize it had come from him.

Honor was a mess. Her hair a mass of tangles, face bruised and bloodied. Worse, on the floor beneath where the cage had been suspended was a f*cking shock probe. And there were burn marks covering her body where Maksimov had obviously shocked her repeatedly.

Tears blurred his vision and he roared with pent-up rage, his entire body shaking. He grabbed the bars as if by sheer will alone he could break them and free her.

He was unstoppable. Rio and Conrad quickly saw the futility in trying to calm Hancock and instead searched for a way to open the cage. When they finally found it, Hancock had bloodied and skinned a good portion of his flesh from his hands in trying to break her free.

Hancock flung open the door but then stopped, his frustration at a boiling point.

“The key,” he rasped. “Where the f*ck is the key to get her out of these f*cking cuffs?”

Conrad didn’t say anything. He just pushed forward, pulling a lock pick set from his fatigues, and set to work freeing Honor from her restraints.

So wrapped up in trying to find and free Honor, Hancock hadn’t even noticed until now that her eyes were open. He froze, staring down at completely lifeless eyes. No spark. Dull as death. Absolutely no reaction, no evidence that she even knew they were there.

He tentatively caressed her cheek, afraid that she might well shatter if he touched her.

“Honor?”

His voice was hoarse, laced with worry and choked with tears he couldn’t control. They streamed down his cheeks and he lowered his face to her hair as Conrad set to unlocking the last manacle holding her ankle.

His entire body heaved as his tears soaked into her hair.

“She’s free,” Conrad said in a low voice. “Let me carry her, Hancock. You know you aren’t strong enough. And if she wakes and sees you like this, you’ll scare the shit out of her.”

Hancock reluctantly agreed but not for the reasons Conrad outlined. Hancock knew that if Honor regained awareness and saw Hancock, she’d look at him like the betrayer he was. Like the failure he was. Like a man who’d broken his promises to her time and time again.

“Only until we get to the plane,” Hancock said fiercely. “Then I want her to have pain medication and a sedative. I don’t want her to wake up this way. Not here. Not on the plane. I want her to wake up in a place she knows she’s safe.”