Defending Morgan (Mountain Mercenaries #3)(10)

Why her?

Why now?

Arrow had no answers—only a gut feeling that he was meant to be here at this moment. Not Black. Not Ball. Not anyone else on the team. Him.

“I know you will,” he finally said softly. “I’ll do my best to get you some drinkable water as soon as it’s safe to leave.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’d appreciate it.” She lifted the partially eaten bar. “With this thing, I’ll need it,” she teased with another small smile.

Without thinking, Arrow reached up and brushed the back of his hand down her cheek.

She froze, the smile fading from her face and her eyes wide.

Kicking himself for scaring her, Arrow immediately dropped his hand. “When you finish that, I recommend you sleep again if you can. It’s going to get even hotter in here, and I’m not sure what we’ll face tonight.”

She nodded agreeably.

An hour later, Arrow was back on his side, Morgan tucked against his chest. After she’d eaten half the protein bar and declared herself full, he’d eaten what was left of it and settled them under their hideaway. Within minutes, despite saying she wasn’t tired, Morgan was snoring once again.

Arrow didn’t sleep this time. He stayed awake watching over the woman in his arms. No one was going to hurt her. Not on his watch.





Chapter Four

Morgan held her breath and stopped when Arrow held up his hand with his fist clenched. He’d briefly explained before they’d left their hideout what his hand signals meant. Most were self-explanatory, or she remembered them from some of her favorite TV shows that she used to watch before she’d been kidnapped.

She’d woken up disoriented again, but this time Arrow had been awake when she’d opened her eyes. He quickly reassured her, making the fear fade faster than it had the last time. Morgan didn’t think the dread upon waking would ever be something she got rid of. She’d lived in terror every day for the last . . . however many days it had been. Somewhere along the line, she’d lost track of time. Between being moved from shack to shack and being held in windowless rooms, it had been impossible to keep the days straight.

From what Arrow and his friends had said, it had been at least a year.

A year.

Fifty-two weeks.

Three hundred and sixty-five days.

It was hard to believe because it felt like so much longer. An eternity.

She felt as if she’d aged a decade.

Nina had been thrown into her room a week ago. It was the first time the men who were holding her hostage had put someone else in her room. Morgan was relieved that they didn’t seem interested in Nina . . . in that way.

Morgan had tried to take care of her from the moment Nina’s terrified eyes met hers. The little girl had been so relieved to hear someone else speak English that Nina had latched on to Morgan as sort of a surrogate mom. From what Morgan could understand from the little girl, she’d been brought into the country by her father, then mostly left alone. She’d been put inside a room with some toys, only allowed out to use the bathroom, and then, like Morgan, she had been shuffled from one house to another, unable to communicate with anyone.

Morgan had met Nina’s father once. He’d come by to talk to his daughter, and it was more than obvious the man didn’t care about her well-being. He’d told the little girl that her mom didn’t want her anymore and she was going to live in the Dominican Republic from now on. He was going to dump Nina with her grandmother on the other side of the country, while he lived in the capital and earned money for her upkeep.

Nina hadn’t been happy and had begun sobbing. Her father had smacked her, telling her to quit crying. Morgan had jumped to the little girl’s defense and received her own beating for her trouble.

Based on the little Morgan had pieced together, Nina’s father was acquainted with some of the men who were keeping Morgan hostage, and he’d planned to leave the girl in their care while he earned money so they could travel to the city where his mother lived.

Morgan let Nina have most of the food and water they’d been given, as it was obvious she’d either not been given enough previously, or she’d been too traumatized to eat or drink much. Morgan also went with the men who came for her without a fight, to try to minimize the physical violence the little girl had to witness, and she slept with her body between Nina’s and the door. The little girl was upset about being separated from her mother, but she hadn’t been sexually abused. At least not from what Morgan had been able to ascertain, thank God.

Arrow and his friends appearing in the middle of the night had been the miracle she’d prayed for since she’d been taken. It had taken a year, but finally someone had come. They weren’t there for her, but ultimately it didn’t matter. She was free now . . . and she’d do whatever it took to stay that way.

Creeping around the streets of Santo Domingo at night should have been terrifying. But with Arrow, it wasn’t quite as scary. There was something about the man that reached inside her battered and bruised psyche and made her feel safe.

He stood almost a foot taller than her five-three, and his light-brown eyes and dark hair didn’t stand out as much as her blonde did. The fact that it was cropped close to his skull did make him unique, as there weren’t that many people she’d seen in the country so far who wore their hair in the military style that Arrow did. But it was probably the black pants, black shirt, black vest, and pockets bulging with who knew what that stood out most. He was obviously way more badass than the few people they’d encountered so far on the streets.