Darkest Before Dawn

She was bracing herself for pain. Preparing herself for what was to come. Because simple stitches, while painful, were mere annoyances compared to torture designed to cause as much agony possible without killing the victim. To make them endure so long until the pain took over like a madness and they begged for death. Ultimate freedom. Peace and freedom from the misery of their existence.

So to imagine what would happen to her, knowing she was painting equally painful images in her head at the same time, made the fingers barely clinging to his own sanity threaten to finally slip.

And all he had left at the moment was his sanity. The intelligent, calculating part of his brain that carried him through every mission, no matter how much of his soul it sucked away. God knew the rest of him had already given in to the overshadowing guilt and despair.

“No sedative,” Hancock said after studying her a moment longer. And his gaze never once left her face as he gave the next order. “But she gets antibiotics and she gets pain medication. Before anything else. Before you numb her for the stitches. And you wait until it starts taking effect before you so much as touch her.”

CHAPTER 21

“THE pain medication does the same thing as a sedative,” Honor accused, shrinking from Conrad’s sudden presence at her bed. “It makes me loopy, and I won’t be put off. I want the damn answers to my questions answered.”

If a prisoner, mere merchandise, gave imperious orders to men who thought nothing of callously discarding her and sending her through the very gates of hell to greet Satan himself and then expected obedience, it was obvious the captive had indeed lost her mind.

What’s the worst they could do? Kill her? Torture her? It wasn’t like that wasn’t her eventual fate. Delaying made it all the worse because it gave her too much time to imagine how she could survive even one day in the hands of a brutal inhumane animal whose only goal was to make her suffer.

“You’ll be aware enough to ask your questions,” came Hancock’s dry, emotionless response. “However, you will not be aware of your pain if I have anything to say about it.”

Since she well knew that implacable expression, she knew she wouldn’t have a choice regardless of what he decided to do to her.

Bitter defeat brought acid tears, stinging her eyelids like angry bees. Beside her, Hancock stiffened, and for a moment his hand hovered over her arm before settling there, his fingertips resting on her skin. She jerked back as if he’d burned her and huddled further inside herself, making herself as small as possible in a room filled with impossibly large men.

Hancock reached down to lift the hem of her pajama top even as he easily slid the band of her bottoms down just enough to bare her hip. Furious at how helpless she was—she felt—she lay there stoic, refusing to show them anything else. No more weaknesses to exploit.

She felt the first needle slide in, controlling her pained reaction as the medicine burned. She barely managed to prevent wincing in accordance with the involuntary flinch when Conrad’s hand pushed over the injection site and gently massaged the area to spread the medicine more quickly so the discomfort would abate sooner.

Then as if he hadn’t just touched her with tenderness she knew none of them possessed, he deftly inserted the second needle and administered what she assumed—hoped—was merely the antibiotic Hancock had insisted she be given.

She waited for betrayal. Waited for the dim awareness that a sedative would bring. The numbing of all her emotions until she drifted off into nothing more than a manageable vegetable, unable to resist whatever they chose to do.

But other than the fog of the pain medication, which was already doing its job of tamping down the pain—her physical pain—she felt no other indication that she was impaired.

Apparently Hancock was capable of keeping promises when it suited him.

He waited long moments, watching her with eyes that missed nothing before turning and dismissing the others. The only instructions he gave his men were, “Keep an eye on that bastard and make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

She was too tired and sick at heart to even attempt to consider what he meant by his cryptic demand.

As soon as his men left, leaving her alone with her betrayer, she gave him no chance to take over the situation. No chance to have the advantage, though she knew she in no way had any advantage in this situation.

“Why?” she asked in a deceptively soft voice.

She knew that her terrible rage simmered just below the surface, that it wouldn’t take much for it to erupt into something horrible.

Hancock sighed and put more distance between them, a small thing for her to be grateful for, but she could admit that his closeness only made her feel more trapped, more vulnerable, and if she was going to get through this, she needed any advantage she could gain.

“I’ve been working undercover a long time, Honor,” he said quietly, as if the walls themselves had ears and eyes.

Even as he spoke, he swiftly closed the distance between them once more, sliding onto the bed beside her, only this time settling himself to sit next to her, so both their backs rested against the pillows against the headboards.

“You weren’t my intended target. You merely became . . . collateral damage. An unavoidable sacrifice for the greater good.”

She made a low sound in her throat because he was subtly dancing around the issue when she wanted the straight, cold truth.

“I work for Bristow.” A cold smile twisted those ruthless lips. “Or so he’d like to believe. That I’m no threat to him. And that suits my purpose just fine. He’ll never know the truth until it’s too late.”