Page 3 of Savage Escape

They’d first beat the living hell out of him and proceeded to hogtie his limbs and toss him in the backseat of a dark SUV. It had been a group effort. Nathan wasn’t a small man, but they had done it with such efficiency and grace that Nathan, the six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-some-odd-pound man, felt like a kitten. A bruised, bleeding, and concussed kitten.

The second thought to flit through his mind while he was taking a fist to the face was that he was not, despite all his extensive training and ninja-like abilities, going to win. Hewasn’t just gonna lose, either. He was gonna get his ass handed to him. His ass, and maybe some teeth too.

Being a citizen and all now, he no longer carried a gun. He’d figured when he had retired that he no longer needed to be armed. If by some random happenstance, he’d need a weapon, well, Nathan was more than capable of taking care of himself. Though now it seemed rather stupid of him to chuck all his weapons just so he could pretend to be a normal citizen.

The knife he kept in his boot only managed to piss off the three men he’d used it on and was promptly stomped out of his grip by a combat boot after he’d been tackled to the ground. Another couple of hits to the head, a kick here and there, and then a gun butt connected with his temple and put an end to his struggling.

Though the very fact that they took the time to capture and detain him and hadn’t killed him outright was a good sign. It meant they were taking him to the boss where he’d be held, questioned, and possibly ransomed, leaving lots of time for escape. Which made for an almost comforting thought as black swallowed him whole.

When he came to, the only thing to enter his mind was how convenient it would have been if he had just got that tracking node embedded in the fat of his left ass cheek like his brother had suggested. Granted, Nathan did get into a few snags from time to time, but at the time he’d brushed it off as Maddox being his paranoid self and bad-mouthed Han Solo. Maddox couldn’t help but get all up in arms and distracted if someone dared diss his role model.

Should he escape, Nathan would definitely reconsider his stance on tracking nodes.

But Nathan couldn’t say that he was at all shocked by his current circumstance. It hadn’t been a big shocker that some dark-side Boss Man had heard he was vacationing in Moscow,figured he was there on government business, and dispatched men to deal with him. It had been an ‘Ah hell’ moment when he’d rounded the corner and spotted the goons lying in wait for him, but not a shocking one.

And really, Nathan Savage was not a man easily shocked. He had a knack for adapting quickly and rolling with the proverbial punches. Having grown up with seven brothers had cured him of shock early on. The years he spent as a Navy SEAL and in Black OPs had only reinforced that bit of his personality. So being taken captive by any one of the garden variety assholes he’d pissed off while employed by the US Government did not shock him.

No, he hadn’t been shocked when they’d beat him into an unconscious state. Or when he’d woken up in a moving vehicle with his feet, wrists, and thumbs bound. Or when they dragged him into a dank foreboding-looking prison in the middle of nowhere Russia. If he was even still in Russia. Or when they dumped him in a cell no bigger than a broom closet with a corpse shoved up against the far wall.

He’d taken it all in stride.

Until the corpse rolled over and moaned.

No, the corpse suddenly waking from the dead hadn’t surprised him. The shock had come when he approached the figure and discerned a face.

Dried mud and blood matted her long, dark hair. Her torso was naked and covered with blood and bruises. A long crooked nose from one too many breaks sat on a slender pale face that was marred with dark bruises. Long dark eyebrows that, in Nathan’s experience, were always arching in mocking amusement. High cheekbones, thick pink lips, and a stubborn chin made for a pretty face.

Caden-goddamned-Quinn.

There was no mistaking her. The long scar that cut down her jaw and trailed past her collarbone made denial impossible. Nathan had experienced more than his fair share of Caden Quinn, so he was pretty damn sure of the corpse’s identity. They had butted heads more than a couple of times over the years. Well, no, ‘butted heads’ wasn’t the word for what they did, even if her head had connected with his on more than one occasion.

She took what didn’t belong to her.

The government sent him to take said items back.

She wreaked havoc.

He pursued.

She had been a constant pain in his ass and the reason for three of the many scars adorning his body. After he’d done his whole sabbatical/early retirement stint, Nathan had shaken her off like a bad dream. He figured he’d never see her again, let alone have to deal with her.

But there she was. All broken and bloodied, lying on the ground like she was one light beating away from death. Looking all kinds of vulnerable and pathetic.

There was a moment of hesitation that had Nathan feeling ten shades of shame and thinking of his mother. Sure, the bullet-shaped scar on his left shoulder was courtesy of one Caden Quinn and a sniper rifle, but that was not reason enough to let her rot.

There were a select few people, in Nathan’s opinion, who deserved that kind of death.

Caden Quinn was not one of them.

Even if she had run him over with a goddamn Mini-Cooper.

It took another beat to get over the shock and another to locate something he could actually use. A bucket of water and a bowl of what looked like white snot sat next to the door. Which was a slightly comforting thought. At least they kept their prisoners fed and watered.

Lots and lots of dried blood crusted all over her. Hands, chest (that he was not looking at inappropriately), stomach, feet, and face. Christ, he was kneeling in a puddle of it. There were some cuts on her, but none were deep enough to produce that much blood. Bruises, cuts, and what looked like electrical burns sat under the layer of dried blood.

All of which were things he could do nothing about.

What he could do was clean out the cuts on her arms and stomach, hope they weren’t badly infected, and wash off some of the blood.