Page 67 of Fighting for Lucy

This wasn’t about money.

This felt almost personal. Like the mole was making a decision that had nothing to do with money.

Which made zero sense. If the mole had a grudge against Lucy, Scarlett wouldn’t have been targeted first. And how could the mole possibly have a grudge against him? He didn't work for Prey, and he’d only been assisting them for literally a couple of days, that was nowhere near enough time to have angered the mole to the point where they would have to go to all the trouble it would have taken to make contact with Zimraan Mostafa and sell him out.

“Zander?” Lucy called out to him again, this time her voice was a little stronger and threaded with terror.

Turning his head toward the sound, he took in the place where they were being held. Like when his team had been captured, they were in a courtyard. There was dry, sandy dirt beneath him, and there were stone buildings all around the outside of the space. Light spilled out of a couple of windows, and since the courtyard was outside there was also the light from the moon and a few scattered stars.

It was like traveling back in time.

The only differences this time around was that instead of the heat making the space unbearable, the air around them was wintery cold. And instead of having seven highly trained men chained up with him, men who had signed up for the job and who knew the risks they were taking, there was one small, vulnerable woman.

A woman who meant something to him.

More than something, she meanteverything.

And she was going to be tortured and murdered because of him.

The thought left him paralyzed by fear.

Knowing what Lucy was going to suffer all because she’d believed in him and made him a promise to be there for them was a sour ball of agonizing terror sitting heavily in his gut.

He’d seen what these men did to women, watched firsthand as they raped girls. Brutally raped them to the point where he wasn’t even sure the young women would have survived their injuries.

The death Raul had promised Lucy echoed in his mind.

Different sick monster, same horrific fate.

Because there was no doubt in his mind that Zimraan knew that Lucy was important to him. That the young man had plans to both physically torture her as well as sexually. That Lucy’s death would be long and drawn out, she would beg for mercy, but there would be none to be found.

Like there would be no redemption for him.

Not after this.

Not with another death on his shoulders.

“You're scaring me, Zander.” Lucy sounded borderline hysterical. Not a good thing because his woman was a rock, knew how to control her emotions, was the epitome of calm, cool, and collected, and she was rational and pragmatic.

But there was no way anybody could be rational when they woke up to this mess.

He felt the chain around his ankle and knew from experience that there was no way to break it or pry it free from the concrete it was embedded in, at least not with your bare hands. Lucy would be similarly chained up, and he could see the table waiting in the middle of the courtyard. This was a different place than last time, he knew that for sure because it was smaller, not big enough to chain up eight men, but the end result would be the same.

Bloodshed and screams and pain.

“Zander, are you dead? Please, if you're here, answer me,” Lucy begged, and he could tell even from there, even in the dark, that she was crying.

As his gaze sought her out, he saw the small figure in the opposite corner of the yard. She was on her knees, trying desperately to wrestle with the chain binding her in place. It killed him to know that she was there because of him.

That he’d done this to her.

She’d promised to always be there for him, and it had signed her own death warrant.

“Please, Zander, I don’t want you to be dead, please don’t be dead.”

Those words, accompanied by weeping, hurt worst of all.

Because before she took her final breath, Zander had no doubt that Lucy would be cursing the day she met him.