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"Am I in a hospital?" She tried sitting up, but a sharp pain in her stomach prevented her.

"It's better if you lie flat for now," a deep voice to her right said. She turned her head. A man with blond hair and blue eyes sat in a chair next to the bed.

"Where am I?" she asked again, panicking. Images flashed through her mind of her in a forest with a man speaking Russian, then on a sailboat, then handcuffed to a bed and strapped to a table. One after the other, they came, paralyzing her senses. "What happened to me?" She tried sitting up again, but the blond-haired man put his hand on her shoulder, preventing her. There were others in the room, she noticed, as things began to come into focus. A man stood behind the doctor and another sat in a chair at the foot of the bed. She tilted her head up to look at him and gasped. She knew him.

The man behind the doctor stepped forward. "Charlotte, you're safe, lass. You're at a facility called the Tower, in our infirmary. Dr. Forbes has been taking care of you. My name is Colonel Alexander McKay and this is Gabriel and Sinclair." He pointed to the other men.

"Safe?" she questioned. Sinclair. "My name's Charlie."

"Aye, Charlie. You've been through a terrible ordeal," the colonel said.

Sinclair. Pieces of memories and events crashed into her, breaking through the fog in her brain. Sinclair. She wasn't safe. "I want to go home." She tried sitting up again, but the pain in her stomach was overwhelming. What had they done to her? She lifted the edge of the sheet. She was naked underneath it. Her stomach was wrapped in a clear plastic film and under that, in what looked like a tattoo, someone had flayed her skin off creating a picture of some kind of crest. She dropped the sheet and lifted her hand to her mouth, hoping to prevent herself from throwing up as she finally remembered everything.

"We are working to contact your family."

"Are they coming for me?"

"It's a little more complicated than that, but we're figuring it out. Right now, you need time to heal."

"Please let me go," she cried. "I want to go home."

"Charlotte, we're not the bad guys. We're trying to keep you safe," Sinclair said.

"You took me. Kidnapped me." Even as she said it, she could feel the heat of his traitorous kiss.

"Aye, well, Sinclair's manners aren't the best. But he was trying to keep you safe," Alex said, as though to justify his actions.

"Gentlemen, she needs her rest and I don't need her upset." The doctor stepped forward.

"Aye. Of course," the colonel said. "Sinclair, Gabriel." He motioned with his hand for them to leave.

"If it's all right, I would like to stay," Gabriel said. "I promise I won't upset her."

"I suppose you wouldn't." Forbes nodded. "Very well, but only for a little while."

As the men were leaving, Sinclair reached out and touched her foot. "I'm really sorry." She watched as he closed the door behind himself.

Gabriel scooted his chair closer. "You'll have questions." There was a refined gentleness about him that made her want to trust him. A quality of a time far gone.

"When can I go home?" Once again, she had no idea where she was or who these people were.

"It would be too dangerous right now, with your stomach. Dr. Forbes is worried about infection."

A tear slipped down her cheek.

He reached out and took her hand. "I know you have no reason to trust us, especially after everything you've been through, but I promise we'll protect you. You're safe here, and we'll get you back home as soon as we can," he said, trying to reassure her.

She pulled her hand from his. "Who are you? What is this place?"

"It's complicated and, honestly, the less you know, the better." He looked at her sympathetically. "But here is what I can tell you. We were working undercover the night Sinclair took you, to take down the leader of an organized crime ring. Things unfortunately went awry, and you were unintentionally involved."

"I watched him murder two men," she said, referring to Sinclair.

Gabriel nodded. "I know." He pulled a picture up on his phone of a charcoal sketch. Whoever drew it had skill and was able to capture not only a likeness of the man who tortured her but the depravity of his soul. But he took the pain away. She instinctively backed up in the bed. Gabriel put a hand on her shoulder. "Is this the man who hurt you, lass?"

"Yes. Viktor Sokolov."

"Aye, Sokolov. It's personal for Sinclair, even more so now, I'm sure. He was involved in an assignment to rescue a girl Sokolov took last year and he ended up uncovering a sex trafficking ring of young girls. He saw some brutal stuff. He asked for this assignment."