Finding Fate: An Intense, Fast-Paced Romantic Suspense Novel Read online

  Blood pours from the man’s nose. A gash stripes his left cheekbone where the skin has split.

  The man inflicting the pain pauses to rub his fist, smiling. "Now. Answers," he says.

  The man in black smiles. And if he weren't beaten and bloody, I'd say it’s more of a cocky smirk more than a smile. "Sure, man, shoot."

  "Who sent you?"

  Those brown eyes look to the ceiling, searching. "Yeah, I'll pass. I'll take More Nontypical Question for two hundred, Alex."

  With a grin of his own, the general’s second slams his tight fist against the man’s jaw, snapping his head back. “Who sent you?"

  His gaze slides to me. "I can't remember." His tone now devoid of the earlier humor, his muscles tense, bracing for the next hit, but I can't see that again.

  Please, no, never again.

  "Stop," I squeak. All eyes shift to me, glaring. The man in black’s narrow as he shakes his head. "Leave him alone." It hits me fast, how I can save him, even if it's only for a short amount of time. "Leave him for the general. Let him get the answers."

  It only takes two long strides for the general’s second to be close enough to grip the back of my veil, taking chunks of hair with it, and yank me to my feet. My back teeth clench to hold back the scream of pain that wants to erupt.

  His close foul breath burns my nostrils, churning my empty stomach. Evil eyes scorch into mine as he says, "You no power here."

  "I know. I-I know that. I just... the general will want—"

  The back of his hand connects with my cheek so hard, the dense bones of his knuckles snapping against my eye, I stumble to the side only to be yanked upright once again. Loud American cuss words fill the camp—hell, the entire jungle—and the movement of a scuffle sounds behind the man who inflicted my pain.

  And oh hell does it hurt. No one told me being backhanded felt like your eye was going to pop out of its socket and your cheekbones would explode into thousands of tiny shards. In books the girls just fell and cried. A little more detail would’ve been nice for this moment.

  "No speak again," the general’s second yells in my face, sending another gut-churning waft of his foul breath my way. "Come."

  His grip around my arms feels like a tourniquet as he drags me out of the shack, away from the still-yelling American voice. Terrified of what will happen next, I glance back and find furious brown eyes staring from behind the four men who are now holding him back. I stumble and trip as the general’s second strides across the camp, hauling me behind him. I want to beg, for death or life I’m not sure at this point, but I don't. It was stupid to say anything in there moments ago; no need to repeat the same mistake.

  All for a man I don't know.

  But I know enough, I guess. If he was willing to risk his life for me, I should reciprocate. That's the way it works, right? Maybe all those books have twisted my expectations of real life.

  When we reach the bank of the river, the hand that was cutting off circulation to my fingers slams onto my upper back, shoving my knees into the rocky bank.

  This is it.

  Has to be.

  I'm going to die.

  But instead he stands there silently, watching. Or waiting, I guess.

  I don't move. Hell, I even shorten my already-shallow breaths to make as little movement as possible. Even if I wanted to make a break for it, stand and fight maybe, there's no way my muscles would respond. That's another thing I didn't expect, the way terror can freeze the most subconscious movements like blinking, breathing, thinking. True fear locks everything down. There's no fight or flight like everyone expects there to be, only crippling mental and physical terror.

  Several minutes tick by, the scorching overhead sun raising the temperature beneath my burka to that of a sauna, before he dictates something to someone I can’t see and the crunching of retreating steps fills my ears.

  It's only then the built-up tension drains and I allow myself to slump forward.

  At my back, a man’s voice draws my attention. One of the grunts, a machine gun strapped across his chest, points to the bucket of dirty laundry and nods toward the water.

  Tossing the pair of fatigues into the water, I start to scrub.

  I don't even know the man in black’s name. That would’ve been a good question to ask last night. I roll my eyes beneath my veil and keep scrubbing. Even here I'm terrible at this social interaction shit. Hopefully he's still alive when I get back to find out. I bet it's something manly like Crash or Thor. Or maybe I'll just give him a nickname since he seems to like calling me this Poppy character.

  And just like that, daydreaming of him, playing out future conversations, makes the hotter-than-hell, exhausting day go by faster than ever. The fires burn bright around the camp when I'm finally finished and escorted back to my pen. The weight of the entire day causes my footing to stumble, and I fall to the ground in the middle of the shack with barely enough energy to catch myself. At my back, the door opens once again and metal clatters against metal as something falls to the ground. The door slams shut, the grind of the lock sliding into place signaling I’m locked in for the rest of the night.

  I don't need to look up to know what they brought.

  Food. If you can call it that.

  It could be dinner, breakfast, lunch—it doesn't matter, it's all the same. Some kind of beans, flat tasteless bread, and unidentified meat that the local girls told me to stay far away from early on. And water. The water must be from a clean stream in the area; it's always fresh, and by some small miracle hasn't gotten me sick yet.

  A groan pushes past my lips as I roll to face my neighbor, but it's cut short, turning into more of a gasp when I find him staring back.

  "Hi," I croak. "What's your name?" Nice. The sentence I’ve been planning all day came out smooth and not awkward. Five hundred points for Gryffindor.

  "What do you want it to be?" he says.

  Okay, wait. Why does that line sound familiar? It's right at the tip of my tongue....

  "The guys call me Snowflake."

  For the first time in weeks, maybe months, a true laugh builds in my chest. "Snowflake. Seriously. You don't look like a snowflake." You look like a gladiator is what I want to add to the end, but I keep that part to myself. My arms tremble beneath my weight from all the scrubbing as I crawl across the floor and lean against the wooden planks.

  "Yeah, well I'm the youngest of our little group, and they think since I'm a damn Millennial, I'm as delicate as a snowflake. Always getting my feelings hurt or offended by stupid shit." He huffs a laugh. "The hair and tattoos don't help with their misjudgments."

  "Are you?" Okay, how and why is there a smile pulling at my lips?

  "Fuck no. They just like to give me a hard time. Fuckers." Shouting outside the shack makes him pause until it dies down. "If you don't want to call me that, Nash works too."

  "Nash," I mumble. Knew it would be something unique. Unique like him.

  "So, Pops, let’s talk about rules."

  I snap my head up to meet narrowed brown eyes. "Rules?" I question.

  "Okay, rule. You got me there. One major rule."

  Beneath my veil, I search his eyes as I wait.

  "Do not, under any circumstances, risk your life for mine again. They’ll do all that beating shit again to get information out of me, and next time I need you to keep your mouth shut."

  Great, he thinks I'm an idiot. Embarrassment drops my gaze to the dirt.

  "I can't watch them hurt you again because of me," he sighs. The wood vibrates at the back of his head falling against it. "If we're not careful, they'll learn my weakness isn’t my own pain."

  Not sure how to respond to that bit of honesty, I avoid responding and crawl to the dinner pan, taking a sip of water from the cup beside it. Halfway through the overcooked beans, I glance over. He's lying on his back, hands resting on his chest, staring at the ceiling.

  "Do you hear that?" I whisper, then close my eyes, relishing the silence.

  "Wh
at's that, Pops?"

  "Nothing."

  "Okay...," he says, not understanding where I'm going with this. Of course he doesn't. He wasn’t here when the girls were being raped on a nightly basis.

  "There's no crying. No calls for me to help them. No soft, broken whimpers in the corner or out there." I nod toward the camp, which of course he can't see. "You did that. You saved them. I know you’re here because of me, but you have to know, to understand what you did for them and me. Thank you. Thank you for taking them away from this shit hole."

  A long pause of silence stretches before he says, "You haven't asked where they are."

  "They're not here. That's what matters."

  "But you are."

  Ignoring that bit of truth, I go back to eating. When I'm done, I lie back to savor the glorious silence.

  Chapter 11

  Fate

  Before

  Not by my conscious doing, sometime in the middle of the night, I move across the small room. Instead of waking curled in the corner where I fell asleep, now the thin wood dividing our two areas presses against the small of my back.

  With a yawn, I roll to face his side and find him in the middle of the room on his back, staring at the rusted ceiling. Metal grinds and the door to my area swings open. Alert brown eyes snap to a man now standing in the doorway.

  Tension crackles in the still air. My gaze bounces from the man staring at me to the one staring down the man in the doorway.

  With a grunt, the man in fatigues drops the pan to the floor, food sloshing on the dirt, and sets a small cup of water beside it. Ten points to Slytherin for not dropping that too. These few cups of water they hand my way are barely enough to keep dehydration at bay.

  Once the door slams shut and the lock slides back in place, I stretch and look to his side. But no one comes to deliver him food or water. Come to think of it, no one did last night either.

  "Have they brought you anything?" I ask between sips of water. Instead of responding, his gaze flicks back to the ceiling. "I'll take that as a no, then."

  Brushing bits of loose dirt from the thin blue material covering my backside, I stand and grab the food and water. Careful to not spill anything, I shuffle back to the dividing wall. Little by little, I search for a gap wide enough to slip some food and the cup through. The widest I find only allows a couple fingers to squeeze through. "It might be awkward, but this is our only option. Come over here and I'll share mine."

  "I already ate. Their continental breakfast is amazing, but you have to wake up early."

  "I was just trying to help," I snap, annoyed at his dumb response. "You don't have to be a jackass." Moving to the other side of the room I turn my back to him and eat in silence.

  His sigh is so loud I'm sure the men standing guard heard it too.

  "I'm not being an ass, just ill-placed humor. Sorry. And I'm not takin’ food from you. You need it more than I do."

  "Ah, so you're immune to dehydration and starvation. Good to know you're invincible, Nash," I say to the wall, trying to keep my tone even.

  "Now who's being the ass."

  I drop my head forward and massage the bridge of my nose. "Why did you come back? Now you're in here too. You should’ve left me."

  The shuffling of material urges me to turn back to his side. My gaze flicks from where he was lying on the floor to where he now stands, facing me, palms pressing against the dividing wall. "But then you'd be alone."

  "I'm okay being alone. I’m used to it, really,” I whisper, unable to drop his stare. He has some kind of wooing magic or something.

  "No one's okay being alone."

  "I am," I mutter, turning back to the wall. "Then no one can leave me behind."

  "I thought about it," he admits, drawing my attention back to his side. "When we loaded the last girl into the bird, I almost hopped in too, ready to get out of this shit hole, but I didn't."

  "Why?" I almost cry. “When everyone else is eager to get away from me, why did you run back?” Damn, did I say that out loud?

  "Can't I just be a gentleman and not want to leave a woman here, alone?"

  "Not good enough. Why?"

  "I wanted the true Africa captive experience?"

  My lips twitch upward beneath my veil. "Nope. Try again."

  "I'm a masochist."

  There’s no holding back my low chuckle. Two days in a row of some semblance of joy. Maybe this guy isn't so bad to have around. "Doubtful. Real reason."

  "Later."

  "We might not have later."

  "Well that's very pessimistic of you, Poppy. And here I expected an optimistic attitude from you."

  The cup at my lips muffles my huffed laugh. "Maybe before everything went to crap, but not now. Not after. You don't know me."

  "I know a lot more than you realize." His tone falls serious for once.

  "Like what?" I question, now a bit intrigued. What could he know, and how?

  "Everything."

  "Everything?"

  "Yep, the file they gave us on the flight was detailed. Why you're here, pictures, background, everything. Well, almost everything. There's one thing that's been nagging at me."

  "I'm afraid to ask," I admit, which is the truth, but for some reason I find myself smiling.

  "I'm not complaining, because the look fits you, but why pink hair?"

  My shoulders rise and fall in an exaggerated shrug.

  "Tell me, please. I really want to know."

  Turning back to the wall, I sigh and stare down at the dirt. "Because I don't want attention, but I want to be seen." With the tips of my finger, I doodle his name in the dirt. "I'm not the type of girl who walks into a room and owns it. I'm quiet and prefer to be alone, but I guess the pink hair helps me feel... if people take notice of me, maybe I’m not as invisible as I feel most days."

  Damn, it feels good to talk to someone. Talk about the real me.

  "Wow.”

  "What?" I say dryly.

  "That's some deep symbolism for pink hair."

  "You asked!" I hiss and turn to glare him down. "I don't like you."

  "Sure you do, Poppy."

  My nostrils flare in annoyance as I push from the ground and storm across the room. Standing face-to-face, I tip my head back and meet his amused gaze. "Stop calling me that. It's not my name."

  "Poppy."

  "Stop."

  "Poppy. Pops. Both have a nice ring to it."

  "Stop it!" I shout.

  And I'm an idiot who lets her emotions get the best of her, making her forget where she is.

  In the second it takes for the door to unlock, I drop to the ground and Nash moves to the other side of his makeshift cell. My door flings open and a man storms through with a tight grip on his gun.

  "Bug," I say in defense to my outburst, lifting my hands so he can see my exaggerated shrug. "Big bug."

  With an annoyed shout, though I have no idea what he says, the door slams closed once again.

  I wait a few seconds before turning to Nash, only to find his hand over his mouth in an attempt to cover an ear-to-ear grin.

  "Nice one. Poppy."

  I bang my head against the wooden boards and groan. "This is why I prefer my cave and books. No annoying men."

  "I hate that fucking thing."

  "What?" I sigh and rub my head. He's... confusing.

  "The veil. I can't tell if you're joking or not. Confusing as hell."

  "It's my protection."

  "From...?" He moves across his small area and leans against the dividing wall, looking down to me.

  "Everything," I whisper and angle my head up. My breath catches as I peer into those intense brown eyes, an excited shiver racing down my spine. "From the men. From them learning the truth. From the world."

  His dark brows furrow, eyes narrowed. "Take it off."

  "What?"

  "Take it off. You're not hiding from me. I know who you are. I know what you’re doing here. You don't need to hide anything from me. When w
e're in here, take it off."

  Take it off. Right. Show this guy who's still sexy as hell with his face bashed in my nine-day dirty hair. My sweaty, dirty face. Right. No thanks.

  My lack of reply must speak volumes of my self-conscious thoughts. His features soften, and a small smile pulls at the corner of his lips. "Seriously. Don't worry about how you look. I won’t judge."

  Shocked, I lean back. "How did you—"

  "Four younger sisters, Pops. Four. I know more about women than you probably do."

  Wait. For some reason that makes yesterday’s comment click.

  "Yesterday... or last night, whenever, you... you quoted Pretty Woman, when Julia Roberts gets into the Lotus with Richard Gere."

  "I've watched that movie more times than any man ever should. Not only did I have to sit through it every damn time it was on TV growing up, but now my niece loves it too. Which I have to admit is concerning. I'm afraid she's legit considering streetwalking as a future career choice."

  "How old are you?" He mentioned he’s a Millennial, but a niece old enough to watch that movie....

  "Thirty. My niece is twelve. Liza had her in high school, if that's where you're going with that question. It was a shock to the family." He laughs and smiles at the ceiling. "But we all pitched in. And damn if that little thing isn't the only person who keeps me sane most days."

  "Wow, so your whole life—"

  "Has been surrounded by swinging hormones, avoiding the house altogether one week a month with my father, and a lot, and I mean a lot, of talking. And I can quote any chick flick created. But I wouldn't change a damn thing. They’re family, you know. Crazy and bossy as hell."

  Beneath my veil, my smile falls and I chew on the inside of my cheek. It sounds amazing, like a real family who supports each other and sticks together. My eyes close as I imagine what big family holidays would be like, birthdays—hell, even a summer break where you could actually have fun and not work or take care of someone else.

  "Hey—" he starts, but the creaking of metal cuts him off. Both our attention snaps to my door. But it isn't mine that swings open with two smiling men stepping through.