True Surrender: a Second Chance Military Romance

Major Aaron Bricewick jerked his head up, biting back a gasp.

Had a sound wakened him, or was it just pain that had brought him to consciousness?

He lay still in the dark, straining to make out any further noise. It must be night; he couldn’t hear the muted sounds of vehicles.

The third night in this basement cell.

This night there’d been no bread and water.

Though the sounds of his captors made his heart race and his stomach clench, this silence was unnerving. Even the occasional movement on the floor above him had stopped. Had his captors fled? Or were they out wreaking havoc elsewhere?

He flinched at the scuttling sound of his only company. Though he’d never seen the rats, his mind now conjured up images of them crawling on and over his lifeless body.

Move, Bricewick.

He shifted. The clinking of the chain attached to his right wrist sounded unnaturally loud. He placed that hand against the floor and pushed himself to a sitting position, swallowing the groan as best he could.

He reached for the jug he knew was beside the door, but the fingers of his left hand were stiff and swollen, and he had trouble gripping it.

“If you don’t give us what we want, we’ll take you apart piece by piece!”

The voice in his head was the one called Rashid—the only terrorist in this group who spoke English.

Would Aaron have done it if he could? Hack into the system and give up military intelligence? He was no Navy SEAL or Army Ranger or Special Forces operative trained to withstand interrogation and torture. He was a computer guy, for God’s sake.

But he hadn’t had to make that choice. He’d been locked out of the computer system, probably the moment the higher-ups realized he was missing. He’d tried explaining this to Rashid and his henchmen, but there was no rationalizing with terrorists.

Instead, Rashid had calmly picked up a club, informed Aaron he intended to kill him—and smashed both the computer and Aaron’s hand.

He’d never known pain like that.

It was Scott who’d torn strips from his own clothes, his lips moving in silent prayer as he fashioned a makeshift bandage for Aaron’s broken fingers. He, too, had been interrogated, but as a civilian contractor, he had no military rank—a fact that seemed to make him less of a target for the terrorists’ ire.

Which was a good thing—if there was any good to be found in this situation—and it had become Aaron’s mission to keep that spotlight off Scott.

And Cheryl.

Oh, God, what had the terrorists done with them?

He swallowed the bile that pushed into his throat; throwing up again would only make things worse. Private Cheryl Young had only been his clerk for four months; she didn’t know anything that would be of value to the terrorists. He’d tried to protect her, too, but had it done any good?

God, if you’re there, protect them. Hell, protect me too, if you really do care about sinners.

He raised the water jug to his lips, but it was empty. He let it fall to the ground, then dropped his head against the cold wall at his back.

He had regrets about his life: his estrangement from his father… not being there when his mom and stepfather died… the woman he should have married and made a life with.

Holly.