Rescuing Rayne (14 page)

Rayne couldn’t believe what she was hearing. After being raped seven times, if
she
didn’t orgasm, she’d have to go through this again? It was obviously a setup so they could rape women over and over again, all in the name of their custom. It wasn’t as if any of them really gave a shit if the women they were with orgasmed or not.

She wasn’t sure she’d survive being violated once, let alone seven times, and Rayne knew she’d die if she had to go through the barbaric ritual more than once. She’d find a way to kill herself before suffering through it again. These people were insane.

Rayne kept her mouth shut, knowing nothing she could say would make these monsters change their minds.

She glanced over at the men sitting in the chairs, waiting and watching. Some were related to the boy; and that made the fact they were there and supporting this awful ritual a hundred times worse. They didn’t look like old wise men, they looked like lecherous middle-aged men who got off on observing a woman being raped and tortured.

“The more blood that flows, the luckier he will be in manhood. The more you struggle and fight, the more of a man he will become.”

Rayne couldn’t hold back her words, finding the courage she’d been lacking up to this point. What did it matter if she pissed them off now? If they killed her? It was actually probably better. Maybe if they got mad enough they’d just slit her throat or something, although that probably wouldn’t keep Moshe from raping her. The thought of him violating her dead body made her want to throw up, but she didn’t let it stop the words that spewed out of her mouth.

“Shut up. Just shut up! You’re all sick. This is rape! This is wrong. You can’t honestly believe the shit you’re spewing. Let me go, I don’t want your little penis anywhere near me!” She frantically thrashed in her cruel bindings as the boy came up beside the mattress and looked down at her and smiled.

Rayne looked at him in the hopes of seeing the person who’d nodded at her shyly back in the other room. He wasn’t there. He’d been replaced by a boy on the cusp of manhood who wanted to impress the elders sitting and standing behind him, and who had nothing but lust-filled thoughts of fucking for the first time.

He stood there and watched her struggle for a moment, then turned and said something to the men behind him. There was laughter and agreement.

Of course the man who spoke English was there to translate for her. Rayne knew she’d hear his heavily accented voice in her nightmares for years to come. “Moshe says he is pleased. You are round and ripe and your skin ripples as you struggle. Already your blood flows from your wrists and ankles. He says he will be the luckiest man this ritual cycle.”

Rayne closed her eyes as the boy brought his hands up to his pants. This was happening. She couldn’t believe it. She
had
to believe it.

Rayne forcefully brought Ghost’s image to her mind to block out everything around her. His face, his hands, his scowl as he took a picture of the nasty taxi driver’s license when they were in London, the words inked on his side…quiet professionalism.

If she was going to die, the last thing she wanted to see in her mind was Ghost.

D
ude and Hollywood
worked together as if they’d always been teammates. The SEAL and Delta Force member eased in and out of the shadows as though they belonged there, setting charges at strategic points along the perimeter of the building.

Blowing out holes in the walls of the government building probably wasn’t the Egyptian government’s first choice in tactics, but after watching a bomb explode in a corner room that had to have killed all of the women inside, the teams were done waiting for permission. They were sent in to take care of business, and that’s just what they were going to do. No other Americans, or any other hostages, were going to die on their watch. They couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. That’s not what they’d been trained to do and now was the time to act.

They had to get inside and get the remaining hostages out…and if that meant some, or all, of the militants were killed in the process, all the better. Thirteen men against an unknown number of tangos might seem like an uneven fight to a lot of people, but Hollywood knew they weren’t just any thirteen soldiers. They were SEALs and Delta Force. They were trained for this shit. They were a part of the two most lethal groups of Special Forces soldiers the United States military had.

Hollywood spoke into his throat mic. “B to base. All is go.”

“Ten-four, B. Ready for flight,” came the quiet response through the radio.

Hollywood and Dude backed away from the last charge they’d set. As soon as they were a safe distance away, they’d give the high sign to Truck, and he’d simultaneously set off all of the charges at the same time. It should create enough chaos inside the building for the teams to sneak in and, hopefully, escort any remaining hostages out.

The men were paired up, a Delta with a SEAL. Typically the SEALs would stay teamed with their own and the same with the Deltas, but since they’d worked together briefly in the past, and trusted each other, they decided to split up the teams to capitalize on their strengths. It was highly unusual, but neither of the groups typically worked by the book.

“B to base. Countdown to flight,” Hollywood informed Truck tonelessly.

“Prepare for takeoff,” the other man returned immediately.

Dude and Hollywood crouched down against a wall in an alley not too far from the building, covered their ears, and waited for all hell to break loose.

R
ayne tried
to concentrate on her memories, but that damn voice kept forcing itself into her consciousness. She heard one of the men speaking faintly, presumably to the boy, and the asshole who spoke English felt the need to translate every single fucking word.

“He is telling Moshe to make sure your legs are spread as far apart as possible so he can get as far inside you as he can go.”

Rayne felt the baby-smooth skin of Moshe’s thighs against her own. She felt him scooting up and forcing her legs farther apart in the process. Her legs had already been spread, but as much as she resisted Moshe, he was still able to push her legs obscenely wide. The chains on her ankles pulled taut as Moshe spread her thighs farther than what was comfortable, tearing the flesh around her ankles. She was still wearing her underwear, but knew the barrier it was currently providing would soon be only a memory. She squirmed against her bonds, despite knowing it was futile. No, this couldn’t be happening.

The fucker kept up the blow-by-blow of her imminent rape.

“Now they are telling him what it will feel like when he gets inside. You’ll be dry, which provides more friction for his root. They are trying to get him to explode before he gets inside, holding off will prove he’s man enough to resist temptation.”

Rayne was going to throw up. All over Moshe and all over herself. This was horrific and she needed to be somewhere else, anywhere else. She couldn’t hold back the whimper that sneaked out of her throat. Her hands fisted in their bindings and she trembled, every muscle in her body tense, readying itself for the invasion about to come.

Just as she felt Moshe’s soft, boyish hands touch her upper thighs and squeeze painfully, an explosion ripped through the room.

Rayne screamed in terror like a cornered dog, not understanding what was happening. She’d been ready for her body to be violated, but instead the bed shook under her as the walls crumbled. Rayne watched as large cracks appeared in the ceiling above her head.

She glanced over at the men who had been leaning toward the bed in anticipation of Moshe’s initiation and first foray into manhood, and saw that they were no longer sitting with lust in their eyes staring at her, but had stood up and were all trying to push out of the room at the same time. Running like the cowards they were deep inside.

A hand gripped her breast, hard, and Rayne gasped at the sensation. Looking up into Moshe’s eyes, she saw no trace of the boy she’d thought to try to gain sympathy from. He was pissed his initiation was being interrupted. He cruelly squeezed her breast through her bra once more and hissed something at her in his own language before springing off her and quickly pulling his pants back up, holding them closed with his free hand, not bothering to tie them shut.

As he was leaving the room, he turned back and said in perfectly understandable English, “I’ll be back. I
will
become a man today,” and he ran out the door.

Rayne shivered and frantically pulled at the chains holding her to the bed. All her actions did was make her wrists and ankles bleed more.

There was another explosion, closer than the previous one, and the last thing Rayne remembered was watching the blocks in the wall shake and threaten to crumble as she passed out from fright.

T
he six Special
Forces teams of two fanned out across the now crumbling complex. It was complete pandemonium, just as the teams had planned and predicted it would be. Knowing the general areas where the hostages were being kept, each team headed for their preassigned area. The plan was to find as many hostages as possible and lead them out and to safety…and to kill any militants who got in their way.

Ghost and Wolf were point and were stationed in the square. They’d direct any hostages who ran out of the now burning and destroyed building to safety. Blade was the odd man out and was waiting at the rendezvous point for everyone to gather.

Watching in relief as small groups of men and women poured out of the building, each guided by a team member, Ghost and Wolf kept vigilant, ready for any terrorist to decide the escaping hostages should die rather than be rescued. After forty minutes, the flow of hostages slowed to a trickle and most of the teams had checked in. Fletch and Mozart and Truck and Benny had joined Blade, and had been transporting the dazed and confused hostages to safer territory.

The teams had come across pockets of militants hunkered down inside the massive building, trying to hide until the initial breach had been completed, but they’d been no match for the SEAL and Delta teams.

Beatle’s voice crackled across the radio. “We just sent a group of about fifteen men your way, G. They say there was a group of women, including some of their wives and girlfriends, who had been separated from them two days ago. They were last seen being led to the blast zone.”

Ghost knew what he meant. He hoped they hadn’t been the women in the room the militants had set the bomb off in. “Ten-four. We’ll intercept and see if we can’t get more intel.”

“We’re standing by,” was Beatle’s response.

Ghost saw the group of men staggering toward them. They looked haunted by whatever had gone on inside the building. Ghost motioned them over, and they gladly ran toward the American soldiers.

“Who had a partner that was separated?” Ghost questioned, all business.

Six hands went up. Wolf passed the remaining men on to Abe, who was waiting to take the last groups to safety.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

A tall, older gentleman said in a broken voice, “We were all being held together for the first couple of days then we were asked to stand in two lines, men in one and women in the other. One man protested and he and his wife were shot. Then those bastards shot another couple just for fun and threw all of them out the window. We were then led to another room, without the women. We’ve been there ever since. We heard some explosions, but don’t know anything about what’s going on. Did you get all the women out? Are they safe?”

“We’re working on it, sir,” Wolf tried to reassure the man. “We’ll do our best to find your women, if they haven’t already been freed.”

“Thank God,” the tall man breathed.

Ghost heard Beatle begin speaking through the radio again. “Problem, Ghost. We found another group of hostages. Women. They’re busted up, some worse than others, and hysterical. Said they were locked in a room with a bomb.”

“They’re alive?” Ghost asked incredulously. Simply being alive was a miracle, especially having seen the damage the bomb had done.

“Yeah. Apparently after they were shut in the room, and before the bomb exploded, they hid behind a big-ass piece of furniture. Details are still a bit sketchy as they’re obviously traumatized, but they were damn lucky.”

“No shit. Jesus.” It was the best news Ghost and Wolf had heard all day. They’d thought everyone in that room had been killed.

“Thing is,” Beatle continued quickly, “one woman said her friend was dragged out of the room before the explosives went off.”

“Fuck,” Ghost said fervently. “Okay, get those women out of there. If you have time, see if you can track down the missing woman, otherwise get the fuck out.”

“The one woman is refusing to go until we find her missing friend.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what she refuses, get her out of there, Beatle,” Ghost threatened in a low voice. The last thing they needed was the hostages calling the shots.

“Ten-four.” Ghost could tell Beatle was switching to the all-network channel, the one which all of the SEALs and Deltas could hear. “We’re going to start on this end of the building and do one last search for the missing American woman. Her friend says her name is Rayne, and when we find her, to make sure we tell her Sarah and the others are all right. She says she’ll worry. Everyone be on the lookout for an American, average height and weight, wearing a pair of jeans and a pink T-shirt. She should easily stand out from the terrorists.”

Ghost felt his heart stutter in his chest. It couldn’t be. No fucking way. “What was the name of the missing woman again?” he barked into his throat mic. He couldn’t even follow proper protocol, he had to know.

How many women had the name Rayne? Not very many, and with the way the hair on the back of his neck was standing up, Ghost knew it was
his
Rayne.

“Rayne Jackson.”

“Copy that,” Wolf answered when Ghost didn’t say another word.

“Talk to me, Ghost. What’s putting that look in your eye?” Wolf demanded, putting his finger on the trigger of his M-4 rifle and looking around as if the enemy was staring down his sights at them.

“She’s mine. The missing woman…she’s mine.”

Wolf didn’t bat an eye and didn’t ask any questions. “Well fuck, man, let’s get in there, find her, and get her the fuck out this fucking mess.”

Ghost nodded once and started toward the building. Ghost had no idea what Rayne was doing in the middle of a coup in Egypt, but at this point, it didn’t matter. If the missing woman
was
his Rayne, he’d do whatever it took to get her out and safe. He wasn’t thinking about the lies he’d told her or how she’d react to seeing him like this, all he could think about was holding her in his arms…safe and sound. If anyone got between him and his woman, they were as good as dead.