The lightning faded, plunging the ruins back into the stormy gloom, but the image of his face was burned into Deanna's retinas.
Her brain short-circuited. The air left her lungs in a violent rush.
It was him. The man from the private military contractor camp. The second-in-command who had overseen her captivity for five years. The man whose cold, dead eyes had watched her every move. The man the other mercenaries called the Executioner.
Erik Stafford.
Deanna's PTSD, buried under layers of fresh trauma, exploded like a landmine. A sound tore from her throat-a raw, high-pitched scream of absolute, primal terror.
She scrambled backward, her bare feet and bleeding hands tearing at the mud, trying to put distance between herself and the monster.
Erik saw the sheer panic in her eyes. His dark eyebrows pulled together. He stopped walking. Slowly, deliberately, he raised both of his hands, palms open, showing he had no weapons.
But to Deanna, that slow, calculated movement was the exact posture he used right before he broke a prisoner's fingers in the desert.
Blinded by panic, Deanna scooped up a handful of wet mud and gravel and hurled it directly at his face.
Erik didn't even blink. He just tilted his head a fraction of an inch, letting the dirt splatter against the collar of his tactical coat.
"Dr. Conner," Erik said. His voice was a low, heavy rumble that cut straight through the sound of the pouring rain.
Hearing him say her title-the exact way he addressed her in the camp-sent a violent shudder down her spine. He was here to finish the job. The terrorists had sent him to American soil to silence her permanently.
Deanna scrambled to her feet. She didn't look back. She turned and sprinted blindly toward the back of the ruins, heading straight for the coastal cliff edge.
Erik's face hardened. "Stop!" he roared, his long legs eating up the distance as he sprinted after her. His heavy boots kicked up sprays of water.
Deanna reached the edge of the cliff. The furious wind whipped her wet hair across her face. The smell of salt and rotting seaweed filled her nose. She looked down. Fifty feet below, black ocean waves smashed violently against jagged rocks.
Her toes slipped over the edge. Small pebbles broke loose, tumbling silently into the abyss.
Erik slammed to a halt exactly five paces away. He threw his arm out, his voice cracking like a whip. "Step away from the edge. Now."
Deanna spun around. She balanced on the precipice, the wind threatening to push her over. Her eyes were wide, feral, and completely unhinged.
"Take one more step, and I jump!" Deanna screamed, her voice tearing her vocal cords. "I know why you're here! I will die on these rocks before I let you drag me back to that hellhole!"
Erik's jaw clenched so tight the muscle ticked violently. A flash of profound, unbearable pain crossed his dark eyes, but he buried it instantly. He knew she wouldn't believe he was an undercover CIA operative. Not now. Not when she was standing on the edge of death.
He needed to shock her system. He needed to break her current reality to save her life.
Erik slowly lowered his arm. The panic left his face, replaced by a mask of cruel, mocking amusement.
"You think we randomly hijacked your medical convoy, Dr. Conner?" Erik sneered, his voice dripping with condescension. "You think you were just unlucky?"
Deanna froze. The wind whipped her hospital gown. "It was an ambush," she yelled back. "You terrorists hit the road randomly!"
Erik let out a dark, humorless laugh. He took a slow, deliberate step forward. "It wasn't random. It was a transaction. A fully paid, itemized delivery."
Deanna's body went rigid. "What?"
Erik locked his unblinking stare onto her eyes. "Route Code Delta-Niner. Departure delayed by forty minutes due to a 'mechanical error' with the lead jeep. Does that sound familiar?"
The blood drained from Deanna's face. Those were classified itinerary details. Only the hospital board and the core medical team knew about the route change.
"Someone inside your precious Seaport City hospital sold you out," Erik yelled over the storm, dropping the bomb. "They took the money and handed Zorian your exact GPS coordinates. You were betrayed by your own people."
Betrayed by your own people.
The words hit Deanna harder than a physical bullet. The entire foundation of her suffering-the belief that she was just a tragic victim of war-shattered into a million pieces.
She remembered her colleague, Miles Chandler, bleeding out in the dirt after the ambush. She remembered him grabbing her collar, choking on his own blood, trying to whisper a warning she couldn't understand.
The pieces clicked together with horrifying clarity.
The world tilted on its axis. Deanna's knees buckled. All the strength left her legs, and she collapsed backward.
But instead of falling into the ocean, she slumped onto the muddy ground, inches from the drop. She stared blankly at the mud, her lips moving silently. Who? Who did it?
Erik closed the distance in two massive strides. He grabbed her upper arm with an iron grip and hauled her violently away from the cliff edge, dragging her onto safe, solid ground.
Deanna didn't fight him. She was a hollow shell. She let him drag her, her eyes unfocused.
Erik stood over her, his chest heaving. He leaned down, his face inches from hers. "In this city, trust no one," he whispered, his voice intense and urgent. "Especially the people closest to you."
Before Deanna could open her mouth to demand a name, a sharp, electronic voice echoed from the mud. The unconscious thug's phone had been crushed in his pocket during the impact against the wall, accidentally triggering the emergency SOS feature. The dispatcher's tinny voice was already demanding their location. Seconds later, a pair of blinding white spotlights swept across the ruins from the main road. The shrieking wail of police sirens tore through the night, responding to the automated distress signal. Red and blue lights flashed frantically against the charred walls.
Erik instantly let go of her arm. He took two quick steps backward, melting into the shadows. He gave Deanna one last, intensely protective look, then turned and vanished silently into the dense, rain-soaked brush along the cliffline.
