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I can forgive this.
I slip my fingers inside the hands still holding my face and meet his light blue gaze steadily. “It’s alright, Mark. I forgive you.”
A choked sob escapes him as he pulls me hard against his chest and wraps his arms around me. Hot tears spill onto my neck and shoulder as his body shudders. I’ve not seen Mark cry since his mom died. I slide my arms around him, wishing I could erase his misery.
Several minutes pass before he leans back, wiping his eyes and clearing his throat.
“This isn’t me, Charlie. I’ve never thrown things or ranted like a lunatic. I feel like I’m sitting in the driver’s seat with someone else controlling the car. I hate it.” He stares off for a moment. “I called Dr. Friedman.” He takes my hands. “I asked him to come up, and we talked, really talked. I told him everything. I said I’d take anything he thought would help. He put me on a medication that’s supposed to level things out, to blunt the intensity of my emotions so I don’t feel so out of control. Instead of big peaks and low valleys, I should have gentle waves. I can’t guarantee it will fix everything, and it might take time to get the dose right for me, but I refuse to live my life behaving the way I did this morning. You’re too important to me.”
I squeeze his hands. “I’m in this with you for the long haul, Mark, no matter what.”
He pulls me close for another hug and kisses my forehead. “Thank you for not giving up on me,” he whispers. “Love you, Baby Girl.” He tugs my hand up, thumping our joined hands twice over his heart.
“Love you, too.”
MARK
It’s two a.m., and I’ve finally convinced Charlie to return to her hotel. She’s not left my side all afternoon, casting fleeting looks my way when she thinks I’m not watching. I know what she’s thinking. She’s afraid I’m consumed with guilt.
She’s right.
Eleven days.
That’s how long they had her and Lila, caged like animals, tied up and starved and raped.
And in Charlie’s case, tortured.
As long as I live, I’ll never forget the night we found her. We’d turned the region inside out, questioned the locals, searched out every lead we could find. We kept coming up empty. I’d barely slept or eaten the whole time they were gone. I’d become obsessed. Tucker wasn’t much better, but there was one difference.
I’m the one that gave the order for them to go out.
I’m the one who sent my people into a death trap.
Reports had come in of a nearby village being attacked by an I.S. group, and the villagers were requesting medical aid. I sent four medics with four soldiers. The soldiers were there in case things got dicey, watching the medics’ backs and keeping the peace. Tensions run high when innocent people are wounded and dying. The soldiers also help load the wounded into the humvees to go to the field hospital if needed or call in helicopters if their injuries are critical.
But the insurgents had been watching, learning our patterns. They knew our typical response was an equal number of medics and soldiers, usually two teams of four, sent in to help the villagers. They laid in wait. They killed my men and kidnapped the women.
The morning of the eleventh day, we caught a break, a whisper that a group of men with two American women was hiding in the lower level of an abandoned mosque seventeen miles away. I strategized our plan and we moved in after nightfall, praying we were in the right place.
My men and I slipped silently into the darkened, bombed-out shell of a once-magnificent mosque. Once inside, we split into two groups of six. I led my team downstairs while Tucker and his team swiftly crossed the main level. We moved quietly, staying in the shadows. I paused at the bottom of the stairs, scoping the area ahead of us. That’s when I heard the muffled pop of gunshots from Tucker and his guys upstairs.
They’d found something.
On high alert, my men and I pressed forward, fanning out. Startled insurgents began spilling out from all sides, brandishing weapons. Most never got a shot off as we cleared the area.
An urgent whisper had come from just ahead of me, to my right. “Sir! I’ve got one!”
One of my men was kneeling inside a makeshift cell. I’d raced over, scanning the swollen features of the woman being lowered into a sitting position. She’d been restrained facedown over a table, her legs chained to the table legs.
Lila.
Her shirt was torn and filthy, and she’d been stripped from the waist down. Her delicate face was bruised and bloodied, one eye swollen shut. She’d been gagged with a grimy rag. In one corner lay the malodorous, decomposing body of a man facedown in a pool of dark, sticky blood.
Lila gazed up at me bleakly, her expression dull. I’d squatted beside her, quickly removing the gag from her mouth. I reached into my pack for a bottle of water and poured some into her mouth. She drank ravenously, then coughed and spluttered.
“Lila? Can you hear me?”
She nodded. “Charlie,” she whispered weakly. “Down at the end. On the right.”
