Page 8 of Her Wicked Hero

“I will,” he promised. “You need to be quiet, so we can help you, right now.” He eased her down on the ground next to the older couple he recognized as the Hoff’s. “Where are the others?” he asked Aiden quietly.

“My sister and dad are in there,” the girl struggled to sit up as she pointed at one of the huts.

“What’s your name?” Aiden asked as he crouched down beside her. He already had a sterile pad against her head and was flashing a penlight in her eyes. “Look forward for me, will you?” he smiled easily at the girl.

“You’re not listening to me.” She grabbed at Zed’s arm, ignoring Aiden. “I’m fine. You need to go after Marcia. That man will kill her.” Her eyes flooded with tears.

The kid was killing him. He loved her concern for Marcia. Every instinct inside him was screaming to do exactly what she wanted. He needed to go after Marcia and bring her back to safety.

“Gray, we’ve got a problem,” Zed heard Hunter shout out to the lieutenant. “Come here.”

“I’ll be right back, I promise.” Zed squeezed the girl’s hand and went over to see what Hunter had found. He was examining one of the corpses and had rolled up the man’s shirt sleeve. Even from ten yards away he could clearly see the man had a Navy SEAL trident tattoo on his bicep.

Fuck!

He’d been one of theirs, and he’d been part of this heinous operation. It made Zed sick.

“Check ‘em all,” Gray bit out. “I want to know if there are any more Budweiser tats.”

On the third man Zed checked, he found a screaming eagle tattoo. “Got us Airborne over here,” he hollered.

“Those of you not doing triage, huddle up. Dex, I need you on me,” Gray shouted loud enough so Dex could hear even though he was in the hut with the Brockman’s.

Dex came out of the hut and glanced around until he spotted Aiden. “O’Malley, Brockman isn’t doing well. He’s having trouble breathing. I’m pretty sure one of his ribs punctured a lung.”

“Give me another minute,” Aiden said.

Zed watched as he finished applying a tourniquet to Mrs. Hoff’s leg. He gave her a shot, probably full of painkillers and antibiotics. She was going to need to be carried out of the jungle. Zed headed over to Gray and the rest of the team.

“Mister,” the girl called out as Zed passed her.

Zed stopped. “Honey, is your name Christie or Debbie?”

“I’m Debbie.”

“Well Debbie, I haven’t forgotten about Marcia, I promise.”

“Raymond’s evil. You’ve got to help her.” Her eyes were bright with tears, but this time, she was holding them back.

The picture of Marcia Price filled his consciousness, but instead of the smile on her picture, her face was a mask of dread. “We’ll help her. That’s what we do,” Zed said grimly. He watched as Debbie relaxed. He patted her on the shoulder, then continued on toward Gray and the others.

“…all the communications deciphered ASAP. I need every little bit of data you can get, not just about the bidders, but anything you can find out about who else might be running this op.” Dex nodded at Gray then headed toward the barracks.

Gray turned his attention back to the other men gathered around him. “Dalton, I want you to scan all of these assholes fingerprints. Something tells me more than just these two are US Spec Ops. Wyatt, I want you to confiscate all of their personal belongings, we’re taking it all. I don’t want one damn thing that can be traced back to the U.S. or any other country, for that matter, in case we can’t arrange an extraction team for the bodies before someone else stumbles across them.”

Aiden walked up to the huddle. “How bad is it?” Gray asked.

“We have two who need immediate help and will need to be carried. The professor and her husband can walk, but they’ll be slow like the Brockman girls. Mr. Hoff should be able to assist us with them.”

Zed watched Gray carefully. This was the first time he had to see him deal with a totally fucked up situation. It would be interesting to see how he differed from his own lieutenant. “But we don’t have everyone accounted for, do we?” Gray asked. “Where’s Marcia Price?”

And with that question, Zed decided Gray ranked up there with Max Hogan, the lieutenant of Night Storm. Both men had eyes in the back of their heads.

Aiden pointed to Zed, “He knows what’s going on with Marcia. He found one of the Brockman daughters, and she’s been begging him to go after the Price girl.”

“Tell me what’s going on,” Gray demanded of Zed.

“When I found Debbie Brockman over near the latrine, she was hiding. She’d been hit in the head by an asshole named Raymond. She said he’s evil, and he has Marcia.”