He grabbed her hair, jerked her away from the wall and fisted the back of her shirt too as he spun her around. “It’s your lucky damn day. You get to live. Move. You try anything and I’ll hurt you bad. My orders are to bring you in breathing but nobody said I couldn’t make you suffer.”

He stopped her at the bathroom door. The dead guy was inches from her bare feet. She felt wet heat on the floor like warm syrup. She didn’t look down to verify she stood in blood. She didn’t need to see it to know. Nausea roiled up and she made a gagging sound.

The hand tightened on her shirt and the man jerked her. “You puke and I’ll break your damn jaw.”

Becca frantically fought to thwart the urge. She watched helplessly as two men lifted Brawn off the bed. They gripped him under his armpits and dragged him toward the door.

Who are these assholes? She was terrified. Any law-enforcement agency would have identified themselves before attacking. That left the opposite of law enforcement. Maybe mercenaries? Becca quaked at the thought. Her father said the difference between one of them and a soldier was that his men would only kill when issued orders.

Three more black-clad men, their faces and hair concealed, walked into the room. One of them pulled another of the unusual weapons, aimed at Brawn’s leg and fired. The dart embedded in Brawn’s upper thigh but he didn’t flinch, still unconscious.

“That’s two,” the man who had shot him sighed. “Let’s keep track. We don’t want to kill him. In fifteen minutes we’ll dose him again.”

“Fuck,” another man softly swore. “That won’t kill him? That’s a hell of lot.”

“They have high drug tolerances from all those years of testing and they have a fast metabolism. You don’t want this bastard to wake up until we get him in a cage. It would be the last mistake you ever made.”

“It wasn’t so hard getting him.” Randy chuckled. “It was easier than I thought.”

The man who’d shot Brawn with the dart shook his head. “It was the female. He couldn’t flee so he had to fight. If it wasn’t for her we wouldn’t have caught him. He would have been out the window and miles from here before we reached the room. He locked the door and was waiting for us when we attacked, to protect her. He heard us coming.”

Becca felt bad. Brawn wouldn’t have been captured if she had spent the night at her dad’s house. Shit.

“Let’s move out. The police will be here soon.” Randy shoved her from behind. “Walk.”

The shooter holstered his bulky gun against his thigh, moved forward and grabbed Brawn’s legs. The three of them carried him out and Becca was forced to walk behind the trio. Randy kept a tight hold on her and she didn’t bother to fight. There were too many of them for her to win. They were obviously well trained and while her father had made her take martial arts, she was a realist. They exited out of the back of her house where the entire slider doorframe had been totally removed in one piece from the wall.

They carried Brawn to the back wall at Tina and Mel’s yard. One man released Brawn’s legs and climbed the wall, while the other two lifted Brawn’s limp body up. The sound of a distant siren made Becca fight back the urge to attack Randy. She could take him by surprise, maybe and flee into the darkness. They wouldn’t have much time to find her before the cops arrived but they also might just shoot her in the back. Kill her.

Brawn had been caught because he’d refused to leave her behind to flee. She clenched her teeth as the as**ole shoved her at the wall. The three carrying Brawn had already made it over with him, out of sight. She raised her arms to grip the top of the wall. She wasn’t leaving Brawn. He was helpless, drugged and she might see an opportunity to save him.

Never leave a man behind. That was one of her dad’s favorite mottos. Fuck! She wasn’t about to abandon Brawn.

Chapter Four

Becca felt hope that perhaps the cops would arrive and save the day until she was pushed into a waiting black van parked in Mel and Tina’s driveway. She saw a white logo sticker across the side of it advertising security. They were smart, the cops probably wouldn’t stop them, figuring they were there to respond to a silent alarm. Her optimism died.

Randy shoved her inside the back of the well-lit interior of the van and straight into a large cage. She landed on something warm. Brawn was sprawled under her, not moving, his eyes closed. A loud sound behind her made her jump as the cage door slammed closed, locking them inside together.

Becca watched men pile into the front half of the commercial-sized van. The front driver door and passenger door opened to admit two more men. There were seven in all. The driver’s face wasn’t covered and she was pretty sure from the back of his head that it was the prick who’d shot Tina. He turned to glance at the back.

“Let’s roll, people.” He chuckled. “That was some easy money.” The van engine started and it rolled forward, taking her away.

Laughter sounded around the van after one of the men closed a curtain partition from the front so they could keep the lights on without anyone seeing them. “Well, not for Smitty.”

More laughter. “He was a prick anyway.”

“Maybe we should have taken his body with us.”

“Naw. It will confuse the cops. He’s got a list of burglary raps.”

Becca couldn’t tell who was talking with their mouths covered. She shifted her body to ease her weight off Brawn. The cage was large, designed for a big animal, but not big enough to keep her from having to press against him a little. She settled on the cage floor on her butt and leaned against his chest. She studied his face with concern and touched two fingers to his neck to feel a weak but steady pulse.

“Look? It must be love. She’s touching him.”

Another one snickered. “I wouldn’t mind her touching me.”

“Me neither.”

Becca ignored them as she brushed Brawn’s hair back from his forehead after spotting a scratch above his eyebrow. It wasn’t deep, didn’t bleed much and she slid her fingers through his tresses to feel for any hidden lumps. She noticed the silky texture as she examined him but she didn’t find any signs of head trauma.

“Think she’s going to get it on with him?”

A few of them laughed.

“Well, if not him, maybe one of them.”

More laughs.

“I think I’m going to volunteer monitor duty when we get back. I want to see this if the Doc wants them to fuck.”

More laughs.

Becca gritted her teeth and looked up. She glared at the heads turned her way and met the eyes of the men watching her since they’d removed their goggles while she tended Brawn.

“You’ve made the worst mistake of your lives. My father is going to hunt down and kill everyone involved so I hope you spend your money fast.”

One of them snickered. “And who’s your daddy, piece of ass?”

“He lives in the big house on the property you just invaded and hates mercenaries.” She said it to see if they’d respond. She needed answers and every word might clue her in to what kind of mess she was dealing with.

“I hate to break this to you but no one is going to find you in the hole you’re going to. Your daddy was probably cowering under his bed when he heard those gunshots. Assholes are all talk to their kids.”

More laughter.

Becca didn’t know why these men wanted Brawn and she wasn’t sure why they hadn’t just killed her. They obviously had no qualms about killing innocent people since Tina was dead. Relief washed through her because she’d learned one thing for sure. Her father would arrive at her house at eight in the morning to pick up Brawn. He was alive.

Tim Oberto would move heaven and hell to find his only daughter. It might take time but it’s what he did. He tracked down and found New Species who were being held captive. Her gaze lowered to stare at Brawn. He looked different asleep—vulnerable and less intimidating. Her father and his team would come for her and Brawn. She just had to keep them alive long enough.

Will it take hours? Days? Weeks? She fought tears, refused to give the assholes watching her the satisfaction, but it wasn’t easy. She could survive hours but days or weeks? What if Dad never finds us?

She pushed that thought away. He was good at what he did. There was a dead body in her guestroom and while the men who’d kidnapped them might think leaving it would confuse the cops, it would be a clue for her dad. He’d do more than a background check. He’d tear the dead guy’s history apart to find every single as**ole in that van and make them talk and reveal what had happened to her.

“Has anyone called the bitch to let her know we have the male and we got his girlfriend? Maybe we’ll get a bonus.”

“I did,” Randy’s voice was recognizable. “She’s excited. She really wants a test subject without the drugs. She thinks the drugs will ruin the experiment. She believes it might be the key to success. It was the happiest I’ve ever heard her.”

“Maybe she should climb into one of the cages with one of the males. She’s such a horrifying bitch he’d be too terrified not to do what she wanted from him.”

“She’s too dried up to do anything wet,” one of them laughed. “Or she might have thought of that. I know if she glared at me and told me to drop my pants I might want to eat my gun but I’d be too terrified to refuse. I’d be stiff with fear.”

Laughter erupted from the van. One guy hit the van wall.

“Image that bitch bending over.” He roared with laughter.

“How about imagining her bent over in front of 358? Who would be more terrifying a sight? Him going at her or her face?”

“Forget Doctor Elsa’s face. How’d you like to see her stripped na**d? Good thing I skipped dinner.”

They laughed. “Imagine her talking dirty. Or worse, her having a brat? I don’t care who knocks that bitch up, that will be the ugliest damn baby ever if it looks like her.”

They were all laughing but Becca felt dread. Whoever this Doctor Elsa was, she wasn’t liked by the men she controlled. The things they said were giving her information though, she kept her gaze on Brawn, hoping they’d keep talking. The more they said, the more she learned.

Number 358 was a person. All New Species had been given numbers instead of names when they’d been experiments at Mercile testing facilities. She guessed that number used to be assigned to Brawn, which meant the assholes had come after him.

If they know his lab number then…shit. They must work for Mercile Industries for sure. That kind of information was highly classified. Her father couldn’t even get clearance. He’d also told her Mercile staff had set fire to their medical records and had destroyed the computers by the time the assault teams had penetrated those areas when they’d served search warrants to find New Species.

Why does Mercile want Brawn alive? It made more sense if they’d just wanted to kill him. The NSO slammed the company with lawsuits almost monthly trying to destroy them financially. For every New Species found and recovered, another lawsuit and criminal charges were filed against them and more arrests made. The New Species Organization was smart that way. They were making sure Mercile never recovered enough to restart their research.

“Hey!” one of the men yelled.

Becca jerked from her thoughts to glance up. One of them scooted closer, staring at her with narrowed blue eyes.

“You might want to move away. We have to shoot him again. Doc Elsa wants you awake and alert when we get there. Besides, one hit of this shit and you’d die from an overdose.”

The man pointed the gun and Becca edged away as far from Brawn as she could get. She yanked the dart out of him and dropped it behind her the second that she hid the area with her body when she leaned against him again on the off chance it prevented him from getting a full dose of the obvious tranquilizer.

They shot him a few more times as time passed. She removed them as quickly as possible without rousing suspicion and worry set in. They were going to kill him with an overdose. She tried to talk them out of it but they refused to listen. His pulse remained steady and she pressed her ear to his heart, reassured when it continued to beat strongly under her ear. His big body kept her warm as the miles passed, taking her far from home.

Fear was instantaneous when the van finally stopped and the engine died. She sat up and felt pain. The thick bars of the cage under her ass made her backside hurt after no movement for an extended time. The feeling of pins and needles spread across one side of her ass and up her hip. The men exited the van to leave her alone with Brawn.

She reached for his face, cupped it and rubbed. “Brawn? Can you hear me? Wake up!” She made sure she kept her voice low.

He didn’t stir at all and she started when the van doors were thrown open behind her. Her hands left Brawn’s face as she turned to glare at the five men who stepped close to the back of the cage door. One unlocked and yanked it open. He withdrew one a dart gun and pointed it at her chest.

“Get out,” he ordered.

She had to fight the stiffness in her body to move. She climbed out and her bare feet touched cold, hard concrete. She peered at the large room that reminded her of a warehouse with the super-high ceiling and exposed metal beams. There were a few large windows near the ceiling along the sides. A hand grabbed her arm and led her away from the van.

She turned her head to watch the four men lift Brawn by each of his limbs. He dangled in their hold, his long hair brushed the floor and they carried him toward a stairwell across the room. To see Brawn, a man his size, that helpless, drove fear right back into Becca. She swallowed and wondered what kind of hell she would face.