Dangerously Broken Read online

  Dangerously Broken

  Aegis Group Lepta Team #4

  Sidney Bristol

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  Inked Press

  Dangerously Broken

  Aegis Group Lepta Team #4

  The mission: Pull a stubborn woman out of the fire without getting burned.

  Navy SEAL Brenden Taylor knows what it's like to be caught behind enemy lines and the invisible scars it leaves on a person's soul. When the team is dispatched to rescue a woman with a past that mirrors his own, Brenden knows he'll do whatever it takes to bring her home. He just wasn't counting on her getting under his skin.

  Priscilla Yilmaz has survived one nightmare, now she's living another. The only difference is that this time she has him on her side. The brooding SEAL who keeps her fears at bay and holds her at night. Brenden is the first man who treats her as an equal both in and out of the bedroom. A smart woman wouldn't let that go.

  Before Priscilla can follow her heart their rescue op goes down in flames. Priscilla knows too many secrets and Brenden suspects her kidnapping wasn't a matter of opportunity at all. Now he must keep her close while not falling for her. Because his heart is already broken beyond repair.

  Explore the whole Aegis world in these series...

  It all began with the Aegis Group.

  Dangerous Attraction

  Dangerous in Training

  Dangerous Games

  Dangerous Assignment

  Dangerous Protector

  Dangerous Secrets

  Dangerous Heat

  More Coming Soon!

  Within Aegis Group, special teams take on special jobs, beginning with the Alpha Team.

  Dangerous in Love

  Dangerous in Action

  Dangerous in Transit

  Dangerous in Motion

  Dangerous in Charge

  Other specialized teams exist under the Aegis Group umbrella, including Lepta Team.

  Dangerously Taken

  Dangerously Involved

  Dangerously Deceived

  Dangerously Broken

  Dangerously Entwined (2019)

  In Dangerous Games it continued with the Gone Geek girls.

  Beauty and the Geek

  Mr. Purr-fect and the Geek

  The Jock and the Geek

  The Gamer and the Geek

  The Adorkable Girl and the Geek

  The Fake Boyfriend and the Geek

  When the Seattle office of Aegis Group opened the Twisted Royals took the stage.

  The Origin Story

  Alpha Prince

  Her Prince

  Bad Boy Prince

  Noble Prince

  Stay tuned for the appearance of the Troy Team and Omega Team.

  For short reads, tune in this December for the Body of Danger novella series kick-off.

  Heart for Danger

  Mind for Danger (2019)

  Soul for Danger (2020)

  The other Smith brother takes us to the Texas SWAT series, a small town suspense series.

  Fighting Redemption

  Stolen Redemption

  Reckless Redemption (coming soon)

  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  Epilogue.

  1.

  WEDNESDAY. IN THE AIR.

  Brenden Taylor could count the number of hours he’d slept on one hand. He eased back in the plush leather seat of the private plane taking Lepta Team to God-only-knew-where and prayed they were in the air long enough for him to get some shuteye. He always did sleep better on planes. Probably because it was impossible to not know where he was. There was something about the cramped space and recycled air that couldn’t be mistaken. And to a passed out him, that meant his subconscious couldn’t put him back in the four by four box he’d lived in for weeks of his life.

  His ears popped and the voices of his teammates rushed in, filling the previously hollow space.

  “Hey.” Vaughn Fernandez twisted to look back at their Team Leader and Team Liaison sitting across from Brenden at the four-person table.

  “Yeah?” Grant Anderson replied in a cool, calculated tone.

  “Do we have any word about...?” Vaughn’s voice trailed off.

  No one spoke.

  For the last month, any time they came in for a briefing, someone asked the question.

  What was the latest word on Ethan Turner?

  The previously dead Aegis Group operative had shown up on Lepta Team’s disaster of a job in Lebanon. Only nothing of the man they’d known remained. In his place, in his body, was a madman. They’d brought their team home, but only after a thoroughly fucked up Ethan nearly killed them all. It was blind luck that they’d been able to incapacitate and capture the guy. From the little Brenden had spoken to Ethan, he was totally unhinged and had no idea who he was.

  “Guys?” Melody Nguyen, their Team Liaison, picked up her tablet and glanced around the cabin of the plane. “Your attention, please?”

  Vaughn muttered under his breath. They all wanted answers, but the truth was they might not get any. Whatever had happened to Ethan scrambled every brain cell. Hell, for all Brenden knew the government had swooped in and taken Ethan into their custody.

  “Thanks for making take-off guys,” Grant said, shifting his attention from Vaughn to the job at hand. “I know usually we brief at home, but we’re already behind on this job and it hit us this morning. Everyone got a tablet?”

  Brenden tapped his screen and the join notification from Melody. A new window came up, showing a slick logo for Asclepius Health across the bottom of the screen and the serious face of a young woman with eyes older than her years. Those hazel eyes had seen things. Her dark, curling hair framed an angular face with high cheek bones, and a wide mouth.

  It was the eyes that got Brenden.

  They were like his.

  Whatever this woman’s story was, he knew he wasn’t going to like it.

  His jaw tightened, and he had to concentrate on hearing Melody, not just allowing her voice to wash over him.

  “Meet Priscilla Yilmaz,” Grant said, “the head of the Asclepius Health charity division. She was in Rio de Janeiro heading up work being done there to provide vaccines to impoverished areas when she was kidnapped. By all accounts, this should have been a fairly typical snatch, cash out her bank account and drop her.”

  Brenden’s screen blipped to a grainy video.

  Grant’s voice grew grim. “What you’re seeing now is Priscilla and a captor at an ATM. She is refusing to cooperate.”

  Brenden grit his teeth and made himself watch.

  Priscilla’s hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her blouse was buttoned haphazardly and there were dark stains on her slacks. The man at her side leaned close, his mouth moving in rapid fire. She shook her head. The man jabbed at her ribs. Priscilla buckled sideways, moving with the blow, absorbing it, curling her body around it.

  “She have martial arts training?” Brenden asked.

  “She does.” Why did Melody sound just as grim as Grant?

  The video played out for a few more seconds, but ultimately Priscilla was packed up into a van and sped off, out of the reach of the camera.

  “I don’t get this. She’s got to be smart enough to know how this works, right?” Riley Smith spoke up. “A company like this, they’d handle it if she was robbed while on the job for them.” br />
  “They would,” Melody said.

  The truth hit Brenden and he spoke before he could think better of it. “She’s not cooperating with her captors.”

  “Correct.” Grant laid his tablet down. “Asclepius wants her brought home. Her bosses are pretty pissed, but this goes in line with what we know about her.”

  Their screens once again flipped to a bullet list of facts.

  Thirty years old.

  An avid student of martial arts in three disciplines, complete with competition wins.

  She taught self-defense to other women during her college days.

  The child of Turkish immigrants.

  Fucking hell.

  The last item on the list told Brenden everything he needed to know about Priscilla Yilmaz.

  Melody began explaining even while Brenden’s mind still rolled those truths around. “As a teenager, Priscilla was kidnapped and held for ransom because she was mistaken for another young woman with wealthy parents. When her family couldn’t pay the ransom demand, she was going to be sold off. She was rescued as part of an FBI raid. Zain couldn’t find out much, but he did get a chance to talk to the case officer and from what was said, we can assume that Priscilla was in bad shape when she was recovered.”

  The pieces all clicked for Brenden.

  She’d been traumatized once during her formative years and ever since then she’d trained and prepared to survive a similar instance. She wasn’t going to give her captors a dime.

  “What’s our plan?” Riley asked.

  Grant crossed his arms over his chest and regarded each of them with a somber expression. They were barely back to their core team now that injuries were healed up and here they were headed into a high risk rescue. “The group responsible for her kidnapping is a bigger outfit. Because we expect this to be a dangerous rescue, the theory was we get a man on the inside.”

  “Wait.” Riley rubbed his hand over his face. “You want one of us to get kidnapped so we’re with her?”

  “Yeah,” Grant said.

  They were all quiet for a moment. Brenden glanced over at Nolan, who hadn’t spoken at all. He and Yvonne had a baby now. Most of the other guys had girlfriends back home. Their normal jobs were risky, but nothing like this. Whoever drew the short straw was playing with their life.

  “I’ll do it,” Brenden said. He had the experience. Knew what to expect. He was ideal.

  “What?” Vaughn scowled at him. “No way, man.”

  “Brenden...” Melody stared, her one word conveying all her concern.

  “I’ll be tagged. I’m conspicuous. You’ll be right there. Where’s the risk in that?” Brenden shrugged while his insides writhed.

  “No. No way,” Nolan said.

  Brenden stared at Grant, looking back at him.

  The decision was made. Brenden could see it in Grant’s eyes. He’d accept Brenden’s offer because they both knew he was the man for the job, even with his shortcomings.

  Brenden had been a prisoner once, and it had nearly cost him his life. Men and women had risked theirs to bring him home, and now he made it his life’s work to do the same for others. Because no one deserved to waste away in a hole, wondering if they were forgotten. Each job he went on meant facing the worst period of his life. This job was no different, and he’d come through it like he had all the others.

  WEDNESDAY. UNKNOWN, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

  Priscilla Yilmaz hooked her fingers in the chain link that made up the three sides of her cell and stared at the bastard taunting the American family opposite her with a bottle of water. The mother cradled her child, who wailed and stretched out his little arm toward the liquid.

  If Priscilla could just get out of this cage, she’d rip that man’s arms off and beat him with his own dick. No, scratch that, it was probably too small. She’d—

  A door clanged open somewhere outside her field of vision.

  Gooseflesh broke out along her arms and she tensed.

  It was only a matter of time before they came at her another way. So far they’d tried to intimidate her, scare her knock her around a little. She could handle all of that. She’d been through it before only now she had the tools to persevere.

  All she had to do was hang on until someone came for her.

  She was going to be in so much trouble when she got home. If these thugs had only wanted her money, she’d have handed it over. Most of it was out of reach in savings, anyway. But it wasn’t her money they wanted.

  These men knew who she was and who she worked for. They’d targeted her because of the charity, and they wanted every penny she had access to.

  Sure, Priscilla knew the company line. If something happened, the best-case scenario was to pay out and get home safe. But the consequences would be so much more dire. With the charity’s funds drained they wouldn’t have the money available for the rest of the quarter’s projects. That would mean medication and vaccines couldn’t be transported or distributed. Contractors would be cut because there weren’t funds to pay them.

  She had no illusions about her job. The only reason the charity division existed was to make the parent company look good and to serve as a massive tax write-off. Asclepius Health wasn’t terrible as far as pharmaceutical companies went. But she also didn’t expect too much of them.

  The real losers were the people Priscilla helped on a daily basis. They were the ones who would suffer the greed of these men.

  Voices bounced back and forth, all the cinderblock and concrete distorting the sound. It was hard to understand them.

  She took a step back, into the shadows, and watched two of the thugs drag a hulking giant of a man between them. He was dressed in a suit and had short, dark hair. From this angle that was all she could see.

  Shit.

  A third followed behind them wielding an electric cattle prod.

  Priscilla did not want to be that guy.

  Her taunting captor pulled out his ring of keys and turned toward the door to her cage.

  No, her insides wailed.

  They were going to put that guy in with her? What if he was angry? What if he wanted to take this out on her? He was a big guy, and not like gym meat head big, more like he was big for a reason she didn’t want to know more about.

  She sucked down a deep breath, her heart racing and watched the men throw their new captive on the ground. He caught himself on his hands and knees. The man made a feeble attempt to catch himself, but it was clear the fight had gone out of him. They must have really worked him over before bringing him here. It would have taken one hell of a beating to even subdue a guy that size.

  He was really, really big. She wanted to be anywhere else.

  Priscilla glanced at the jabbering jailors. This was all old hat for them, the same thing day in and out. This was a well-oiled machine. And she was their fuel.

  Fuck.

  The big guy on the ground groaned and rolled to his back, squinting up at the bare bulb shining down on them from above.

  His dark suit was well cut. Given his size, it would have to be tailored. Nothing off a rack would fit those shoulders.

  What was he, a linebacker? No, if he was a sports guy they would have never gotten to him. Military then. That made sense, but it didn’t put her mind at ease.

  He turned his head and spat on the concrete, giving her a good look at the gash on the other side of his face. Streaks of blood and dirt covered his cheek, nose and forehead. She had the impression of strong features, dark eyes and hair, but that was it.

  Crap.

  He was a victim, just like her, and here she was sizing him up like another enemy. If he wasn’t a monster, he could be an ally, and she was in desperate need of some help.

  “Hey, don’t move.” She stepped forward then lowered to kneel by his side.

  He didn’t listen. Big Guy sat up, or tried to. He was so unsteady he had to plant a hand on the ground to keep himself upright. They’d clearly knocked him around a bit. He blinked and squinted at her.


  “Where—? Who—?” His voice was deep. The kind of low rumble that she could feel more than hear.

  “Hate to break it to you, Big Guy, but you’ve been kidnapped. Lie back down. Let me look at your head.” Until he gave her a proper reason to think of him as an enemy, he was her potential partner.

  He shook his head and those dark brown eyes of his focused on her. Goosebumps broke out on her arms and she had the strangest feeling of being caught in the crosshairs of something.

  Wow. Talk about intense.

  Priscilla swallowed and forced herself to breathe.

  She was willing to bet it had taken three or four men to bring Big Guy down, but other than the wound on his head and some bruises that would be fantastic colors by tomorrow he didn’t appear much worse for wear.

  “You’re bleeding.” She lifted a hand.

  He flinched, then caught himself and shook his head.

  “It’s old.” He scooted back to lean up against the cinderblock wall.

  “Old?” She followed him, curious now.

  He shut his eyes and pulled in a deep breath, his shoulders drooping.

  Priscilla sat back on her heels and studied him.

  If she saw him on a street at night, she’d cross to the other side out of habit. At first glance all she saw was his size. Up close and personal with him she could see the little pieces that made up the whole. His dark brown—or was it black?—hair was recently trimmed with everything fairly short. He was clean shaven, making his strong, angular jaw a prominent feature. He had to be one hell of a sight at meetings. Holy cow. She’d probably pay a lot more attention to the office drones if they looked like this guy. Too bad the blood ruined his clean cut look. Then again, this close she could see a few scars, like the one on the cleft of his chin. It added a rough layer to the story behind the man because while his size and scars indicated one thing, his clothes screamed money. The charcoal slacks were tailored to fit him exactly, and she was willing to bet his navy shirt had to be cut to his measurements.

  Who was he? And why was he so calm?

  He drew in another breath, his gaze roving over the room, picking it apart. Just as she had.

  Whoever he was, being kidnapped hadn’t shaken him.