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Shocks
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2024-10-29 19:42:56By the time Rachel heard the click of the deadbolt lock on the door at room three-twenty-two, she’d already worked herself up into a fit of rage. She’d long-since formulated her verbal pre-emptive strike and it was perched to roll off the tip of her tongue the instant that she laid eyes on the fake Duke. She was bound and determined to make him pay for forcing her to chase her client halfway around the world on what in her mind amounted to an unnecessarily drawn-out, miserable, un-air-conditioned, sleepless scavenger hunt.
Then the door opened.
Only wide enough for a naked chiseled chest to block her view inside. But that singular piece of visible artistry in his sculpted arms and shoulders, and the rippling pectorals that tapered to his narrow waist and divine abdominals was all it took to erase everything—even her own name—from her head. She fought the urge to groan aloud and try to touch him.
With her mouth gaping open, she stared at the sporadic dappling
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As Rachel sputtered and Dex gaped, Caitlyn stumbled a few more steps backwards into the room, her soft doe eyes locked on Duke in astonishment and accusation, flickering with distrust. He knew the look all too well—he’d made her nervous. That he didn’t like. He took a slow step closer, taking in the damp cling of her dark hair to her delicate neck, the slenderness of her shoulders. She was shaking like a leaf in a gale, her mind obviously an unfathomable swamp of questions and misunderstandings—things with some significant negative potential. That made him nervous. “Caitlyn,” he whispered, taking another step towards her. In his periphery, he saw her hired companion, Dex, lunge forward and capture the destructive little meddler, Rachel by the shoulders. “We need to stay out of this,” Dex hissed. “Like hell we—.” Her words cut off as he covered her mouth with a hand. For the first time since Duke had laid eyes on him, he was gra
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“Caitlyn, are you certain you want to do this?” Rachel asked for the hundredth time, watching as the other woman packed the last of her belongings into her luggage. Settling into the familiar comfort of numbness, Caitlyn lifted her head as she zipped the bag closed. “It’s what I want.” Home. The stillness of familiarity. Work that she could immerse herself in, her sorrows imprisoned safely behind it. She felt so tired. So overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything she’d learned. She needed someplace quiet, where she could slowly reconcile herself while everything that she thought she knew gradually fell apart. Dex shoved himself off the wall. “I’ll get that.” He reached for her luggage, easily setting it on its wheels and extending the handle. “We’ll get a car downstairs. Rachel and I will ride with you to the airport and we’ll be on the next flight out after yours. Is there someone picking you up when you get home?” She shouldered her
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Caitlyn gave a low groan as Agent Richards yanked her upwards out of the parked car and dragged her to her feet. Without his support, she’d never have been able to stay upright. As it was, her head lolled and the dizzying lurch of the world set her stomach roiling uncontrollably. She gave him a weak shove and when she slipped his grip, stumbled to her hands and knees, violently vomiting the meager contents of her stomach over the pebbled ground. “Get her up.” The command came from the man who’d pinned her in the rear passenger seat with Richards. “With all due respect,” Richards replied mildly, giving her a wide birth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea quite yet.” Much as she hated to, Catilyn had to agree. Though nothing further came up, she was still dry heaving sporadically. The mere idea of more staggering around as her world tilted and whirled wasn’t likely to go over well with her tender stomach. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t matter, her body wa
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Duke paced impatiently along the curb in the hotel’s covered portico, anxiously watching for the telltale vehicles that would mean that Jay’s cavalry had at last arrived. The minutes had ticked by in an eternity. Despite his insistence otherwise, the damnable woman, Rachel Cummings, and her pretty boy escort, Dex Isaac, waited too, seated nearby on one of the two circular benches that surrounded a couple of sculpture fountains under the sheltered entry.At least they’ve had the decency to sit quietly, he thought, pivoting quickly when engine noise caught his attention. His piercing green eyes landed on the cramped little Fiat that approached slowly, circled and stopped. Ride service, he dismissed mentally, watching as an older couple exited the vehicle and headed inside the hotel. He exhaled a long slow breath, summoning more patience.At least two hours had passed since he’d spoken to Jay, and at this point it was getting closer to three. Duke was getting anxious. Caitlyn still had h
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“There’s no time for a strategic assault plan, Jay.” Shrugging into a tactical vest, Duke tightened the Velcro straps around him. “Your resident technonerd has confirmed they’re holding a prisoner in the lower level. A prisoner they’ve been interrogating using physical violence. And that’s after they drugged her.” The kidnappers’ villa was a crumbling fifteenth century fortress, built of thick stone walls and with a nebulous interior. The sole advantage that Duke could see was that the place was in poor repair, and that the Tuscan Forest of cypress, oak, chestnut and cedar that had been cleared to build it had returned. Growing close on the grounds, the encroaching trees provided excellent cover for storming the place. He reached into the weapons trunk in the back of the cramped van, selecting from it what he wanted of the holstered handguns, knives and rifles available. Nearby, Jay tugged a Kevlar glove onto one hand, flexing his fist to seat it properly. “I understand that her saf
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Caitlyn’s anguished cry stung through her split lip, but she couldn’t have suppressed it if she’d tried. The entire scene before her unfolded like some unspeakable nightmare as Richards’ ‘boss’ unholstered his sidearm and fired it directly into the thigh of one of the men standing in the cell with him. Her eyes squeezed shut, her tears leaving icy trails down her cheeks, but even the ring of her cry off the stone walls couldn’t drown out the sound of the wounded man’s body striking the cell floor or his burbling groan of misery and pain. “Dr. Maddox, you’re trying my patience,” Mitchell Jantzi warned. ‘Patience’!? Her eyes flew open wide, her terror reflected there. For a second they lingered on Jantzi standing above her, then flicked to the downed man, blood spurting over his fingers clutching the wound and running in a growing pool of red varnish across the hard stone floor. The others in the cell with her stood rooted to their spots, vigilant and wary.
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Though Jay kept Duke pinned to the ground, one hand shot to his earpiece. Morse code dots and dashes clicked rapidly in his ear, a hasty relay of the information that his infiltrators—codenamed for chess pieces—had gleaned from their stealthy intrusion into the crumbling Florentine villa. Lifting his knee off of Duke’s back, he got to his feet and his opposite hand shot to his two-way radio. “I want all knights to meet Al on channel three-point-six. Al, you relay directly to me with the bishops on four-point-two. Knights one, two and three—take the north and east entrances. Knights, four, five and six—you’re on the south and west. Remaining knights, you’re with me.” He extended a hand, pulling Duke to his feet as he continued issuing brusque orders. “Safeties off. I want the first level secured in three minutes. Use gas to force any escapees into the lower level and drive them out the northwest stairwell to us. Do not engage them while they have the hostage.” Without waiting for fur
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“Alex!” she breathed, starting forward when he raised a violently shaking hand towards her. His thin mouth opened in silent accusation and supplication. Then both Dex and Duke were turning her, one on each upper arm with a firm grip. They propelled her swiftly through the hidden door. “Duke, the latch,” Dex ordered as they rushed into the narrow passageway. He pointed at the door, then reached for the switch to reconnect his communication equipment. “Knight 2 and 3. Asset acquired. Allie, we could use an exit plan.” As Duke released her, Caitlyn jerked herself free of Dex’s grasp. She flung herself at the door. “No! He needs my help!” Ramming the bolt home, he pivoted and grasped her by the upper arms. “Caitlyn!” he snapped harshly, shaking her once to get her attention as the light dimmed to nothingness. “No matter what he did to stay alive before, you can’t save him now.” “You don’t know that!” she cried to the darkness.
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“Caitlyn!” The lump of stone that had become his heart leapt into Duke’s throat with ringing alarm. “Shut your mouth, you worthless whore!” Alex jerked the pistol at her furiously. “How dare you even speak to me like that!?” A soft gasp escaped her and she took a step backwards, closer to Duke and the meager amount of safety he presented as Alex advanced on her. She'd intended to provoke him. This was a much bigger reaction than she'd anticipated. “You have no idea! No fucking idea how I felt having to squat just to stand in your shadow!” His vicious words spat at her through clenched teeth. His bourgeoning rage scorched over her, filling the tiny antechamber with its malevolent presence. “You don’t know what it’s like to have your life’s work—the epitome of your creativity and intelligence— shown up and disproven by some pathetic little girl who refuses to see potential! To watch as you dusted your hands of it, like everything I did wa
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Frozen in place and unable to turn away, Caitlyn watched the violence of the wild seizures as Tommaso thrashed on the hard stone floor. Each second that ticked away was a new horror as her potent chemical cocktail took effect. Within seconds, the man’s uncontrolled muscle spasms had pulled bones from joints or outright snapped them. His respirations turned into hiccupping gasps, shallow and forced and his skin flushed dark red from the fierce pounding of his heart.And then it was over.As a physician, she knew what the man’s final second had involved and she gagged, stumbling backwards a few steps knowing that she’d caused it. Catching herself with one slim hand on the edge of a lab table, she crashed to her knees and vomited. Like pulling the trigger of the gun aimed at Agent Richards, it had been too easy—far too easy to kill.She gave a weak sob, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Even with Duke’s words in her head, she knew that until she reached her foul captor’s ch
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“Knight 1. In position,” Jay drawled lazily through the comms, and Duke couldn’t suppress his grin. Both he and Jay were uncomfortable, but there hadn’t been time to develop a full-scale assault plan. At most, they might get twenty-four hours before Caitlyn was either killed or sold to another terrorist group. They’d already lost seven and half hours just getting to her location. They couldn’t afford to wait. A few seconds after, Dex’s acknowledgement hissed through his earpiece. “Knight 2. In position.” Ignoring the brief bursts of chatter through his comms, Duke reached for another handhold, and pulled himself up the sheer face of the cliff on the ocean-facing side of the stone fortress. A hot twinge of pain shot along his nerves from his shoulder, as the numbing medication wore off. He gritted his teeth against it, continuing his climb. Of course, they had the benefit of some of the most advanced surveillance equipment in the world, and arguably the most brilliant mind to opera
