Free The Edge of Trust: Team Edge by K. T. Bryan

hospital.
    How far out was she?  She’d been swimming forever, surely she had to be getting close to land by now. 
    Her vision faded and her head pounded as she struggled to understand the last few days. 
    Three days ago, men she didn’t know had taken her, and her child, from that bleak motel room.  Craig had warned her there’d always be a risk, but how had they found her?  She’d been careful, diligent.
    They’d bombarded her with endless questions she hadn’t been able to answer, before Sanchez had finally arrived.  The Sanchez.  Rafael.  The same man who’d been on the pier that night twelve months ago. 
    He’d gazed at her with a combination of anticipation and hatred, and this morning she’d learned just what the anticipation had been about. 
    Sanchez grabbed her hair, jerked her forward.  Hot breath fanned her cheek as he pulled her against him, touching her, rubbing his erection against her thigh.  She tried twisting away, but her arms were tied behind her back impeding her movements.  Sanchez slipped his fingers beneath the waistband of her jeans, laughed, then wrenched her back against his chest.  Kissed her neck.  “Ah, yes, I can smell your fear.  It makes you feel alive, does it not?” 
    A swell lifted her, toying, playing, then thrust her under.  Pushed her down, down, down, just the way Sanchez had said it would.   
    “You are going to die, Señora Caldwell.”  He twisted her hair around one finger and her heart raced in panic at the flat coldness of his words.  “I’m going to take you, make your body my own.  I’m going to hurt you, yet you will beg me for more.  Because,” his eyes went almost black with hate and glee, “you will know that once I am finished with you, you are going to die.  You will beg me to take you, hurt you, once again.  Over and over.”  He shoved her to her knees, laughing as she lost her balance. 
    “Then I’m going to bind you and throw your beautiful body into the ocean right at your husband’s feet.  Imagine,” he whispered, as he trailed a finger over her lips, “imagine the water closing over your face, your struggle to get the breath you so desperately need.  Your eyes will widen, your mouth will open.  Your lungs will squeeze with fire.  You will go under, but you will never come up.”
    With a merciless laugh and a snap of his fingers, he ordered some lackey to get his yacht ready.
    Sara kicked to the surface, broke free, sucking air and water into her lungs.  In a panic, she coughed and gasped.  She was going to drown, choke to death, just like Sanchez said.
    No.
    She would survive this.
    She would survive no matter what because her child needed her.
    A child she’d unwillingly entrusted to an almost-stranger.
    Just as they’d neared the Silver Strand and Coronado Island, a man they called Manny had given her a last minute reprieve.  Only his name wasn’t Manny, it was Dr. Matthew Radford Jackson IV. 
    Her brother.  Her very wealthy, usually well-tailored, Doctor of archaeology, ex-con brother.  A brother she almost hadn’t recognized.  He looked like a refugee drug runner with long, dirty brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, gripping a machine gun as though he’d been born with it.  For a split second, when he first saw her, he looked shattered.  When he recovered, he wore the familiar mask of hate and anger.
    The same look he’d worn all those years ago, right after he’d shot their father in the head, blowing brain matter all over her and the rose-patterned wallpaper.
    Stunned didn’t sum up even half of what she felt.  Seeing him here.  Like this. 
    After dark, while Sanchez dined in the main salon, Matt found her alone in a forward cabin, half naked and shaking with hate, her body bruised and sore. 
    The second the door opened she took position.  As he entered she high-kicked him in the chest, slamming him against the wall.  She started to shove the heel of her hand into his face when he