THE BRAVO BOYS - SNAKE EATER [book three]

Chapter FIFTY FIVE

Shelby Quinn

"Why you don't put down thiz gun, before you hurt yourself, Malishka?" The Moskal taunts through a forked tongue and the sexist overtones of his torment spark an inferno of disgust deep in my belly.. A sinister sneer curls the corners of his thin lips upwards and he prowls a slow step forward while he flings a sleek snipers rifle back over his shoulder..

"Back the fuck up!" I snap.. Hot, angry blood circulates in my veins and blinding flashes of pain rip through my scars to remind me of the torture this man has inflicted on me.. He had beaten and burned me, cut me open and bled me, lashed and chained me, starved me and sleep deprived me.. His hands had issued the cruellest torment, and It had taken everything in me to survive the subhuman treatment I experienced under his watch.. Now confronted by the demon of my past, my hands imperceptibly tremble and my breath shallows as a stab of wrath squeezes tight in my chest..

The darkness in me screams at me to pull the trigger, to end this animal of a man's life now and balance the scales of justice..

He deserves it..

But then, my moral compass wavers as I remember everything Logan had said about mercenaries and our disregard for human life, a shameful truth he had seen in me at first glance..

I am a monster.. Just like the Moskal..

Combat and the fog of war had hardened me so gradually I hadn't noticed the change.. And after being imprisoned, it was as if all compassion had been stripped from my bones..

How many lives had I ended?
How many fathers did I rob from their children?
How many soldiers would never make it home?

I have been cold.. Ruthless.. Willing to do anything to get what I thought I wanted..

And worst of all I had placed The Hacker in grave danger, all to find my father, a man that doesn't even measure up to half of Logan's integrity..

Shit!

Will spilling more blood really solve anything, or will it only make me as evil and corrupted as the man who now stands before me?

Setting my stance firmer and fighting my bloodthirsty instincts, I force out a falsely confident command.. "Give it up, asshole, you're going to prison.."

"Uh uh uh.. Sooner or later you must make choice, my pretty one.. Tick-tock.." The Stryak Rebel winks as he taps at his wrist to indicate that time is ticking away. "It iz me, or your boyfriend, you cannot take both of uz alive.. Az we speak he bleedz from the bullet I did put in his chest.. Perhapz I should have taken care of him sooner, left him to burn in 'ze fire.."

The pistons in my mind ignite into action and it is as though a switch is flipped.. Suddenly it all makes sense..

Wyatt Bennings had sent The Moskal after me once before..

The firebombing..

Logan's disappearance..

The gunshots..

It was all him..

It was the Moskal who had attacked Logan at the Alpha Tech offices.. It was he who delivered my love to this facility of nightmares.. And it was he who shot at The Hacker tonight, mortally wounding him..

"Logan?" I breathe in concern and my heart betrays me as my panicked gaze flits over to where Duke crouches in the distance, hunched over the unmoving form of the only man I've ever loved..

It's all my fault..
Everything..

Taking advantage of my momentary lapse in focus, The Moskal moves with the lightning reflexes of a highly trained combatant.. Dropping low to duck beneath my sights, he sends a sweeping kick to my ankles, knocking me sideways to land face first in the mud with a gasp.. The impact compresses my lungs and I am rendered breathless by the forceful blow.. My weapon is sent scuttling across the ground, into the tangle of tall, reedy grass that surrounds us.. The heaviness of his presence presses over me as I wheeze, desperate for oxygen beneath his crushing weight.. "I will make it so you never will forget me, Shelby Quinn.. You alwayz will remember thiz night.. You will remember everything I do to you.. You are mine.."