Forbidden Captor. Julie Miller

him in the head, kneed him where it counted and shoved him out of the way. Down to two. More wrestling than punching. Idiots. With all the mud and water they couldn’t get a grip. His meaty fists were far more effective.

      “Martin!” He heard Jacob Powell’s voice, shouting his name. “Money’s on you, big guy! Take ’em—”

      A deep grunt silenced his cheering section. They were outnumbered. Taken by surprise. Going down or neutralized one by one.

      Bryce felt the bonds going around his wrists as they finally wised up and started beating on him. He pitched, kicked, pounded—and with a mighty effort, he lurched to his feet, hauling the two men up with him.

      The tattoo of an upside-down burning flag swam across his vision before a new fist connected with his jaw, driving him back to his knees in the muddy marsh of North Carolina’s Swamp Lejeune. But it was the telltale click of a military-issue Colt sliding a bullet into the firing chamber that finally stilled the fight in him. “Let me just shoot him like I did the other one.”

      The man with the curly black hair and the gun, the only man here who could match Bryce in stature, waited for the okay.

      “No, Marcus! The ones out of uniform are not to be killed. You’ve enjoyed enough target practice for one day.” Even with the steel barrel of the Colt pressing into the back of his skull, Bryce turned to get a good look at the scraggly beard and brown ponytail of the tall, well-armed man approaching him.

      “Boone Fowler.”

      “I see my reputation precedes me.”

      Like a rat spreading the plague.

      The weasly son of a bitch headed up the Montana Militia for a Free America. Fowler was the fanatic who’d broken out of prison four months ago with his loyal minions, regrouped his own private army and waged a personal vendetta against the men of Big Sky who had imprisoned him in the first place. He didn’t care who he hurt or how he hurt them—only that he got his way.

      Bryce breathed hard, tasting the blood in his mouth and ignoring pain in his side, keeping his enemy in sight.

      Fowler doffed a distinctly unmilitary salute. “I want them alive. But I don’t necessarily need them in one piece.”

      The man named Marcus needed no urging. He rammed the butt of his gun into Bryce’s head, swirling pain around inside his skull.

      Bryce struggled against the beating hands that bound his wrists and ankles and inflicted what damage they could.

      He was still swinging until the moment his world went black.

      Bryce swung at his attackers in his sleep, rattling iron chains, pinching his wrists and startling himself awake.

      He sat bolt upright in the bed, orienting himself to surroundings illuminated only by the cold threads of moonlight shining in through the open grating at the small, high window.

      Sweat trickled along his cheek and dripped onto the deep rise and fall of his naked chest. It pooled at the small of his back and soaked into the waistband of his jeans. With each breath, he inhaled the stale smells of mold and damp, the pungent odor of the straw ticking in the mattress beneath him, and the cool, salty tang of an ocean breeze. They were familiar smells by now, though not necessarily welcome ones.

      Two dead now. Boone Fowler had promised to kill one man every day until he got what he wanted. Whatever the hell that was. They had to get out of this hell-hole.

      As Bryce’s eyes and mind adjusted to the here and now, he took note of the stone block walls. The surfaces had been worn smooth, the edges eroded unevenly by centuries of use. He noted the new steel bars and massive lock that kept him from leaving his six-by-eight cell.

      His ankles chafed and the chain between them rattled as he swung his legs off the side of the iron cot and flattened his bare feet against the cold stone floor. This fortress was solid as a tomb and sported all the archaic comforts of a medieval dungeon.

      Ignoring the scars of his life and the bruises from his capture, he jerked his wrists out to the side, stretching his arms as wide as the eighteen or so inches of chain connecting them allowed. He squeezed his hands into fists, swelling his mighty forearms and biceps until every muscle shook with the effort to rip the restraints apart. Though rust from age and the damp sea air colored the chain and cuffs, each link held fast.

      Releasing his breath after the feverish exertion, he dropped his hands to his knees and watched a mouse scurry from its cubbyhole in the corner up to the window and disappear outside.

      Lucky bastard.

      Bryce was hungry and sore, isolated and trapped like a caged bear on some uninhabited island he didn’t recognize. His injuries were minimal—a puffy right eye, a cut lip, bruised ribs and a gash on his right cheek that would need stitches to heal pretty. Not that one pretty scar would make much difference amongst the marks left by the fiery car wreck that had killed his parents, and the shrapnel wounds from that San Ysidran minefield that had ended his official military career. But his injuries would never heal if the beating and pointless questions he’d endured that afternoon were going to become a daily ritual.

      His three comrades from Big Sky Bounty Hunters, as well as the thirteen Special Forces soldiers who’d survived the ambush at the Marine Corps training base nicknamed Swamp Lejeune, could be dead now or imprisoned in another barred room inside this ancient prison. And from where he sat, he couldn’t do a damn thing to help them.

      Like he hadn’t been able to help that kid last night.

      “Hell,” was all he said. The word echoed in the darkness.

      Waking up hadn’t made the nightmares go away.

      “A GIFT FOR A JOB well-done, huh?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      The man named Boone Fowler read the letter from the sealed envelope Tasiya had delivered from Dimitri Mostek. Though the two men had little in common in the looks department beyond their forty-something age, she sensed they’d been cut from the same arrogant, power-hungry cloth. Mr. Fowler was a good four or five inches taller than Dimitri’s stocky build. His hair was a faded brown, long and pulled back into a ponytail. While Dimitri’s short, black hair framed a pampered face, Fowler’s face was marred by acne scars, outdoor living and a thin beard.

      It was the calculating black eyes that made her think of the man who held her father prisoner. Like Mostek, Fowler’s eyes were cold and hard. Full of suspicion. Quick to show blame and temper. Unused to reflecting patience or compassion.

      Tasiya stood in the middle of Fowler’s stucco-walled office, still clutching the carry-on bag she’d brought with her on the flight to New York and a place called Wilmington, North Carolina. The same bag she’d held on the long truck ride to a white, sandy coastline and the remote ferry that had brought her to this place.

      Devil’s Fork Island, the man had called it. He mentioned something about a conquistador stronghold, a sailor’s prison and pirate hideaway.

      But Tasiya hadn’t been interested in the history of the place. She’d been thinking of that last glimpse of her injured father being dragged away from her and driven off to who knew where. She’d been thinking about how quickly Dimitri Mostek had put together a passport and traveling papers for her. Where he’d gotten the secure, high-tech phone that had been designed to dial only one number. His.

      She’d been thinking that her father had taken money from some very dangerous people, and that it was her responsibility to make sure he didn’t pay too high a price for that mistake.

      Now she realized the men she’d been sent to spy on were equally dangerous.

      And wouldn’t take kindly to being spied upon, judging by the numerous security measures she’d seen thus far.

      They’d been the only vehicle on the boat, and once it had docked, several armed men had materialized out of the tall, reedy grass on the banks to secure the ferry and tie camouflage tarps across the deck and wheelhouse. Clearly, there