Claimed by Cipher - Lolita Lopez Page 0,19
wanted someone to care about him in the way only a woman could. He wanted all the secret touches and smiles.
And he wanted children. Daughters only, if he had his way. Curious and bright little things that would never be taken away from him and thrown into the meat grinder of the military industrial complex. Loving and kind girls he could help raise into strong, intelligent women who could follow their dreams and be whatever the hell they wanted to be—doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists, wives and mothers.
His watch vibrated with an alert. It was Torment calling him down to the Shadow Force sector. He fought the urge to leave his desk a mess and run. He tapped a quick message to Torment and tidied his office before heading to the elevator.
When he arrived at the Shadow Force sector, he used the chip implanted in his wrist to gain access to the highly classified unit. Pierce spotted him as he came through the second set of doors and waved him toward the war room. He found Torment there, leaning over the brightly illuminated table where holograms hovered.
Next to him, General Vicious stared at the same holograms. Terror was his best friend, and the two men had been through some serious shit straight out of the academy. Vicious had never given up hope that Terror was alive. He had insisted that his best friend was too much of a miserable asshole to die in captivity.
“Sir,” Cipher greeted his superior officer with a salute.
“Specialist,” the general replied in his deep, rumbling voice. “You prepped the asset very well.”
“Your girl did exceptional work today,” Torment remarked. “She’s thorough and deliberate. She would make a hell of a recruit into our local assets training program. She’s got the making of a first class operative.”
The idea of Brook being thrown into the dangerous world of covert operations made his chest constrict. Hiding his emotion, he calmly replied, “She didn’t seem too interested in that sort of work.”
“Too bad.” Torment flicked his hand at a hologram file and sent it to the screen on the wall behind him. “She orchestrated a diversion to protect Terror, killed at least two of theirs and got out of the mine unseen.”
Cipher’s incredulous gaze jumped to the screen. He couldn’t see anything but a blue haze. The sound of breathing and something sliding accompanied it. “Was she recording the whole time?”
“She must have hit the record button on accident. There was plenty of battery life, and honestly, the video intel is much more helpful than the still images.”
A mangled shout of pain filled the war room, and Vicious visibly tensed. The video jumped as if Brook had been startled. She seemed to hesitate before finding the nerve to keep moving. When she reached the next grille in the bottom of the duct, she maneuvered the camera probe into place.
Cipher wanted to look away from the screen, but he forced himself to watch as those pieces of Splinter shit tortured Terror. He estimated Terror had lost twenty percent of his body weight, most of it muscle mass since he had always been so lean. There didn’t seem to be an inch of skin that wasn’t bruised. There were scabbed and still oozing cuts and shallow stab wounds. Burns dotted his limbs. They had even taken his toenails and fingernails.
Behind the camera, Brook gasped as the assholes down below started to torture Terror with electric shocks. The camera’s view shifted, and he couldn’t see anything but darkness. Her heavy breaths and desperate groans filtered through the speakers.
Just as he realized she was pulling on something, the high pressured hiss of water echoed in the duct. Pipes clanged, and water splashed loudly. The camera’s view turned misty and droplets of water clung to the lens. She turned in the duct and looked down into the cell.
The two torturers who had been working over Terror flopped like fish as the current of their poorly grounded generator zapped them. Terror used what strength he had to lift himself into a sitting position while still suspended and ripped free the clips they had used to electrocute him. He seemed to know she was in the duct because he looked right at the camera. It wasn’t clear from the recording, but the movement of the lens convinced Cipher she was waving at Terror.
The recording continued playing in the background as Torment drew his attention back to the table. “She uploaded extremely detailed drawings and measurements along with a