“Seems a waste. She’s a pretty little thing,” a man grumbled.
“You heard the mistress’s orders. She wants her out of the way.” The calm voice came from the driver’s seat. His face swam in and out of focus, but she thought it was the same man who had come to the apartment.
“Maybe we could have some fun with her first,” the first man suggested, and she would have shuddered if her body had been capable of responding.
“We don’t have time for that. We take care of her and get back.”
“What if Mr. Justin asks?”
“He won’t. He knows which side his bread is buttered on. But just in case he’s ever foolish enough to go looking, it needs to look like an accident.”
“So maybe she ran into a gang of thugs.”
“Fuck, Hudson. Stop thinking with your dick. I said an accident.”
Hudson grumbled as Angelica fought not to whimper in terror. She tried lifting her head to see where they were but her muscles still refused to obey. No wonder they hadn’t even bothered to tie her up. She was still trying to move when the flyer landed.
The rear door opened and a man appeared, the same one who had come to the apartment. He shook his head when he saw her eyes were open.
“Pity that shot didn’t last longer.” He pulled her out, his hands brisk but not cruel.
Night had fallen, but enough lights shone from the surrounding tangle of derelict buildings for her to see they were at the top of a hill. Below them, she could see a cluster of equally decrepit-looking warehouses and the oily black swell of water. The smell of putrefaction tainted the damp air. She’d never been near the water before, and it only drove home how far away she was from everything she had known.
“P-Please…” she managed to whisper, but Rogers only shook his head.
“You chose the wrong man, sweetheart. Hold her up, Hudson.”
The other man stepped up behind her, grabbing her breasts as he hauled her upright. “Nice little titties. Are you sure we don’t have time to play?”
“No,” Rogers said firmly, then he drew back his arm and punched her directly in the stomach.
The pain overwhelmed her, too shocking to even let her cry out. She gasped in a breath, and then a second blow descended. She swam in and out of consciousness, her world reduced to flashes of awareness. Hudson’s excited breathing as he pressed against her back. The darkness of the sky overhead. Rogers’ detached face as he raised his fist again. By the time he finished, it had begun to rain and the drops mingled with her tears and the wetness flowing down her legs.
“That will do it.”
Dizzy with pain and shock, she could barely hear Rogers’ words but he sounded as calm and untroubled as before.
“Leave her here?” Hudson asked.
“No, she’s going to slip on the pavement and take a tumble down the hill.”
Before he could carry out his threat, a voice shouted from somewhere close by.
“Damn.” Rogers sighed. “The mistress won’t want any witnesses. We have to get out of here. Let her go.”
The hands holding her upright finally let go, and she crumpled to the ground.
“She’s still alive.”
“I doubt she will be for long. And the child is gone. Let’s go.”
The child is gone. The words rang in her head. She heard them as she slipped into unconsciousness. They were still there when she awoke, louder than the throbbing pain in her abdomen. They echoed in her mind as she stared up at a dirty ceiling and listened to a hushed conversation from somewhere nearby.
“Is she going to live?” A man’s voice.
“I think so. She’s young, but she’s a fighter.” This was a woman’s voice, infinitely weary. “But she lost the child—and any hope of another. Maybe if I’d had better equipment…”
“You did what you could. And maybe it was for the best.”
No. She put a hand over the rough stitches low on her stomach, so empty now. An emptiness that matched the hollow feeling inside of her.
Somehow, she would find a way to recover what had been taken from her. She would have a child. She would have her family. No matter what it took.
Chapter Two
Fifteen years later…
“Goddammit, Wales.”
The outraged roar echoed through the barracks, but John Wales ignored it, concentrating on the boots he was polishing, until Sergeant Carter’s feet appeared in his line of vision.
“On your feet, Wales.”
He stumbled to his feet, managing to step on the sarge’s toes in the process. They gave a satisfying crack.
“You great clumsy oaf.”
He was not in fact clumsy and hadn’t been since he came to terms with that first enormous growth spurt that put him head and shoulders above his fellow orphans. However, he had learned that being thought clumsy and slow often gave him an advantage.
“Why did you do it? Why?”
Sergeant Carter was red-faced with anger, poking his chest with an annoying finger. John briefly considered snapping that finger in two, then regretfully discarded the idea. He hadn’t enjoyed his last two trips to the stockade.
“What did I do?” He wasn’t being difficult. He never really knew when someone would take offense to something he said or did.
“Hell if I know, but the captain wants to see you so it must be bad. And I’ll get the blame. As always.”
“When?”
“Now. So get your oversized ass over to his office immediately.”
John shrugged and obeyed, moving with deliberate slowness until he was out of Sergeant Carter’s sight, then assuming his usual brisk stride.
Although being called to see an officer was never a good thing, he didn’t bother to try and figure out why Captain Pyle wanted to see him. He would find out soon enough. On the whole, life in the military suited him. He had a fixed place to sleep, as much food as he wanted, and exercise for both his body and his mind. Unfortunately, he frequently came into conflict with the foolish regulations to which they tried to subject him.
As
