On the High Seas: Tungsten Protective Services, #6

By Aliyah Burke

Danger reunites them, but will it be enough?

 

Captured by pirates, Taryn Jeffers doesn't know if she will survive, much less make it home, until the night everything changes. Galen Maxwell operates mechanically, until they rescue a woman who makes him face the darkest parts of his past. The ones he's spent years burying so deep they would never again see the light of day. These two have a past but can they have a future? Will Galen show her she is what he desires?

 

**This is a re-release**

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sensual Romance Publishing
• Release date: Jul 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393439387

Aliyah Burke

Aliyah Burke is a USA Today Bestselling Author who’s an avid reader and never far from pen and paper (or the computer). She is happily married to a career military man. They are owned by three Borzoi. She spends her days at the day job, writing, and working with her dogs. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached here. If you would like to be kept abreast of what's going on in the world of Aliyah, please join her newsletter: http://aliyah-burke.com/newsletter.htm and/or cozy newsletter: http://aliyah-burke.com/abnewsm.htm Other places to find her on social media are: Amazon Author Page - https://www.amazon.com/Aliyah-Burke/e/B007PQRFOQ Book Bub -  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/aliyah-burke Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/263660.Aliyah_Burke Website - http://www.aliyah-burke.com Facebook -  https://www.facebook.com/aliyah.burke.5  Facebook Author Page -  https://www.facebook.com/AliyahBurkeAuthor Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/aliyahburke5 Twitter -  https://twitter.com/AliyahBurke96 Instagram -  https://www.instagram.com/burke.aliyah

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Somewhere in the Gulf of Aden

The moonless night without the aid of celestial bodies remained as a black pearl, smooth and fathomless. Although no wind blew, the water lapped rhythmically along the hull of the drifting vessel. No lights splintered the ink-like darkness. Almost as if, it was unmoored or even a ghost ship. To Taryn Jeffers it was more than that. A ship of death. Most likely hers if things didn’t change in the near future. Her steps were tiny and difficult with the ropes binding them, but she was above deck so it didn’t matter.

The water hit with a near hypnotic beat and it soothed her despite the precarious situation she was in. For a flash, she got to see the darkness, when they changed out the sack over her head. If not for the cloth blanketing her head and the too tight bindings which were coated in blood—her blood—she may actually have enjoyed the trek over the open deck. She did regardless, because she was able to inhale fresh air instead of the dank stale kind where they kept her.

Not that complaining has done me a bit of good. Then there was the gag. Hard to yell through anything with one of those shoved into her mouth.

Time had long since lost all meaning she had no clue how long she’d been here. The rare occasions she got fresh air, it always occurred under the cloak of darkness. She shifted feebly and thought about the others who had been with her when pirates had set upon them. Wondered how they fared. Were they alive?

Amazing how such things seemed so farfetched when not presented with them. Then comes the moment when you’re looking up the barrel of an automatic weapon held by a pirate and your life changes.

She sniffed but no tears fell, there were none left to escape.

Lap. Lap. Lap.

Back to the water. She wondered if they would rape her then throw her overboard. She’d been left alone in that way so far, thankfully. Apparently, it made no sense to waste a bullet when the creatures of the deep could do the job for them. Being sold into slavery also crossed her mind numerous times while she stayed in her new hovel.

Lap. Lap. Lap.

Then it came. A new sound. Just an out of place one and only briefly but she heard it. Almost like a thud. She held her breath, straining to hear another, desperation making her long to cry out or bang against the sides. She sighed. All that would do would bring more beatings. The familiar sound of the water returned her to a state of calm.

The door opened and she fought her automatic flinch. She despised being unable to see. Not that being at the whims of pirates put her situation any better. Deep guttural voices spoke but she just sat there, waiting for either the strike which would end her life or whatever they chose to do to her. She heard a familiar phrase that over the recent timeline, she had come to understand to mean get up and so she did. Using the cool, rough metal of the wall, she struggled to push to her feet.

A massive hand grabbed her arm and practically dragged her along, causing her to stumble after him. More conversation passed around her as they headed to an unknown destination. She fell more than a few times, the metal steps he hauled her over tearing through both filthy pants and skin. Unable to scream, she struggled to keep up with her captor.

They paused and she picked up on the stench of more sweaty and unwashed bodies—which said a lot given it had to permeate through the musty bag over her face—while her ears deciphered the sound of a door opening. The shove in her back, powerful and sharp, sent her sprawling forward over the knee-knocker in her way. Unable to stop herself from falling she did her best to twist and land on her side. Pain ricocheted through her, rattling her teeth and shoving breath from her lungs.

Through the bag over her head, she picked up on crying. They’re alive! At least one was, it sounded like Martha. That knowledge lifted her spirits however briefly. She coughed and struggled against the person who dragged her over the floor. Lifted unceremoniously to her knees, Taryn rolled the nasty gag in her mouth, trying to work up some moisture.

Suddenly the bag got jerked off and she blinked hard, rapidly, momentarily blinded by the room’s fluorescent lights. After so long of being sequestered in darkness the sudden exposure to such brilliance sent shafts of pain splintering through her skull. Squeezing her eyes shut she cracked them open, bit by bit. Fuzzy images came into focus and she recognized three of the people she’d been in Djibouti alongside. The ones she’d been captured with. Thankfully, all were still alive. Rough looking but they were alive.

Hell, if she looked like they did it wasn’t a pretty sight. She glanced around and noticed they were in a grain storage room. To one side of her sat a camera on a tripod. Next to it a chair which held a machete.

Her stomach rolled at the realization the lethal looking blade was coated by dark stains. Dried blood. Or rust. Maybe it was rust. Keep dreaming, her brain advised.

Part of her wanted the hood back on so she didn’t have to see any of what she knew, in her gut, wouldn’t be pleasant things to come.

One of the pirates grabbed a man, John Platter, by his thinning hair and shouted in his face. The panic on John’s face tore through her like a blade, sharper than any machete they could do. Another picked up the camera while yet another passed along the wicked blade to the man behind John.

She tried to control the heaves which came nigh unstoppable. God, how had it come to this? Missionary work to watching murder. True, she didn’t know much about John but it didn’t matter. She knew he had a family. A wife and three kids. Everyone had people waiting back in the States for them. Everyone but her.

With strength and determination from somewhere deep inside, she lurched to her feet and screaming herself raw behind the gag tried to make it to John’s side.

A man pulled a gun and pointed it at her head. Taryn paused then moved with dogged determination until she stood positioned between John and the cameraman, holding the cold stare of the unknown pirate with a gun. He backhanded her, the butt of the gun cracking into her jaw and sent her weakened body to the floor while male laughter filled the air. Blood pooled in her mouth and she fought off the approaching darkness. She had no family. Take me, her mind screamed while she bumbled back at least to her knees. Take me and leave them alone!

She caught the glint of the overhead lights as they reflected off the few inches of unstained metal of the machete. Bullet, machete, how it would end was beyond her. The figure gripping the blade stepped closer, but all her attention remained on the man holding the gun. The machete may frighten her but not even close to the fear instilled into her by the gun.

Excruciating pain filled her. In her peripheral, she saw the tip of the machete, covered in fresh blood. Her blood. It made her woozy and she had nothing left to rail against them with. Slumping over the last thing she saw was the man who’d held the gun on her sink to the ground as she did. The only difference, a thick trail of liquid trailed down from under his shemagh, or whatever he would have referred to his headscarf as. The reddish line slid down over the bridge of his nose then toward his eye as his head hit the floor. Brown eyes stared sightlessly ahead.

She had a final thought before she succumbed to the darkness. Guess we die together. Wonder if anyone will care he’s gone? She knew no one would care she was.

αβ

Galen Maxwell dropped the dry magazine and loaded another with thirty rounds into his MP-5 with its attached laser optical sight and integral silencer before zipping down the rope which had been tossed over the upper rail to land on soundless feet. The room had become nearly silent, now the gunfire had ceased, except for the gasping breaths of one woman. She huddled with two men who had the expression they weren’t sure if their situation had improved or not.

He didn’t give a damn about their feelings. His job, and he’d done it, was to rescue them. Not offer comfort. There were others in the group who could fill that need.

Six pirates lay dead in this room alone. More bodies littered the rest of the large cargo ship. A few men joined him and he knew two others continued a sweep of the vessel as well as