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  Point Blank Range

  Ranger Ops Book 3

  Copyright Em Petrova 2019

  Ebook Edition

  Electronic book publication 2019

  All rights reserved. Any violation of this will be prosecuted by the law.

  If hate is a game, this special ops man and ATF agent are out for blood. Or maybe they’re just fighting to see who will be on TOP.

  Special Ops Sergeant Lincoln Reed, aka Linc, doesn’t want to talk about how small, dark places make him want to blow shit up. He wants to forget about that time of his life and get back to his team. But now he’s trapped in an elevator with the annoying—and strangely pretty—ATF agent he’s spent weeks trying to get off his back. She’s a know-it-all on a power trip… and has he mentioned she’s pretty?

  One minute Nealy finds herself in a defunct elevator with a volatile special ops man and the next she’s in his arms… with her naked thighs wrapped around him. Now she’s forced to work even closer with him and the Ranger Ops team. She can’t think of anything worse than a bunch of chest-thumping gun-toting tough guys taking credit for her bringing down the biggest illegal weapons smuggler the US has seen in decades.

  As their investigation takes them through two states and across the Mexican border, Linc and Nealy are forced into an even tighter situation and have no choice but to see it through till the end. But she’s still a know-it-all, even if she can kiss the lips right off him. And she could do without the soft spot growing inside her for the man who’s all mouth and muscles. Can she close the door on this case and keep her heart intact?

  Ranger Ops

  AT CLOSE RANGE

  WITHIN RANGE

  POINT BLANK RANGE

  RANGE OF MOTION

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  Point Blank Range

  by

  Em Petrova

  Chapter One

  Linc’s face bounced off something rough—ground. He could taste the dirt, and it definitely wasn’t Texas soil. He’d tasted enough of that as a kid playing with his twin brother.

  Lennon would get him out of this jam. Linc wasn’t panicking—yet.

  His mind blanked on the events that had gotten him here. The woods and explosions, his special ops team on the winning end of a fight. Then an arm like a vise around his throat, being dragged over logs and roots and finally knocked over the head.

  He’d come to in the back of a truck surrounded by blackness and the acrid stench of pig shit. It had taken him seconds to realize the bastards were smuggling weapons in feces and since nobody wanted to dig around in the manure and inspect the cargo, they rolled across the border with AR-15s, AK-47s and enough semi-automatic pistols to put into the hands of half the children in schools across the United States.

  Dammit, he and the Ranger Ops, with the help of Knight Ops had been this close to stopping it. They still could, but Linc was out of the game right now.

  He was not helpless, though. He pretended to be unconscious while his mind was extremely alert, gathering everything about his surroundings and the people who had captured him.

  They stopped dragging him, leaving him lying on his side, curled forward. It did not help him prevent the sharp kick to his gut. He wheezed and coughed as all the burritos he’d eaten before the mission threatened to come back to haunt him.

  “Open your eyes!” they demanded in Spanish.

  Linc did so, digging deep to find his capture training he’d had early on in his career. First the Marines and a stint as Texas State Trooper, followed by the Texas Rangers. Man, all that seemed like a fluffy pillow of a life compared to Ranger Ops.

  But he was part of Homeland Security now, a division called OFFSUS, and they had the best of the best protecting their country.

  Pride and patriotism blocked out any pain resonating through his gut or his bruised face.

  “Sit up!” he was ordered.

  Linc’s hands and feet were bound, and a rope encircled his neck like a dog on a leash. Using his abs, he crunched into a sitting position and stared at the men surrounding him. He cut off his reaction to them before it got him into deeper trouble. He’d been trained to submit while remaining in complete control.

  Exaggerate your injuries.

  Linc started coughing, hard enough to begin gagging. Then he leaned to the side and puked up what was left of his Mexican food. The men scattered out of his way, cursing at him. But after he was finished, one guy grabbed the rope around his neck and dragged him several feet away from the mess.

  The smell still rose up, along with whatever pig shit remained on his clothes, making his captors wrinkle their noses. One fished out a cloth and pressed it to his face.

  “Agua,” Linc said in a roughened tone.

  “Get him some water,” someone demanded. A second later, a bottle of water was pressed to his lips. He slurped quickly, mentally measuring the distance between him and the man holding the bottle. Gauging whether or not he could fight with all his limbs bound and a rope at the ready to string him up from the closest rafter.

  He couldn’t make his move yet.

  After the man pulled the bottle from his lips, he raised his eyes enough to stare at the guy’s chest. Then a bit higher to his throat, where a blotchy black tattoo covered one side. Not one of those sexy tattoos like the woman Linc had taken to bed a few months before, a spattering of flowers and delicate letters of some Latin poem. Linc couldn’t recall the meaning of the words anymore—but he did remember how sweet she’d felt sinking over his cock.

  “Name and rank,” a captor demanded. There were three, each uglier than the last, with scars on their faces that Linc wanted to add to.

  He would add to, as soon as he played the sympathy card enough to get his hands or feet unbound. Maybe both.

  He held up his hands and winced, twisting against the binding.

  “Stop that!” someone grated out in Spanish.

  Linc ceased but gave him a pitiful look. “It’s digging into my skin and I think my wrist is broken from being dragged.”

  “Name and rank!”

  Realizing he must play nice and share his toys, he responded. “Lincoln Reed, Texas Ranger.”

  It wasn’t totally a lie—he hadn’t been officially cut from the roster. Which was good, because if OFFSUS decided to slash Ranger Ops, as they’d been threatening to for months, he would need a job.

  “Do you want more water, Lincoln?”

  He didn’t respond. Never say yes to any question.

  Staring at his bonds, his mind worked over several possible scenarios. Get close enough to trip one, steal his knife and cut his hands free before the other two jumped him. He’d have seconds at best—odds he wasn’t ready to gamble on quite yet. He’d bide his time.

  Where the fuck was his team? They had to know his whereabouts. Surely, he still held some device to trace his location, unless his captors had stripped it all from him those precious seconds when he’d been unconscious and tossed into the truck.

  He was somewhere in Mexico, by his guess. The building was remote, with no sounds of city or cars. There weren’t any windows to escape from or even tell the time of day.

  Keep your shit together. You have the upper hand. You always will.

  He had just enough cockiness to see
him through, and he was damn happy he’d ignored his momma when she’d told him to be humble all those years.

  Trying again, he held up his bound hands, keeping his head bowed as if too exhausted to even beg anymore.

  “We can’t cut you free, Lincoln. Now tell us who you are with. Who sent you to the forest to attack our men?”

  With eyes trained on the dirty cement floor, he did not respond.

  “We took this off you.”

  He glanced up. Fuck—it was his Blackhawk, a brand new high-tech gadget that Ranger Ops had just been given. Barely tested and not known to the general population but essential for special forces.

  “This looks to be special forces, Lincoln. Are you in special forces?”

  He did not respond, only hung his head. His seconds left to attack were ticking away, but he needed the other two men of the group to spread out, giving him enough time to fight back before they jumped him.

  Lennon, if you’re out there, get the fuck here—now.

  He and his twin had rarely had moments of the telepathy some boasted, but if ever he needed that link, it was now. He concentrated on his brother and next his other brothers—the ones he’d spilled blood with and fought beside for months now, his Ranger Ops brothers.

  Nash, Shaw, Jess, Cav… they had to be searching for him. Hell, the Knight Ops team would be on it too. They wouldn’t just let one of theirs go missing.

  “Answer me! Are you special forces?”

  When he did not respond, two men rushed forward and grabbed him. Yanking him to stand and holding him up, as he didn’t have any stability with his feet bound so close together. The rope tightened around his neck, and he was shoved against a wall. He tasted blood as his face smashed into wood, but he bit back the pain, compartmentalizing it into a space deep inside himself, where nobody could touch him. A place he did not want to test the depths but would if he had to.

  He drew a breath through his nose. It was bleeding as well.

  “We know you’re special forces, Lincoln.” The man’s voice projected into his ear.

  “Why did you bother to ask?” he shot back.

  The blow to the head took him down. He crumpled. They held him up as lights flashed behind his eyes. He fought against the black tunnel barreling his direction. If he was knocked out, he couldn’t fight, couldn’t gather intel, couldn’t survive.

  He needed his wits.

  But it was too late—his vision closed in.

  * * * * *

  Maybe three days later

  Linc crouched in a position his captors had forced him into in an attempt to break him, with his back against a wall and his legs forced out in front of him so his gluts and quads burned.

  Little did they know, but they were up against a wall-sit champion. In gym class, he and his twin would compete and crouch in this same pose for half an hour at a time without batting an eye and only throwing occasional grins at each other.

  But Linc was beginning to cramp. After days of no food and little water, he was in a weakened state, and his hopes were quickly draining.

  He had gone from thinking what can I do to get out of this to I might not ever get out of this.

  The interrogation went on and on, with his captors demanding information on how many forces were after them, what US intelligence knew about their locations and so on. He remained silent and had some cracked ribs and a busted nose for his trouble.

  They yanked him upright, and his screaming leg muscles flexed with relief. He hung forward, panting and grateful in a way that made him want to bellow in rage. He would not give up, would not give in. No fucking way would these bastards take him out before his time.

  Then they locked him in the crate.

  * * * * *

  One day later

  Okay, he was losing it now. How many hours had he been in this black box? The walls closing in on him like a fucking coffin. He might as well be buried alive—he had just as much chance of getting out.

  His brothers weren’t coming for him. He’d never see his twin’s face again, or his momma either. She’d worked two jobs to keep food in their bellies and a roof over their heads after their daddy split, and now Linc would never be given the chance to hug her again and thank her for all her sacrifices.

  The walls were too close, smashing him into a shape that was no longer human. The walls of his mind were collapsing too, and that scared Linc more than anything.

  He could not—would not—give away a single hint of information to these motherfucking captors. He had to survive.

  At least he was no longer bound. With the crate as an effective jail cell, he wasn’t a threat, and he was free to roam in the prison of his shipping crate. Metal walls no longer than eight foot square. He could lie down, but sleep didn’t come easy. Night terrors—day terrors—he couldn’t get more than a few minutes of sleep at a time before he’d wake with a scream on his tongue.

  Yeah, he was fucking losing it.

  He gave a short laugh.

  Someone pounded on the metal, and he clapped his hands over his ears. This was another of their tactics to get him to talk—the pounding would go on for hours until he thought he’d lose his mind. Hell, he might have already lost it.

  He laughed again, and this time one side of the crate opened, and something hard and plastic hit him.

  A water bottle. He’d pissed in one corner several times now out of sheer necessity, but survival came first, and that meant he needed water.

  He took the bottle and asked for a box to use as a toilet. The man’s face was not visible—it was too dark. The man said nothing. The side was shut up again, and Linc was left alone.

  He cracked the water open and had just brought it to his lips when the side of the crate opened again. Something wooden scraped along the metal floor and then it smashed closed again.

  The pounding started, but Linc abandoned the water and shut out the sound as he crawled on his hands and knees to examine what they had put in here with him.

  In the blackness, it was difficult to determine what it was. A wooden box of sorts. He felt along the edges. One foot long by a foot wide, definitely wood. Tentatively, he reached in, expecting something to snap around his hand like the teeth of an animal trap.

  He felt only bulky shapes.

  What the fuck had they given him? If only it was gunpowder, I’d blow myself outta here, he thought.

  Using caution, he withdrew an item from the box. Feeling the sides, top and bottom of the object, he couldn’t make out what it was. He felt like he was playing that old game in Boy Scouts again, where you reach into a bag of rocks and feathers and other things and have to determine what it was you were feeling.

  For countless minutes, he examined each object using only his sense of touch. A lumpy bag rattled too. The other objects didn’t make a noise.

  He ripped open the bag and tiny pebble-like items fell into his palm. He brought them to his nose and sniffed.

  His stomach twisted as the cloyingly sweet scent of dried fruit hit him. He brought one to his lips and licked it. The sweetness made his empty stomach cramp.

  They’d finally given him food. A care package.

  Or the guy had just grabbed the nearest box without looking at the contents.

  Linc couldn’t eat much at once, or he’d be ill. He had to control himself and have a few at a time. Besides, who knew how long he would be stuck in this prison. This could be his last supper.

  Linc popped one into his mouth and chewed. What were they? Dates? Raisins? The flavor nearly made him weep, and he blinked into the darkness to keep from letting the tears fall. After only five or six, he stopped himself and pushed the bag aside.

  Then he found one canister had a lid. He opened it with a prayer on his lips that whatever it was wouldn’t blow his ass to smithereens. When he dipped a finger into the contents, though, he found it oily. What the hell was it?

  His lucid mind took note of his hysterical counterpart. It’s nacho cheese. You can make snacks for yo
ur guests.

  He sucked on his finger.

  It wasn’t cheese but lard.

  What the fuck? He had a bag of dried fruit and some lard? The other container held something powdery, and upon tasting it, he realized it was flour.

  A booming laugh escaped him. The assholes had given him a box of baking ingredients. Someone’s mother would be quite unhappy she never received the items on her grocery list and instead, the baking goods were locked inside a crate with an American prisoner.

  He laughed again, and the pounding took over. It jarred his eardrums, his nerves, his mind until it threatened to unhinge him. But he pushed through the pain of the torture and opened the last container. This too was powdery.

  But sweet.

  Powdered sugar.

  Linc’s mind laser-focused on the items, and in seconds he had formulated a plan to get the fuck out of this crate.

  He just needed a source of flame. He crossed his legs and leaned against the wall, popping the fruits slowly into his mouth as he bided his time.

  Chapter Two

  Linc’s body was on fire. His skin melting. But he was slung over someone’s bulky shoulder and they were running.

  His head bobbed, and he was helpless to stop it. When the steps slowed, he heard the most beautiful sound in his life.

  “Get him down. Help me get him down. He’s fucking burned to a crisp.” Shaw—his teammate, his brother in arms.

  They had him.

  Linc had gotten himself out of that goddamn crate. Fucked himself up in the process, but he’d done it.

  Shaw’s eyes loomed in front of his. “Hold on, man. We got you now. Waiting for airlift. Jesus Christ, who did this to you?”

  He managed to lift a hand and tap his own chest.

  “You did it?” Nash Sullivan’s voice, on his nine. He swung his head toward the sound of his captain’s voice and nearly cried with relief. They really did have him—this was not one of his nightmares of the past few days. He was out of that hell, and he would survive.