Enemy Mine Read Online Free

then slumped to the ground.
    Pulling a GPS device from his right thigh pocket, Nikko removed the protective cover on the double-sided tape and stuck the GPS to the undercarriage of the truck. He pulled out his satphone to alert his team it was all going to shit.
    Voices shouted back and forth. The mercs were looking for him. Nikko stuffed the phone into the thigh sleeve of his cargo pants, then crawled along the opposite roadside using the trailer as cover and worked his way toward the sheer edge of the road. He would drop if he had to.
    Pulling a grenade from his belt, Nikko crawled around the trailer and positioned himself. He noticed for the first time he was losing blood. A warm, damp stream from his forearm dripped onto the road. Heavy boot-steps rounded the trailer from either end. He ducked back under the trailer and changed direction. If he could get to the crevice, it would offer enough cover for him to hold them off until the cavalry arrived.
    Blinking against the fog that blurred his vision, Nikko tossed the grenade ahead of him and to the right, dispersing the soldiers who hadn’t, unbelievably, bothered to look under the trailer for him. When it exploded, heavy boots ran from the exact place he needed to go. Quickly, Nikko hoisted himself up on a hot axle and maneuvered his way toward the cab.
    “KpoBb!” a merc shouted, his voice closing in.
    They had spotted his blood.
    Nikko was outmanned ten to one. If he stayed where he was, he’d be captured. Then he’d be dead, but not before he was treated to a bout of From Russia with Love torture. The Russians were the best at it. He had the scars to prove it. Capture was not an option.
    He rolled out from under the trailer and tossed another grenade behind him, then another and another until he was wedged into the crevice he’d exited less than fifteen minutes earlier, with the steep incline of the mountain behind him. He had meager cover, but it was enough. He slung his M16 around from his back by its strap and opened fire. He was answered with blinding pain as the percussion of an RPG blew him ten feet into the air and slammed him against the mountainside. Slowly his lacerated body slid down the gravelly surface to the bottom of the crevice. His chest was shredded; his head ached like the morning after a three-day drunk. His extremities twitched as shock claimed him.
    Heavy boots stormed toward him. A barrage of argument in Russian over whether he was worth torturing.
    “Is dead,” a voice said.
    A strange sensation of cool heat swirled within his chest cavity as his life oozed out and death rushed in. But oddly, his hands and feet weren’t cold anymore, they were warm. He blinked away the blood in his eyes. Suddenly the sky was blue. The gray had been absorbed by white, puffy clouds. The sun shone brightly, causing him to squint, and the salt of the nearby ocean toyed with his senses. Overhead, gulls called. A cottage shimmered like a mirage under the sunshine.
    He was home.
    Nikko tried to smile but couldn’t. That little summer cottage on St. Michael’s Island had been a happy place once; it was the place he’d fallen in love. The place where his life had shattered into a million tiny pieces, killing the most vital part of him long before today.
    Now fate was determined to finish what little life Selena had left him. Selena . He choked on the thought of her. There hadn’t been a colder-hearted murdering bitch on the planet. But he’d taken care of her. She couldn’t hurt him again. He still loved her. Guilt dragged down by regret washed through him in waves. He’d killed her. The only woman he would ever love.
    His chest burned. His throat constricted.
    The sunshine began to fade.
    He was dying.
    The harsh voices around him trailed off, followed by the slamming of doors, the release of air brakes. He’d been left for dead. At least they hadn’t hacked off his limbs to drag them behind the trailer, a warning of what they were capable of. He had no