Chapter 1
Commander Hassan threw Alexis Monroe’s military ID onto the concrete like it was trash.
It skidded across the cold floor and stopped beside her boot.
The photo on the card was cleaner than she was now.
In it, Captain Alexis Monroe looked calm, sharp, and unbreakable.
In the cell, she was bleeding.
Her jacket was torn at the shoulder.
One eye was swollen.
Dust and dried blood streaked her face.
But she was still sitting upright.
Not slumped.
Not begging.
Not broken.
That bothered Hassan more than anything.
The underground prison was carved beneath an abandoned border station, all concrete walls, rusted bars, and cold lights that buzzed like insects.
Three guards stood behind him with rifles.
One of them laughed when Hassan stepped closer to the bars.
“One American woman won’t last a week here,” Hassan said.
Alexis looked at her ID on the ground.
Then she looked back at him.
She did not answer.
Hassan smiled.
He wanted fear.
He wanted tears.
He wanted a video of the captured American officer shaking in a dirty cell, proof that his men had defeated someone important.
But Alexis gave him silence.
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And silence made weak men angry.
Read Part 2 to see why Alexis’s silence scared Hassan more than screaming ever could.
