But it didn’t matter. The passenger door behind him opened, and as he felt the hands wrap around his legs, he tried to muster the energy to fight back.

To survive.

But this time, they hauled him across the glass with little effort, and before Sam could get a look at their faces, a solid fist slammed against his jaw, sending a spray of blood across the panel of the van and everything went black.

Chapter Nineteen

THREE YEARS AGO…

It had been a year to the day that Jamie had died.

Every single moment of that year had been one of unrelenting torture. Each second that ticked by was a painful reminder that everything Sam had ever fought for was a memory. Not only did the world cruelly take his son from him, but the agony that coiled around his life like a hungry snake soon relieved him of his marriage.

Lucy had been his world.

When his father had died, Sam found his home in the military. The brother he never had he found, his bond with Theo thicker than most bound by blood. Although his father had passed, Sam pushed himself to fill the large shoes his legacy had left behind, and for a long time, those were the only two things that mattered.

He didn’t feel alone.

He felt like he had a purpose.

Then that one night where he met Lucy in a nightclub changed it all.

His entire fight became for her.

Every mission. Every fight to the death.

Every desperate attempt for survival.

All of it for her.

There were times, whether he was hiding in the wall of a generous local doctor in an abandoned Afghanistan town, or fighting for his life in the middle of the Amazon, where Lucy’s face had been his beacon.

The thought of not returning to her, of seeing her face again, pushed him to survive the most thankless of odds.

When Jamie arrived, that instinct doubled.

All of it snatched away by one drunk driver, and Sam’s hesitation in stopping him from getting behind the wheel.

Miles Hillock was only twenty years old when he lost control of his car, swerving into his son and ending his life. That moment changed everything, tearing apart Sam’s life at the seams, and for it all, he spent nine months behind bars.

Nine months.

The same time it had taken Lucy to carry their son into the world.

Sam had hit a low ebb when Jamie died, his mental state evaporating as he fell into a deep depression. Six months of trying to pull him back from the brink had taken its toll on Lucy, and she left their broken marriage with a shattered heart.

Sam no longer had anything to live for.

His reason to survive had gone.

Had it not been for the timely interception of Sergeant Carl Marsden, Sam would have taken his life.