by Pam Godwin
In the kitchen, he lifted a long duffel bag from the table. When they’d arrived at the apartment, the first thing Cole did was pull the bag from one of the tiles in the drop ceiling in the bedroom.
He set it on the coffee table and unzipped it, revealing an arsenal of firearms, knives, and high-tech gadgets. “I collected this stuff during my previous visit here.”
Made sense. It wasn’t like he could sneak an assault rifle into his carry-on.
“When we eventually go out there,” Cole said, “you’ll be fully armed and armored.” He held up a black t-shirt from the bag. “This is bullet-resistant.”
“What?” Tate reached out and touched what appeared to be high-quality cotton. “No way.”
“I was shot in the chest wearing something similar.” Cole lifted the hem of his shirt, baring flawless skin over washboard abs and sculpted pecs. “The bullet broke skin. Fractured ribs.”
“No scar.” Tate couldn’t believe it.
“The bullet didn’t enter my body.” Cole pulled another shirt from the bag and tossed at Van.
“Badass.” Van held it up to his chest. “Machine-washable?”
“Good luck finding a washing machine.” Cole laughed and nodded at the view beyond the window, where laundry hung from sagging balconies from one end of the alley to the other.
Who cared about laundry? Those shirts, though… If they could really bounce bullets, they were worth their weight in gold.
No wonder Cole’s fees were so outrageous. He didn’t just know what he was doing. He had the gear to stay alive. Tate couldn’t imagine what this arsenal cost on the black market or wherever he’d acquired it. And he’d left it all behind after his last trip?
“You have to build a new stockpile of weapons on every job?” Tate asked.
“Yeah.” Cole motioned at the duffel bag. “This was included in your finder fee. Now you’re going to learn how to use it.”
Over the next hour, Cole instructed Van and Tate on the nuances of each firearm and how to conceal the pieces beneath their clothing. They couldn’t hit the streets looking like avatars in a first-person shooter game. Discretion was paramount.
During the instruction, rain began to pelt the glass. By the time Tate made his way to the window, a tropical downpour was fully underway. The deluge of water fell from broken spouts and overfilled dumpsters, rushing a river of sewage through the alley.
Where was Lucia? Surely, she wasn’t walking the steep, winding streets in this storm? After eleven years in this shanty town, she was probably used to it. But he didn’t like it. Every instinct begged him to go out there, hunt her down, and drag her back to the States.
Instead, he stayed at the window, watching, waiting, and finally, she appeared.
“She’s back,” he said, drawing Cole and Van to his side.
Despite the torrential rain, her steps were unhurried, measured, as she navigated streams of rainwater. Her clothes stuck to her thin sodden body, her hair clinging to her face, and in her arms…
“What is she carrying?” He gave the binoculars to Cole, who shook his head and handed them back.
She strode toward her apartment, but before she got there, she stopped and knocked on the door next to hers.
“That’s the apartment that was robbed earlier,” Van said.
The woman poked her head out. Then she swung the door open and grabbed whatever Lucia was holding.
Amid the blur of motion, Tate spotted a furry head. “Holy shit, she has the dog. How did she—?”
“Badell owns this neighborhood,” Cole said. “She must’ve tracked down the officers and demanded Badell’s cut of the loot.”
“She could’ve taken the laptop or demanded money, right?” His chest filled with hope. “But she took the dog. That’s—”
“Don’t read too much into it. The most corrupt explanation is usually the right one. Lucia knows what the woman values most, and now she’s in Lucia’s debt.”
“Christ, you’re jaded.”
“I’m realistic.” Cole paced to the couch and packed away the weapons. “Lucia will stay in her apartment for the rest of the night. At dawn, she heads back to the compound.”
“Every morning?”
“Without fail,” Cole said behind him.
Tate remained at the window as she left the woman without saying a word and vanished inside her own apartment.
What’s going on in your head, Lucia? Why are you here?
“You know why I abducted Camila.” Van stepped beside him and stared out into the rain. “Why she was even on my radar.”
“Yeah.”
Van’s father, Mr. E, had given him Camila’s information and ordered him to take her. Her disappearance had been part of a revenge plan led by Matias’ own brother.
“Two months after I took Camila,” Van said, “Lucia disappeared. It’s related, isn’t it? To Matias’ cartel?”
“Yes, and Matias killed every person involved in the sisters’ kidnappings.”
Except Van. He had Tate to thank for that. Since Camila had made peace with her former captor, Tate had talked Matias out of retaliating.
“When Lucia was captured, Camila was presumed dead.” Tate trained the binoculars on Lucia’s apartment door, and an ache pinched his chest. “When Badell brought her here, he would’ve tried to collect a ransom from her parents, who were already dead.” He met Van’s eyes. “She believes she’s alone.”
He wanted so badly to storm into her apartment and tell her Camila was alive. But he couldn’t. Not while she was being watched.
“I’m trying to be patient,” he said, turning toward Cole, “but I need to know the plan.”
“There’s somewhere she goes twice a month.” Cole lowered onto the couch. “Her guards don’t follow her in.”
“Twice a month?” His pulse raced. “When? Is it always the same days of the month?”
“Yes. Ten days from today, she’ll be there.”
Ten days? That’s an eternity.
Tate paced the length of the room, agitated. “You’re leaving in seven days.”
“I have another job.” Cole narrowed his eyes. “And I don’t want to be a part of whatever you decide to do after you confront her.”
“I’m not going to kidnap her.”
Cole glanced between him and Van, eyebrows arched. “If you say so.”
“Whatever. You already told us we’d be on our own.” He continued to pace. “Where does she go twice a month?”
“A sex club. That’s where you’ll make contact with her.”
“What?” Tate slammed to a stop.
“Don’t look so offended. You should feel right at home there.”
True, but… “What are you suggesting I do?”
“You’ll go in there, and if she’s willing, you’ll fuck her until she loses all logic and paranoia. Then you’ll put your mouth at her ear and say—”
“Thanks for the good time… Oh, and by the way, your sister’s alive?”
“Exactly.”
Tate closed his eyes and breathed, “That’s a terrible idea.”
CHAPTER 6
It was the worst idea ever. But as Tate walked to the X ten days later, he was all in. Shoulders back, weapons concealed, bullet-resistant shirt straining across his chest, he was battle ready.
Except the shirt wouldn’t protect his head. Or his dick.
Christ. There it was. The X.
The sex club didn’t have a name, but a huge black X marked the otherwise nondescript door—the only indication he’d arrived at the right place.
The temptation to glance back and scan the shadows for Van prickled his scalp, but he knew Van had followed him as planned, staying far enough back to not raise suspicion.
Cole left Caracas three days ago with the promise that he was only a phone call away. But who knew what part of the world he’d traveled to or how long it would take him to return?
Deep breath. Follow the plan. Don’t look sketchy.
Hell, every person he’d passed on the short walk here looked sketchy as fuck. Thankfully, no one approached him. Yet. The locals were probably taking their time scoping him out and gathering their buddies so they could gang rush him.
He slid his hands into his pockets and approached the door all casual like. Nothing to see here. Just going to a sex club to get laid.
To fuck Camila’s sister.
That was going to be hard to explain to Camila, but first things first. He needed to get inside, and once he walked through that door, he would truly be on his own.
Van was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a cheater. His refusal to step foot in the sex club was as inconvenient as it was admirable. He was here to help Tate, but his wife was and always would be his number one priority. Tate respected that.
He knocked on the black X and removed a wad of bolivars from his pocket.
The door swung open, revealing a rangy Hispanic man with a cigarette protruding from the toothy gap in a scraggly beard. “Sí?”
Tate put the bills in the man’s hand.
“Sin armas.” The man motioned at Tate’s waistband, where his untucked shirt concealed a handgun.
Cole had warned him about the no weapons policy. There was also a no clothing policy, but the disrobing would take place inside.
He handed over the gun and pushed through the doorway until bony fingers circled his arm, stopping him.
“Sin armas.” The bearded man pointed his cigarette at Tate’s boot.
Fuck. He relinquished the knife from under his pant leg, certain he’d never see either of those weapons again.
Then he was free to go in.
The only doorway up ahead led him into a dim locker room. The tiled space was vacant, except for a lone woman sitting on the floor in the corner. As he stripped his clothes, she was more absorbed by the syringe in her arm than his nudity.
There were no locks on the lockers. He had no choice but to stuff his belongings into one, loathing the idea of leaving the protective shirt. The material looked plain enough, nothing to indicate its worth. If someone robbed him, his biggest concern would be the naked walk back to the apartment.
Moving toward the exit, he grabbed a haphazardly folded robe from a pile, pulled it on, and tied the front closed.
Two baskets sat on a table by the door. He grabbed a fistful of condoms from one, shoving them into the pocket of the robe. The other was filled with silicon bracelets.
Cole’s intel had been right. There were four different colored bracelets. No labels, but Cole said black specified a straight orientation. White was gay, and gray was bisexual. The red ones… Well, he said not to worry about those.
Choosing a color wasn’t difficult. When Tate had unwillingly lost his virginity to a man at fourteen, it had emotionally and physically scarred him enough to never put himself in a situation like that again. And he’d succeeded.
Until Van.
With a bitter taste in his throat, he grabbed a black bracelet. Wrestled it onto his wrist. Left the locker room.
And walked into a setting unlike anything he’d ever seen.
Sex.
Everywhere he looked.
Piles of naked, writhing, sweaty bodies.
By his estimation, there were forty or fifty people with an even ratio of men to women. All naked and moaning, sucking and fucking, moving from partner to partner, and taking turns.
Group sex seemed to be the theme here—threesomes, foursomes, too-many-to-count-somes, gang bangs, daisy chains, double penetration, and the random circle jerk in the corner.
Holy.
Fuck.
Few things shocked him, and orgies were commonplace at the Velvet Den. But the similarities ended there.
A sticky smell clung to the air—a sour brew of smoke and body odor—made worse by the sweet aroma of a Febreze-type spray.
Scuffed furniture, cigarette burns, patched upholstery, dark stains—it was a germaphobe’s worst nightmare. Not that he was obsessed with cleanliness, but some of these folks had clearly thrown hygiene to the wayside. At least they were using condoms. Most of them, anyway.
The seedy club consisted of one room, vast and dimly lit, with a plethora of shadowed alcoves hidden by half walls and equipment rigged for impact play and other fetishes.
Fully aware that several heads had turned his way, he clasped his hands behind him and stepped through the room like he owned it. As his bare feet moved along the worn carpet, he tried not to think about the fluids that were transferring to his skin.
The mismatched couches and futons appeared to be surface-clean, but some of those stains should’ve been burned off. Like most clubs of this kind, the lights were kept low enough to hide stretch-marks and cellulite and just bright enough to ensure intended appendages were stuffing intended holes. Though there didn’t seem to be a right or wrong hole here.
He checked his black bracelet and realized most of the club-goers wore gray or red ones.
The general male fantasy wasn’t picky, but the majority of the men he knew preferred women.
Not the case here.
His aversion to having sex with men was deeply ingrained. Had his life taken a gentler path, maybe he wouldn’t have so much damn dread building in his gut right now. But as he caught the interested stares of numerous men around the room, he couldn’t stop a resentful scowl from thinning his lips.
One thing he hadn’t counted on was his inability to get a hard-on. He was always ready to fuck, but as it stood—or didn’t stand—he wasn’t sure he’d be able to perform.
Then he saw her.
On the far side of the room, Lucia bent over a table, eyes closed and mouth parted, as a burly naked man beat her ass with a cane.
Every muscle in Tate’s body tensed to go to her, but he forced himself to remain in place, to watch and evaluate.
The man’s erection was as impressive as his strikes. He was huge…everywhere, his swings powered by bricks of muscle. With each new stripe across her backside, she relaxed deeper onto the table. There were no creases of tension on her face. No restraints on her arms or legs. Nothing to hold her there but her own will.
She was enjoying the beating, and fuck if that didn’t make Tate’s dick swell with blood. He wasn’t a sadist, but he loved it rough, loved the feel of a woman bending and sighing beneath the aggressive force of his unchecked desire.
He could approach her now, make his move, but that wasn’t his style. When he wanted a woman’s attention, he preferred a subtle approach.
He spotted an unoccupied couch and sat at the center of it, ensuring the robe protected his butt from whatever was breeding in the crusty cushion. The location put him in her direct line of sight. She only needed to open her eyes.
Goddamn, she was hot. Flirty shoulder-length hair. Creamy coffee skin. Thick dark eyelashes. A little on the thin side, but she had a great Latina ass.
He settled back on the couch. Then the piranhas closed in. He held his black bracelet in view, discouraging the men. But three women crept toward him with sex-induced oblivion written all over their faces.
One of them crawled on her knees from a nearby pile of men. Her Barbie-thin waist pinched in between an abundance of hips and tits. She was pretty enough, and as her hand slid up his leg and disappeared beneath his robe, he knew his concern about performance had been unwarranted.
He was as hard as a rock. It had nothing to do with the fingers curling around his length and everything to do with the woman who had just opened her eyes.
Lucia stared at him from twenty-feet away, her cheek pressed against the table and her focus unwavering. She didn’t blink, and neither did he. The cocky part of him exclaimed triumph, knowing he’d irrevocably seized her interest. He only needed to wait for her to come to him, and she would. They always did.
The other two women joined him on the couch. One on each side, they untied the knot on his robe, spreading it open.
He was prepared for this, had made the decision before coming here t
hat he would allow touching and blowjobs from women. What straight man wouldn’t? But the only woman he would fuck tonight was the raven-haired beauty watching him from the table.
The man behind her set aside the cane and gripped his latex-wrapped erection, stepping closer to her to line himself up.
Tate’s jaw tightened, and he shot her a look she couldn’t misinterpret. No.
It was an irrational demand, considering the three women who were currently exploring every inch of his body with hands, lips, and teeth. He was tempted to stop the girl between his legs from rolling a condom down his shaft, but he decided to let this play out, to see what Lucia would do.
He captured her gaze as warm lips stretched around his girth. Ahhh, fuck, that felt good. His skin heated, and his balls tightened, and the ungodly pleasure only intensified in the prison of Lucia’s watchful stare.
He didn’t lift his hands, didn’t touch or look at the women grinding against him. He couldn’t ignore the intoxicating desire they spread through his body, didn’t want to. He felt like putty beneath their ministrations and melted into the couch.
His breathing accelerated, and his cock pulsed in the hot wet cavity of the woman’s mouth. But his eyes were narrowed on Lucia and her alone.
She reached behind her, gripped the burly man’s dick, and stroked it a few times before nudging him away. The man didn’t look too put off by it as he moved to the next girl in line for a beating.
Then she stood and turned to face him fully.
Smallish tits, tight pink nipples, sharp collarbones—her delicate physique rounded into curvy hips and slender legs. The dark trimmed patch of hair between her thighs created a shadow over the part of her he so desperately wanted to see, to taste, to pound until they were both exhausted and sated.
Maybe she was a coldblooded bitch in a kidnapping gang, but unless she had a blade clenched between those tight ass cheeks, she didn’t have the upper hand here.
He found her eyes and sharpened his in silent command. Come here.