From Evil: Books 4-6

by Pam Godwin

  The thought was crippling.

  She grabbed the cordless clippers and threw herself into completing the task. He sat quietly as she trimmed, shaped, and scattered tiny hairs to the floor. To avoid grazing his wounds, she had to lean in, which felt like she was putting her face next to the jaws of a lion.

  He even smelled intimidating. With her nose so close to his neck, she detected notes of cypress, vetiver, and leather, all bound up in the heady scent of an alpha male.

  She stepped back, unable to endure another whiff of Tiago-infused air. But there was no escaping his presence. He was everywhere, all around her, overwhelming and watchful. Always watching with those dark, dangerous eyes.

  “I’m finished.” She glanced around for a mirror, her throat tight. “Do you want to see it?”

  With a grunt, he skimmed a palm over his scalp.

  “Feels fine.” He stood and unbuttoned his shirt as he addressed Arturo. “If she goes outside, keep her within eyeshot of the house. I’ll be in the backroom.”

  She’d overheard Arturo mention something about weights. What were the chances she could slip in there while Tiago worked out, steal a dumbbell, and finish the job Lucia had started?

  He loosened the cuffs of his sleeves and stripped the shirt. The tank top underneath followed, revealing a heart-stopping landscape of muscle and scars.

  The welted designs on his forearms stretched around his biceps and faded at his shoulders. His slacks hung low on narrow hips, his torso a scar-free, concrete wall of virility.

  This man had spent the past month in bed? Impossible. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on his body. No flab or loose skin. Nothing that resembled weakness or poor health. The last thing he needed was a damn work out.

  God help her, she was in trouble.

  When she’d stormed into his room last night, she’d been blinded by rage, empowered by the possibility that he was old and out of shape, and floating on the hope that her friends would come. She had none of that now.

  Her future rested on the whims of a criminal. A crafty, cold-hearted, beautifully-sculpted criminal, who would end her life without a second thought.

  His gaze grabbed hers as he shook out his shirt, draped it over the chair back, and lowered his hands to his belt.

  She gave him an incredulous look. If he needed to remove his pants to lift weights, why couldn’t he wait until he was in the backroom?

  Watching her unnervingly, he slipped the strap from the buckle and emptied his pockets. Keyring, phone, wallet—everything went on the table. Then he toed off his boots and lowered the zipper of his fly.

  She didn’t want to do this with him. She didn’t want him to remove his pants while gazing into her eyes. It felt personal. Intimate. She couldn’t breathe.

  But looking away would be a sign of submission. Van had taught her that.

  So she held fast to that eye contact. She stared as he slowly closed the distance between them. She stared until he ducked his head and dragged his nose across her cheek, her jaw, her mouth, smelling her.

  She pinned her lips together and remained motionless as he lifted the top of her dress and straightened it into place.

  Once her chest was covered, he stepped back and dropped his pants. An arrogant smirk kicked up the corner of his mouth.

  She winged up a brow, refusing to glance down or give him a dramatic reaction.

  His smirk transformed, curving into a handsome, breathtaking grin. It softened his eyes and altered the very air around him, making him unrecognizable. One smile, and he could be mistaken as human. A hot-as-fuck human with the capacity to shift and melt things inside her.

  Holy bejeezus. When he wasn’t scaring the piss out of her, he was sucking her in with his glowing charisma.

  Lucifer had charisma. It was easy to be both repulsed by evil and drawn to its power. She would do well to remember that.

  He tossed his pants on the chair beside the shirt and glanced at Arturo. “Inform Boones that my clothes are covered in hair.”

  “Si, Jefe.”

  She waited for him to give her a parting command or threat, but he didn’t. He turned away without acknowledging her and strode down the hall, taking every molecule of energy with him.

  His command, his influence, his damn magnetism—it created an intoxicating aura around him, freezing her in place as he ambled toward the backroom.

  She couldn’t look away if she tried. Couldn’t stop her gaze from following the ridges of his chiseled back to his trim waist and the fit of the tight briefs across his flexing ass. An unwanted fever heated her skin, and frantic little flutters erupted in her belly.

  Why was she checking him out? He was deplorable, mean as hell, and mentally unstable. Pure poison beneath that superficial beauty.

  He turned the corner and glanced back, his gaze spearing hers.

  Letting her head tip to the side, she plastered on a stoic expression. He already inspired fear in her, and he knew it. She wouldn’t give him the impression he was enticing, too.

  When he slipped into the backroom and out of view, she glanced around for something she could swipe without Arturo noticing. The scissors on the table? The bread knife near the stove? The keys on Tiago’s keyring? His locked phone?

  Arturo didn’t take his eyes off her as she strolled through the kitchen. She loitered for a few moments, waiting for a distraction, but that only prompted him to shift closer and watch harder.

  Giving up on that, she padded through the front room and spied a sleeping woman on one of the mattresses. The sight of the feminine form gave her a sense of comfort. Not that she could trust anyone working for Tiago, but if she had any chance of making a friend here, maybe that woman was an option.

  At the front door, Arturo breezed past and led her onto a concrete porch. The shade from the overhang offered little relief from the dry heat.

  She stepped off the stoop and lifted her face to the cloudless, sun-bleached sky. Without shoes, the rocky ground burned the soles of her feet, but she didn’t care. It’d been a month since she felt direct sunlight on her skin.

  There were no sounds, no traffic, no roaring of ocean waves, no signs of civilization in any direction. Unmarked nothingness embraced her with empty arms.

  She paced a circuit around the house, examining the barred windows and probing for weak exit points. If she decided to run, the front door would be the only way out. Not that she would make it two feet with the silent, intimidating barricade hovering at her elbow.

  Arturo’s presence made her skin crawl, especially after hearing him admit he wanted to fuck her more than anything.

  A shudder gripped her as she returned to the porch and sat on the steps.

  “Are we in Venezuela?” She squinted at him.

  He leaned against the awning support and said nothing. At six-foot-and-too-many-inches tall, his thirties-something gladiator build backed up the combative vibes that emanated from him.

  “How long have you worked for Tiago?” she asked.

  No response.

  “I’m not comfortable with what you said about me inside.” She rubbed her neck. “Please, tell me you weren’t serious.”

  He grunted a huff, and his pockmarked cheeks bounced with sick amusement.

  “So it’s true.” Her face turned to ice, despite the suffocating heat. “He lets his guards rape his prisoners.”

  “He likes to watch.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Kate’s stomach plunged to her feet.

  Tiago liked to watch his men rape women. Of course, he did. He was a criminally insane psychopath.

  And she’d been sleeping next to his room for the past month.

  Her heart sprinted as she honed in on the car parked thirty feet away. What were the odds she could outrun Arturo, hop into the front seat, and find a key in the ignition?

  Not a chance in hell.

  She slumped. “Where did Boones go?”

  One of the cars was missing, and she hadn’t seen the doctor since breakfast. />
  Arturo stared at the hazy horizon, as if she weren’t speaking.

  “What animal best represents your personality?” she asked, trying to startle a reaction from him.

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t glance at her.

  “I’m thinking a bear.” She tapped her chin. “But could you survive in the wilderness?” She sighed at his muteness. “A teddy bear, then.”

  A raping, murderous, gangster teddy bear.

  He crossed a booted ankle over the other and rested his fingertips in the front pockets of his baggy jeans.

  “What do your clothes say about you?” She pursed her lips, frustrated by his refusal to talk. “Say something. I dare you. No, really. I totally dare you to utter one word.”

  He was a statue. A voiceless, expressionless sentinel.

  Over the next two hours, she continued to toss out questions, hoping he would bite. She wanted him to slip up and tell her something useful. But the comment about Tiago watching his guards rape prisoners was the only information she managed to coax from him.

  The sun beat down on the cracked earth, brutally hot and smothering. Nevertheless, she remained on the shaded porch, preferring the limited freedom of outside to the stale confinement of the stone walls indoors.

  Eventually, Boones returned.

  As he parked the sedan and climbed out, Arturo straightened, assuming a more attentive stance. She didn’t know how many weapons the massive man concealed beneath his clothes, but she wouldn’t try to steal car keys from Boones and risk a bullet from Arturo.

  Her escape would require more stealth than a grab-and-run.

  “Help me with these.” Boones handed her several shopping bags and carried the rest into the house and up the stairs.

  There were stores nearby? Close enough for Boones to buy all this stuff and return within a few hours? She still didn’t know what country she was in. Maybe there was a receipt with an address in one of the bags?

  Arturo relayed Tiago’s message about the hair-covered clothes in the kitchen. Then he hung back in the stairwell as she followed the old doctor through the antechamber and down the hall to Tiago’s room.

  Boones heaved the bags onto the mattress and removed the contents. Running shoes, active wear, jeans, t-shirts, underwear… As he separated the clothes into two piles, she realized one of the stacks was meant for her.

  She emptied the other bags and helped him sort, unable to locate a receipt or anything that identified her location. “Are we staying here? In Venezuela?”

  “This place is temporary.” His cloudy eyes glanced at her sidelong. “But we won’t be leaving Venezuela.”

  Finally, an answer!

  “Why is this temporary? Where is he going next?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” he said in a foreign syllabic rhythm she couldn’t place.

  “Is your accent Hindi?”

  He snorted. “No.”

  “British? South African?”

  “No.”

  “Caribbean?”

  “You’re getting colder.” He shifted back to the clothes. “No one ever guesses correctly.”

  “You’re not going to tell me.”

  “No.”

  With a frown, she lowered to the mattress on the floor and helped him remove the tags. “Why doesn’t Tiago sleep on a real bed?”

  “He prefers to live modestly.”

  “But he’s wealthy?”

  A low chuckle creaked in his throat. “He has more money than God.”

  How much of that money came from blood, drugs, and ransom payments? She gritted her teeth. “Is that why you work for him? He pays you well?”

  “Loyalty keeps me here.” All humor vanished from his wrinkly face. “Tiago means a great deal to me, and I’ll remain at his side for as long as he needs me.”

  There was a story there, thickening his accent with deep emotion.

  “Your markings…” She motioned to the vertical welts on his cheeks. “Tiago has them on his arms. Did he give you those?”

  “No.” Boones pushed up the sleeves of his linen shirt, exposing a faded tapestry of scars on his dark forearms. “Where I’m from, we believe scarring connects us with our ancestors. It’s an ancient tradition, one that’s rarely practiced anymore.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “That, I will not say.”

  Somewhere in Africa, if she had to guess. “Did Tiago adopt the practice from you?”

  “I taught him, but his scarification has nothing to do with tradition.” He lowered his sleeves and turned back to sorting the clothes. “For him, the scars convey a message.”

  “What message?” She leaned closer. “What do his scars mean?”

  “Beware, there is pain in the world, and you cannot run from it. But if you endure it, if you accept the suffering, it will stop.”

  “Oh.” She let that soak in. “You’re talking about emotional pain.”

  “All pain. He carries more than most.” He gave her a sad smile and handed her the stack of women’s clothing. “Take these to your room and change out of that dress.”

  She did as he instructed, anxious to wear something other than a transparent rag.

  It was interesting how easily Boones talked with her when she couldn’t pull a word from Arturo’s pinched mouth. Was Boones trying to make her sympathize with Tiago’s actions?

  Clearly, Tiago had a different relationship with Boones than he did with his guards. He and the old man shared a bond, a history, that piqued her curiosity.

  After slipping on cotton panties, jeans, and a soft gray shirt that fit her perfectly, she returned to Tiago’s room and helped Boones fold the remaining clothes.

  She favored Boones’ company over Tiago’s, but it didn’t stop the monster from occupying her thoughts.

  Was he still working out? In his underwear? If she asked him to show her another video of Tate, would the request infuriate him?

  She lifted a pair of gym shorts and eyed the new running shoes on the floor. She could take the clothes to him as a gesture of kindness and weigh his mood.

  The thought of seeing him made her insides float and drop in a roller-coaster of sensations. He provoked every emotion at its extreme. Terror, excitement, hatred, curiosity, attraction… She really hated herself for that last one.

  The reality was she couldn’t avoid him. She was stuck here, stuck with him, until she found an opportunity to escape.

  “I’m going to run these down to him.” She didn’t look at Boones as she gathered the exercise gear and headed out of the room.

  Arturo waited at the top of the stairs. He let her pass before trailing on her heels.

  In the living room, the mattresses sat empty. Where did the woman go? Where was everyone else? She strained her ears, listening. Then she heard it. The deep, gravelly rumble of Tiago’s voice in the backroom.

  He was speaking to someone in Spanish, the words flowing so melodically it sounded like a sensual song. She followed his timbre, marking the pauses between sentences. He must’ve been on the phone.

  She hit the hallway with Arturo in tow, passing a bathroom. Then a bedroom, where a mattress sat in the corner on an actual frame. Was that where Boones slept?

  Moving on, she stepped through the last doorway and slammed to a stop.

  Tiago stood near a rack of free weights, one hand braced on the wall in front of him, and the other holding a phone to his ear. With his head tilted back and eyes closed, he intoned a string of Spanish between heavy breaths.

  He wore only a pair of tight black boxer briefs, his muscles pumped, veins bulging in his arms, and sweat clinging to miles of shredded, bronze skin.

  It was a carnal, painfully arousing sight, potent enough to send her into cardiac arrest. But that wasn’t what stopped the blood from pumping to her brain.

  A woman with short black hair knelt before him. Her mouth pressed against his abs, teeth scraping skin and tongue tracing the V-shaped indention near his hipbone. Her hands wandered every
where, gliding down his back, kneading his ass, and trailing his waistband back around to the swollen bulge between his legs.

  Every muscle in Kate’s body tensed to turn heel and run. Her vision clouded, and adrenaline flooded her system. If he wanted to fuck his security guard, fine. Good. Better that woman than Kate. But why leave the door open? What the fucking fuck?

  She burned to smash his face in. With one of those heavy barbells. At the same time, she trembled to scurry away like a simpering, prissy, little virgin.

  Fuck.

  She hovered in the doorway, holding his sneakers and gym shorts, while Arturo breathed down her neck. Her chest hurt. Her throat filled with cement, and nausea seared her stomach.

  There was no rational explanation for her raging disgust. But as his breathing grew deeper and roughened his voice enough to affect his phone conversation, she saw red. The whole fucking thing was making her stabby as hell.

  The woman lowered her hand to stroke along his rigid length, and thoughts of murder were eclipsed by the need to vomit.

  Tiago’s eyes snapped open, and he stepped out of the woman’s reach before she made another pass over his cock. Then his gaze flicked to the doorway, locking on Kate.

  Fuck him.

  She rolled her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and stepped into the room.

  He barked a few Spanish words into the phone and tossed it aside.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” She set the clothes on the rack beside him and met his hungry stare head-on. “Boones got you some clothes, and… You should really wear foot protection while working out.”

  What the fuck was she saying? She needed to get the hell out of there.

  She turned toward the door.

  “Kate.” His stern voice pierced through her. “Come here.”

  Her ribs squeezed, and her fingernails pierced into her palms. After a few slow, deep breaths, she relaxed her hands and forced herself to face him.

  “This is Iliana.” He glanced down at the kneeling woman. “Stand up.”

  Iliana didn’t just rise to her feet. She slithered up his body in a sexual undulation of hips and tits. With a nip at his chest, she pivoted and held out a hand to Kate. The same hand that had rubbed his dick.