by Taylor Hart
“Hello?”
Alexa jumped a little and put her hand to her chest. She’d been so wrapped up in her mind that she hadn’t heard Marco arrive. “Hey.” She tried to smile.
He unlocked the dungeon door and came in, locking it behind him.
She moved to him, back in character, putting on the best act of her whole life.
He laughed, and she smelled his tropical, spicy smell. She decided then and there if she ever got away from him that all sun tan lotion would never be allowed within a ten-foot radius of her again.
She laughed and snuggled into his chest. “I missed you.”
He pulled back, and his eyes grew serious as he searched her face. “Well, this is nice mi querida.” He dipped his head and his lips touched hers.
She resisted the urge to pull away. Instead, she kissed him longer and deeper. She pulled him closer.
He responded in kind, pulling her closer, wrapping his hands into her hair.
The longer they kissed the more her character slipped, and she remembered this. Him. She remembered how she had once loved him. How it actually had been real for her.
He pulled back, but kept her face between his hands. “Mi amore, you are crying.”
She hadn’t realized it. How could she let herself do this? All she could think about was how everything that centered on her past with Marco had been a lie. She tried to pull away.
Marco tightened his hold. His own eyes glistened. He grinned and then kissed each of her eyes. “Finally, my love. Finally.”
“What, Marco?”
He pulled back, keeping one of her hands and taking a rose off of the table and handing it to her. “You’re back. I see it.”
She tried to pull herself together as she took the rose.
Marco stared at her. “I can’t believe it. I never thought I would feel that passion from you again.”
She squeezed his hand and refused to let the angry voice screaming in her mind get loose.
“Let’s sit.” He gestured to a couch.
They both settled into the couch, holding hands.
“Marco?” She prodded. He was acting different.
“I have to admit, mi amore,” he said as he stroked the top of her hand, “I wasn’t sure you really had come back to me.”
She didn’t say anything.
He laughed. “I just…my sister and the others they say to me ‘Marco, you are a fool. That girl is playing you. She just wants you to let her out. That’s why she is pretending. That is why she is willing to put on nice clothes and have dinner with you and let you kiss her.’ But I told them that wasn’t true.” His eyes grew intense. He cuffed her chin. “Because before you knew me, you had fallen in love with me. Remember? Remember, mi amore? On those walks on the beach, talking and talking, holding hands. Enjoying one another. We were in love. It was simple. It was pure. It was real. The most real thing I’ve ever had in my entire life. More real than this.” His hand signaled the manor above them. “More real than money and women and…drugs,” he said and rubbed his eyes. He took in a breath.
The box that she kept all truly real things in began to unhinge inside her chest. She pushed it down, down, deeper. Further down so it was out of reach. Survive. Survive. Survive. Freedom! “That’s right. It’s…love.”
Marco clutched his chest and let out a cry of happiness. He squeezed Alexa to him, almost taking all of the breath out of her. “Yes, yes, that is what I told them. It is love. True love conquers all.” He pulled back and searched her eyes. “True love is what God talks about. It is forgiveness and redemption. It is something I knew you were the only one that would understand.” He smiled. “I love you Alexa, will you be my bride?”
The box rattled, threatening to unchain inside of her. Threatening to open and spill all over. She pulled him to her, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Yes! Yes!”
He lifted stood and pulled her up, spinning her around and letting out happy noises. “Then it shall be, it shall be.”
When he put her down, she wiped at her eyes and asked. “Can we do it soon?”
Marco grinned. “Of course, my darling. Tomorrow we leave for Columbia. Then we will be married and start a new life.”
Fear swept through her, and she knew the real truth.
Tomorrow she would escape, or she would die trying.
Chapter 10
“You never said we’d pay a guy to kill Marco!” Sam spun Frank around and pulled him away from the ‘hit man’ that Frank’s friend had hired to meet them.
Frank spit on the ground and rolled his eyes. “Son, if you can’t get your hands dirty, then move out of the way and let the real men get to work. I’m getting my daughter back, that’s all there is to it! People don’t kill for free!”
Sam yanked back. “I didn’t say I couldn’t do the real work, okay? I’m thinking we call this in and have the Bureau meet us. He told us where she’s at.”
By the way Frank shook his head, Sam knew he thought it was the wrong call. “Sam, the Bureau has done nothing about retrieving her. Don’t you see that?”
All the breath went out of him. It was true. Now was the time to act. He pulled out his gun and frowned at Frank. “I don’t need to pay a guy to kill Marco. I can do that myself.”
Chapter 11
Marsal smoothed a honey-scented lotion onto Alexa’s neck and shoulders. She’d braided her blond hair in tiny braids away from the front of her face. Her hair hung in loose curls around her face. The look made Alexa feel like some Spanish princess. She also wore a dress Marco had hand picked for her. It was a white sundress with yellow, tall wedge shoes that tied up her legs.
After making her do a twirl, Marsal’s eyes sparkled with happiness. “I am so happy because you have made my brother so happy.”
Alexa stood in front of the full-length mirror that Marsal had brought down to the ‘dungeon.’ After resisting the urge to kick the mirror and shatter it into a thousand pieces, she smiled. She kept her smile demure. The kind that she and her mother would have mimicked from Gone with the Wind when Scarlett would smile for Ashley Wilks. “I can’t wait for tonight.”
Tonight was supposed to be the night. The night she would wed Marco after they travelled to Columbia. The helicopter was on its way, and Alexa felt a nervous rush of butterflies. She had a plan. Between the house and the helicopter she would stab Marco in the chest and run. She knew it was a long shot. But she’d been staring out at the green forest next to the beach all week, and if she could simply get to the forest or somehow get Marco alone in the forest, she would have a chance at getting away.
The only thing she knew was that it was okay to fight for herself, for her freedom. She knew God would help her. She knew it was a worthy cause. She didn’t want to kill Marco, but the alternative of going to Columbia and marrying that man and having children with him would mean a lifetime of slavery. How could she ever escape in Columbia?
No, she didn’t know if Sam was alive. She didn’t know if her father was alive, but she did know that God knew. He would help her. She trusted him.
Marsal frowned, and her eyes narrowed into slits. “I think you might look too happy, mi querida.” She copied the way Marco said mi querida, the same way Marco always said it.
Before Alexa could even think about what she was doing, she slapped Marsal’s face. Hard.
Marsal grabbed her face. Completely stunned.
Alexa rose up, mimicking the exact way she’d seen Marco put Marsal in her place. She grinned, making sure to look as evil as the wicked queen herself. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again.”
One of the saddest things about people being abused was that they usually responded to further abuse. Marsal instantly put her head down and murmured, “I’m sorry.”
Alexa pushed past Marsal, quickly taking the steak knife on the edge of the table and shoving it into her skirt. She kept her head up and met the guard’s eyes at the corner. If she wanted them to think she was Marco’s and worthy of being queen, then sh
e sure better act the part. She stuck her chin in the air and rushed through the basement tunnel that would lead to the top. She didn’t stop when another guard tried to call after her. “I need to see my fiancé. Get out of my way.”
One of the guards ahead rushed through a door. Alexa pulled up her skirt and pushed the steak knife into the back of her underwear. By the time she got to the top of the tunnel, Marco was waiting for her, concern on his face. “Alexa, what is going on?” His voice was jovial, but his jaw was tight.
She clung to him for a second then pulled back. “Marsal told me I am not fit for you, so I smacked her.” She kept fury in her eyes.
Marco looked confused.
That’s when she saw her chance to take advantage of his confusion and prey on his weakness, the one weakness she knew he fought—her. Having her. Completely wanting her. She pulled his head fiercely to her and pressed her lips to his, slamming her body against him.
For a second, he didn’t react, then he pulled her tighter and his lips began moving with hers.
She sucked in a breath and then blew in his ear. “Marco. Marco, I can’t wait a second longer. The helicopter will be here soon, let’s go there, to the forest by the beach and make our wedding bed.”
The way he tensed let her know that she’d been right. She was his weakness. The weakness she had to exploit.
He searched her eyes, excitement on his face. The sheer power she suddenly realized she had over him felt intoxicating.
She went back to his ear. “I need you. I can’t wait. Please.”
If anything made men move mountains or fight wars or do anything else that Helen of Troy had made her suitors do, it was a woman. That flicker of a chance to lie with a woman.
Marco squeezed her closer but still didn’t move. “But I thought you wanted to wait for it to be right in God’s eyes. To make it legitimate and true and good.”
They were words she’d repeated to him over and over, but she wasn’t worried. She knew the basest part of men; she’d learned that seven years ago in the bushes. “I know. I do.” She frowned and pretended distress. Then she looked up and put on that demure smile. “But it is our wedding day. I could always tell our children I waited for our wedding day. That we waited. It would be the truth, after all.”
His whole body began to convulse with laughter, he let out a roaring laugh and tucked her into him. “Look at my little PR princess.”
She grinned and blushed, smacking him in the shoulder. “Or maybe you’re too scared of a little thing like me?”
This made him laugh even louder, but he took her hand and rushed toward the beach then turned for the forest. “Oh, Alexa, I hope those words don’t come back to haunt you.”
Chapter 12
The mistake Sam had made, when he’d made the decision to go on this rogue mission with Alexa’s father, was not insisting that Frank stay back and let Sam use his training to run point.
“Frank, stay down.” Sam watched him put his head down, hunkered between the ridge of the property and the tree line of the forest.
Frank held the sniper rifle and peered through the scope. “I think I saw them.” Frank turned back.
Sam knew he’d seen them. He was following them at that precise moment with the sniper rifle he held tucked into his shoulder. “I see them. Stay back!” He took off, sprinting through the trees, trying not to be too loud.
Without warning, he caught plain view of them and he stumbled back, into a huge tree that gave him camouflage.
Laughter and teasing and giggling, was not what he’d been expecting.
“Alexa, I can’t say that I’m not delighted you couldn’t wait.”
Sam was unsurprised to see Marco moving so well. He’d surmised he must have been wearing some type of bulletproof vest that day he shot him. A testament to the fact that God didn’t always punish sinners, he thought.
But to say that he was shocked at seeing him and Alexa like this would be like saying colonizing the moon was underway. His breath caught as he looked at her. He pulled the gun back from position to convince himself it really was her.
Her smile was wide, and she giggled, actually giggled like he’d rarely, if ever, seen her do. She wasn’t a giggling type of girl. But, he couldn’t deny her beauty. Her hair was pulled back by tiny braids. Yellow ties held them in place, and her blond hair was in loose curls around her face. And that dress. It was tight in all the right places. Her shoes were a like the shoes she always wore. They were much too tall, but they made her legs look amazing.
Something stirred inside of him, and instantly he was glad they hadn’t called the FBI. He couldn’t imagine letting Alexa go again and putting her into harm’s way. He couldn’t imagine not being with her. He positioned the gun back to his face. All he needed was a clean shot to get rid of Marco.
It proved harder thean it should have. Marco dipped his head down to kiss her and turned them so her back was to Sam. He ran his hands down her back and then back up her front.
Wild rage raced through Sam.
“Hahaha…” Alexa laughed and shoved Marco’s jacket off of his shoulders and threw it down to the ground.
Sam pulled back, confused. She sounded happy.
“Alexa, I’ve waited so long for you, longer than I’ve ever waited for any woman.”
Now anger and confusion warred within him. Had she turned? Had she somehow been brainwashed?
He watched as she carefully unbuttoned Marco’s shirt and then licked his chest.
No. No. No. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t…
“Lay with me.” She begged, pulling his jacket off, her back still to Sam.
Marco bent and kissed her neck. “Of course, mi querida. This is like a dream for me.”
“Marco, you are my dream.” She tugged him down to the beach.
Sam took another step closer.
He heard her kissing his chest and Marco’s soft moans. The pit of his gut was tight, and all he wanted to do was squeeze the trigger.
Then he saw her hitch her skirt and pull out a knife.
Abruptly, Alexa was sitting on top of Marco. Marco was reaching up to her, gently stroking her shoulder and tracing it down the front of her body. “I love you Alexa Hernandez.”
She smiled and dropped the knife, tugging a gun out of Marco’s jacket. “Too bad for you Marco. I don’t forgive that easy.” She pointed it at his head.
Chapter 13
Alexa stared at Marco’s face. Emotions ranging from shock, anger, and then violence filled it.
She wanted to pull the trigger. She wanted to watch his brains splatter all over the beach, but her hands shook, and she didn’t do it.
Gently, he closed his hand over hers. “Querida, I have wondered if you would attempt something like this.”
“No!” She yanked back and tried to stand, but Marco was too fast. He dove on top of her.
“You can’t hurt me, querida. I know the line for love and hate is close together. I have felt it before. For you. That is how I knew it was true love. The more you can hate someone, the more you can love them.” He ripped the gun away from her.
Marco pulled her to his chest. “I love you, and my love is like God’s—it is sure and kind and patient. I can wait for you to truly love me. I can.” He turned her around in his arms. “But I can’t wait for your body any longer.”
She fumbled on the ground and found the steak knife, thrusting it hard into Marco’s stomach. “God’s vengeance is swift and angry!” she shouted back.
His eyes bulged. Then he cocked the gun and pointed it at her head.
This must be it, she thought. The last seconds of her life. It was, in fact, just like in the movies—scenes of people and places rushed through her. Her mother’s face. Sam…
The next thing she heard was the sound of a shot.
Chapter 14
Sam rushed toward Alexa, he didn’t know if he’d gotten a clean shot, but Marco was down.
“Hurry up!” Frank yelled behind him.
Sam pulled the cowering Alexa into his arms. “Shh, shh. We have to get out of here, Lex.”
She looked at him like it was the first time she’d ever seen him. Like she was in some dream. “Sam? I thought you were dead.” A sob slipped out of her.
Sam shoved his rifle over his shoulder and pulled her next to him. “Not yet.” He urged her forward. “Run!”
There were shouts and he could hear people running closer, the shouts getting louder.
The sound of a helicopter descended down on them.
“Querida! Stop!”
Before Sam knew what had happened, Alexa had stopped and turned back.
After that Sam could say without a doubt that he hadn’t gotten the clean shot.
A shot fired.
Blood oozed out of Alexa’s shoulder.
Sam grabbed his side arm and let off a few shots, pulling her in front of him to protect her. “Run!” he yelled.
Frank didn’t budge until they got near him, and then he pushed Alexa in front of them and fired a few rounds back.
Sam thought they were dead. He didn’t think they would be able to get out of there before Marco’s men were on them.
Then he saw the FBI vans.
Gary ran toward them. Men descended out of nowhere and ran down the beach.