by Piper Page
Desire. But also some sort of connection.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I barked at her. Even if she was beautiful, I didn’t like how a gorgeous girl could interrupt my interrogation.
“I’m sorry, I’ll leave.” She scurried onto her feet.
“No.” I shoved her back down. Her ass hit the floor with a resounding thump.
I admitted I liked the sound. It meant she had meat on her bones. A nice ass that I wouldn’t mind looking at as I plowed her.
“Really, I can go. I don’t know anything about this,” she squeaked.
“No.”
I could see her squinting in the dark. This girl would be a feisty one. When she tried to crawl to the side to escape, I snatched her hair. I wound my fingers in it in a way that wouldn’t snag or hurt her. I didn’t hurt women.
“Let me go,” she growled.
“Not happening,” I said rather plainly as I lifted her up, one hand full of hair and the other on her gracious hips.
Fuck, she had a body. And holding onto her hair like that, images of her bucking at the end of my cock as she rode me played in my mind.
I pulled her over to the wall and searched for a seat, more like tossing over some boards that clattered to the floor. At the clatter, Hector screamed. He acted like he’d been alarmed, but I knew he tried to increase the noise coming from the shack.
After kicking him in the gut, I returned to my search. I strapped the girl down to a fold out chair, wrapping the rope over her ankles first.
I stepped away. She tried to claw at it. I punched Hector in the side of the head. When she saw that, she stopped.
“You seem smart enough to know when someone is serious enough. Do I look serious?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer me. I grabbed her throat. She was so tiny and weak I could’ve made her my plaything, and she knew it. My fingers didn’t dig into her tender throat, but I showed her the size difference between us and held her firmly.
“Please…”
“Promise to be a good girl?” I chuckled. This could be more fun than I thought.
But then Hector wailed again, and the rage burned in me. Who knew who this woman was? She could’ve been a spy.
After punching him in the gut, I shut Hector up with a roll of duct tape over his mouth. Already I felt ten times better. Slapping my hands together, I leaned down to level with this girl eye to eye.
“What’s your name?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I watched as her lungs pumped quickly. I hoped she wouldn’t hyperventilate.
Either she was a great actress or she was telling the truth. Making oneself hyperventilate wasn’t out of the question. She could’ve been a spy fearing for her life as well.
I slammed my palm against the shack’s wall. More surfboards fell and the place noticeably shook.
Her eyes about popped out of her skull. “I’m Allie Summers. I was out for my friend’s bachelorette party. We went to a club and there was a guy there who called me a frigid bitch. It reminded me of something that my old boyfriend did and I came back here. I walked along the beach because I wanted to clear my head. Then I heard something in here and decided to check it out…”
“Sounds reasonable.” I hunched over again, glaring at her. “But all too convenient.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. I watched in fascination. The need to un-restrain her came over me, but I forced it back.
“I come from a family of doctors and lawyers and I’ll never be good enough for them, I love chocolate, my first crush was Orlando Bloom. I still have a scar on my knee from when I fell on my bike when I was seven.”
“Hrm.” I crossed my arms. I looked down at her knee but couldn’t see in the darkness.
Orlando Bloom? Now I knew she was telling the truth. No one would’ve told me something that embarrassing.
Also, this girl was too suburban American. The Guerra family wouldn’t have the smarts to come up with a plan to hire her just to trick me. Or else it might’ve been a trick from another organization. We had a lot of people who would love to take our place.
I believed her a little more. When I wrapped my fingers around her neck, she felt weak and soft. Deliciously soft. She wouldn’t be able to hurt me. I was made up of solid, thick muscle all over and I trained in the gym all the time.
My hand darted to release her.
I stopped myself. It didn’t matter if she was telling the truth or not.
“Just how long were you here?” I asked her.
“Oh, not for long. Not long at all,” she blurted, and she would’ve kept going.
“Shit.” I read people well. It didn’t take someone skilled at it to see her conducting damage control.
“You heard me,” I growled.
She shook her head like it was on a swivel, but I already placed her hands together to tie them. My brothers would be pissed that I’d managed to get someone else involved. They would be pissed that I hadn’t taken care of her.
I didn’t have it in me to kill an innocent girl. When it came down to it, my brothers wouldn’t either. They wouldn’t like me showing up with someone who could ruin our chances at millions.
After I untied her ankle restraints from the chair, I curled my finger at her, telling her to come. She kept shaking her head.
“Guess we gotta’ do this the hard way.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“You need to be quiet.”
I took her and tossed her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. I thought I heard her mutter “whoa” as I did it. She punched my back a few times. It seemed to hurt her more than it hurt me, because she stopped soon after.
Instead, she sobbed.
“Stop crying.”
I wouldn’t have her crying the whole time. Like I was the bad guy here. Little did she know that the real bad man was tied in that seat next to her. If he were the one loose, and I the one tied up, things would’ve gone very differently for her.
We headed out of the door.
She thumped my chest. “Wait, what are you going to do with him? You can’t just leave him bleeding in the chair.”
“I was going to do this when you were outside, but fine.”
Hector kicked and screamed beneath the tape and rope. I swiftly unsheathed the scalpel from my kit, then sliced his throat with one attempt. He bled out, I placed the scalpel back, and then I strapped my bag back onto its holster.
“Oh God,” she screamed. Before she could continue, I shut her mouth with my palm.
“Now if you don’t want to end up like the guy in the chair, I suggest you be quiet and continue to follow my orders.”
Allie didn’t make a peep after that.
I had the time of the diamond shipment, but somehow I wouldn’t call my mission a success as I carried a stolen American girl over my shoulder and out onto the beach.
Chapter 3
Allie
* * *
He cut that man’s throat.
I’d seen the blade glint across his throat, dark blood fleeing underneath, in that second before I turned away. The sounds he made, they’d stick with me forever.
If I made it very long.
The man who took me was built like a tank. He gripped the steering wheel like it was a toddler’s plaything. I struggled against the ropes tied on my wrists and ankles, as they cut into my flesh, drawing pain. I wriggled until it became too much, until my wrists were rubbed raw.
We headed away from the city lights. As they disappeared behind us, my worry swallowed me whole.
He hadn’t bound my lips, yet.
My glare bore into him, forcing him to glance my way. Only for a second. Then he focused on the road, his massive triceps flexing.
“What’s your plan? Because you better have one,” I said. “American agents will scour this place to find me. I’m a senator’s daughter. They don’t just let a senator’s daughter disappear.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t turn.
&n
bsp; I knew he’d heard me.
“My father is a powerful man. This will be all over the news. There will be no running away from it.”
“I told you to shut your mouth,” he growled. The veins in his arms throbbed.
“You’re not going to shut me up. You’re screwed, buddy, unless you pull over and let me out. I can tell you don’t have a plan. You’re nervous—”
“I’m not listening to this.”
The car swerved, knocking her against the seat. I expected the car to careen madly off the side and into a mountain, yet we ground to a slow halt. He got out, stormed around to the back seat, and then rummaged underneath my seat.
I curled my ankles, pulling up the seat’s adjustable bar, and then swung back, striking him in the head.
He growled like a wounded bear as he shoved me back, his power unbelievable. I tried to pushed back with all of my might. Even if I wasn’t tied up, I wouldn’t have done anything. It was like trying to take down a brick wall.
“You said you’d be a good girl…”
He got whatever he needed from the back. I struggled to fight him off, thrashing my neck. He steadied me, one hand splayed against my collar. Tape stretched across my lips and sealed them shut.
I heard the rip and knew he’d completed his job. Then he was back in the driver seat, and we were on the road again.
I tried to mumble. I tried to rock back and forth. It only made me feel and look more pathetic.
What an idiot.
I hadn’t been exaggerating. Once my friends got hold of my disappearance, and the news picked up back home, there would be manhunt.
“Time to shut those pretty eyes.”
I took a look around me, but there were no landmarks, only darkness.
He pulled off to the side of the road and reached over with a blindfold. Helpless, I couldn’t fight him off as he made me totally useless. My hands, legs, lips, and eyes were bound.
That let me with one tool left. I perked my ears and tried to hear anything suspicious. What little confidence I had left dwindled as all I heard was the hum of the engine. I lost track of the time in the dark. My guess was ten minutes until the car slowed.
We wound our way up a hill, and I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or scared that we’d stopped. The engine died and the car door slammed next.
“Over my shoulder again. Hold on.”
At least he warned me. He tugged me from the seat. When I didn’t move, he lifted me up with surprising strength. I’d faced it before, but having him lift me like a sack of dead weight into his arms was something else.
Over his shoulder, I bounced, my gut wrenching.
I tried to scream. Let me go, you stupid ogre. You’ll never get away with this.
So what if he wanted a diamond? Did it look like I was going to stop him? That’s exactly what’s on every twenty-something college students mind…stopping a criminal organization. I’ll put that on my resume.
I heard the muffled riffs of electric guitars and men’s voices. He kicked open the door, I knew, because the noise blasted me in the face. As his boots quaked across the floor, the room got quiet. He kept walking with me over his shoulder, ignoring their silence.
My instincts told me to wriggle free. To try to scream. Except I knew he wouldn’t be walking through any bar. He’d be walking through one full of men like him. If I struggled now, they might decide to kill me. So I kept still, an easy task with all the fear bundled inside of me.
The silence broke with one voice yelling, “What the fuck?”
He laughed sarcastically as he pulled me past them. The metal song kicked up again. The voices followed us, with more people questioning him, asking him what he’d done.
“Got yourself a nice girl finally?” someone said to our right.
We kept moving.
“Knew you’d finally drag one back here. Didn’t know you’d literally be dragging her.”
This was like the most nerve-wracking haunted ride I’d ever been on. What kind of scare would jump out next? I clenched my eyes shut, even though they were already covered.
“Way to go, Santiago,” another voice jumped in.
We halted. I heard the rustle of clothes.
The man holding me, who must’ve been Santiago, shot back. “No names, dumbass.”
We moved again, but a smile grew on my lips.
Too late. I’d heard everything.
Santiago.
Well, Santiago would be in some deep shit once the news broke. That tiny ember of hope sparked and grew in my chest. I clung onto it, the rest of me frozen with dread.
Another door slammed open, then he took two lunging steps and dropped me. I hit a soft mattress, although those two seconds of freefall felt like I’d plunge to my doom. More footsteps entered, and they stopped at different points around the room with the sensation of eyes picking me apart, like a sky full of buzzards, above me.
“Who is this?” a voice seethed.
Another chimed in, “She doesn’t look like a whore.”
“No, she doesn’t. She looks like a fucking mistake. A big mistake.” He screamed, “Who is this, Santiago?”
Santiago’s voice came back cool. Really fucking cool. “Don’t yell like a little bitch. She’s mine, and if you give me a chance, I’ll explain what happened tonight. Do you want to hear that, or do you want to go back to whining?”
“Fine. Tell us. Please.”
Santiago roamed the room. “I found out when the diamond is coming in. Does anyone care about that? No, they care about this girl.” He stopped.
I felt his eyes on me again, like holding me in his personal cell. “This girl..” he said. I was the bane of his existence at this point.
I wished I could stick up for him, back up the story he presented to these other fools. Was I feeling sorry for him?
Do not go all Stockholm syndrome on the hot, big guy with all those tattoos you’d love to trace with your fingertips. Do not go there.
“Wait, you got the shipment time? Is it the docks?”
Someone shushed them, but they cheered and clapped backs as I heard the smack of flesh.
“All right, we’ll have a meeting about this later.”
And what about me, gentleman? You know, the college girl kidnapped and bound onto a stranger’s bed? I was kind of an important topic.
“She stumbled into where I had Hector,” he said. “I had to take her back.”
“Why? Did she hear something?”
He paused. At least he wasn’t giving me up that easily. “Yeah, she heard,” he admitted.
Another man barked from the corner, “End her. If she knows, end her now. I’ll do it myself.”
The words stole all of the oxygen from my lungs. I gasped for air as he pushed from the wall.
Santiago blocked him. “No one touches her. She’s mine. And we don’t kill innocent women. I don’t care what the consequence will be to keep her alive. We don’t run our business like that.”
“He’s right. That’s not what we do.” He grumbled. “We shouldn’t be talking about this in front of her. She might get the wrong impression.”
My captor drew close. His huge body dulled some of what I could hear. “There’s another problem. She’s apparently the daughter of an American senator. She told me, but she could be lying. Since I’m technically the human lie detector, I’ve judged her to be telling the truth.”
“What the fuck, Santiago…a senator’s daughter?”
The man in the corner, the one that scared the hell out of me, yelled again. “We kill her. It’s settled. I’m sorry, but we can’t let her stay. They’ll scour this place looking for her. We get the jump now. Bury her someplace.”
The other men in the room argued. Through the noise, I couldn’t hear Santiago. Tears built up against my blindfold as I listened. My head spun, a panic rattling me, telling me to run. Yet I couldn’t move. It was like watching myself being buried alive.
Finally, Santiago burst into the conversati
on.
He roared, his voice booming through the room, leaving me inching away.
“I want you all out of here. And I don’t want to hear another word about murder, unless it’s about those pricks the Garcias. If I heard another word, I’m likely to snap a neck…and I’m not going to look at who said the words before I do it.”
They knew he meant it. No one responded for a good twenty seconds. No laughter. No cursing under their breaths. Just dead serious silence.
The person who responded was the other reasonable one. I’d like to think he wouldn’t vote for killing me, but I might’ve been optimistic.
“Fine, but she’s your problem now. You brought her here. You deal with her. If she causes a problem, it’s on you.”
A pause. I waited, wondering if that would be it. Would I bet set free? This tug of war over survival was too much, and soon, I would shut down.
“Out, everyone out. We’ll talk in a few minutes,” Santiago urged. There were more unhappy grunts as they left.
The door slammed shut.
I squirmed and screamed again, which only produced a moan.
He grabbed the end of the tape. “If I take this off, I don’t want you to scream. I can’t handle it tonight. And no one here is going to care, anyway. You heard him. They want to kill you.”
Delicately, he pulled the tape off my lips. It still stung as he peeled it off, but I was glad to speak again, and to take deep breaths through my mouth. I sucked in, my heart beating against my chest, pain welling in my stiff arm and legs.
“All right, we’re at stage one. You trust me. I trust you. Next, we go for the blindfold. Good?”
I nodded.
He untied it from the back, and he dropped it, revealing all of life’s brilliant colors. The light in the room, though dark, burned my eyes, and I needed to blink hard to focus.
We were in a small room with a mirror and a dresser in front of me. There was a waist-high bookshelf to my left, a nightstand beside the bed, and very little else in the room. Santiago’s presence filled up most of it.
Arms crossed at his waist, he studied me, his eyebrows twitching.