by Pam Godwin
They were Mexican cartel.
When he burst through the front door, he barreled into Boones.
“What are you doing out of your room?” He ran his hands over Boones’ shirtless torso, front to back, shoulders, legs, his frenzied search fueled by fear.
“Calm down.” Boones gripped Tiago’s arms, hindering his hunt for injuries. “I’m fine. Not a scratch.”
His hands shook as he stepped back and locked onto Arturo’s eyes behind Boones. “Search the property for survivors and bring the old truck around from the back. We’re going to need it.”
“Si, Jefe.” Arturo headed toward the door with a rifle.
“Arturo.” He waited for eye contact, trying his damnedest not to fall apart in front of his guard. “Thank you for keeping Boones safe.”
With a stiff nod, Arturo lumbered out the door.
“We need information.” He combed the room littered with dead bodies and found one breathing.
The man lay on his back, his face and stomach soaked in blood as wet gurgling sounds wheezed from his mouth.
Boones stared down at the injured man and ambled toward the kitchen. “I’ll get the sharpest knife.”
Twenty minutes later, every inch of skin had been flayed from the squealer’s chest. He didn’t survive the torture, but Tiago now had a location and an identity.
The orchestrator of the attack was the comandante of a Mexican cartel. Hungry for money and power, they operated without borders, trafficking worldwide in drugs, prostitution, stolen cars, and contract murders. But it wasn’t enough for them.
The comandante wanted Tiago’s gun smuggling routes. Tiago had refused every offer and negotiation over the past couple of years, and thus, infuriated the ruthless, brutal man.
A man who now had Kate in his custody.
Tiago rose to his feet and stared down at the gore he’d strewn across the floor. Boiling rage lined his insides and scalded his throat, the taste of death coating his tongue.
During the skin-flaying session, Arturo had returned carrying Blueballs, the only survivor. The tattoo-eyed guard had been shot in the stomach and lived long enough to explain that he, Samuel, and Alonso were on the night shift.
Iliana and Juan had wandered off to fuck when the attackers arrived on foot. While Tiago’s guards were picked off one by one, a van showed up. The occupants captured Iliana as she tried to race back to the house.
The same van that had taken Kate.
Blueballs had managed to wheeze out every detail while Boones worked tirelessly to save his life. When he died, Tiago knew Blueballs hadn’t betrayed him.
Another concern was Tate, but a check on the video footage of the shack verified Kate’s friend hadn’t been touched.
The cartel had known exactly who to target. They knew Kate’s capture and ultimate death would hit the deepest, most vulnerable part of Tiago.
There would be no negotiations.
The comandante would make contact in the form of body parts. Proof of Kate’s death.
Normal behavior for a violent, power-hungry criminal group.
“You’ll get her back.” Boones cleaned away the blood from Tiago’s trembling hands and shoved a clean shirt against his chest.
Tiago looked at him and Arturo, the only two left standing.
They seemed nervous amid the storm whipping off him, as if waiting for him to pull his shit together, anxious for a plan.
“Right. Okay. This is what we’ll do.” He outlined a strategy, called in fifty of his best men in Caracas, and sent them to a small town a couple of hours away, where Kate would be held.
Then he strapped on as many weapons as he could carry and rose out of hiding.
Taken.
Again.
Kate might’ve laughed at her absurd misfortune if she weren’t so fucking terrified.
Handcuffs shackled her arms behind her, and the hood over her head confined her within a black, sightless world.
Sweat coated her skin, made worse by the chills that came in feverish waves. She licked her cracked lips, tasting blood. Probably from the fist that had knocked her out in Tiago’s room.
Where was she? Who had taken her? What happened to Tiago?
She’d woken in the back of a moving vehicle. It had traveled another hour or so before stopping here.
Here was some kind of city, an urban area. She couldn’t see through the hood, but she smelled the asphalt, felt the heat of it beneath her bare feet. The sounds of motor traffic rumbled nearby, as well as in the distance.
Men surrounded her, marching along in heavy boots, their deep voices firing words in Spanish.
Her insides buckled to the point of nausea. Her lungs couldn’t gather enough air.
The cold metal of guns prodded at her from both sides. When her toes caught on a curb or a crack, someone pushed her from behind.
After a few minutes, the crumbly concrete underfoot smoothed into polished cement, and the scuffing of boots echoed off walls that closed in around her.
She’d just entered a building.
Ushered forward by barking shouts and urgent hands, she was forced into a jog. She imagined a winding hallway with countless turns and stairs going up and down.
With her hands fettered behind her, it fucked with her balance. The whole thing was a stumbling, falling, slipping all-out run to some unknown destination.
Eventually, calloused fingers yanked her to a halt.
More voices. The same ones, new ones, all yelling in Spanish. The scent of motor oil and gasoline permeated the hood, tickling her nose.
“Who are you guys?” She spun around, blind and winded. “Where am I?”
A hand caught her neck, squeezing her airway, strangling. Hot breath saturated the outside of the hood, seeping through the material and heating her face.
Her mouth gulped for oxygen. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t escape the choking grip.
He held her there, waited as the very end of her life crashed toward her in a chest-squeezing, lonely, black wave of nothingness.
Alone.
She would die alone.
The collar of fingers released her with a vicious shove that sent her careening across the floor on her back. Boots shuffled out of her way. One of them kicked her into a corner.
She pressed herself there, curling into a ball, gasping for life, and swallowing silent tears.
Time passed in frantic heartbeats. Her pulse hammered for an hour. Maybe two.
The cement floor grew unbearably hard beneath her butt, grinding against her bones. Her legs bare, her body covered in only a shirt, she was overly exposed and unarmed. But still alive.
Not once did she let herself consider the possibility Tiago was dead. He was too untouchable, too impervious. Too goddamn mean to die.
He would hunt her down. Find her. Hopefully, before it was too late.
Footsteps came and went. Others scuffed around her, lingering, guarding. The men never shut up, their voices charged with energy, fear, excitement.
Then she heard a word she recognized.
Comandante.
A horrible feeling overtook her, running chills down her spine. She was already in the worst situation she could imagine. But hearing the mention of a comandante, she knew this was either a rebel group or a cartel.
She wouldn’t escape this alive.
That suspicion solidified when another set of boots entered the room and paused before her.
The hood lifted, and florescent lighting blinded her eyes. She blinked through the brightness as the cold press of steel caught her beneath the chin.
Her heart stopped.
Holy fucking goddamn, that was a huge fucking knife.
The man holding it crouched before her. Black hair and a mustache, pockmarked cheeks, and soulless eyes, he smelled of cigarettes and torture.
She scanned the surrounding shelves that lined the wall, taking in stacks of machinery, tools, a random tire, and things made of steel. A supply room full of automotive
parts? A mechanic shop, maybe.
Nothing within reach to slam into his face. Not that she could with her arms handcuffed at her back.
Another man stood beside her and gathered a fistful of hair on her crown, pulling, elongating her neck.
And she knew.
They were going to cut off her head.
Her insides turned to ice as her mind spun, quickly forming an idea and weaving a bogus story.
“I’ve been waiting for you guys.” She met the eyes of the man with the knife.
He arched a brow.
“Do you speak English?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Take me to the comandante.” Her bladder threatened to release beneath the force of her almighty fear.
“I am the comandante.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
With a deep breath, she raised her chin above the knife. “I work for Matias Restrepo. Do you know—?”
“Everyone knows Restrepo.” His gaze pulsed with interest.
“He planted me inside Tiago Badell’s organization. The assignment was to grow close to Badell, become his lover, and wait for your infiltration. Matias Restrepo knew you would capture me, and that you would feel inclined to…uh…” Her teeth chattered. “To send my head to Badell.”
The man grinned with yellow teeth. “Go on.”
“Restrepo wants you to contact him.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I have information. Intel I’ve been gathering on Badell. And because you just extracted me from the hands of Restrepo’s enemy, he’s now in your debt.” She hardened her jaw. “Call him. Tell him you have Kate, and you’ll be generously rewarded.”
It was a risk. He could just as easily torture her for the intel she boasted about. Of course, she didn’t know shit about Tiago’s business dealings, so it would be a slow, bloody, horrifically gruesome way to die. Much worse than getting her head sawed off.
But she was offering the comandante an opportunity to join forces with Matias Restrepo, an offer no one ever received. She didn’t know who this man was in the underground world, but she hoped her bullshit story carried some weight.
If only for a little while.
She just needed to buy some time until Tiago arrived.
Swallowing against the blade, she held the comandante’s oily gaze. After an eternity of wordless torment, he lowered the knife.
It took everything she had not to pass out in relief.
He rose to his feet and barked a string of Spanish words. The room erupted in a scurry of squeaky boots. Everyone evacuated except the man fisting her hair.
His hand tightened, yanking her forward. She fell with a yelp, her cheek pressed against the cement as he unlocked the shackle on one of her wrists.
Oh, thank fuck.
She rolled her stiff shoulders, started to rise, and heard the clicking sound of handcuffs latching onto something.
“You just saved your head.” The comandante lingered in the doorway, staring down at her. “Until I reach Restrepo, you are ours to enjoy.”
He slipped into the hall, and her stomach turned inside out. She scrambled away from the other man, but the snap of her arm yanked her back.
The son of a bitch had handcuffed her to his wrist.
“This is a mistake.” She scooted on her back and stretched her free arm out to the side, floundering for something to grip, a heavy piece of steel, something sharp, anything she could brandish as a weapon. “Restrepo will kill you if you rape me.”
Her fingers gripped the leg of a steel shelving unit. She pulled, and he pulled her back by her leg, dragging her across the floor.
At the center of the room, he dropped her feet near the door, dove on top of her, and ripped off her panties with a violating fist.
“No!” She thrashed beneath him, smacking at his greasy face and kicking her legs. “No! Stop! Get off me! You’ll regret this.”
He was thinner, smaller than Tiago, but still twice her size. She couldn’t get leverage, and even if she did, she was fucking handcuffed to his arm. Where would she go?
Didn’t stop her from putting up the biggest fight of her life. She went crazy, bucking, screaming, scratching, and biting. She lost her mind, flailing in a fog of desperation and horror.
Seconds felt like hours, and her body started to give out, draining energy fast.
He forced her thighs apart with his knees and unzipped his pants. She released a blood-curdling roar, and his hand clapped over her mouth as his other fisted his swollen dick.
She sank her teeth into his fingers. He bellowed, face red, and reared back his arm.
Her heart slammed. She saw it coming and instinctively closed her eyes, knowing she couldn’t dodge the impact.
He made a choking sound, and a hot wet drizzle dripped across her thigh.
She opened her eyes to a sharp object protruding from his chest.
Her brain couldn’t make sense of it, and he seemed to share her confusion as he stared down at the serrated steel edge that stuck out several inches beneath his breastbone.
Then it moved, slicking upward in a vertical line, cutting his torso from bottom to top.
Blood poured in a bright red stream from the wound, from his mouth, bubbling down his chin.
She gulped, gulped, gulped, with no sound. No air. Her pulse throbbed so loudly it created a vacuum in her ears.
The blade pulled free. Life leaked from the man’s eyes as he tipped to the side and hit the floor, unblocking her view of the door.
Tiago stood over her, glaring at the dead body before leveling her with force of his terrifyingly potent presence.
A machete dangled from his hand, magnifying the fury and testosterone pouring off him. Brown eyes darkened into hues of feral. Speckles of red splattered the shadows on his face. God, that strikingly beautiful face, all brutal angles, sculpted lines, and dangerous scars.
The air left her lungs in trembling gasps.
He’d abducted her, fucked her, pissed on her, scarred her.
And saved her.
She squeezed her legs together and shook beneath the press of his power. The most arresting kind of power—lawless, savage, protective.
He wore a black leather jacket and jeans, both stained in blood. No telling how many people he’d slaughtered on his way here.
“I’ve never been more happy to see you.” She pulled her feet under her but couldn’t stand. Not with her arm handcuffed to the dead body.
Tiago knelt between her legs and trapped her fingers between his and the floor. Then he swung the machete, cutting off the man’s hand.
Bile hit her throat. The sight and aroma of so much gore numbed her brain and chilled her from the base of her skull to the tips of her toes.
Wriggling the handcuff from the severed limb, he circled the rotating arm all the way around, which left it unlocked and hanging from her wrist.
“I’ll remove this later.” He gripped the cuff still attached to her.
“With a key, I hope.”
A big hand lifted to cradle the side of her face, commanding her gaze to his.
“I almost lost you.” He swallowed hard.
The jog in his strong, muscular throat reminded her this brutal, hardcore criminal was human.
She’d been taken from him, nearly beheaded and raped, and the starkness in his eyes told her he knew. He knew exactly the sort of horrors she’d just evaded.
“You weren’t too late or too slow.” She touched her forehead to his, replaying the words he said about his wife’s death. “You don’t need to put me back together. You didn’t fail.”
Tilting her chin back with his finger, he scanned her face with a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes. There and gone in a flash, his handsome Venezuelan features went from gentle to stony.
“I killed the man who hit you.” He prodded a thumb around the cut near her eye. “Got him on my way in.”
“How do you even know—?”
“Did he have
a crucifix tattooed on his neck?”
Yeah, he sure did. Tiago must’ve identified him while she was transported out of the house.
“Don’t we need to go?” she asked.
“Arturo,” he called over his shoulder.
The burly guard poked his head into the room, held up a finger, and returned to the hall.
“We’re waiting.” He slid off the backpack that hung from his shoulder and removed a pair of shorts and running shoes. “Put these on.”
“Waiting for what?” She pulled on the shorts, sans underwear.
As she shoved on the sneakers, his hand wandered to her thigh, smoothing over the bandage where he’d cut her.
“There’s a gunfight outside.” He withdrew his touch and glanced at the door. “Not taking you out there until the numbers have dwindled.”
“Gunfight?” She listened for a moment and was met with silence.
“We’re deep within the warehouse.” He grabbed her hand and stood, lifting her with him. “One of their chop shops.”
“Cartel?”
“Yes.”
“The comandante—”
“Killed him, too.”
Before or after the man called Matias Restrepo? Didn’t matter at this point. Matias might’ve been in route here, but he’d still be hours away.
“Hold onto my waistband.” He pulled out two handguns and swung the backpack behind him. “We’re going to run into some resistance on our way out. Stick to me like glue until I tell you otherwise. Understand?”
“I want a gun.”
“No.” He turned toward the door.
“Why not?”
“Because you have me,” he growled.
“But—”
“If you shoot me in the back, accidentally or deliberately, your chances of escape drop to zero.”
Well, shit. She didn’t like it, but she understood. Those were his guys out there, fighting and dying under his command. They were loyal to him, not her. If he died, she was fucked, with or without a gun.
“We’re not returning to the desert, are we?” she asked.
“No.”
“Is Tate—?”
“Jefe.” Arturo appeared in the doorway and lowered a phone from his ear. “It’s time.”
“Tate is safe.” Tiago gave her his back and adjusted his grip on the pistols. “Hands on my belt.”