Stolen Vengeance: Slye Temp book 6

by Dianna Love

  Dominic grabbed her and started pulling her toward the door. She pulled back. “No, what are you doing? I can help you.”

  Not to find the scroll, but with a little time she might figure out a way to get them to take her out of here. That would give her a chance at escaping or drawing attention.

  Navarro said, “Wait a moment, Dominic.” Then Navarro took her gently by the arm and moved her over to his desk where he shoved her face down on the desk and gripped her crotch. “If you give me another moment of trouble, I will rip these clothes off and take you while every man here watches.”

  That didn’t sound like an empty threat. She closed her eyes against the degradation and pain in her limited future.

  “Comprende?”

  She was starting to hate that word. “Yes.”

  As he lifted her and started to turn her around, her gaze landed on a printed photograph on the desk and her mouth fell open.

  Dingo. Why would he have a picture of Dingo?

  Navarro noticed her reaction.

  She realized her mistake too late and tried to hurry to get back in sync with him turning, but he’d caught her staring down and picked up the picture. “You know this man.”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying.”

  True, but she felt certain that admitting she knew Dingo would be a mistake.

  A huge mistake.

  Navarro shoved her over to Dominic who dragged her away to what would’ve been some kind of reception area if this had been a real office building.

  She was shoved into a chair in the center of the room, on display for him and his hombres.

  Navarro stepped into her line of vision and held up the photo again. Dingo had the short blond hair she’d seen a month ago when he’d shocked her by calling after so long. He’d let it grow out since then and now his hair was back to the silky brown locks she’d loved so much.

  Someone had captured that shot without him knowing it.

  Navarro said, “You must have realized by now that I know how important the scroll is, and from what I understand it is worth too many millions to estimate. One might say even a king’s ransom.”

  She considered that a valid estimate for Galileo’s scroll.

  He spoke as someone who wanted to make his meaning very clear. “To put my interest in this man in the photo into financial perspective, I would trade ten of those rare scrolls your friend Aram told my people about for one minute with this man.” He waved the photo of Dingo in front of her.

  She’d never been a genius at math, but she added two and two pretty fast to come up with exactly what Navarro was after.

  He wanted to kill Dingo.

  He’d do a lot worse than rape her in front of his men to learn what she knew about Dingo.

  Chapter 25

  A behemoth guard carved with muscle and with straight black hair was protecting the entrance to the Satan’s Garden Club building. It was only two blocks from where Garcia had run the first one on Skid Row.

  Since Dingo couldn’t just walk past the guard, he had gained entry to a building next door to the one where Valene’s car still dinged on his tracking software. Getting in was no trouble, but it had taken ten minutes to find enough rope and wire to make a line he could use to rappel down three stories from a window on this building to the roof on the four-story one he’d come to get into.

  At the moment, he hung from the window, getting battered by the storm off the ocean. Maybe going through Godzilla next door would have been easier.

  When Dingo’s feet touched the roof, he whipped the rope-wire combination twice and it fell to his feet. He wiped water off his face. In the distance, the city glowed in a steamy mist, but not much light fell across this area.

  It took only another minute to pick the lock on the roof access door and he was in.

  Pitch black everywhere.

  He dug out his headgear and popped his night vision monocular in place. Bam. Everything came to life in shades of gray-green. He moved carefully across the concrete floor that led to a stairwell, which should enter somewhere on the top floor of the building.

  His boots were waterlogged and squishing. He took them off and carried them down the stairs, pausing in a room encased in concrete. He kept his distance from the breaker panel for the power that had been jury-rigged with half the guts hanging out. Just past that was the entrance door to what would be office area in most buildings.

  A quarter rotation of the doorknob confirmed ... unlocked.

  He noted the carpet, put his shoes back on and leaned in to listen.

  Muffled voices.

  Easing the door a fraction open, he snuck into the dark hallway.

  Garcia had always remodeled everywhere he went, no matter what the building looked like. He’d have had a gold-plated trough in a pigpen if he declared that to be his current office.

  Dingo’s brain still refused to believe that Garcia was back, but his eyes kept picking up evidence.

  He slipped down the hall until the voices became louder.

  “Look, I do know what Aram was looking for, but I was forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement. That’s why I didn’t volunteer anything, but I don’t know that man,” a female said.

  Valene. She was in negotiating mode.

  The sound of a hand slapping a face reached him right before Valene’s gasp of pain.

  Dingo felt the strike through every muscle in his body. She clearly wasn’t here by choice. He was going to kill the scum who hit her right after he cut the bastard’s hand off.

  Forcing himself to stand still and figure out a plan of attack was killing Dingo. But rushing in and getting holes blown through him would make the bad guy’s day and leave Valene alone.

  Dingo struggled to gain control of his emotions and locked them down tight. Now was the time for ice in his veins.

  “I will not tolerate any more lying,” her interrogator snarled.

  “I’m trying to answer your questions.” Her voice shook. “M-Maybe if you explain who he is I’ll recognize something and tell you. I meet a lot of people. I’m not good at remembering everyone I meet.”

  “You want to know who he is? He killed my father. He is a dead man.”

  Dingo couldn’t have heard that right. First of all, it sounded like a bad version of Inigo Montoya’s famous line from The Princess Bride.

  You killed my father. Prepare to die.

  This man couldn’t be Garcia’s son, because Garcia had said he had no family.

  Then again, Garcia had been a lying rat bastard.

  “The man in the picture,” she said as if trying to clarify. “Do you have a name?”

  “Dingo Paddock.”

  The walls rushed in on Dingo.

  He’d never given Garcia his real name and Bergman had never known it the whole time he’d been Dingo’s contact.

  Who was this guy abusing Valene?

  Needing to get a look at him, Dingo maneuvered to a closer vantage point. He risked being discovered, but moving another step closer to Valene was worth it, plus he had to get a look at who had come after Bergman, Dingo and Valene.

  “Dingo Paddock,” she said quietly. “That’s an odd name. I’d normally remember that. Did he have a middle name? Something else he went by?”

  That was his Valene. She’d still be asking questions to ferret out information at the pearly gates, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not on his watch.

  “Did all that about your father happen here?” Valene asked then added, “Please. I’m really trying to understand. Did that happen recently?”

  “No. This man Paddock saved my father’s life seven years ago, then stabbed him in the back a year later.”

  Technically, Dingo had cut Garcia’s throat.

  He leaned near the edge of the doorway to see Valene sitting in the middle of the room with her right side to him.

  Three men stood in front of her.

  He couldn’t see the face of the one in the middle who had curly black hair, but t
he old guy on the other side of him looked too much like Garcia not to be his brother.

  Son of a bitch.

  Garcia’s son had Valene and she was doing her best to talk her way out, but there was no way out except dead.

  The old guy said, “Enough of this, Navarro. We are losing time.”

  “This will only take ten minutes, Tío. She knows something about this man Paddock and she is going to tell.”

  Tío. Spanish for uncle. That confirmed Dingo’s guess.

  Navarro’s uncle scratched the stubble on his cheek. “We have not eaten. Get what you can out of her and put her in the box while we have dinner.”

  Shit. Dingo backtracked fast to the panel inside the concrete room shielding access to the roof. He scanned the panel, trying to figure out the squiggly Spanish writing and hoped he didn’t fry himself with what he had in mind. Two breakers were marked with big asterisk-type stars.

  That had to be important, right?

  He pulled his wet sleeves back and grabbed two breaker switches, flipping them off, on, then paused. Off again for five seconds then back on. Another pause, then he flipped them off permanently. A buddy at the power company had once explained how the system worked, and that if the lights didn’t come back on the third time, then no power until the service personnel figured out what had caused the outage.

  Now, to see if that had convinced Navarro and crew.

  “Fix the lights, Dominic!” someone in the room with Valene yelled.

  Dingo was hurrying back down the hallway when the man he assumed was Dominic turned the corner heading Dingo’s way. Adrenaline slammed through his veins.

  That was one way to get rid of a crushing headache.

  But Dominic was brushing a hand along the wall, because he didn’t have night vision gear.

  Dingo ducked into an empty room, then stepped back out behind Dominic, who had probably made this walk in the dark too many times to count. That explained why the door to this floor had been left open for easy access to the gutshot breaker panel. Just as Dominic stepped into the concrete utility room and flicked on a tiny LED light from a key ring, Dingo followed him in and used his weapon to bash the guy at the base of his skull.

  Dominic uttered a groan and slid down.

  Dingo relieved him of his keys and the Colt .38 Super on his hip. He pulled off the guy’s belt and tied his hands behind his back, then yanked his boots and socks off to shove a sock in his mouth.

  If Dingo got word to Sabrina before this group disappeared, she could take this one in alive.

  Another quick trip down the hall allowed Dingo to hear Tío grumbling, “Dominic is an idiot.”

  Navarro said, “Agreed, but we’ll discuss this later when we have privacy.”

  That translated into, “We’ll decide who replaces him and how to dispose of the body later.” Dingo had done Dominic a favor.

  “While we’re waiting, you should start talking,” Navarro said. He had to be addressing Valene.

  Dingo slipped around the corner and flipped up his monocular, because Navarro had a flashlight on Valene, whose cheek was already bruising.

  She said, “I’ve been thinking hard and I don’t recall–”

  Navarro slapped her so hard she fell sideways in the chair.

  Navarro would beg for death when Dingo was through with him. He pulled out his knife and took a step, heading for the uncle first, then Navarro.

  He’d kill the uncle, but Dingo needed Navarro alive to find out how Navarro had gotten Dingo’s name and picture. Without that, Dingo had no way to kill the snake this time from head to tail.

  Shots erupted down the hall toward the elevator and stairs. What the hell was going on now?

  Tío cursed and yelled into a radio, probably calling his goon downstairs, but if someone was up here shooting, that meant the doorman was already down.

  Navarro and Tío turned away from Valene, palming weapons and fanning the flashlight toward the hall. Tío gave Navarro a hand signal and as Dingo sucked backward into the room next door, they both snuck down the hallway toward the noise.

  More shots popped. Deep voices shouted.

  Navarro yelled, “He’s getting away. Catch him and don’t kill him. I want that bastard!” Abrupt shouts in Spanish then more shots.

  Dingo made it to Valene’s chair where her head leaned over the arm. He gently cupped her mouth and whispered, “It’s me. I’m getting you out of here.”

  Liquid ran down his hand from where tears pooled on her cheeks. He released her face to cut her ankles free first then her wrists, grabbing her arm and turning toward the hallway and the roof access.

  Navarro was shouting, “How dare they try to hit us. That gang has not learned my name, but will by tomorrow morning.”

  Dingo hurried Valene down the hall.

  Tío shouted, “Dominic! Get the lights on!”

  When Dingo reached the access door, he pulled Valene up the stairs with him. They opened the door onto the roof that was still under attack from the storm, and Valene said, “How are we getting out of here?”

  “Hold on.” Dingo pulled out his lock picks and set about relocking the door from the outside. The last thing he did was pull out a special tool he’d had made just for jamming the tumblers. He latched onto her fingers and hooked them into the waistband of his pants. “Keep your fingers there and follow in my steps.”

  “Got it.” The words had come out through chattering teeth. Probably shock more than cold.

  He lifted his makeshift rappelling rope and led her to the back of the building, then freed her hand so she could stand by herself while he tied a lead on the rope around a steel vent structure. This building was from an era when every part of the roof was built to be heavy-duty.

  Valene waited silently in the pitch dark, a trooper all the way.

  He stepped up to her, wanting to pull her into his arms, but pounding started on the access door. Shit. He tugged Valene over. “We’re going to the next floor, Val.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve got a rope tied off. I’m going to climb off first, then you follow me so that I’m beneath you.”

  She couldn’t see his face, but he could see the doubt in hers.

  The door pounding changed tone.

  Then Dingo heard a crack. They were using an axe.

  She asked, “Will it hold both of us?”

  “Yes.” Unless they delayed any longer and that axe blade got a shot at his rope.

  “Okay.”

  He got her to the edge and put her hands on the rope then dropped below her. She’d just climbed over the edge when Dingo heard shouting getting more distinct. They’d have the door hacked all the way through any minute.

  “Keep coming down, babe,” he encouraged.

  When his feet touched a window ledge, he stepped onto it and bumped his boot against what was left of the glass. He stomped it down, all the while keeping his hand on the rope then on Valene’s leg, guiding her foot to the ledge “Stop right there and hold the rope.”

  He climbed into the room and found clothes scattered around, probably rags someone had slept on, but they’d cover any glass edges that might slice Valene’s back or legs.

  When he had that set, he leaned out to hear Valene say, “They’re coming.”

  Chapter 26

  Valene squatted on the six-inch-wide brick window ledge, hanging onto the rope that Navarro’s man would chop any minute now. She could hear them yelling and pounding around the roof, searching for her, because they didn’t know about Dingo.

  And she wasn’t going to let them find out he’d been here if she could help it.

  Dingo hooked an arm around her and said, “I’ve got you. Let go.”

  She did and banged her arm, but she was inside the room as lights beamed down from the roof, shining outside the window. She stood still, listening to them shout at each other in Spanish. She translated it in a whisper for Dingo.

  “Navarro is yelling for the guards to come around back when the
y get down to street level. Tío is arguing that I couldn’t have made that last drop. That it had to be ten feet to the ground. Navarro said I could have fallen on the garbage piled back there and gotten lucky...”

  She listened then added, “Tío is shouting at Dominic, demanding to know how I got loose and where I found a rope.”

  The light outside disappeared and the voices withdrew.

  Dingo said, “Time to go.”

  “Where?”

  “If I said I knew, I’d be lying.”

  “Good enough for me.” And it was.

  She could hate him for leaving her broken in half.

  She could curse him for coming back without a word of explanation.

  But she would never fool herself into believing she didn’t trust Dingo one hundred percent in this moment. She had no question that he’d find a way out of here, because this was what he did for a living. She didn’t know who he did it for, but everything about him told her that he was a skilled operative of some sort.

  So why did you always blow him off when he was worried for your safety?

  Okay, she’d face that music. But this was not the time.

  He wound his way through the building and found the stairwell going down.

  They didn’t encounter anyone until Dingo had led her out of the stairwell and past the door to the garage she’d originally entered through. He cracked open a door to the street running in front of the building and pulled back, saying, “One bloke outside.”

  She leaned close and smelled the warm musk of Dingo’s exertions, a scent she remembered waking to in the middle of the night when he’d appear like her fantasy come to life. Her mind was a scary place right now if she could think about being naked with Dingo.

  She said, “They brought me in through the garage. Last door we passed on our right.”

  “Good.”

  They backtracked to the garage that opened to the cavernous room she remembered as stretching the length and width of the building. There was only the elevator shaft and a small office structure at one end.

  She whispered, “My car is here.”

  “We can’t get it out. They’d gun us down first.”