Warrior Without Rules

by Nancy Gideon

  His expression was compressed into a volatile thunder-cloud of disapproval but she didn’t care. He’d just have to get over it. The way she’d gotten over all the baggage she’d been dragging behind her. The past was the past and the future was so bright she had to wear shades.

  “Fabulous, darling. Just fabulous,” Bryce cooed as he finished snapping off a few candids of her flushed face and dazzling smile. “We’re done. It’s Dom time.”

  “You’ve earned it. You all have. Aletta’s going to the top with this campaign and you’ve made it happen.”

  Bryce fell uncharacteristically serious for a moment as he pinched her chin. “No, sweetie, you made it happen. Your mom would have been proud.”

  She was able to face Zach then, with tears of emotion still glistening in her eyes and adrenaline coursing hotly through her veins. Other feelings, hot, deep, desire-drenched feelings, swelled inside her as she adored the sight of his hawkishly handsome face. It took all her self-control not to launch herself right into his arms.

  “Hi.”

  He didn’t say anything. His granite expression said it all. He was royally peeved.

  “Before you start beating me over the head with Rule Two, let me assure you that this wasn’t some flighty stunt just to get your blood pressure up.”

  “You certainly succeeded in that.”

  She ignored his wry comment, desperately needing him to understand the cathartic revelation that came to her at dawn. As she sat looking down on his sleeping features, with her heart hammering hard and her vision so clear, she could see for miles. “I had to do this, Zach. No more hiding. No more seeking approval. I had to do it on my own. Without you, without my father, without Premiero. Just me taking responsibility for what my mother entrusted to me.”

  “Are you quite done?”

  She heaved a massive sigh, not bothering to apologize. “Yes, I am.”

  “You’re looking pleased with yourself.”

  She grinned. “Yes, I am.”

  “Good. Then let’s go. I have only one responsibility and that’s to get you safely on a plane tomorrow morning.”

  Her mood took a sudden sobering nosedive as reality kicked the slats out from under her success. “And then?”

  “I’m taking a long vacation. Some place simple, without phones and with great sauce.”

  Would those plans include a companion, she wondered as she said her goodbyes to the crew and allowed herself to be loaded into his small rental car.

  “Where’s Tomas?” Zach asked as he motioned for her to buckle up.

  “Veta needed to take a call from the States and Tomas took her back to the hotel. We’re going to all meet at Bandido’s in Zihua for drinks and Cuban cigars later this morning. Then the guys are going golfing and the gals are going to work on a strapless tan.”

  “Sounds like an eventful day.”

  “And you sound like you’re about to throw a wet blanket on all of it.”

  He looked at her sitting there in the passenger seat, her skin still flushed from the wild ride, her features relaxed for the first time since he’d met her ten years ago. She looked young and happy and free of shadows. And he couldn’t bring himself to cast them back over her. Not yet, anyway.

  “What kind of bodyguard would I be if I threw a blanket on a little nude sunbathing?”

  Toni grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

  Zach started the rental and, with Toni waving to her crew, pulled out onto the road back to Ixtapa. And if they came across a nice area for some nude sunbathing, he wasn’t opposed to pulling over and spreading out the blanket from the backseat for a little one on one celebration of their own.

  Pride in her and in what she’d accomplished created a huge ache within his chest. What guts it must have taken to pull a prize like Aletta out from under Premiero and in doing so, defy the father who’d manipulated the family strings so masterfully. It would have been easier to go along, to accept the arranged path as inevitable and the role of figurehead with good grace. But nothing about Antonia Castillo was made for the easy, uninvolved road. That was the thing that frustrated him about her. And what he loved about her.

  What he loved about her.

  Toni gave him a startled look as the car veered suddenly, bumping into the mounded shoulder and bouncing back onto the uneven pavement. “What? What’s wrong? You look like you swallowed a bee.”

  A B-52 maybe.

  “What?” He stared at her through equally startled eyes then blinked away the glaze of shock. “Nothing. I just realized there was something I forgot to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Something I’ll have to take care of later.”

  He turned his attention back to the road and reluctantly, she decided not to pursue it.

  He’d forgotten to tell her he was sorry. For her pain, for her fears, for the years of panic and uncertainty. For being such a coward, he couldn’t admit now, even as he hadn’t confessed then, to the feelings he had for her. Because if he did, if he dragged out all that emotional baggage, he’d lose the edge that made him valuable to her.

  Right now she didn’t need a lover. She needed a protector. And to be the best at what he did required the detachment that allowed him to do his job in her best interests, not his, despite her. So the blanket would remain in the backseat and his admission would remain unspoken. At least until the danger was past. And then…and then the topic would be open for discussion.

  Some place simple, without phones and with great sauce.

  The vehicle came out of nowhere.

  The clear road behind him suddenly yielded a large, black diplomatic sedan with tinted windows riding right up on their bumper.

  Zach cursed softly. “Hang on.”

  “What?” Toni twisted in the seat to look over her shoulder and that was when the sedan hit them. Hard. Intentionally. Whiplashing her in the confines of her seatbelt as Zach fought the wheel for control. “Who are they?” she cried in controlled alarm. “Premiero’s men?”

  “I’m not going to stop to ask them.”

  With that, Zach tromped down hard on the accelerator, sending the little car leaping forward to put some distance between them and the other vehicle. But the little six cylinder proved no match for whatever was under the hood of the sedan and it rapidly closed on them, looming up in the rearview with a menacing anonymity. The rental shuddered as it took another damaging hit to the rear. The trunk lid flew up, obscuring Zach’s vision and before he was aware of it, the sedan edged around them, creeping up on the driver’s side.

  There was no way to get off the road. Jungle was on one side and a drainage culvert on the other. No witnesses or Samaritans were coming in either direction as the sedan slammed into the side of the compact, sending it, despite Zach’s best efforts at the wheel, careening over the embankment on a jolting ride to the bottom of the runoff gully. There they came to an abrupt stop, the horn blaring and steam from under the crumpled hood escaping in an ominous cloud.

  He didn’t realize his head was bleeding until he had to wipe the blood away to see for himself that Toni was all right. She was unbuckling her seatbelt, turning to him in concern when the passenger door was yanked open.

  “Zach!”

  She disappeared out of the vehicle.

  Grabbing for his gun, Zach pushed against his door and found it too damaged to open. He scrambled across the passenger seat, blinded by the hot crimson pouring down his face, blinded by the deep inner terror that he wasn’t going to be able to prevent what was about to happen.

  He could hear Toni’s fierce epithets as she fought against those who held her. He half fell out the open door. A knee caught him in the cheekbone, driving him backward. He struggled to bring his gun into play as the car door swung shut on his hand. He heard his bones breaking through the hot roar of pain. His gun fell from numbed fingers.

  “No, don’t kill him!”

  He heard Toni’s shriek through the cresting rumble of unconsciousness surging up ove
r him.

  “Don’t shoot. I’ll sign the papers.”

  She didn’t know where they were going. Toward a meeting with Premiero most likely. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the blood soaking her cargo shorts from where she cradled Zach’s head on her lap. She was too worried to feel fear for her own situation. At the moment, there was nothing she could do to change it.

  The solid black panel separating front from back seat was closed but she knew two men sat up there. Men as hard faced and ruthless as the Hispanic pair that regarded her from the opposing seat in back. They held semiautomatic pistols and she didn’t presume to think that they’d be reluctant to use them. They were professionals not common criminals. That gave her some degree of hope that negotiations would follow rather than a quick, brutal end. Or a slow, drawn-out and horrifying one.

  Her legs were shaking. She couldn’t stop them. Her hands were unsteady, too, as she tried to stem the flow from Zach’s head wound with the corner of her shirt. She glanced up at the duo across from her.

  “Do you have a handkerchief? Pañuelos?”

  The men exchanged stony looks but one reached into his jacket and withdrew a plain cotton square. She took it gratefully.

  “Are we going to meet with Premiero?”

  This time her question met with no response. Sighing, she gave up the idea of communicating with her captors and concentrated on the injured man laid out on the seat beside her.

  The bleeding was from a gash above his brow where he’d hit the window frame. Spectacular bruising had already begun beneath his left eye, and from cheekbone to jawline on the right side of his face. His right hand trailed down to the floor mat, distorted by swelling. What scared her the most was the fact that he hadn’t returned to awareness.

  Even as she considered that, he moaned softly and stirred on the wide leather seat. The two men opposite took firmer grips on their weapons. Professional courtesy, she assumed.

  “Zach?” She bent down over him as his eyes blinked open. His stare was cloudy, disoriented.

  “Where?” he muttered faintly.

  “Going up the mountainside. I haven’t been told our destination. No place we want to go, I’m sure. But I don’t think they can be persuaded to take us back to Ixtapa, either. We’ll have to go along for the ride.”

  She could feel him cautiously testing his resources, gingerly flexing muscles and estimating his reserves under their hosts’ watchful eyes. Their tension eased at his weak, whispery groan.

  Fearing he was more seriously injured than she’d at first believed, Toni fought down her own panic to reassure him. It might not have been the smartest thing to let her captors know that she had feelings for him, feelings that could be used against her at some later time. She only thought in the moment. And she wanted Zach Russell to know what was in her heart in case she never had another opportunity to tell him.

  She leaned over until her lips brushed his colorful cheek, so her whisper would reach his ear.

  “Zach, I want you to know—”

  “Rule Two.”

  She thought she misunderstood him. Rule Two?

  Where you go, I go.

  His knees suddenly tucked under him as he made an awful moaning sound.

  “Zach?”

  “I’m going to throw up.”

  His raspy claim got their escorts’s attention. Alarmed at the thought of having to share the enclosed backseat with the aftermath of a bout of sickness, they looked to each other in confused distress.

  “Get them to slow down. Open the door. Do it.”

  Toni’s urgent command had one of them punching the intercom, requesting that the vehicle slow. While Zach made desperate wretching noises, the guard leaned forward to unlatch and lift the door handle.

  And that’s when Zach exploded in motion.

  The steel toe of his boot caught the second man in the temple, knocking him into the first who was already off balance. Zach’s elbow swung in a tight arc, connecting with his chin.

  The door swung wide. The jungle flew past, offering a blur of escape.

  “Go!”

  When she didn’t respond to Zach’s order quickly enough, he shoved her hard through the opening, snagging one of their dazed assailant’s guns before hurtling after her.

  The car had still been moving around thirty miles per hour. Toni hit the shoulder of the road with a spine-jarring force. Her senses swam and the world went momentarily dark. She felt Zach’s arms lock around her and then they were airborne. The sensation of flight lasted all too briefly. They hit the ground hard, taking a bounce then rolling, tumbling wildly down the steep mountainside.

  The drop seemed to go forever. Over the snapping of the brush as they tore through it, she could hear the staccato of weapon fire but they plunged too quickly out of sight for any of the bullets to find a target. Finally, she smacked into a tree trunk with her shoulder, the impact slowing their descent, but sending a shock of agony coursing through her.

  For a moment, she lay on the damp jungle floor with the green canopy circling above her in great, sickening loops until her senses began to steady.

  “Are you all right?”

  She tried to nod in answer to Zach’s curt question but her neck wouldn’t move. “I feel like I’ve been thrown from a moving car.”

  “Up. We’ve got to go.”

  The idea of actually getting to her feet was so ridiculous, Toni had to pinch her lips together to keep laughter from escaping.

  But Zach, she discovered, was deadly serious.

  He grabbed her arm, dragging her up to a wobbly stance. The scenery whirled and swooped for a few dizzying seconds, then Zach was dragging her after him through the close stand of trees, anxious to distance them from any potential pursuit.

  They ran with no destination in mind except escape. Heat steamed up through the dense foliage until they were dripping from the heavy weight of humidity. Zach’s grip on her arm never lessened and it was keep pace or be towed beside him. She ran, stumbling, wheezing, hurting, but too motivated to protest. The sound of gunfire still echoed in her recent memory. If they were caught, she didn’t think their captors would be so kind as to keep Zach alive no matter how much she tried to bargain. They were running for their lives, and losing Zach before she had a chance to finish telling him what she’d started to say in the car was not an option.

  They burst from the tangled forest into ordered rows of fruit trees. Sunlight glared down through the branches in streaks of hazy brightness, dazzling their eyes and blinding them to the approach of a vehicle until it was nearly upon them.

  Zach pointed the pistol at the windshield and shouted for the vehicle to stop. His head was pounding. His hand throbbed in fierce pulse beats that battered at the last stronghold of his awareness. By shading his eyes with his mangled hand, he could make out an old rusty pickup with a family of farmers in the back. They stood frozen at the sight of the weapon. He took a chance and lowered it.

  “Can you help us? Puede usted ayudarme, por favor?”

  An ancient man in a torn straw cowboy hat climbed out of the truck’s cab and cautiously drew closer.

  “What you need?” he asked in broken English.

  “A cell phone.”

  When he looked perplexed, Zach gestured with thumb and little finger at his ear and mouth. The farmer shrugged and shook his head. No help there.

  “Can you give us a lift…a ride into Zihua?”

  The man looked between the two of them, gauging their bedraggled and desperate appearance, an appearance that spoke of money nonetheless.

  “Gas costs much. We would miss work.”

  “Quanto? How much do you want?” His vision began to waver, images rippling like a mirage in front of him. He didn’t have time to barter.

  An equally aged woman got out of the passenger side of the truck to stand behind her husband. She whispered something to him and pointed at Zach’s wrist. Zach stripped off his watch without hesitation, eager to strike an agreeable bargain.
The old woman took it and examined the metal with a practiced scrutiny. She nodded then stared at him more closely. She gestured to her own wrinkled earlobe.

  His father’s diamond. The symbol of everything that gave his life order and purpose. Then he glanced at Toni, seeing her through the increasing fog filling his head. Gorgeous, gutsy Antonia Castillo. And the sacrifice seemed inconsequential.

  He passed his weapon to Toni and pulled the stud from his ear. As he reached out to hand it to the old lady, momentum carried him forward, dropping him to his knees.

  Through the roaring in his head, he heard Toni calling his name. He struggled to stay conscious long enough to tell her the name of Tomas’s family in Zihuatanejo. Then there were only snatches of awareness. The straw-littered bed of a truck jouncing down a grassy lane. The flicker of the sun peekabooing through tree branches. The sounds of traffic, of Toni’s soothing voice speaking words he couldn’t comprehend. And then the rough, bumpy ride that woke exquisite torment as they wove up the cliffside tracks to a home in the mountains.

  He lost it then. The next sound he heard was a familiar deep-throated rumble over a vibration that jarred his aching head. He managed to open his eyes long enough to recognize the interior of a military transport plane and the swarthy features of his best friend bending near.

  “Toni?” he croaked out.

  “Safe,” Jack Chaney told him. “I see I’ll have to do more stitching.”

  Zach tried to smile, but that small effort was enough to carry him into a deep blackness in which he finally found relief.

  Chapter 17

  He opened his eyes to familiar ceiling frescoes.

  His apartment?

  Zach lifted his hand to test the enormous ache in his head, only to be distracted by the bulky wrappings that extended from fingertips to mid-forearm.

  “Welcome back.”

  Zach moved his eyes—because moving his head was out of the question—to his left where Jack Chaney had drawn up a chair and made himself comfortable.