by Zara Chase
“I think something’s ruptured inside. I can’t bear it. I—” She threw back the cover to reveal her naked body. “Please! Your boss wants me alive, but something’s seriously wrong.” Porcha forced out a few tears. “I think I passed out once already because of the pain, and I can’t—”
“Where does it hurt?”
“My belly.” She rolled onto her back, keeping her knees drawn up, and cried out when she touched her abdomen. He didn’t appear to notice. Judging by the bulge in his pants, he had other ideas. “It’s so painful. I can’t stand it.”
“You better not be faking.”
“Do I look like I’m faking?” Porcha clutched her stomach and moaned even louder. “Just go away if you don’t want to help me. I’m sure your boss won’t blame you if I finish up in the hospital.”
“Yeah, well, you won’t be going nowhere ’cause Mr. Sanchez-Punto has had a change of plans. He’s on his way to see you here right now, which is why you need to get up.”
“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. Oh God, I think I’m bleeding.”
That seemed to convince Raul to do something. He put the gun aside, leaned over her, and touched her stomach with one finger. “It hurts here?”
It was the best chance she was likely to get. As quick as a flash, she lifted her weapon and brought it down over his bent head with as much force as she could muster. He screamed as blood poured from a vicious-looking cut on the side of his head but had such a thick skull that he remained on his feet. Porcha didn’t intend for that situation to continue. Whilst he staggered about clutching his head, blood seeping through his fingers, she leapt from the bed and took to the air. With both feet off the ground she made perfect contact with his neck, scissoring it between her feet. He landed heavily and finally lost consciousness.
Porcha didn’t hang about, pretty sure he hadn’t come alone. She pulled on her jeans and top without bothering with her underclothes. She threw her thong at the prostrate man, and it landed on his face.
“You were keen enough to get into my knickers, asshole, so knock yourself out.” She let out an almost hysterical giggle. “Oh sorry, I already took care of that part, didn’t I?”
She grabbed his gun. It felt heavy and unfamiliar but was hopefully loaded. Pausing only to check on the safety and how to remove it, she cautiously peered round the open door. Damn, Raul was moaning. She would like to take the time to find his cell phone but didn’t dare risk it. It wouldn’t take him long to come round, and, much as she disliked him, she didn’t really want to do him further harm.
Unless she had to.
She slipped from the room and could see someone pacing up and down outside the street door, directly beneath an outside light. He was smoking and didn’t seem to be particularly alert. He also didn’t seem to be wondering what was keeping Raul, presumably because Raul had intended to deliver more than just food to Porcha.
Their thinking they could get away with abusing her lent Porcha fresh determination. She waited until the guard had paced as far away from the light as he ever seemed to, opened the door, and stepped out, keeping to the shadow outside of the light’s range. Unfortunately, the door didn’t close quietly and alerted the guard.
“That was quick,” he said, grinning. “Hey, what the—”
Porcha now had no choice. He’d seen her and couldn’t let her go. She had to act whilst she still had him off guard. Whilst he was still reaching for his gun, she flicked off the safety on her own, aimed for the guy’s shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The gun felt heavy and unfamiliar and jerked upward when she fired her shot. He yelled and fell to the ground, clutching his arm. Her aim had been off. She suspected she’d only winged him, but it was enough to give her a brief advantage.
In full survival mode, Porcha saw headlights turn the corner and took off running in the opposite direction.
* * * *
Woollard was in the truck with the guys, directing Beck on the quickest route. It was midevening, but Miami traffic was as clogged up as ever, causing all four men to fume with frustration.
“It’s up ahead,” Woollard finally said as they turned the corner.
“What the fuck?” Troy peered through the windshield. “Who’s that running away? I’d swear that was Porcha.”
“It is,” Beck said, putting his foot down, “and she thinks we’re the bad guys.”
A car came from the opposite direction, and Porcha was caught like a rabbit in both sets of headlights. In the moment she took to hesitate, Troy and Adam both leapt from the still-moving truck, calling her name. She snapped her head in their direction. It finally appeared to register with her who they were, and she ran full tilt toward them. At the same time, several people spilled from the other car, firing at them.
“Quick!”
Troy grabbed Porcha and thrust her at Adam. “Get her in the truck. I’ll cover you.”
Adam and Porcha ran. Troy walked backward, crouched low, returning the heavy fire being directed his way.
“Troy!”
It was Porcha’s voice. He instinctively turned to see what was wrong, felt a searing pain in his right shoulder, and crumpled to the floor.
“Go!” he managed to shout to Adam. “Get her out of here.”
Chapter Eighteen
“No!” Porcha struggled frantically to get free of Adam, but he picked her up and bodily carried her to the truck. As soon as he threw her in the back, Beck burned rubber.
“Troy!” Porcha wrenched her arms free from Adam’s vicelike grip and hung her head out of the window. “You have to stop!” she yelled when Adam dragged her back into the truck. “Troy’s hurt.”
“Standard procedure,” Beck said tersely. “We save you, not him. He’d do the same if it was between one of us and a hostage.”
Porcha tried to argue, but the truck was already leaving the scene, taking the corner with a screech of tires. She saw a man of stature, presumably Sanchez-Punto, staring at her as she leaned out of the window. He was surrounded by men with guns, but none of them fired. Instead, they circled the prostrate Troy, weapons trained on him.
“They’re going to kill him!” she screamed, bashing her clenched fists against Adam’s chest. “Don’t you care?”
“We care.” Adam’s jawline was rigid. “But I don’t think they’ll kill him. If they were going to do that, they wouldn’t have waited.”
“He’s talking to the guy who led the team that broke into our place,” Beck said. “I recognize him from the camera shots we got. Whatever the guy said, he’s gesticulating toward you, and that prevented Troy being shot.”
“Did you say anything to anyone about Troy?” Woollard asked from the passenger seat.
Porcha stiffened, only just noticing he was there. “What’s he doing here?”
“Be glad that he is,” Adam advised her. “Without him we wouldn’t have found you in time.”
“I—I blurted out Troy’s name,” she admitted.
The back of Beck’s neck, which was all Porcha could see of him, went rigid. “They think you care about him?”
“I do care about him.”
“Then you probably saved his life.”
Porcha noticed Adam and Beck exchange a speaking glance, and there was a slight lessening in the tension between them. “How do you figure that one?”
“They’ll offer him back to us in exchange for the information you have.”
Porcha threw her hands in the air. “But I don’t have it. Don’t you think I’d tell them if I did?”
“No, but it gives us something to work with.” Beck slowed down to the speed limit now they were clear of danger. “And it gives Troy a chance to find a way out.”
“There isn’t one.”
“You managed it.”
She felt tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. “I hadn’t just been shot.”
“I doubt whether they’ll take Troy to the warehouse,” Woollard said. “Because we know about it and because different rules apply to male priso
ners.”
“Damn.” Adam thumped his fist against the side of the truck. “This whole fucking mission has gone to hell in a handbasket.” He pulled Porcha against him, and she appreciated the support of his arm circling her shoulders. “How did you get away from them?” he asked.
Beck and Woollard both chuckled when she explained. Adam kissed the top of her head.
“Way to go,” he said gently. “Don’t worry about Troy. It’ll take more than a shot to the shoulder to finish him off. Tougher people than these guys have tried to do away with him, but he’s still breathing.”
But Porcha could sense that Beck and Adam were both more worried than they were letting on.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“We go back to Jupiter, get you cleaned up, and see if we can think of a way to get him back,” Beck said.
Porcha wanted to advise against trusting Woollard but held her tongue, and the rest of the journey was made in taut silence. When they arrived at the house, Adam and Beck accompanied Porcha to the master suite she’d shared with Sal and helped her into the shower. Once she was clean, Beck went to work with antiseptic lotion, gently cleaning up her scrapes and bruises.
“What happened to your face?” he asked.
“Raul hit me when I tried to get away from him in St. Pete.”
“He’s a dead man.” Beck’s chilling tone left no room for doubt on that score.
“I want to know about Woollard,” she said once they’d patched her up.
“You ought to eat something.”
“As if I could do that when they have Troy and it’s all my fault.” Fresh tears threatened. What was wrong with her? She never cried. “What happens now?”
“We wait,” Beck said. “And we try to figure out where they might be holding him. Georgio’s doing some digging for us.”
“You need to hear what Woollard has to say,” Adam told her. “If you feel up to it.”
Porcha didn’t want to go anywhere near the creep, but if the guys thought it was necessary, she trusted them enough not to argue.
“Okay, let’s do it,” she said.
Settled in the family room, Adam and Beck flanking her on a sofa, Woollard and Kevin opposite, Porcha listened to Woollard’s story with growing disbelief. She wanted to scream that it was all a whopping great lie but already knew that it couldn’t be. There had always been something special about Sal’s relationship with Woollard, his inability to see the black side of his character, and now she knew what it was. Sal had desperately wanted a son, and it appeared the first love of his life had provided him with one who made him proud.
“Why did you…” Porcha gulped and tried again. “Why did you…I thought you wanted me to—”
“I hated that aspect of his life,” Woollard said, “but it was the one area in which I couldn’t influence him.” He leveled his eyes on Porcha’s face. “I know what you thought. You thought I wanted you for myself, but what you actually saw in my expression was disgust. I hated what he forced me to do to you, and I hated myself more for the way I reacted.”
Porcha shook her head, not ready to accept that. “But you didn’t mind the drugs and all the other stuff that—”
“Actually, I did.” Woollard stretched his long legs in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. “At first, I thought it was all very glamorous, but after a couple of years of constantly watching my back, doubting everyone, living life in a gilded prison, I started to have doubts. I spoke to Sal about it, asked him how he could bear it, and do you know what he said?”
Porcha shook her head, intrigued in spite of herself.
“He said that he had nothing better to do with his time.” Woollard half smiled. “Then you came along. He hadn’t been serious about any woman since my mother, but I could see that he was totally gone on you.”
Porcha tossed her head and blew air through her lips. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“He’d already promised you that he’d get out of the drugs game, and I knew he’d follow through. That’s why he changed tack, and apart from building up his legitimate businesses, he also diversified into diamonds.”
“He didn’t need to do that.”
“No, but I always knew going straight was going to take time for Sal. It was an alien concept for a lifetime criminal, but diamonds were a damned sight easier to move than drugs and, for someone with Sal’s connections, far safer.”
“Depends on your point of view,” Adam said, a bitter twist to his lips.
“After that attack on you three months ago—”
“What attack?” Beck and Adam asked, turning toward her at the same time.
“Kevin got us out of it,” Porcha said, flashing a smile at her former driver. “If what you say about Trevor is true, he probably told the bad guys where we’d be that day. Anyway, no harm was done, just a few bullets flying, but they all missed us thanks to Kevin’s quick thinking.”
“But Sal was really shaken up by it,” Woollard said, “which is when he decided to quit procrastinating and get out of the drugs business once and for all. He could have tried to find out who was responsible, but he knew it would be a spiral that never ended, with constant tit-for-tat hits. I think he was tired of it all himself by then, and the hit on you was a wake-up call.” Woollard stretched his arms above his head and sighed. “That’s when he decided to sell out his drugs business and get out of diamond smuggling, too, so you could live a more natural life.”
Porcha grunted. “Hardly that.”
“He was to do one more extra-large diamond heist, and that would be it. From then on he would be an upstanding legal businessman.”
“If you knew about everything he did,” Beck said, “how come you didn’t know how he was getting this last lot of diamonds in?”
“I’d been in Mexico for a while setting up the final meeting with Fernandez’s people. When I got back he said it was all organized and I didn’t need to be involved.”
“How did he usually get them in?”
“He imports South African artifacts for resale here in the States. Wooden carvings, tapestries, stuff like that. Needless to say, he had all sorts of people in his pocket, principally a guy high up in the port authority. That ensured that any shipments in received only a cursory once-over. If there was a plan to do a more thorough search, Sal was always advised in advance and nothing was ever found.”
“So we could, if necessary, direct Sanchez-Punto to the port authority guy?” Beck suggested. “That might get him off our backs.”
“Possibly.”
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why is Sanchez-Punto so set against Sal?”
“Ah, that’s the thousand-dollar question.” Woollard threw back his head and closed his eyes. “They grew up together as runners for the same drugs dealer and were great friends, until Sanchez-Punto fell in love.”
Adam held up a hand. “I think I see where you’re going with this,” he said. “Sanchez-Punto fell for your mother, and Sal stole her from him. Am I right?”
“Spot on. I told you my mom attracted men. Sanchez-Punto worshipped the ground she walked on and has spent all these years waiting for the right moment to get his revenge by ruining Sal.”
* * * *
Troy painfully regained consciousness when the car he’d been bundled into hit a pothole.
“Shit!”
He clutched his wounded arm and felt warm blood trickling through his fingers. The driver and his passenger didn’t hear his muttered oath and carried on talking amongst themselves in Spanish. Troy understood every word.
“How the hell did this happen?” the passenger—presumably Sanchez-Punto—fumed. “How hard can it be to hold onto one woman?”
“I don’t know,” the driver responded. “Raul has a massive cut on the side of his head, and David has been shot.”
Sanchez-Punto threw his hands in the air, looking ready to explode. “She took Raul’s gun?”
Troy, in spite of the pain he was in, wante
d to applaud. Never had he admired Porcha more.
“Yes, it seems she tricked him.”
Sanchez-Punto let rip with a prolonged string of curses. “I’m surrounded by a bunch of incompetent idiots.” Only Sanchez-Punto’s heavy breathing broke the uneasy silence. “Why do you think we should keep this character alive?” he asked, hoisting a thumb in Troy’s direction.
“The woman mentioned his name several times. She obviously cares about him. Perhaps we can trade him for the information we need?”
Sanchez-Punto grunted. “I’ll think about it, but I wouldn’t have to if you guys had shown one ounce of professionalism. What the fuck do I pay you so well for?”
The car drew to a halt in a seedy residential area. Troy’s door was opened, and an arm yanked him to his feet.
“Argh, steady.”
“Think yourself lucky you’re useful to us, otherwise you wouldn’t be worried about a pissing little flesh wound.”
“Easy for you to say. It isn’t your flesh.”
Troy was marched through the house. From the brief glimpse he managed, it appeared to be occupied by a bunch of Sanchez-Punto’s guards. Presumably, he didn’t have a place here like Sal’s with electronic gates and accommodation for the guards on the grounds. He took that to be a positive sign as he was led up the stairs to a small room on the upper floor. There was absolutely nothing in it.
“I need something to stop the bleeding,” Troy said, still clutching his arm.
A couple of packaged military field dressings were thrown at him before the door was closed and locked. Troy had no water to wash the blood off or clean the wound up, but at least they’d left him to his own devices and weren’t inflicting any further injury on him. At least not yet. As far as he could tell, it was just a flesh would. The bullet had gone straight through the fleshy part of his upper arm. He could see the exit wound. It hurt like hell, and would need sutures, but didn’t appear to have done any lasting damage. He didn’t need to be told that he’d been lucky. He slapped a dressing on it, awkwardly because he had to use his left hand, hoping that the wound wouldn’t get infected.