by Trish Loye
Timmerman threw his head back and laughed. “This is why they call you Diabla Rojo. I can see why you would fascinate Pérez.” He shrugged. “Personally, I find you irritating and want to kill you, but I do what the money says.” He sliced fast and shallow across her abdomen. The unexpected move made her cry out.
“Fucking bastard,” she said when she caught her breath.
He held the knife edge just below his previous cut, digging the point in until blood welled. “Just so you know, your boyfriend isn’t coming with backup. My men will be here with him shortly.” He began to drag the knife slowly across her skin, splitting it evenly, carefully, like a surgeon making his first cut. “And then we will kill him in front of you.” He stepped back and studied the shallow slices on her skin. “Scalpels are so much nicer for this kind of work.”
“If you had my partner, then you wouldn’t need information from me,” she said. “So what do you want?”
He shrugged. “I’m here to warm you up for Pérez. And he wants revenge.”
Her heart sank. They had Marc. There was no rescue coming. She’d known that logically already, but somehow Timmerman’s words cut into her hope like he’d cut her skin. She tried not to let her despair show on her face.
From Timmerman’s smile, she’d failed.
Marc ran back to the truck, pushing himself hard. Every minute he took was another minute Quinn was in Pérez’s hands. That knowledge fired him up and pushed him forward faster. He gasped for air when he threw open the truck door and jumped inside.
He peeled out and down the road. It was more circuitous than the dense jungle, but he would get there faster with the truck.
Within a couple of kilometers, the coca fields came into sight, green acres of leaves waiting to first be picked by hand, mulched and then mixed with cement and gasoline to make the paste the farmers sold to the cartels to make cocaine.
He turned down a rutted track, barely slowing as he raced for the farmer’s shack used for making coca paste. He jammed on the brakes and jumped from the truck, pulling his weapon out. No farmers came out of the building.
Marc burst inside. The acrid scent of chemicals burned the inside of his nose. Empty buckets waited for the next crop of mulched coca leaves. But lined up beside the buckets were jerry cans. He twisted off the top of one.
Gasoline.
Time for phase two of the plan.
He grabbed two of the jerry cans, carried them into the fields, and dumped the gas on as many of the mature plants as he could before racing back to get two more. After he’d doused as many plants as he could with the gasoline, he dumped the last jerry can inside the shack. He pulled out a lighter he’d found in the truck and started setting fires.
When the field and shack were blazing thick, black smoke into the sky, he got back into the truck.
Phase three: rescue his do-gooder.
21
Quinn braced herself for the next cut when the door swung open and Pérez walked in. He grimaced in distaste as he looked at her before he turned to Timmerman. “She is covered in blood. Get me a bucket of water.”
Timmerman left the room while Pérez walked up to her and studied her face. “Who do you work for?”
“Doctors Without—”
He backhanded her. Pain exploded on her already sore face, and the chains rattled as she swung from the force of the blow.
“Don’t lie to me if you don’t like pain.” Pérez’s voice was a low purr of some great hunting beast. He circled her, the circle wide but narrowing with each step. He ended up in front of her, where he trailed one hand down her bound arm, over her side, to her hip before he grabbed her ass and yanked her close.
The smell of cigarette smoke and coffee overwhelmed her nose. She didn’t try to hide her revulsion and didn’t bother to beg.
“Will you put up a fight when I fuck you?” he asked in a low voice.
“Why don’t you untie my hands and find out?”
He laughed and released her. “I have a better idea.” He unbuckled his leather belt and moved behind her as he slid it off.
Damien’s eyes widened.
Panic reared inside her. She couldn’t get enough air.
No. She had to calm down. Shutting her eyes, she concentrated on her breath and heartbeat. Slow and steady. She could survive this. She could. Pérez would make a mistake. She’d get free.
And then she’d kill them all.
“Who do you work for?” His tone was pleasant.
“Doctors—”
There was a swish and a snap just as fire lanced her bloodied back. She cried out and whirled to get away from the searing pain. Pérez smiled at her. He held his belt. “A strap for each lie you tell.” He snapped the belt again. “I enjoy teaching a woman how to enjoy pain. Or at least, I enjoy hearing her scream.”
“I’ll never scream for you.” She knew it was the wrong thing to say, that it would egg him on, but it was the only defiance she had left to her.
His eyes lit up. “I love a challenge, Diabla Rojo.” He swung the belt again, and it hit across the cuts on her belly. Her chains rattled, and she grunted at the searing pain.
Just get through this. Survive.
The belt snapped again. It was harder to choke off her cry this time. But she wouldn’t release another one. If only in this, she would win.
The image of Marc came to her. He wouldn’t give in, no matter the cost to himself.
Another crack and she arched involuntarily from the strike.
Had they captured Marc? She wasn’t sure she’d be able to withstand seeing them torture him. God, she wished she’d told him her real name.
“Hold on, Quinn,” Damien urged. He didn’t beg Pérez to stop. Both of them knew how futile that would be.
Steps scraped across the floor. Quinn’s eyes snapped open. She hadn’t realized she’d shut them.
Pérez now stood with his Glock pointed at Damien’s head. “If you say another word, I will kill you.”
The door burst open. Pérez whirled, gun aimed at the man who now backpedaled, hands up. “Boss, don’t shoot!”
Pérez lowered his gun. “What do you want, Carlos?”
“It’s the coca fields, boss. They’re on fire!”
Pérez stomped up the stairs without saying a word. Carlos pulled the door shut, leaving them trapped in the silence of the concrete room.
Quinn let her head sag forward on her chest and focused on breathing through the pain. Just breathing. She hung from her arms. Her shoulders ached from the weight on them, but her calves needed a break from standing on her toes. Pérez had left minutes or hours ago, and she almost cried from relief. But he’d be back, and it would start again.
Was this how things were going to end? Please let them not have caught Marc. If he’d gotten away, then his team could come and take down these assholes. Though probably not in time to save her.
“Quinn,” Damien said.
“What?”
“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“You mean before they kill us? Is this like your last confession or something?” She probably shouldn’t have been so cruel, but they’d been caught because of him. Could she trust him even now?
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, or question my orders. I was just so pissed that you’d betrayed the crown, betrayed me…” He hung his head.
She sighed. This man had been her colleague and friend, and even if they weren’t anymore, if they were going to die today, then she didn’t want to do it as enemies. She snorted softly. “So you went a little cray cray?”
His head lifted, and he looked at her, before a slight smile appeared on his face. “I think I went full out bat-shit.”
She laughed and then choked on the pain, but kept laughing. Damien laughed too, a loud on-the-verge-of-hysteria laugh.
The door smashed open, and a lean guard with a beard appeared in the door. “Shut the fuck up.” He stood mere feet from her.
Without
thinking, Quinn gripped the chain overhead and kicked out with her legs, scissoring them around his neck. He staggered closer as she pulled, dropping his gun, and she shifted her grip, just enough to clamp her calves around the sides of his neck, cutting off the blood supply to his brain. He made a gurgling sound, and his hands clawed at her legs.
Her shoulders and arms screamed at the weight of both her body and the man’s struggles, but she just tightened her legs and yanked him closer.
Maybe he had keys. Maybe they could escape. She held on as the man pulled back, punching her legs, struggling to get free.
His movements got weaker, and his eyes fluttered shut. She gripped the chain overhead tighter to hold on. The man sagged and went limp, dragging her legs down with his weight. She tried to hold on as long as possible, but his weight proved too much for her hands and shoulders. She released him with a kick toward Damien.
The man toppled at Damien’s feet, smacking his head hard on the cement floor. That might keep him out longer, or maybe it killed him if she was lucky. Quinn breathed deep, lifting up on her toes, trying to give her shoulders a break.
Damien just looked at her. “Nice work,” he said slowly, as if she were the crazy one. “What are we supposed to do now?”
She stared at the man on the floor. She was handcuffed to a chain. Damien was trussed up like a Christmas goose. She was out of ideas.
“Kick him until the keys fall out of his pocket?” she said finally.
Damien snorted.
A gunshot echoed through the house. They both froze. Quinn strained to hear anything else.
Silence slid around them while they waited, wondering what had happened, not daring to speak lest they draw attention to their helplessness.
They both heard someone creeping down the stairs.
Marc stood in the shadows at the edge of the jungle, watching guards and then finally Pérez himself run to two of the trucks parked in front of the house. They peeled out of the compound. Thick black smoke billowed from the field Marc had set ablaze.
Two guards remained on the roof, and two more waited on the porch. There were probably more still inside the house, but he wouldn’t get a better chance.
Marc aimed his Sig Sauer at the farthest guard on the roof. Just over a hundred yards. Not an easy shot but not impossible either.
He inhaled and then breathed out steadily.
He pulled the trigger. The guard tumbled off the roof. Before the crack of the shot had dissipated, Marc adjusted for the second guard. The man turned his head.
Marc pulled the trigger again.
The second man dropped.
Marc lowered his aim to the guard standing on the wraparound porch, his weapon up and looking for a target, but Marc was too well hidden.
He fired.
The fourth man hid behind an overturned chair. Marc’s ammo wouldn’t make it through it at this distance. The guy was probably on the radio calling for help. There wasn’t a lot of time to do this.
Fuck. He’d just have to take a chance.
Marc sprinted to the house, his weapon up, and fired at the hidden man, trying to keep him under cover until Marc could get close enough to kill him. The back door swung open, and a beefy man stepped out with an AK-47 up and firing.
Marc dropped to prone position and fired one shot back. The man went to his knees and fell forward. Marc jumped up and sprinted, legs pumping hard. Twenty meters to the porch. He fired again at movement by the overturned chair.
A low curse.
He fired again.
No more movement. Either the man was playing dead, or Marc had hit him. He didn’t have time to check. He bolted up the back steps and put his back to the wall beside the door. A quick peek showed one guard inside waiting.
Marc went in low and shot high into the man’s face. Blood and brains splattered the wall before the man thumped to the ground. Marc darted through the now empty kitchen to the basement door.
Time to reload. He ejected his mag and locked in a fresh one before he opened the door slowly. No sound or movement from below.
The stairs were open on one side to whatever room was below. He’d be in plain view to anyone in the basement when he came down. He debated for half a second before lying down on the kitchen floor and inching forward, slowly lowering his weapon, upper body and head to see below.
Nothing but a card table and chairs, one overturned. A door in the far wall stood ajar. Silence reigned. He skimmed down the steps to that door and went in low, ready to kill anyone who moved.
The sight that greeted him made him suck in his breath.
Like a scene from a horror movie, Quinn hung from her arms, her face bruised and swelling on one side, her back and stomach covered in long, shallow cuts and bruises. She wore only a bra and her dark cargo pants, which were a stark contrast to her pale skin and the rivulets of blood running down it.
At her feet, a man lay sprawled while Quinn’s handler sat tied to a chair nearby.
“Quinn.” Marc’s voice came out hoarse.
She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes widening before a brilliant smile appeared on her face. “You came.”
He scowled, and her smile dimmed. But damn. “Of course I came.” He strode to the guy on the floor. Dead. “Does he have the keys?”
Quinn made a movement that he suspected might have been a shrug. “He didn’t get a chance to tell us.”
“You must be okay.” Something inside Marc eased. “You’re being your usual contrary self.”
“Ask a dumb question,” she replied.
He bent to search the man on the floor.
Damien looked back and forth between them. “This is the guy?” he asked Quinn. “The one you went off mission for?”
Marc grinned. “I’m the guy.”
“Just find the key,” Quinn said.
“Like I said, contrary.” Marc stood. “Got it.” He came close, reached up, and unlocked the cuffs on her wrists. Her arms dropped, and she sagged against him.
“Easy, Red.” He held her. How bad off was she? “Do you need me to carry you?”
She shook her head and took a deep breath. “My real name is Quinn Sinclair. I work for the—”
“I know who you work for,” Marc said, pleasure at her trust swelling inside him. He gave her a quick kiss, careful of her bruises. “Nice to meet you, Quinn Sinclair. I’m Marc Koven.”
“And you work for?” Her voice was quiet and hoarse, but steady.
Marc chuckled. “When we get out of here, I’ll tell you.”
“You’d better.”
Damien coughed. “Can we do the meet and greet later? After you untie me?”
“I’m good,” Quinn said. “I can stand now.”
Marc held Quinn for just a split second more. He wanted to carry her out of there and kill anyone who stood in their way. But he had one more person to see to. He pulled a knife from his boot and set about freeing Damien. While he did, Quinn picked a black t-shirt off the ground and shrugged it on. From her careful movements, she was hurt worse than she was letting on. His gut twisted with simmering rage.
“Let’s move.” He picked up the guard’s AK-47.
“Where’s my weapon?” Quinn asked.
Marc smiled. Nothing could keep her down. He handed over her Glock and the extra magazine for it. He passed Damien his own Sig Sauer. Quinn cleared her Glock and loaded a round before she nodded to him.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said.
22
Quinn and Damien followed Marc up the stairs. They passed a body in the kitchen and moved to the back door. Marc looked out, cursed, and ducked.
Crack. Splinters flew from the doorframe.
“How many?” Quinn asked.
“Just one,” Marc said. “I left him alive, and now he’s holed up on the far side of the porch.”
“Keep him busy.” She hobble-ran for the front door, ignoring the pain of her back.
“Quinn, let me—”
She wave
d him off and slipped through the front door just as she heard the thwup thwup of an assault rifle. She used the cover of the sound to run along the porch and then peeked around the corner.
A man in a grimy white tank top crouched behind a barricade of a chair and a table. She sighted on him with her Glock. Her hands shook. Fuck, she wasn’t recovered yet.
It was only ten meters.
A car engine roared from the road behind her. The man in the tank top turned. His eyes widened.
She fired.
He fell onto his back. A clean head shot.
She turned to look at the road. A truck and a car skidded to a stop in front of the house. Adrenaline kicked through her. She raced around the back of the porch to the kitchen entrance.
“We have to go,” she yelled. “They’re back.”
Damien burst out the back door and ran down the steps. Marc stopped at the top of the steps, his rifle up and pointed back into the house, covering them. She raced down the steps after Damien who bolted for the wall and the jungle.
“To the right,” she yelled at Damien, directing him to the path.
That was when she saw the car. The one from the front hadn’t stopped. It had raced to the back of the house and drove straight for them. Timmerman sat behind the wheel, with Pérez beside him.
Damien didn’t try to jump out of the way; it was too late for that. He lifted the weapon Marc had given him and fired rapidly. The car struck him, and he bounced over the hood, hit the windshield, and flew off. It all happened in a split second, stunning her and rooting her to the spot. She was yanked back onto the porch just as the car roared by. It spun, hitting trees.
“Damien,” she called. The man didn’t move. His head lay at an odd angle. Regret washed through her.
Men charged around the side of the house, weapons firing.
“Broken neck.” Marc pulled her again by her shirt. “Come on. Inside.”
A glance at the car showed Pérez climbing out of the passenger seat. Timmerman lay sprawled over the steering wheel. At least Damien had finished one of the bastards.