The Bargain

by Lisa Cardiff

  “Move...damn you,” I said, the endorphins clouding my brain and making it impossible to think clearly.

  He chuckled, and if I didn’t need him so badly, I would’ve clawed his eyes out.

  Without missing a beat, he angled his hips, hitting the perfect spot repeatedly in a wickedly flawless rhythm. Fire and ice, love and hate, whipped through my veins. I shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces with his name bleeding from my lips and soul. Within seconds, I felt him come, wet and hard inside me, igniting another round of soul-stealing mini shocks in my core.

  Angry, sated, and depleted, I collapsed onto my stomach, not even bothering to put on my shorts. Ryker won, and I lost…again. Tears stung the corner of my eyes, but I refused to set them free. They were pointless. An hour ago, I promised I’d give Evan another chance, and now I lay on the decomposing jungle floor with Ryker’s come leaking from my body, staining the earth with my pathetic surrender. I didn’t have a clue how to move forward. My mind plummeted into oblivion.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.” I screamed, stupidity knotting my stomach when I realized I hadn’t taken my birth control pill since the night I met Ryker—not that I had the opportunity. Disgust and self-loathing slithered down my spine, swallowing me in its murky embrace. I welcomed it.

  Ryker didn’t say a word. Not that I expected anything else. I heard the shuffle and slide of his clothes as he dressed. Distantly, I wished it was as easy for me to put myself back together again. I felt weak. Defeated. I wanted to die. Maybe he’d leave me to rot in the underbrush. I didn’t think I’d care. I closed my eyes and silently prayed everything would disappear. My promise to fight Ryker had gone up in flames. The rational part of my brain told me to scrape my body off the ground and move on…persevere. I cursed my rational brain to hell. Unfortunately, Ryker sided with my brain.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Hattie.” Ryker’s hushed voice raked like hot coals over my skin.

  “Hattie,” he repeated. “Get up. We need to go.”

  I shook my head, leaves tangling in the strands of my hair, the smell of dirt coating my nose hairs and my chapped lips. “Leave me here,” I moaned. “Just go away. I’m done.”

  He dragged me up by my shoulders, clamped his hand over my mouth and shoved my jean shorts into my gut. “Put on your shorts and don’t say a word. Now is not the time,” he hissed, scarcely a breath of air.

  “Fuck you,” I screamed through the confines of his hand.

  “Shut up. Do you want to be killed?”

  “Do it. Kill me. I don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do.” He slowly hauled me backward, his fingers cutting into my skin. I dug my heels into the dirt and strained for a nearby tree branch. He snatched my hand from the air, twisting it behind my back. “The Chechen tree is poisonous,” he whispered. “Unless you want to spend the next few days in bed with a rash, I wouldn’t recommend touching it.”

  He pulled a gun from the holster on his belt, aiming it in front of our fused bodies. Then, I spotted them…four men moving in the shadows of the trees like the four horseman of the apocalypse. They were dressed in black with red handkerchiefs concealing the lower half of their faces. AK-47-type assault weapons hung over their shoulders, and bullets draped across their bodies like morbid jewelry. Step by step, they closed in on us from every angle, strangling any possibility of escape.

  “Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son. I heard you were back, but I didn’t believe it,” one man said in a thick accent.

  “Dario, long time, no see.” Ryker shoved me behind his back. I clutched his black leather belt, refusing to let go of him. “Can’t say I missed you.”

  “She’s a pretty one. That was a nice performance the two of you put on,” Dario said, waving his gun at me, his mercenary eyes sliding over my body. “Maybe we could pass her around. Take turns.” I closed my eyes, burying my head in the middle of Ryker’s back. Numb with impending horror, blood roared through my ears and my breath came in quick, short pants. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to do anything but whimper.

  “What do you want?” Ryker said.

  “I’m here to take care of unfinished business.”

  “What unfinished business are we talking about?” Ryker sounded cool and undaunted, and not even vaguely curious, but his muscles coiled into knots next to my hands.

  Dario chuckled and shook his head. “Rever’s out of the picture, but even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t change the future. With all his addiction problems, he can’t lead the Vargas Cartel.”

  “Not my problem.” Ryker said.

  “Maybe not, but the cartel is dying. Somebody needs to take control. I’m going to be that person.”

  “And you think a coup is the answer?”

  Dario cocked his head to the side. “It doesn’t have to be a coup. I’m going to take control of the cartel assets and territories, and consolidate the power behind me. I will systematically force Ignacio to accept me as the future of the cartel.”

  “It’ll never happen. You’re a second rate hack. You don’t have what it takes to run a fruit stand much less the Vargas Cartel.”

  Dario scoffed. “You’re wrong. Unlike Rever, I’ve moved steadily up the ranks, working as a lookout, record keeper, plaza boss…and now it’s my turn to be the head of the cartel. Do you think you can swoop in and take control like you didn’t abandon us years ago to sell your soul to the highest bidder?” Dario took a half a step forward, his gun pointed at the dead center of Ryker’s chest.

  “I had my reasons for leaving, none of which are your business.”

  Dario shrugged. “You’re right. As long as you’re a good boy and disappear again, I don’t give a shit about your reasons.” Dario held out his hand. “It’s four to one. You’re outnumbered. You won’t win this time. Hand me the gun and make this easy. I don’t want to kill you. Ignacio won’t like that, but I will.”

  Ryker paused. Tension buzzed in the air, swirling around us like a category five hurricane. “No. Not happening.”

  Dario took another step forward. “You can hand me the gun and live another day, or you can die now, and the animals can pick at your carcass until you’re unrecognizable. It’s your choice.”

  “Back the fuck up and leave. You’re involving yourself in things you don’t understand.” With his gun trained on Dario, Ryker wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled my ear next to his face. “Gun. Ankle,” he whispered before shoving me by the top of my head to the ground.

  Dario laughed coldly, and ice crystallized inside of my veins, freezing my hand on Ryker’s ankle. “No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand what’s going on here.”

  Ryker pressed his leg into my hand, and I inched my hand up the inside of his pant leg never taking my eyes off Dario. I didn’t understand why Ryker trusted me with a gun, but the mere fact that he did told me we were in a world of shit.

  Ryker waved his gun. “Dario, what do you want? What’s really going on here?”

  “This is my territory now,” Dario spat, waving his gun from side to side.

  “Oh really? When did that happen?” Ryker’s voice sounded deceivingly nonchalant, but from the short time I’d spent with Ryker, I knew he was waiting for the right instant to strike.

  When I had the heavy metal grip of the gun in my hand, I released it from Ryker’s ankle holster. For a split second, I considered injuring Ryker, but then I’d be left with Dario and his murderous crew. Something told me they were infinitely worse than Ryker.

  “I’m staking a claim on this territory. It should have been mine from the beginning anyway,” Dario said, his dark eyebrows slashing downward, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. “Rever’s gone, and everyone realizes Ignacio won’t be around for long. I’m next in line, not you.”

  “Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself?”

  Dario pulled the grungy handkerchief from his mouth, exposing the lower half of his face. A sinister scar ran the length of
his jaw line. “All the more reason to strike while Ignacio is down,” Dario taunted.

  In one fluid movement, Ryker raised his gun and pulled the trigger. A small burst of air raced over my skin. Almost instantly, Dario’s body fell to the ground right next to me—his dead, lifeless eyes staring back at me, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

  Ryker charged forward, kicking one man in the knee, and a sickening crack vibrated through my ears as the man tumbled to the ground wailing in agony. Without pausing, Ryker swung his gun to the right, sending a volley of shots into the chest of another man. By the time he turned, the remaining gunman had a gun pressed to Ryker’s temple.

  “No,” I screamed, surging to my feet. My entire body trembled, and the gun nearly slipped from my clammy hands. I managed to hold it in front of me—my legs spread wide, two hands cupping the grip, and one finger hovering over the trigger.

  The gunman’s eyes blazed like the fires of hell as he studied me. He wasn’t a tall or heavy man, maybe five foot six and a hundred and sixty pounds, but evil rolled off of him in dark, ominous waves, scorching my skin with their intensity.

  Time froze in a dreamlike haze as sweat trickled down the side of my face and dripped from my chin. My heart galloped erratically in my chest. It was now or never. If I didn’t shoot first, the gunman would kill Ryker, and I’d be next. I sucked in a deep breath, and an unnatural calm settled through my body, infecting my mind with lethal focus.

  I can do this.

  I can do this.

  I can do this.

  My gun safety class freeze-framed in my mind. I pulled the gun slide back until I heard a bullet click inside the chamber. I aimed my gun at his chest. I inhaled and squeezed the trigger. The shot exploded from my gun, and I stumbled backward, tripping over a rock and tumbling to the ground. The bone-rattling impact caused the gun to fall out of my hand and skitter across the dirt.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw the clear blue sky with a dusting of white, fluffy clouds. My muscles aching with lactic acid and the toxic remnants of my adrenaline surge, I strained my neck to the side as vomit rushed from my mouth in a sickening swell.

  “Hattie?” Ryker crouched down next to me, an assault weapon dangling from his shoulder.

  “Is he dead?” I whispered, as tiny, unrestrained tremors tore through my muscles one after another. The world around me moved in waves…in and out and back again.

  “He will be in a few minutes.”

  I nodded instead of answering.

  “I don’t know if they were alone. We need to move.”

  “I don’t feel good,” I moaned, rolling to my side.

  He brushed the hair off my forehead, studying my face. “I know.” He held out his hand. “Ready?” No, I was too lightheaded to move, but staying put wasn’t a viable option. Besides, I’d walk for days to get away from the mass murder scene in front of me.

  I placed my hand in his. I didn’t have a choice. Ryker was a known quantity. I knew what he wanted, or at least I thought I did. On the other hand, the other men who might or might not be lying in wait in the shadows of the trees…I didn’t have a clue how they fit into the puzzle.

  “Don’t look,” he warned, forcibly redirecting my face when my eyes darted toward the man I’d shot. He acted a second too late. The gunman was sprawled out on the ground on his back, a perfectly circular pool of blood staining his shirt, slowly spilling onto the ground mixing with dirt. The tree behind him was splattered with blood, and his eyes were fixed open, glassy with the emptiness of death.

  “Walk with me,” he murmured as he threaded his fingers through mine.

  He led me out of the jungle and toward the dirt road where I abandoned the car I’d stolen from the bed and breakfast. With each stride, ice settled inside my bones, and I squeezed Ryker’s hand tighter and tighter, strangling the circulation in his hand, but he didn’t complain.

  A tiny moan of despair escaped from my lips, and I shoved my fist into my mouth, digging my teeth into my flesh, trying to stop the fear from leaking out of me and draining all my strength. My reality kept turning and twisting until my old life faded from memory like a discolored, worn out photo.

  Two hours ago, I hated Ryker, and I would have done anything to escape him. Now, I had tethered myself to him, never wanting to let go. He’d have to pry my cold, dead hand out of his clasp, because I refused to let him leave me anytime in the foreseeable future. He was my new obsession, my one remaining link to sanity in the insane world that had become my reality, and maybe that’s what he wanted all along. I didn’t care.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Shit,” Ryker muttered when we reached the car. He kicked the rear passenger door. “They slashed the tires.”

  “We could still try to drive it,” I insisted, wanting to get away from the scene of my crime as quickly as possible. I’d take solitary confinement in the relatively safe confines of the villa any day over being hunted by a mercenary band of defunct cartel members.

  “Maybe on paved roads, but not on the dirt roads in the jungle.” Lines bracketed his normally sensual mouth.

  “We’re walking?”

  “Just back to the bed and breakfast if we’re lucky.” Ryker moved fast, practically dragging me down the dirt road by our entwined hands, but I didn’t hesitate.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Ryker didn’t answer. He just shook his head.

  My stomach clenched. “Tell me,” I demanded. His silence scared me more than the truth. Mentally, I needed to prepare myself for the worst.

  “They probably slashed the car tires at the bed and breakfast too.”

  “So what? We’ll be stuck at the bed and breakfast until someone comes to get us.” I didn’t know who that someone would be…maybe Ignacio or one of the men under his command.

  “No. We can’t stay there for more than a few minutes. We need to keep moving.”

  A shudder flitted down my spine. “Can’t we call someone?”

  “I don’t have a phone.”

  “Why not?” I gaped.

  “I was in a hurry to leave yesterday. Remember?” he snapped.

  “So we’re just going to roam through the jungle until what? Somebody finds us?”

  “No. We’re not going to roam anywhere. We’re going to head in the direction of the villa.”

  “How far is the villa?”

  “Approximately fifteen miles. Maybe twenty.”

  “If we don’t have a car, we’ll never make it there before dark.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to be stuck in the jungle tonight.” I hated admitting it, but the thought of sleeping on the dirt floor with bugs and snakes didn’t sound restful. I’d rather walk through the night.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Bugs and snakes,” I answered honestly.

  “Bugs and snakes are the least of our worries.”

  “What?”

  “Shh,” he whispered. “We’re close.” He paused and I nearly slammed into his back. “We’re going to walk around to the back of the building, staying just inside the perimeter of the trees.”

  With extreme effort, I convinced myself everything would be fine, we’d find a car in relatively good condition, and we’d be back at the villa before sunset. A moment later, we were one hundred yards from the back of the bed and breakfast. It was quiet…unnaturally quiet.

  Ryker pointed to a tree stump. “Sit there. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  “Wait.” I clung to his hand. “I want to go with you.”

  “No.” He peeled his hand away from mine. “You’ll be safer here.”

  “No, I won’t,” I shot back, unwilling to relinquish his company for even a few minutes. I wasn’t going to be the stupid girl in a horror flick, hiding alone in plain sight despite common sense.

  Ryker slipped the gun from his ankle holster. “You already proved you know how to use it. Don’t hesitate. Shoot anyone you see and you’ll be fine. If
I’m not back in twenty minutes, don’t come looking for me. Follow the road on the right side of the bed and breakfast.”

  “Where does it go?”

  “To a small village.”

  “Will you meet me there?”

  “No. If I don’t come back, I’m dead.”

  My mouth dropped open, and my stomach somersaulted…repeatedly. He was halfway to the back door of the bed and breakfast before I could think of a response, and even then it wasn’t much of one. I curled into a ball, my back to a tree, the gun resting on the top of my knees, and my hand on the trigger.

  Regardless of what Ryker expected me to do, I refused to leave him here. If I heard one flicker of a struggle or a single gunshot, I was going in. I wouldn’t make it to the village or anywhere else without him. Now that he opened my eyes to the dangers of being alone, I couldn’t imagine stumbling into some random village, begging for help, shelter, food, or a phone. I didn’t speak Spanish beyond being able to ask for a beer or the bathroom.

  Minute after minute ticked by, and my blinks became longer and longer. The humid heat and sultry jungle breeze acted like my personal lullaby, and before I knew it, I fell asleep.

  I could scarcely open my eyes when warm, strong arms wrapped around my body. “So much for your future as a lookout,” Ryker said as he pulled my body against his chest. I should’ve objected, but I was too beaten down to do anything but bury my head next to his neck.

  “The tires were slashed?” I whispered against his ear.

  His muscles tensed beneath my legs. “Yes.”

  “Damn…that sucks.” I lifted my head, but he didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes trained on the terrain in front of us. “What about the phone?”

  “The lines were severed.”

  “And Ricardo and his—”

  “Wife?”

  “Yeah. Are they okay?”

  “No.”

  “Are they,” I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath. “Dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.” A wave of regret slammed against my chest, thick and twisted like a wall of thorns crushing me, sucking the air from my lungs. This was my fault. All of it. From the moment I decided to go to Mexico with Vera instead of staying home and licking my wounded ego. Now countless men and at least one woman were dead because I refused to wait until Ignacio and Evan’s dad finalized some stupid diplomatic prisoner swap. I whimpered as seismic shock after seismic shock rocked though my tormented body. My vision tunneled, and for an instant I thought I’d faint. It was too much to absorb.