by Fox, Logan
Who the fuck said swell these days? But, apparently, smoke-toking Lars who had somewhere important to be did.
Lars headed back to the circular drive. Relief washed him in an icy wave when a black SUV appeared, crunching over the gravel.
“Jerry,” Fraco called as he climbed from the SUV. “They’re headed back.”
The guard looked utterly disinterested in this piece of information. Lars put his hand on Fraco’s shoulder, squeezing once, and ground his cigarette out under his heel.
And then, when he should have been getting into the car and driving as fast out of here as he could without drawing suspicion…he couldn’t fucking move. Something pulled at him, kept him rooted.
He can look after himself.
He thinks you’re a fucking coward.
She probably doesn’t even think about you at all.
But not a single one of those thoughts did anything to dispel the urge to go back inside the villa, grab Milo by the scruff of his neck, round up darling little bunny, and haul them out of here with him.
He must have lost his mind. Maybe it was the first sign of starvation.
“I’ll be right back,” Lars said, giving Fraco a wide smile.
The guard eyed Lars suspiciously when he walked past. “You’re not leaving?”
“Fetching my friend,” Lars said, giving him a wave.
The guard settled his rump back against the pillar and returned to his day dreaming.
“Jesus, that was too fucking close,” Lars muttered to himself.
Storm the castle. Find the girl. Leave without bumping into any dragons, counts, or fucking kingpins. If he had Cora, Milo would be forced to follow him out. He’d dangle bunny like a fucking carrot, if he had to.
* * *
How the fuck was he supposed to reach the stables ahead of Javier? He’d been tailing him for a few minutes already; the man strode yards ahead, his bodyguards following like twin shadows. If he ran past, the gig would be up. He could really have used Lars right now. He was so good at coming up with distractions. He could divert Javier, leaving Finn enough time to find the necklace and go back for Cora.
But he’d chased Lars away. Had called him a coward. And his chest still ached with the pain of it.
Finn stopped walking. Ahead of him, Javier disappeared around a corner.
What the fuck was he doing? So what if Javier found the archives? He’d abandoned Cora; not even a guard left behind.
He could leave right now. Bundle her up somehow, get her into a car…somehow, and then…
And then what?
Storm the castle.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He had fifteen rounds of ammunition and a knife hidden in his shoe. How far did he expect to get with that?
No, what he needed was Lars. Together, they could figure something out. Together they could get Cora out.
But would he? Lars was anything but fond of Cora. Intrigued, maybe. But it wasn’t as if he gave a damn one way or the other. He was probably already a mile away from the compound, hidden under a blanket in the back of a truck or something.
He was resourceful like that.
Fuck.
All he could do was go back to Cora. Stay by her side and make sure she got out of this unharmed. Finn turned back, retracing his steps through the villa as he headed for Cora’s room. He took the stairs to the villa’s second level, and as he turned down the passage toward Cora’s room, he caught sight of someone hurrying through a garden path below.
Lars.
He almost yelled out the man’s name. But instead, he ran down the stairs again.
Something hot and bright filled him. Painful, but glorious.
Hope…or relief?
50
Lady of the Night
Miguel’s pistol clattered noisily over the concrete floor. It went straight through Santa Muerte’s bony feet, and slammed into the grate. Cora’d followed its progress across the floor and, when she looked up, Santa Muerte was less than a foot away from her.
She would have screamed if she wasn’t being strangled to death.
There was nothing in those empty eye sockets. But the smell of Florida water—that familiar lavender and lemon—came off the robed figure in waves. Strong, noxious, yet strangely comforting. She extended one bony finger and drew a cold, hard line down the underside of Cora’s chin.
La Flaca leaned in, putting her skull close enough that Cora could see the pitting in the bone, a hairline crack down the forehead, and the three missing teeth on the same side of that skull.
Me llamó, Cora.
She’d summoned the saint? How? When?
The man behind her ducked for the gun, and for a sweet, blissful moment, air poured into her. And, as if that oxygen had banished La Flaca, the saint bled away into the shadows again.
She gasped, greedily inhaling as much as she could, and then the cold muzzle of Miguel’s pistol was against the back of her head.
“Slow,” Angel said.
The gate began sliding to the side. Opening. She hobbled along, aware that pain was starting to return to her injured leg.
It wasn’t important.
What was important was that she was still alive. La Flaca wasn’t dragging her to hell today, and that was what mattered.
The cloth around her throat was released, and she brought both her hands up to cradle her neck. Her skin burned where it had chafed, but it felt intact. She took another huge breath, coughing hard and almost doubling over.
That pistol muzzle followed her as if it had been glued to her head.
Footsteps. Soft, as if made on bare feet. And then the subtle warmth of a body. Hard muscles, warm breath. The smell of dried blood and the musk of a man who’d been left to sweat in the dark.
“Tie him up,” Angel murmured into her ear.
He couldn’t have been more than an inch or two taller than her. And, had she not had only one leg to stand on and lungs that still ached from the memory of near death, she could’ve elbowed him hard enough to make him drop that gun.
But her body shook, and she barely had enough strength to keep herself upright. Whatever adrenaline she’d had earlier, it was gone. She could have lain on the chilly concrete floor and gone to sleep forever.
She stumbled forward when Angel thrust his hips against her to get her moving. Miguel backed up but then stopped, his face ashen.
“Por favor,” Miguel murmured. “No hacer esto.”
“Take his belt,” Angel said to her. “Tie him up.”
She stuck out her hand, and Miguel looked both embarrassed and terrified as she fumbled at his waist to undo his belt. This close, he could have used the baton at his side to strike a killing blow to Angel’s face—would he have the same fracture she’d seen on Santa Muerte’s skull? The same missing teeth?—and they’d be done with this.
But Miguel was probably too terrified of hurting the illustrious Eleodora Rivera to do more than make pitiful sounds in the back of his throat as she tugged his belt free and used it to bind his hands behind his back.
Her captor told Miguel to go inside the cell. He did so, reluctantly, and slammed the cell door closed behind him as instructed. Then he went to his knees and put his head against the grate, murmuring, “Por favor,” and “Perdóname,” as her captor began dragging her away.
Never get taken to a second location. It was something Bailey had drilled into her from his first training session with her. Do whatever you have to to escape.
Sometimes, death was preferable to what happened once you’d been relocated somewhere safe…and private.
But what choice did she have? Her head was foggy, her body heavy and clumsy. The pain from her injured leg had multiplied, and became even worse as the man behind her forced her down the passage toward the distant stairs.
And if she pissed him off, he might just shoot her anyway. How was he to know how damn precious a commodity she was? He might only be keeping her close until she became useless to him, and then he’d shoot her
in the head.
Except…he could have killed Miguel.
“Please,” she said in Spanish. “Don’t hurt me.”
It sounded weak and pathetic, but Angel had to know that she wasn’t about to launch an attack on him. That she was terrified. It might make him discount her just enough so that she could break free and make a run for it.
Would he shoot her in the back?
She pushed away the unhelpful thought and focused on keeping her legs under her. He had obviously realized she couldn’t put much weight on her left leg; he switched arms so the gun was pressed to her right temple, and grabbed her around the waist again, propping her against him.
They turned the corner. The long hallway leading to the stairs she’d bumbled down in search of water was empty apart from that one lonely table and chair.
Why the hell weren’t there more guards down here? Why’d they leave just one man to watch over these prisoners?
Because Javier obviously hadn’t expected his pseudo-niece to wander down here and upset the goddamn donkey cart, had he?
Angel pushed her across the floor, pausing for a few seconds at the foot of the stairs. He craned his head past her to look up the stairs. She caught a brief flash of ebony eyes, wild eyebrows, and a smooth face. But then he was behind her again, the gun pressing into her lower back.
“Up,” he said. If his voice hadn’t been so hoarse, it might have been a nice one.
She gritted her teeth, grabbed the railing, and hoisted herself up the first step. It took a lot more effort going up that it did going down. Every time her left leg bent even a little, pain shot up her leg and ground itself in her pelvis. Her jaw ached by the time she could see the landing—the villa’s ground floor.
Angel crowded them against the wall beside the landing so he could peek out and check both sides of the terrace that led into the garden.
Jade trees and a sapphire sky.
Rubies adorning a nearby bush.
And Lars, head down and lips moving as if he was muttering to himself.
Look up!
But he didn’t. He ran a hand through his long, pale hair, tugged it, and went on muttering. Not once looking up. Not once bothering to notice her existence.
Boots thumped down the stairs behind them.
Her mouth was open for a scream, but her voice was immediately muffled by a wad of cloth. The same one Angel had used to strangle her with? She tried spitting it out, but he clapped that bandaged hand of his over her gaping mouth and shoved her forward.
Agony burst through her leg. That scream came out as a soft keen, but perhaps the people coming down the staircase heard because their boots paused for just a second before speeding up.
Angel shoved her behind the closest arrangement of shrubs, one of which had been trimmed into the suggestion of a woman’s curving body. Nearby, close enough to taint the air with the smell of water, was a small tinkling fountain. Cora struggled furiously, ignoring with desperate determination how much pain that whipped through her body, but then she was on her stomach with a knee driving more pain into her spine when it landed on her lower back.
She stopped, squeezing tears from her eyes and trying to straighten her bent left leg. Angel took a moment to unwrap a length of bandage from his hand, tear it with what sounded like his teeth, and thread it through her mouth to keep the stinking gag in place.
Saliva went down the wrong pipe in her throat. She choked and coughed uncontrollably, but if that noise reached the men hurrying down the stairs, they didn’t slow to investigate.
For all she knew, she sounded like a rutting pig.
Footsteps thumped past; muffled by the bushes. And then Lars was gone.
Frustrated tears dampened her eyelashes as Angel dragged her up. Obviously, he couldn’t see anyone around, because he yanked her across the garden’s winding center path without bothering to keep to cover. He moved so fast, was so fixated on their destination, he didn’t notice when she kicked off one of her shoes. It tumbled and lay in the middle of the garden path; bright white against pale gray cobblestones.
So easy to miss. It was pathetic how desperately she wished that slip of white would be noticed by someone.
The gun found its now familiar spot on her spine, and stayed there.
Her options were clear. Paralysis, possibly death…or letting this man take her out of the villa.
A memory flared then. A desperate, near hysterical prayer she’d whispered while her gelding flowed over the desert.
Please, help me, Santa Muerte. I’ll do anything. I don’t care if you send me an angel or a demon—I just want to see him one more time.
And then she smiled, because Santa Muerte always returned her believer’s prayers—especially when they were willing to trade.
* * *
Finn was halfway down the stairs when he heard sounds of struggle. He stopped immediately, ears straining. Then he sped up. It had to have come from the lower level of stairs. He passed the ground floor, cast a brief glance to the side, and saw Lars still headed toward him. But there was no time to run out to the man. Someone was in the stairwell, and he’d lose them if he didn’t hurry. The same intuition that had told him Javier had done something to hurt Cora told him he was close enough to reach out and grab her.
He thundered down the stairs, not caring how much noise he made. Whoever had her must have already heard him coming. He paused when he came into a long, empty hallway.
Finn loosened his grip on the pistol when the tingles in hand indicated he was cutting circulation from his fingertips. He stalked down the passage with his pistol aimed straight ahead. A brief scan took in a single chair and table with an empty glass and a few cigarette butts in a dented ashtray. They were so old, the place didn’t even smell of ash anymore.
He found the cells. Heard pitiful sobbing coming from one of them. He dropped the pistol a little, but not enough that it would take him longer than a fraction of a second to aim and fire at anyone he didn’t like the look of.
The first cell looked empty, except for a bundled shape on the floor that, in the darkness, could have been a dead body or a pile of laundry.
The second held a shaking, sobbing Miguel.
“What’s happened?” Finn snapped, but he already knew what Miguel had been about to say.
Knew, because the air smelled of Cora down here. More in that long hallway than in here—here blood and sweat and shit predominated.
“He take her. It my fault,” Miguel blubbered. “Por favor, lo siento mucho.”
“English!” Finn rattled at the grate, but it was locked. When he glanced around for the keys, Miguel began sobbing again.
“He take them!” the man cried out. “He take keys. He take Elle. El Guapo kill me…”
You betcha, came his beast’s snide remark. El Guapo don’t tolerate fuck ups.
Finn slammed his palm against the grate and ran back the way he’d come. He almost skidded in a puddle, but caught himself against the wall with a hand. There was a flash of pain—brick scraping off tender skin—but it was as distant as the sound of his beast’s claws click-click-clacking in the basement of his mind as it paced.
Readying itself for the coming violence.
51
Her pretty brown eyes
A breeze stirred Lars’s hair against the nape of his neck. He swiped a hand through his hair, settling it.
“Fucking idiot,” he said under his breath. “You could have been out of here already.”
God, now he was talking to himself.
Someone breathed against the back of his neck.
He spun around, pistol already in his hand, eyes wide. The leaves of a nearby tree shivered as a breeze toyed lazily with them. Jesus, he was jumping at shadows. The garden was empty—it wasn’t as if someone would sneak up on him.
Would they?
But that hadn’t been a breeze. He’d felt warm air, even a suggestion of lips touching the skin at the base of his skull. He turned, and looked straight into
the sardonic smile of a skeleton. His heart beat once, hard, against his breastbone and then went still.
A statue. That much was obvious. Realistic as fuck, but still a statue. And it was grinning at him like the fucking maniac he was. He turned in a casual circle, hoping there wasn’t anyone following him who might have seen his yellow-belly display.
Which is when he caught sight of the shoe that lay in the middle of the path.
It hadn’t been there when he’d walked past that exact spot not a minute ago. He glanced over his shoulder at the smiling skeleton.
“The fuck you smiling at?” he said, shrugging his shoulders to stop his skin from creeping over his shoulders like a caterpillar. He went and picked up the shoe. And then glanced up and caught the vaguest suggestion of movement. A pair of shadows slipped into the opposite hallway and disappeared behind a wall.
Lars blinked. “Fuck my life,” he muttered, and then started forward again at a brisk pace. He didn’t want to risk running into anyone who might be waiting for him to round that corner, but he didn’t want to lose sight of what might have been Cora.
The only person he could think would be with her right now—
Milo.
But wouldn’t Cora have been limping? Those two shapes had been a blur, both running.
Not running…escaping.
Or maybe it hadn’t been Milo.
Lars moved faster, crouched, and swung his upper body around the corner aiming at—it turned out—nothing. Just more shadows. They were deep and well defined this late into the day; even blacker for the stark sun.
Lars rushed down the hallway and rounded the next corner. There were three doorways leading off this one and an archway that led, from the fall of the light, into a room that must have been open to the garden.
If he’d stayed in the garden, he might have caught a better glimpse of them.
This villa was a fucking maze. No wonder Javier didn’t care about a rival cartel finding him; they’d get lost and die of starvation before they found their way out of this labyrinth. Were the servants running this place issued a map and a GPS device on their first day of work?