Kiss the Enemy (Slye Temp) (8 page)

She snickered. “Doesn’t get much more ready than the Trophy Room.”

“Stand up.”

Her eyes narrowed. He wanted that mask off, but the rules were that the victor unmasked the woman. She wasn’t standing. He spoke in a soft voice, but the power behind his words made it an order. “Stand. Up. Or this meeting is over.”

Her gorgeous mouth lost all playfulness. She popped up easily, even in that gold fuck-me dress and on stiletto heels. He still had a couple of inches on her, but hot damn, what a woman.

“Is this ready enough?” she said with just enough threat in her voice to let him know not to confuse her with a submissive woman.

He leaned closer until he could smell her skin and whispered, “You are not even close to what he considers ready.”  Logan ran the back of his finger lightly along her jaw and slowly, very slowly, down her neck. “You will be once I peel you out of that dress and bend you over the back of this sofa. When I lean in close, you will feel me, feel how hard I am for you and know that you cannot have me.”

Her nostrils flared. Anger and passion riding a razor edge.

He let his finger glide along the smooth skin of her shoulder and kept explaining. “I will cup your breasts and carefully pinch those nipples that already pebble in anticipation. My fingers will slide between your legs and tease you until you are wet and begging. If you ask nicely, I might even push them inside just to feel how tight you are.”

A muscle ticked in her jaw. Her breathing gave her away, coming in shorter pants.

He was so hard his dick ached. He wanted her.

That hadn’t been the plan.

This was backfiring on him. He’d thought if she was a hooker she’d have come on to him by now just to get things moving so he’d bring up Mr. D. She hadn’t done that, but neither had she copped to being the contact and ordered him to back off if he wanted to meet the Banker.

Fuck this. If she touched him right now, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t give her everything he’d just promised.

One thing that always worked with the enemy was to threaten them. While he still had her caged between him and the sofa, he said, “If you have a message for Mr. D, then spit it out or prepare to be disappointed.”

Everything about Violet shifted subtly into the calm, defensive mode of someone ready to kill if necessary. She had steely nerves found in those who had faced dangerous situations enough times to wait for the right moment to react.

He’d been right. She was no fucking prostitute. Time to cut the pretense on both parts and get down to business.

Echoing her words, he shifted into an American speech pattern and said,  “I’m here for one reason and talking to
you
isn’t it. Tell your boss that
I’m
Mr. D. If he wants to meet then let’s meet. If not, I’m leaving. What’s it going to be, because you’re running out of seconds?”

Her eyes widened with understanding the mask couldn’t hide. He could swear her lips moved with the word
shit
.

Real concern crawled up his neck. Something was off. Way off.

When she spoke, her voice held enough chill to frost the windows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Move. I have to go back downstairs. My boss isn’t going to be happy that I walked out with you instead of a client. And if you’re telling the truth about being the real Mr. D, my boss is going to be pissed because he doesn’t like to be played.”

She sounded so unbelievably natural.

Thoughts were having a train wreck in his brain. He’d never been this far off fingering an operative. She had to be one. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Move.”

Logan glanced at his wristwatch. In nine minutes, Nitro aka Dragan had to get out of this place alive. What if the real contact was down there right now with Nitro, taking advantage of no bodyguard to get Nitro out of the room?

“Let’s go.” Logan grabbed her arm.

She snatched her arm away, but not before he felt her strength. “Don’t touch me again unless you think you can still bodyguard with one arm.”

“Take off that mask.”

“Dream on.”

“You have ten seconds before I take it off of you.”

“Your insurance had better be paid up,” she scoffed back at him.

Harming a woman galled Logan, but he’d fought alongside skilled females who could take down a terrorist cell. Still, he could unmask her without doing much more than bruise her. He reached for her mask.

Her hand shot out to stop him.

Glass exploded into the room from the balcony at the same moment the door to the hallway burst open.

Four figures cloaked entirely in black, including their heads, entered. Two from each point, weapons drawn, but not shooting.

Violet yelled, “You take those. I’ve got these.”

Was she crazy? Logan grabbed her and swung her around behind him, backing her up to a wall. Violet shoved him aside and yanked up a lamp and swung at the two men coming in on Logan’s right from the balcony.

Why didn’t they shoot her?

Why weren’t any of them shooting?

Logan didn’t have time to find out because he had his own two to battle and lunged at the pair who had entered from the doorway. Thuds and grunts were the only sounds. He slammed a fist and connected with bone, but something hit him across the back that felt like a club.

The room lights went out.

The suite fell into shadows, but he caught a blur of Violet kicking one of her attackers backwards on his ass. The other one grabbed her by the hair that ...
came off?

A right hook caught Logan across the jaw. He stepped back, but it took more than that to put him down. Shoving forward, he hammered blows at the one who’d cocked him on the jaw.

Violet had one of hers in a chokehold, but the one on the floor was back up on his feet, a black shape moving fast. He raised his hand and whipped it down in a stabbing motion.

She froze, weaving, then tumbled forward.

Logan shoved his guy aside and went for her.

A sharp stab hit him in the side of his neck.

Adrenaline kept him moving, but when he reached her, he fell forward on top of her with one last thought.

She wasn’t breathing.

CHAPTER 8

“Time’s up,” Nick declared into the lapel mic on his comm set. It reached all his men covering exits from the hotel and garage. “Dingo, you and Ryder get inside the garage and down to the private parking. Check the trunks first. Tanner, go into the hotel and create the disturbance.”

“Ten four.”

Men were calling back to Nick after each order, confirming their positions and next moves.

Tanner broke in. “I hear sirens coming this way. Might be nothing, but...”

Nick heard something else. A helicopter. Who had called the cops? That might be good news.

Sabrina
could
get Margaux out of jail.

Sirens screamed and strobe lights flashed from police cruisers racing up to the hotel.

“Pull back,” Nick called to the entire team.

The beat of the helicopter blades picked up volume, getting louder as it approached.

What were they hunting for? Nick dove into his rental and snagged a set of binoculars. He focused in on the helicopter hovering over the roof, but Josh had called back with a structural breakdown of the significant parts of the building.

No way a helo could land.

Nick couldn’t see anything that indicated there was a problem at the roof that would bring the cops in by air.

More police cars poured into the scene. Two fire trucks blew their horns to clear the way.

Guests poured out the front doors to the hotel. People on the street were crowding into the area to see what was going on.

Dingo spoke into Nick’s ear, “There’s a fire in the basement and someone’s dead.”

Nick didn’t say a word, too focused on the chopper that came into view moving slowly around the roof. Orange-yellow lights from the hotel’s interior illuminated the jagged spikes that capped the building. The helicopter lifted up and pulled away at the same time. A shape dangled on a cable beneath it, silhouetted against the roof and rising in sync with the chopper.

The long, black shape was just the right size to be a container for a body.

Nick would bet his Ferrari that Margaux was in that container.

CHAPTER 9

Screeching that would irritate the dead hurt her head. Margaux jerked awake and moaned. Pain clawed her body.

More shrieking sounds.
Monkeys.

She sniffed. Rotting vegetation and mildew stench.

And the noxious smell of her body sucking into itself, dehydrating.

Oh, yes. Memory was booting up. Slowly.

She was in a jungle. Naked, lying on the dirty floor of a hut. Locked inside. She blinked her dry eyes. Been here for one day? Two? Head hurt. Body hurt. So tired ...

Her eyes drifted shut. Blurred images of men came at her, shouting in some language that wasn’t English. They dragged her naked body through the mud to a building. Tied her to a chair. Fists came again and again. Then the skin on her arm burned.

She jerked awake, gasping. The world was spinning.

Someone coughed close by.

Turning her head took effort. She dropped her cheek back down on the filthy floor. She focused on a hole at the base of the wall.

That hole was her connection to ...

More coughing. A hoarse voice called out, “You there, Sugar?”

Sugar?
Dragan.

Relief flooded her. She wasn’t alone. Now she remembered. Dragan had been captured, too. He was still alive. He’d used his fingers to tear a small hole in the rotting base of the boards in the wall between them.

She tried to lick her lips that were parched and cracked. No saliva. “I’m here.”

His lips had to be right against the hole. His sigh shuddered hard. “Good.”

“How long have we been here?”

“Two days.”

“Got any plan?” She was struggling to stay awake. Her body wanted to shut down and quit, but they had to escape.

Dragan coughed and whispered, “Working on it, Sugar.”

“What’s with the Sugar?”

He chuckled then grunted. Must have hurt to laugh. He said, “The name Violet ... doesn’t fit you.”

She started to ask why not then heard someone approaching.

Her mind raced, remembering who that would be.

Were Lurch and Tattoo coming for her?

She’d named the tall guard with the square head, hair shaved on the side and thick curly mat of black on top, Lurch. He always arrived with a short, sturdy guy whose eyes hit her chest high. She called him Tattoo after the guy who played on
Fantasy Island
years ago, which wasn’t fair since the real Tattoo had only been two-foot-eight and was a lot more entertaining in those old reruns.

The Tattoo in her living nightmare was a bit of a neat freak, constantly knocking dirt off his shoes and wiping at insects that landed on his clothes. Both guards wore jungle cammies and boots, but Tattoo kept his arms covered in long sleeves. Lurch had a dull look in his black eyes and a cigarette dangled perpetually from his dark brown fingers. Tattoo’s narrow Latin eyes tilted up with a constant smirk.

If Margaux had to guess her location based on those two being locals and speaking Spanish, she’d say South America.

She started breathing fast, anticipating.

Dragan said, “Rest. Not your turn.”

The sound of a door banged open on his side.

Her stomach twisted. She wanted to call out words of encouragement, but they’d figure out that Dragan had dug a hole through the rotting boards so she could talk to him.

Tattoo’s annoying voice shouted at Lurch.

Lurch’s nicotine rasp snarled something back then she heard the sound of a fist or foot hitting a body. Dragan was making them expend energy to move him and Lurch was kicking him.

Don’t, Dragan, you have to live...

The door slapped shut and the silence threatened to destroy her.

Please come back.

She had to think about something other than being left alone. More alone than she’d ever been in her life.

She turned her head again and the throbbing almost blinded her.

Light struggled to sneak through the narrow horizontal window above her.

Not a window.

A slot cut into a metal door. Too high for anything except observation. Another slot at the bottom
should
be for shoving food through.

When was the last time she’d eaten? No idea. What about her last drink of water? A lifetime ago. Who had captured her? She searched her lethargic mind and came up with the Trophy Room.

She’d gone upstairs with the bodyguard. He turned out to be Dragan. Or so he said.

Four men attacked from two directions. She’d held her own in spite of no weapon and that damn dress.

Then what?

A hypodermic needle was shoved into her neck.

Everything blurred again.
Think dammit.

There was more. She had to dredge it up, but thinking hurt like a mother. Her brain had never liked many drugs beyond aspirin or Tylenol. She did recall throwing up on her guards here when they’d dragged her to her feet. Bonus.

The attackers could have killed them at the hotel, but she and Dragan had been brought here for interrogation. Questions about the Banker, over and over again.

Did the kidnappers work for him or were
they
trying to find the Banker too?

She’d asked. Got burned on her hand for that one.

Way in the back of her mind, thoughts of Slye Temp huddled, biding their time to get in her face and tell her how badly she’d fucked up. But that would have to wait. She didn’t have the energy to push her mind beyond this moment and survival.

She
and
Dragan would survive.

They needed water. She wasn’t sweating.

Her hair stuck to her shoulders and back from when she’d been soaked with sweat, but it wasn’t wet now. She hated the smell of her hot skin baking in this hut. Not a breath of air. But the little bit of light outside was dimming, which meant night would come soon.