Secret Maneuvers (26 page)

“Back to the hotel. Pack and gear up. We lift off as soon as we can figure out where they’re going,” the Commander growled out. He gave jerky nods to my detainers as they forcibly turned me and shoved me towards the truck.

I exploded. “FUCK! I knew something wasn’t right, Dec. How the fuck am I going to explain this to my son? Tell me what the hell I’m going to say to Seth!”

Planting his hands on his hips he growled back, “You don’t. Tell him, you and Belle are going to be out of town for a few days for work and have the Sheriff keep an eye on him. Don’t make the kid worry until he absolutely has to. Keep him out of it.”

Without second guessing myself, I pulled the comm. link out of my ear and placed the phone ther
e. Hearing only one ring before the Sheriff’s voice answered sharply, “What do you want?”

I took a deep breath to calm my out of control heartbeat and chaotic thoughts.

“I need a favor…”

Chapter Seventeen

Annabell
e

“You spoke the truth, she is very beautiful. With that long, blonde, curly hair, creamy skin and delicate features, she looks… cómo se dice? Girl next door? Or is it all-American girl?”

The heavily-accented voice broke through the unnatural fog in my head. My eyelids were too heavy to open and I couldn’t remember where I was or who the voice that had been speaking belonged to.

“And you say she showed up with the ATF when they found the shipment in Alamo Heights?”

A string of rapidly spoken Spanish answered his question, which sucked because I’d failed that class and couldn’t understand a lick of what was being said. My SAC had always told me it was going to bite me in the ass for not taking the time to learn the language when we lived so close to the border. It wasn’t so much a bite in the ass I was worried about now, but a bullet to the head. The one word spoken I did understand was enough to scare me shitless.

Because it was a name. Rivera.

Flashes of hazy memories started rolling in. Going to the Big Bull Bar because our source had tipped us off that the shipment there would be moved. Sneaking into the back area of the bar where I’d watched as Henderson helped others break down the rifles to store them into empty kegs. Then feeling a sharp pain to the back of my head before everything went black.

Waking up disoriented, I realized I was lying on the floor of the delivery truck. I watched one of the men arguing with a Border Patrol Agent who was shaking his head no and pointing a finger at me. My kidnapper said something to him that made him pale considerably before the agent held out a shaking hand that was quickly filled with a thick envelope and he turned to hop out of the truck.

As I watched the agent leave, I started struggling against whatever held my arms and legs immobile. Screaming against the gag duct-taped to my mouth. Thrashing about to make as much noise to attract as much attention as possible. Hoping another agent, who wasn’t obviously dirty, would hear me before we left. It seemed like only seconds before a needle was shoved into my arm, the plunger pushing a burning liquid into my body, then a sudden rush of fire spreading through my veins, enveloping me until a feeling of floating euphorically had taken over. I have no idea how long I laid there, high as a kite on God knows what, watching the men talk around me as if I were a piece of trash they couldn’t bother themselves with picking up.

I should have known at least some fear when it became obvious to me that some of what they were saying and laughing about was me. Their leering looks started to linger longer and longer as they licked their lips and wiggled their tongues out at me in blatant taunting. One going so far as to whip his dick out and shake it in my direction as the others laughed at his antics, but with whatever they’d given me working its magic, I had not a care in the world. Eventually, there was the nothing except blackness washing over me again.

When I woke up, I was more than likely somewhere outside of Matamoros, Mexico; in the hands of the Miguel Rivera. One of the most powerful drug lords in the world. To hell with shaking in my boots, I was so scared that I was shaking clear down beneath my skin to my dag-gum bones. I needed a miracle to get me out of here alive. Hopefully, that miracle was going to come in the form of some bad to the bone men who took on hostage rescue missions just so they wouldn’t get bored. I absolutely refused to die here and leave my son behind, wondering what had happened to his mother. Sure, it was comforting that he had Bobby now in his life, so that if anything did happen to me, he wouldn’t be alone in this world. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fight tooth and nail to stay alive and make it back to my boy. All I had to do was survive until the Ex Ops Team could come and get me.

My eyelids felt like they had fifty pound sandbags on them, but I finally managed to drag them open. When my eyes adjusted to the dim environment, I saw something that made me wish I’d kept them shut. I was looking down at my naked body. My tangled hair hung over my shoulders, covering parts of my breasts, but my legs were spread and secured so that nothing was left to the imagination. After this, I may never shave down there again.

Knowing there were at least two men in the room looking at me, I tried to move my hands, wanting to cover myself up, and found it impossible to do so. That might have been caused by the fact that I was tied hand and foot to a cold metal chair. Shit, I was in serious trouble here.

Men’s laughter echoed through the small, dark room and I just knew those asshats were laughing at me. Glaring up at them from beneath my lashes, I recognized one of the men who’d taken me from the bar. He was the same man who’d whipped his dick out and waved it at me in the truck as if it was a privilege for me to see it. Regardless of my shitty circumstances upon remembering that sight, I’d realized it was definitely not a privilege. He’d give a whole new meaning to the words ‘tiddly bits’.

Standing next to him was another man who was looking at me with a small smile on his face. His dark, exotic, good looks paired with the confidence he was oozing, probably made him a woman magnet. I, on the other hand, was repelled. Underneath that abnormally handsome exterior lurked a monster and, at the moment, that monster was looking entirely too pleased that I was tied down, helpless, and completely vulnerable before him like a sacrifice.

Please, God, send Bobby to save me soon.

“Our little American girl looks scared.” Turning his head to the other man he asked, “Do you think she should be scared, Luis?”

Luis’s response of a smile was pure evil. “Si, Senor Rivera.”

Miguel Rivera reached above his head to pull on a string, causing my eyes to go temporarily blind with spots as a bright light bulb flashed on. As I blinked furiously, trying to clear my sight, he stepped closer so that he was within reaching distance of me. Not good. My muscles locked down in anticipation of whatever he was about to do. I just had to stay strong for a little while and Bobby would come for me. The micro trackers were in the guns that had come with us, so they should know exactly where I was. I’d lived through my own personal hell growing up, surely I could survive this.

His hand reached out slowly, tauntingly, to caress a strand of my hair. “Pretty little ATF Agent, what is your name? I need one to give your government when I tell them you are dead. That shall be their warning to stay out of my business from now on.”

I locked down the sob of fear that threatened to escape from my chest at his declaration. He was already planning to kill me? What else should I expect, though? This was a man who had sent his thugs to rape, murder, and destroy any and every person or village that had tried to stand in his way during his expansion. Why should I be any different?

With a surge of anger I jerked my head away from him, trying to pull my hair out of his slimy touch; loathing that any part of him had come into contact with a part of me. If I made it out of here alive, I was going to give myself a disinfectant shower of the likes this world had never seen before. The Lysol Company would have nothing on me.

Rivera laughed at my bit of defiance. “Such a fiery spirit for one who is at my mercy. It is good for you that I like a woman who fights back. It makes things… interesting.” All of the humor drained from his face and it was then that I was given my first up close look at what a psychotic madman looked like. Eyes that were a warm, light brown with subtle hints of green were so cold they almost looked demonic, sending a shiver down my spine.

“What is your name?” he growled.

I sat their quietly, refusing to answer him, waiting for the repercussions of my action. I didn’t have to wait long. His hand flashed out to crack against my cheek, sending my head flying roughly to the side. Damn, he’d hit hard. The only time I’d been hit harder than that was the last night I’d seen my father and ended up fighting him off by knocking him out with the whisky bottle. My face throbbed as I looked back to him. Letting him know, as much as I could by looking him in the eye, that I refused to be broken. I almost wanted to laugh at him really. The irony that I’d been pushed around and damn near beaten to death half of my life gave me a backbone of steel against this kind of attack. So, if he wanted to stand around, slapping me, thinking he’d get his answers, then he had another thing coming.

Rivera held his hand out to Luis, palm up, and wiggled his fingers at the man, silently beckoning for something. Luis responded by pulling out a large hunting knife from a sheath attached to his belt and handing it to his boss. The shiny metal seemed to gleam unnaturally bright in the light, taunting me with the threat of injury. Was it wrong to start praying that if he was going to kill me, that he would do it quickly?

Rivera pressed the tip of the knife on the skin below my left eye and it took everything in me not to flinch, which would make the situation worse. Dragging the knife down my face, the deadly point pressing hard enough to leave a mark without actually breaking the skin, his voice crooned, “All of this pretty, white skin. Unblemished. Wouldn’t you like to leave it that way?”

The further down the knife traveled—over my jaw, down the side of my neck, over my collarbone until it stopped over my heart—it pressed harder into my skin. By the time the knife had stopped moving, he’d broken the skin with a shallow cut that had blood beading up to the surface. The rush of adrenaline and fear coursing through my body caused my skin to feel hyperaware, so that when the first trickle of blood dripped down my neck, the movement felt more like a gushing waterfall to me in my panicked state, instead of the measly drops that were actually trickling down.

All the fear in the world wasn’t going to change the fact that I was giving this man nothing. Not my name, not even the first letter. It was likely going to be the death of me, but at least I would die knowing that I’d honored my job, and it’s training, by sticking to my guns, keeping my silence. Rivera’s jaw ticked in agitation and then he tsked at me like I was a silly, adolescent, school girl.

“How very stupid of you, little American girl. Perhaps you think I will not really hurt you.”

The knife slashed sideways, cutting the skin on my chest above my breasts open. A shocked scream echoed through the room and it took me a second to realize through the burning haze of pain radiating from shoulder to shoulder, that the agonizing scream had come from me.

“Look what you made me do.” Waving the knife in front of my face, he heaved a bored sigh. “I do not wish you to be messy like this. Messy toys are not fun toys for me. Now tell me what it is I wish to know.”

Whatever kept me tied to the chair cut into my wrists and legs as I tried to lunge at my tormentor, screaming in fury and wishing with everything in me that I could claw his eyes out of his head. “You’re not getting my name, you piece of shit!”

Metal flashed again as it arched down towards my legs. The slash ripping open the skin on the top of my right thigh, cutting deep through the tissue almost to the bone, spilling blood freely down my leg and onto the floor. I managed to stifle my scream of agony by clenching my teeth, causing my agonized cry to sound like a half growl, which was semi-appropriate since I felt like I would tear him into chunks, like a frenzied wildcat if I managed to get my hands on him.

The adrenaline surge that had come with the newest cut started to ebb away and my head dropped backwards to rest on my shoulders, so that I stared at the filthy ceiling that matched the filthy floor, while trying to get a hold of myself.

“How righteous you must feel. So very proud of yourself, I see. Willing to take whatever I give you to show that you will be the good agent and not give anything away, just as they trained you to, I’m sure. I wonder… Luis, bring our little ATF Agent a visitor. The one we enjoyed time with yesterday should suffice.”

There was a buzzing in my ears, drowning out the world around me. My breathing was ragged, labored and painful from the anxiety that was closing in on me. Making my chest tight, too tight. Pulling in air was next to impossible and my vision was beginning to haze over. Any other time in my life and this anxiety—as my mind tried to pull in on itself—would have been beyond terrifying. Instead, it was a blessing to escape the horrendous nightmare around me.

That blessing quickly vanished when a slap to the face rocked my body and head to the side. Loud hysterical cries filled the room, but they weren’t mine. Forcing my head to look in the direction of the noise, the sight that met my eyes brought a fresh wave of terror over me. A young woman was on her knees, held there by Luis’s hand roughly holding her head so that her body was arched backwards. My heart broke because she was young. Too young. Probably fresh out of her teens, no older than her early twenties, and entirely too inexperienced in life to have to endure whatever hell she’d endured here.