The Bargain (5 page)

Chapter Eight

“Here’s where you’ll live for the next few weeks.” Ryker threw open a white steel door.

I tightened the belt on my robe as my eyes scanned the room. No window. White walls. Narrow bed. White coverlet. White linens. Painted white concrete floors. I always liked the perceived elegance and simplicity of white, but right then I promised myself a life full of color when I escaped. Not if, but when, because there wasn’t an alternative. I refused to die at the age of twenty-four in the middle of nowhere before I had the opportunity to do anything with my life. And when I got my life back, I wouldn’t cave to my parents’ demands or expectations…ever.

“It’s like my private padded cell minus the padding,” I mumbled under my breath. If he heard me, he didn’t care.

“Most of the items from your suitcase are on the shelves in the closet.” His arm waved in the direction of the door at the far end of the room.

“Most?” I questioned, brushing my damp hair behind my ears.

“I discarded anything that you might use to harm yourself or us.”

“Us?” I glanced over my shoulder.

“Yes.” He chuckled. “There are others.”

“How flattering,” I mocked, flinging myself onto the narrow bed. Unfortunately, it was as hard as it looked and nearly knocked the air from my lungs when I landed. “An entire team of deranged assholes all dedicated to restraining a hundred and fifteen pound woman.”

“Someone will bring you food within an hour.” He smirked. “It’s probably not what you’re used to, but I think you’ll you find it acceptable.”

“I’ll be fine. I don’t care what I eat.”

Ignoring the plastic chair in the corner, he reclined on the edge of my bed, his long muscular legs stretching out in from of him. I wished he would move. Up close, he was just as mesmerizing as the first time my eyes connected with his last night. I didn’t want him to lull me into a false sense of security.

“So who do you think will come to your rescue? Your dad or your lover’s family?”

My brow furrowed. “How do you know about Evan?”

He shrugged. “I know a lot of things.”

My body stiffened. “How?”

His lips curled into a slow, unsettling, almost predatory smile. Vivid, heated images of his lips exploring mine flashed through my mind. Shame raced through my body. I jerked my head to the side, closing my eyes, trying to erase the image from my mind.

He trailed his finger down the exposed flesh of my thigh. My stomach twisted in knots.

“Do you think Evan would still want you if he knew you spread your legs for me?”

I covered my face with my hands, but a rough-edged sob escaped my mouth. It didn’t matter what he said. I didn’t care.

He peeled my hands from my face, tilting my chin, forcing me to look at him with his icy gray eyes. He leaned toward me, his body braced above mine. “Don’t look so stricken. Maybe he wouldn’t care.” One side of his mouth lifted. “He has some unusual tastes, but you don’t know that yet, do you? He usually goes elsewhere for those needs.”

He said it to bait me. I wasn’t dumb. I realized that, but for some reason my mind wasn’t 100 percent sure he had lied. I knew Evan cheated. I saw it. He admitted to it and more, but maybe Evan held something back. Something darker. Something unforgivable.

A tear rolled down my face, but not because I still loved Evan. I didn’t. I wasn’t sure I ever did, but Ryker had kicked me in the gut while I was down. “Given that we broke up weeks ago, what Evan likes is no longer relevant,” I said, my voice choked and shaky, instead of unconcerned and confident as I intended. I cleared my throat. “I will never get back together with him. Never.”

“Really? Are you sure about that?” He raised one eyebrow, his jaw clenched and his lips pressed into a tight line.

I hit him hard in the middle of his chest with my palm, shoving him backward and out of my space. I searched his intense face, and then it hit me. He didn’t know I broke up with Evan. He wanted Evan to care, to be franticly searching for his lost love. Unbidden, a bitter laugh spilled from my mouth as tears rained down my face. One point for me. “You couldn’t have been watching me very closely if you missed that fact. Everyone knows I caught him cheating on me. I guess you don’t know as much as you think you do.”

He stood up. “Hopefully he still cares enough to help you. Senator Deveron would be a useful ally. If not, you’ll only have one person to dissect the months of red tape to pardon my brother and secure your release. You might not make it that long.” He stalked toward the door.

“Maybe your brother won’t either.”

“I’m not worried. The U.S. government doesn’t torture its prisoners, especially a high profile one with useful connections and information.” He shrugged and glanced over his shoulder, his silver eyes glowing with a sinister light. “I can’t say the same about the Vargas Cartel.”

My mind swirled as he slammed the door and locked it, cutting me off from the world. Not that there was much to see and explore outside my white prison cell, but I hated being alone. I hated silence more, and it appeared I’d have a heavy dose of both in the foreseeable future. The soft hum of silence reminded me of a lifetime of disapproval when I didn’t wear the right outfit, say the right thing, or eat the right food. From an early age, those all too frequent occasions always ended the same way…with me alone in my room contemplating how I would do better next time.

As I opened the closet, I found a small stack of clothing. Dropping my robe on the floor, I pulled a dress over my head. I didn’t know much about the Vargas Cartel, just a few tidbits of information from my Latin American politics class.

From what I recalled, they controlled the vast stretch of land from Nuevo Leon, which bordered Texas, all the way south to the Yucatan—which included my vacation destination. From all accounts, the Vargas Cartel had a distinguished record as drug traffickers, human traffickers, arms traffickers, highly efficient executors…and those were just the offenses I remembered off the top of my head. They were equal opportunity players, ruthlessly diving into anything that made money. According to some experts, their range of influence extended to the U.S.

I sank down onto the floor next to the bed, dropping my head into my shaky hands. I was fucked. Of all the places in the world where Vera could have convinced me to go for Spring Break, she’d picked an area associated with the Vargas Cartel. Instead of taking a vacation to escape my nagging parents and Evan’s pathetic apologies, I had taken a vacation to the center of hell with little hope of escape.

How would my dad get me out of this mess? Miles of red tape stood in the way of my release. Securing Rever Vargas’s release wouldn’t be easy either. My dad would have to call in every political favor in his arsenal and then some. The U.S. government rarely negotiated with criminal organizations and terrorists, which sounded like a good policy until it directly impacted me.

Even if my dad succeeded, I still might not make it out of this mess alive. Every day I spent as a prisoner of the Vargas Cartel increased the chances that I’d learn too much and inadvertently sign my death warrant.

Chapter Nine

When I crawled into the small bed, I knew I’d never be able to fall asleep. Every inch of my body vibrated with anger. I wanted to tear apart the room and turn it upside down. My wrists, ankles, and head throbbed in unison. I should have begged for food when I had the chance. My stomach felt sunken and nauseous—a combination of too little food, too much alcohol, and the lingering effects of whatever Ryker injected into my neck.

I heard a click at my door, and I shot up in bed. A man I didn’t recognize walked through the door carrying a tray of food. Without a word, he sat it on the edge of the bed. Unlike Ryker, he wasn’t tall. In fact, he was probably a good three inches shorter than me. He wore a white collared shirt and tan pants. He had dark hair and wide-set eyes, and black tattoos covering both of his arms.

“I’m not hungry,” I shouted at him, despite the relentless growling and churning of my stomach.

He cocked his head to the side but didn’t say anything.

“How long do I have to stay in this room?”

Again, he didn’t answer.

Frustration boiled under my skin. I picked up the bottle of water on the tray and tossed at the wall, grazing the side of the man’s head. “Can’t you talk or is your silence part of the plan to torture me?”

His lips drew back over his yellowed teeth, and he stalked toward me, his entire body rigid. He had an odd, jittery intensity that caused the hair on my arms to rise in protest. Confused, I took a few steps backward until my back hit the cold, cement wall. I lunged sideways, but his hand encircled the base of my throat, the pressure enough to restrict, but not sever the airflow to my lungs. His fingers bit into my skin.

“I can hear you,” he barked through clenched teeth, a faint accent flavoring his words. “But I don’t give a fuck what you have to say or what you want. If it were up to me, you’d be dead,
puta.
” His breath smelled of onions and garlic, and I shifted my head to the side, but he snapped my head forward, forcing me to look at him.

His pupils contracted to a black pinpoint, and the hand on my neck tightened until edges of my vision blurred. Woozy, I shook my head wildly from side to side as tears rolled freely down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. Let me go,” I said, but the words were garbled and meaningless to him.

Desperately trying to free my neck from his grip, my fingers clawed at his hand without success. A harsh, sinister laugh erupted from his mouth, and he lifted a shiny, short blade in front of my face, twirling it back and forth, taunting me. Then, he trailed it down my cheek, along my neck to the hollow at the base of my throat. Even though he didn’t puncture my skin, my heart pounded so hard, I thought it’d rip through the walls of my chest.

With soulless, vacant eyes, he sliced one strap of my sundress and then the other. His hand pressed even tighter around my neck, and I wondered if this was how I would die…at the hands of a nameless man, in a nondescript room, my body buried somewhere in the Yucatan jungle. With one final burst of effort, I tried to lift my leg to knee him in the balls, but the muscles in my legs refused to cooperate. They were boneless, collapsing under the weight of my body held up only by the press of his hand.

Suddenly, the door flew opened so hard it rebounded and almost closed again. With gray eyes the color of thunderclouds, Ryker stalked through the door, his hands fisted at his sides, color staining his cheeks.

One.

Two.

Three steps and he stood next to me, hovering over us like an avenging specter. Not wasting a second, he yanked the man’s hands from my neck. Like a lifeless doll, I collapsed to my knees, bracing my throbbing neck with my fingers and gasping for air.

Ryker shoved the man into the wall, his hand fisted in the man’s shirt.
“¿Qué mierda estás haciendo?
”

“
Ella
arrojó
una botella hacia mi cabeza. Tienes suerte que no la maté
,” the nameless man spat, his face the color of molten lava, his eyes flashing, and his hands fisted in the material of his tan pants.

“
No importa
,” Ryker yelled, along with hundreds of other words I couldn’t begin to understand. He repeatedly slammed the stranger into the wall, punctuating each sentence or thought with the thud of flesh hitting cement.

My mind swirled watching the exchange of rapid-fire Spanish. I took three years of Spanish in high school, and I recognized a few words, but not enough to decipher the conversation. I heard
kill
,
head,
and
bottle,
but the other words meant nothing.

I should have screamed or ran. Instead, I sat unmoving as tremors ravaged my limbs, and air slowly refueled my oxygen-deprived body.

“Find someone else to babysit her,” the man screamed, switching to English as he flung his hand toward me.

“
Déjanos!
” Ryker tossed the man toward the door by his shirt.

The door to the bedroom slammed shut, echoing off the barren walls and concrete floors. Ryker turned his back to me, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his jeans, and his head bent. Shouts in Spanish and loud crashes filtered through the heavy door.

When the voices stopped, Ryker turned, crouching down in front of me. Breathing heavily, he grazed my neck with his fingertips. I recoiled, not wanting to be touched by him or anybody else. My hands shaking, I jammed my fist into my mouth, suddenly overwhelmed by the reality of my situation. A brutal cartel had drugged and abducted me. I’d be lucky if I walked away from this situation with my life, because I was starting to realize my only way out might be in a body bag.

“Stop,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I need to check your injuries.”

“I’m fine, not that you care.” I crab-walked backward, but I didn’t get far before the cold wall pressed into my back, trapping me.

“No, you’re not fine, and your condition definitely matters,” he said gruffly as he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me from the ground. I kicked him. I elbowed him and pulled at his hair. Nothing worked. He restrained me with minimal effort. The hard planes of his chest were warm against the front of my body, and his heart drummed wildly against his ribcage, which seemed wrong. He should feel icy, cold, and inhuman, because he was. He was a criminal.

Ryker dumped me on the bed. “What the hell?”

Shit.
Tears rushed down my face, mingling with the snot from my nose. If I could see myself I’d be horrified, but I didn’t have the luxury of caring about my appearance any longer. I just needed him to leave. I tried to shield my face from him, but he snatched my hands, pressing them into the rock hard mattress as his eyes surveyed every inch of my body. I closed my eyes, unable to witness his icy perusal as though I were an inanimate object.

After seconds that stretched like hours, he released my hands and I rolled to my side, my back to him.

The bed dipped behind me, and he rested his hand on my hip. “You need to eat.”

“For some unfathomable reason, I lost my appetite.” I kicked the tray, but it only budged an inch or two.

“Nobody wants to see you hurt. As long as the U.S. government releases my brother, I’m happy to let you go. In fact, I’ll fly you first-class back to the U.S.”

I rolled onto my back and stroked the tender skin of my neck. It’d be black and blue soon if it weren’t already. “You could’ve fooled me.”

His lips pressed into a firm line, and he sighed in exasperation. “Just behave yourself and this whole thing will be infinitely easier for you. Don’t make waves.”

Did he think I was stupid? I couldn’t believe any word that tumbled from his beautifully cruel lips. “Just let me go and I’ll talk to my dad. I’ll convince him to grant a pardon for your brother or whatever the hell else you want. I have to go home.” My heart pounded against the walls of my chest. “I have to be in school in a couple days. I can’t miss. I’m a teaching assistant. I have a few more months until graduation. I have an internship lined up this summer.”

He slanted forward so his mouth was less than an inch from my ear. “Sorry, Hattie,” he murmured in a soft, soothing voice. “But I can’t have you complicating my plans. When Rever’s released, you’ll be released. Tit for tat. And even if I wanted to let you go, I couldn’t.”

“Sorry?” I shook my head from side to side, strands of hair whipping across my face. “Sorry for what? Abducting me? Imprisoning me? Drugging me? Fucking me in a dirty alley?”

A faint chuckled escaped his lips. “If I said all of the above, would you be happy? Or maybe I should apologize for everything but fucking you.” He cocked his head to the side, and a lock of midnight colored hair veiled his expressive eyebrows. “My memory is hazy, but I think you enjoyed it.”

I gasped. Satisfaction curled his lips into a wicked smile, and my stomach rolled in giant waves. “Shut up. Just shut up. You’re an asshole.”

His lips twitched, and he folded his arms across his chest. “So I’ve been told.”

“I hate you.”

He brushed a kiss across my forehead. An unwelcome heat spiraled through my body and my heart squeezed. My reaction didn’t make sense, so I mentally chalked it up to the trauma of the last few weeks—starting with catching Evan cheating, and ending with my abduction.

“No, you don’t,” he drawled as he rose from the bed.

“I don’t want to see you again. Can’t someone else take care of me?”

He raised one eyebrow, a quick up and down motion that made me uneasy. “Who? Caesar?”

“Caesar? Who’s he?”

“The man who tried to squeeze the life out of your neck a few seconds ago. Or maybe you’d prefer my father. I have a hunch you wouldn’t like him very much either…he has a notoriously bad temper. Do want some tea or broth?”

What the hell?
I blinked. “What?”

“Your throat is probably sore from Caesar’s attentions. Tea or broth might be better than solid food.”

“I’ll have tea with some whiskey.”

He shook his head. “Sorry. It’s not on the menu. Alcohol could make you more volatile, and it’s not good for you anyway.”

“Lots of things aren’t good for me…like being locked in a cell, the lack of sunlight, being molested, but you don’t seem to care about any of those things.”

He scoffed. “You haven’t been molested. Far from it.”

Heat poured into my face as memories of the night in the bar with him flashed through my mind, taunting me with my stupidity. I turned to the side hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“Are you blushing?”

“Hardly.” I rolled my eyes. “Thanks to your buddy, Caesar, I don’t feel well.”

“If you say so,” he replied. “Have a good night.” He opened the door.

“What about the tea or the broth?” I reminded him, my voice panicked. Even though I didn’t like him, I didn’t want to be alone. I’d go crazy staring at the walls for hours without anything to do.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He slammed the door behind him without glancing back.

“Dammit,” I screamed, and the vibration raked like fire over my sore throat. I threw my pillow at the door. Tears flooded my eyes, clouding my vision. I was sick of crying and being sad. Fate had screwed with my life, and I didn’t know if anything would feel right or safe again.