by Pam Godwin
No, no, no. He couldn’t do this to Vera. He couldn’t respond to another woman’s touch.
A voice in his head whispered, You’re not doing it. It’s not your fault. This is rape.
Didn’t matter. As Silvia slipped under the table and drew him into her mouth, he saw red. He roared. He thrashed in the shackles. And he hardened.
Spittles of rage sprayed the steel surface beneath his lips. He choked as she sucked. His balls withered as she groped. His skin peeled away from burning muscles, shrinking with the force of his unholy wrath. And still, his cock did what it was designed to do. It swelled in the suction of wet heat.
Shame threaded through him. Vulnerability and helplessness throttled him on all sides. He’d been here before. Pinned down and degraded beneath Van’s cruelty. Only this time was worse.
He belonged to someone else. His body wasn’t just betraying him. It was betraying the woman he loved.
Voices barked in a fog around him. Questions. Demands. They fired their inquiries one after the other as a dry finger probed his ass and forced its way inside.
Her fingernail scratched through the unbearable penetration. He tried to relax, but a strange buzz flogged his ears. Heat pricked the backs of his eyes, and his vision blurred.
He checked out, left the room, and went to a place inside his head.
He couldn’t be present while Silvia sodomized him, milked him, and repeated the torture. And he couldn’t allow himself to succumb to a moment of weakness and expose his vigilante operation, his friends, or anything related to Vera.
He burrowed so effectively inside his mind that he didn’t sense the world around him. Until blinding agony seared through his rectum.
A strangled scream burst from deep in his chest. He knew the metal phallus had torn something inside him before she pulled back and rammed into him again.
Cold fire. Scathing pressure. If he’d still had an erection, it was long gone. Bile welled in his throat. He came close to blacking out as his spirit vacated his body and crashed back into his organs so violently that he shook, heaved from an empty stomach, and felt horribly, miserably dead.
And so it began.
Silvia fucked him with a ruthlessness that aroused everyone in the room but him. Omar and Miguel continued to volley their questions, but the pauses in between grew longer as they watched Marco mount their sister and thrust into her from behind, driving the velocity and force of the strap-on.
Then the interrogation was forgotten altogether as they jerked off to the show.
Alejandro was the only one not participating. He stood off to the side, arms clenched across his chest. But he wasn’t unaffected. The bulge in his pants confessed his arousal.
It was apparent then why no one else was in the room. How would the cartel members feel about the incestuous orgies that took place among their leaders? No wonder the brothers never answered questions about how they were related to her. This wasn’t okay. The most depraved criminals wouldn’t find this sibling fuckery amusing or acceptable.
The fact that they were doing it in front of Luke meant they had no intention of letting him live.
Watching them together, however, helped him understand Silvia’s motivation. She loved her brothers, sickeningly and unlawfully, and craved their attention. When they brought in Vera, Silvia was no longer the center of their world. She didn’t approve of how possessive they became over another woman.
The crazy, jealous bitch moaned behind him, and Marco joined in, shouting in Spanish as he came.
Inside his stepsister.
“I need something to eat.” Silvia pulled out and gave Luke’s ass a hard slap. “But don’t worry, handsome. I’m nowhere near finished with you.”
She might be when she found out her key card had been swapped.
Marco escorted her out, using his own key. They came and went in pairs, presumably to freshen up, refuel, and check on the cartel’s operations.
Hours passed.
No one mentioned Vera.
Luke didn’t speak a word, and they didn’t free him from the restraints. After bending in the same position for so long, his muscles and joints ached. The contusion on his head hadn’t stopped throbbing, and his ass burned in ways he hadn’t experienced in eight years.
He had no plan. No hope, save one.
Vera was alive.
He couldn’t accept the alternative. It was the only thought keeping him sane.
Eventually, Silvia returned with Omar, wearing a silk robe and fresh lipstick. She dropped the garment inside the door and strolled toward Luke, completely nude.
He turned his head and looked the other way.
“Oh, handsome. Don’t be that way.” She climbed atop him, straddling his back and grinding her wet pussy against his spine. Then she angled forward and licked his ear. “I want your gorgeous cock inside me.”
His insides curdled, and his breaths caught fire, searing past his nose.
“His dick is thick like yours, Alejandro.”
The youngest brother glowered from his post near the door. “Don’t—”
“Don’t what?” She returned to Luke’s ear. “Whenever he fucks me, it makes him so angry. God, I love his angry sex.”
Out of the five of them, she was clearly the most psychotic. What kind of deranged shit had to happen to a person to turn them into the grinding, sex-crazed demon on his back? She didn’t belong in this world. She might even be too damaged for hell.
The door opened, and Marco stalked in. All five of them were here now, which meant the torture would begin again.
Sweat chilled on his brow, and his ass clenched, unbidden.
Silvia slid off his back and perched a naked butt cheek on the table beside his face. Her hand drifted to his hair, stroking him like a pet.
He seethed, jerking and bucking, unable to stop her. Exhaustion pressed into his bones, and prolonged stress fumbled his thoughts. But no matter what they did to him, he would not talk.
“Tell me.” She toyed with the hair at his nape. “Do you love her?”
He bit down on his lips.
She lowered off the table and put her face in his. “Do you love Vera Gomez?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He arranged his forehead in an expression of confusion. If he remained silent, would it give too much away? Maybe. So he formed a fitting response. “I despise you with every drop of blood in my body.”
Her head jerked back, and her eyes tapered into reptilian slits. “Harsh. But you know that’s not what I asked. The woman you paid three million for? Vera Gomez? Was she just a job to you? Or did you love her?”
He didn’t like her speaking about Vera in past tense. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you demented bitch.”
“It’s time to remove some of his extremities.” Marco strolled forward, holding large steel-bladed pruning shears. He opened the handles and snapped the blades closed, his expression chillingly lethal. “Starting with the one you love most.”
“No!” Silvia straightened. “You’re not cutting off his dick. That’s mine, and I’m keeping it.”
“You can keep it in a jar.”
If Luke’s bladder had anything to expel, he might’ve pissed down his leg.
“I want to feel him inside me, Marco.” She sidled up to her brother and cupped him between the legs. “I want to feel both of you at the same time.”
“Fucking insatiable.” He smacked her hand away. “Never happy. Look what we built for you.” He swung out an arm, indicating the estate. “We give you everything you want, and it’s never enough.”
“That’s not true.” She burst into Spanish, throwing around her hands.
Marco yelled back, getting in her face. Miguel and Omar joined in, and the dysfunctional family began to scream over one another.
Luke kept his eyes on the hedge shears in Marco’s grip. His blood ran cold at the thought of that thing going near him. And it would, as soon as they stopped arguing.
Think, god
dammit.
What could he say to get out of this? What bargain could he make without revealing the existence of his team? Could he fabricate a believable story on the fly?
His ruse as a wealthy slave buyer had taken weeks to prepare, every detail memorized and thought out. If he changed his story now, they would know he was lying. Besides, anything he told them would only delay the inevitable. He couldn’t stall them for weeks.
As his captors continued to quarrel about which limb to remove first, the door opened.
They didn’t hear it.
His heart pounded at the sight of a gun, connected to an outstretched arm, the body out of view. Then the gunman stepped in.
Gunwoman.
He stopped breathing as Vera dragged an unfamiliar man in behind her and closed the door.
The room fell quiet. Every head turned. No one was breathing.
She aimed a Glock at Alejandro’s face, who had pulled his own gun the moment she came in.
He stood close enough to knock the weapon from her hand. But he wouldn’t. Because her other hand held a goddamn grenade. The pin was gone, her tiny fingers white-knuckled around the spoon. If she dropped it, they were all dead.
Luke scanned the room, confirming that only three people were armed. Alejandro, Vera, and the man she’d brought in.
What the fuck was she thinking? She was supposed to be gone and calling in backup. Goddamn her for not listening.
And God love her for showing up.
He should’ve known. This woman didn’t run. She fucking fought.
Rifles and ammo hung from her shoulders and hips. Beneath the heavy artillery, she wore a bulletproof vest. Her bare arms and neck showed multiple spider bites and signs of swelling. But there were no visible holes in the vest. No signs of gun wounds.
How had she made it in and out of the armory and all the way here without getting shot?
No matter. She was here, and he couldn’t have been prouder of her.
“I fucking told you she wasn’t dead,” Alejandro growled at his brothers.
“Easy, Vera.” Miguel didn’t move, his accent losing its smooth charisma. “Put the pin back in.”
“I dropped it outside.” She shrugged, rattling the rifles on her back. “Whoops.”
“Romero.” Marco glared at the skinny man at her side. “What are you doing?”
“She held me at gunpoint, jefe.” Romero gripped a huge phone, his gangly body weighed down by more guns and ammo belts than Luke could count. “She broke into my room and… I’m so sorry, jefe. She was going to kill me.”
Who was this kid? He didn’t look like a coldblooded cartel member.
“What did you do, Romero?” Marco asked dangerously.
With Alejandro’s gun trained on her, she returned the aim with her Glock. “He shut down the cameras and sent the coordinates of the compound to Restrepo. If you listen hard, you might hear the choppers overhead.”
Luke’s pulse burst into a sprint.
Except Matias only had one chopper in the States. Maybe she assumed there would be more? Or maybe she was lying through her teeth.
His anxiety reached an all-time high as she waved the weapon through the room and pointed it at Silvia.
Did she even know how to use a gun? Could she shoot accurately under pressure?
“Unshackle him.” Vera scowled at Silvia’s naked body. “So help me God, I’ll pump your skank ass full of lead, starting with your tits.”
“You’re not shooting anyone.” Miguel stepped forward.
She swung the Glock toward him. Until Omar called her name, and she turned the gun on him.
Luke’s mouth dried as he watched her finger bounce all over that trigger. With any luck, she wouldn’t shoot him.
“How did you get in here?” Omar asked. “Only the people in this room have access.”
“I used your sister’s key.”
“Then whose key…?” Silvia’s face paled, and she shot a deadly look at Luke. “Oh, my God. You swapped it on the veranda. That’s why I couldn’t get into my room tonight.”
“This is bullshit.” Omar charged toward Vera.
With one hand on the grenade, she adjusted the gun’s aim on him, let out a screech, and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Omar froze, and the room went still.
“Well, shit.” She rattled the Glock side to side. “Is this thing on?”
The brothers erupted in mocking laughter.
She laughed nervously with them, sobered, and retrained the gun.
“Just kidding.” She fired off a shot with a yelp of surprise.
Holy fuck. Luke jerked as if he could dodge the bullet.
It missed him, missed Omar, too, and hit the concrete wall. The men moved, rushing at her, and she fired again. Over and over, rounds pinged through the room, until one finally hit Omar in the chest.
Silvia wailed as he hit the floor, dead before he dropped.
The beautiful part? Vera had shot him without letting go of the grenade.
She’s incredible. Ferocious. And mine.
Outrage and grief poured off Marco and Miguel, but it was Alejandro that kept Luke’s attention. The only reason the muscle head hadn’t fired yet was because of that grenade. But if he inched close enough, he could wrestle it from her hand. If she shot him, he would shoot back, to hell with the grenade.
Luke burned with the urge to shout commands at her.
Don’t take your eyes off Alejandro.
Keep Romero beside you.
Don’t let anyone take the kid’s weapons.
The Glock only has one bullet left.
Don’t drop that fucking grenade.
But she was already doing everything right. For someone who hadn’t been trained for combat, she was killing it.
There was only one problem.
Alejandro.
“Give me the grenade.” He stepped toward her, gun aimed, patience gone. “Right now!”
I don’t know what I’m doing.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Oh, Lord Jesus, what the hell am I supposed to do?
Vera’s pulse bellowed in her throat, and her hands grew clammy around the gun. It was hard to think with all the screaming coming from Silvia, who lay prone across Omar’s dead body.
The weapon that Alejandro aimed at her head didn’t help her focus, either.
She couldn’t even look at Luke and his position on the table. Or the strap-on on the floor. She was going to kill that fucking bitch. But first, she had to deal with Alejandro.
He pressed forward, forcing her to retreat.
“Stay at my side, Romero.” She veered, angling toward Luke without a plan in sight.
Romero clung like velcro, souring her inhales with his fear. The computer whiz kid had been reluctantly instrumental in helping her get here. He also served as her pack mule. She could only carry so many guns, and she expected a war.
Silvia hadn’t left Omar, her wails grinding into blubbering sobs as Marco and Miguel crept closer.
“Get back.” She waved the pistol between them and Alejandro. “Move to the wall.”
Holy shit, they were angry, their expressions crimson, veins bulging, hands flexing at their sides.
Good for them. She was pissed, too. And tired. Her fingers quivered around the grenade, and her arm flagged from training the gun one-handed.
When she reached the steel table, she glanced at the restraints. Latches on the chains. A key jutted from the locking mechanism on the handcuffs. Easy peasy.
Except she had no spare hands.
“Romero.” She jerked her chin. “Free him.”
“If you do,” Alejandro said coldly, “you’re dead.”
“Remember my promise, Romero. Your tech skills are destined for better things. You’re too smart to make the wrong choice here.”
“She’s out of bullets and won’t be able to fire those rifles one-handed.” Alejandro sneered. “She can’t protect you.�
��
“Oh.” She played dumb, knowing she had one left in the chamber and a loaded Glock wedged in the back of her jeans. “Romero, I’m going to need you to get moving on those shackles now.”
Her heart went ballistic as she waited for him to obey. She only had one chance at this. One try.
Aim at the chest. Don’t let go of the grenade.
Romero shifted. Alejandro turned his gun toward the kid, and she fired.
A direct hit in the chest. As he stumbled back, she dropped the empty Glock, grabbed the second from her back, and sprayed bullets in the direction of Marco and Miguel.
Don’t drop the grenade. Don’t drop the grenade.
She silently chanted the reminder and counted off the rounds as she fired through the room. Mostly, she missed her targets, but at least two of the shots were fatal. As Marco and Miguel slumped to the floor, Silvia’s ear-splitting shrieks rent the air.
Vera spun back to Alejandro. Too late.
His gun boomed, and her thigh buckled beneath explosive, scorching pain. The dizzying cloud of agony stole her balance. She held tight to the grenade, but she couldn’t stop her fall.
Luke’s roar shook the walls, penetrating her haze.
I’ve been hit.
I still have a gun.
Two bullets.
She squeezed off one as she went down. And missed.
Alejandro sprawled on the floor. Blood on his chest. Gun in his grip. Hard eyes locked on her.
She fired again, dropped the empty Glock, and clutched the grenade with both hands.
The gun slid from Alejandro’s limp fingers. Two red holes, side by side, bloomed on his chest, his head lolled at an awkward angle. Dead.
She blinked, snapping out of a suspended fugue, and that was when the real pain kicked in. All at once, it crashed into her like a vengeful flood, slamming her teeth together and bowing her back.
The room spun in a cacophony of chaos. Fists pounded on the door. Silvia wailed. Romero unshackled Luke, and through it all, she clung to that grenade.
“Vera!” Luke’s voice grew closer.
Then she felt roaming hands—on the grenade, her face, her leg. Oh, God, her leg.
“I need to tie this off.” His breaths came in bursts. “Can you hold the grenade?”
