Out of Luck

by Kendall Talbot

  Two uninjured men dragged Charlene back to the jeeps. Diego waited at the cars, legs apart, fists clenched at his side. He was the only man Marshall would need to be wary of. Unlike his ragtag crew, Diego seemed to have some kind of training behind him.

  The second Charlene was within spitting distance of Diego, she did exactly that. She spat in his face. Diego reached up to wipe away her spittle; then he slapped her across the cheek. Her head snapped sideways, and Marshall saw her blood float through the beam of one of the car’s headlights.

  In that moment, Marshall knew that no matter what happened from here on out, Diego wouldn’t see daybreak.

  Charlene’s arms went limp, followed by the rest of her body. She’d lost her fight. Two men tossed her into the back of a jeep like a sack of potatoes, and Diego shoved in beside her. The other men climbed into the front, the engine fired, and seconds later, the car raced for the entrance with the remaining men in the two cars behind.

  Marshall didn’t even wait for them to be out of sight before he dashed for the motorbike. He jumped on and kicked the starter in the same instant. The second the ignition fired, he rammed the throttle to full and raced after Charlene.

  Chapter 22

  Charlene didn’t really think she’d get away. Not with eight men to fight off. But the last time she’d sat back and done nothing, Peter had been killed. She wasn’t going to give up without a fight. Now, though, as her body throbbed with her injuries, she wondered if it’d been a foolish move. She probably should’ve waited until her chances were improved.

  But that moment might never come.

  And if what Diego had said was true, she would soon have another man to contend with. Noah Montgomery.

  Her mind snapped to the New York City lawyer who claimed to be her father. Could that even be possible? From the limited footage she’d seen of him, he was an arrogant ass. Besides, he was an American, yet her mother was apparently Cuban.

  She had no idea what to believe anymore. She’d gone from being a boring twenty-eight-year-old who’d never stepped out of America to the niece of a honcho in some kind of Cuban mafia.

  None of it made sense.

  The bloodstained strip of fabric stuffed into her bra might shed some light. If she got the opportunity to have someone translate it for her. She’d had all day to search for that hidden note that she’d recalled her mother hiding behind a brick. But she’d remembered wrong. It was only once she’d conceded defeat and curled up in a ball with the teddy bear that she’d found it. The note was inside the bear, shoved into a hole that was concealed by the miniature waistcoat.

  She’d cried when she’d found it. She’d cried even harder when she realized it was written in Spanish. It was a cruel joke…here’s a clue to the greatest mystery of your life, little girl, but guess what…you’ll never know what it says.

  Charlene fought the lump burning in her throat. She’d never give Diego the satisfaction of seeing her cry. It was a cruel twist to have the potential answers to her questions close to her chest at the same moment when she was heading to meet the man who wanted to kill her.

  She’d never given thought to how she’d die before, but even if she’d had a thousand years to stew over it, she’d never have contemplated it would be in Cuba, nor at the hands of a complete stranger who claimed to be her father.

  She shifted her gaze from her bloodstained dress to her apparent uncle. “Where are you taking me?”

  Diego’s eyes snapped to her as though he’d thought she was unconscious. Even in the dim light, she could see the extent of the bruising around his eye. She liked what she saw. And she’d give him a hell of a lot more when the opportunity arose.

  A sick grin crawled across his mouth, displaying a row of crooked teeth. “To your daddy.”

  “He’s not my fucking father.”

  “Oh, but he is.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “My sister…,” he slowly shook his head as if disappointed. “She stupid to keep that secret from me.”

  “What secret?”

  “About Noah raping her and he your father.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Diego shrugged. “I no care what you believe. Noah believes. That what matters.”

  Charlene tried to piece things together, but nothing made sense. “Why would he believe you?”

  Diego shifted on his seat, easing back from her. “We go back long way, me and Noah. Well before he a hot-shot New York lawyer.”

  That comment surprised her, she couldn’t picture Noah in the company of a man like Diego. “How?”

  Diego frowned and looked at her like he was weighing his options.

  “You already said he was going to kill me, so what’s the harm in giving me answers?”

  The side of his mouth twitched. “That is true. He going to kill you.”

  She clenched and unclenched her jaw at the certainty in his voice. “Did he kill my mother?”

  “Si.” He actually looked pleased with himself.

  Charlene wrestled against the restraints, growling her fury. “How could you let that happen? She was your sister.”

  He shrugged. “She was pain in ass.”

  She’d give anything to knock his lights out, and by the look on his face, he knew exactly how dangerous she was.

  “Calm down, little girl.”

  She glared at him. “Don’t tell me to fucking calm down.” She wanted him to know that, given the right opportunity, she’d crush his larynx beneath the heel of her foot.

  Diego snapped his eyes away, and she liked that he’d seen her fury.

  “How did Noah kill my mother?”

  “Strangle her.”

  She sucked the air through her teeth. “Did you see him do it?”

  Diego let the question hang, and the only sound was the roar of the engine and the crunch of the tires over the rough gravel. Finally, he huffed out a sigh and turned back to her. “Si.” His voice was way too calm considering what he was admitting to.

  “Jesus! Did you report it to the police?”

  He captured her gaze with his, and the urge to head-butt him was huge. “He pay me lot of money to keep secret.”

  She clenched her jaw against her simmering rage. “Asshole!” She kicked out with her foot, but her stupid dress was caught beneath her thighs, restricting her movement, and her toes stubbed the driver’s seat instead. She screamed with both pain and fury.

  Diego laughed, a quick spontaneous snort. “Soon, I very rich asshole.”

  “Really?” She said it sarcastically. “How much is he paying you?”

  “One million dollars.”

  A million dollars. For Charlene Bailey, or Claudia Álvarez, or whoever she was. She burst out laughing, and Diego’s eyes festered with suspicion.

  “What?” He snapped.

  “You’re a fool if you think he’s going to part with that kind of money. He doesn’t even know me. Why would he believe I’m his daughter?”

  “Because Benita tell him when she begging for her life.”

  That comment was like a punch to her stomach. It took the wind out of her and weakened her resolve. The timbre of the car’s tires slowed, and she turned her gaze outside the vehicle. A jumble of ancient memories came flooding back at the first thing she saw.

  It was a set of marble stairs that’d been painted in a potpourri of vibrant contrasting colors. The building surrounding the magnificent feature was long gone. Four people sitting on the stairs played musical instruments and stared into the flames of a fire built in a rusted forty-four-gallon drum.

  The scene was exactly the same as twenty-two years ago when Charlene had been driven along this street. She contemplated calling out to them. Yelling for help. But at the same time, she knew it was pointless. Not with Diego beside her.

  Although she’d barely had an hou
r with him, she remembered enough from her childhood to know Diego was a man to be revered and feared. Nobody would go against him. Not his ardent followers and not the strangers on the street.

  Charlene was on her own.

  Her thoughts tumbled to Marshall again. A little piece of her heart crumbled at the thought that she’d never see him again. It wasn’t very often she met a man who captivated her as much as he had. She blocked out her brutal reality and took her mind back to that moment on Miss B Hayve when he’d wrapped his arms around her to chase away the bitter cold with the warmth of his own body. She went over that embrace in her mind, hitting rewind each time their hug ended. Something about how she felt in his arms had her heart aching. It was impossible to believe that she’d never see him again.

  The minutes rushed by, as did the miles. And endless fields of nothing. Charlene didn’t need to ask where they were going again. She already knew. They were going to the same remote airstrip where she’d last seen her mother. She was coming full circle. The hellhole that’d been the venue for her mother’s murder was about to witness her end too.

  No! She sat upright and clenched her jaw.

  Fear of impending death blazed through her body like a firestorm. No!

  This was not the end. Charlene Bailey was not finished yet. She had so much more life to live.

  Her cocoon of despair vanished in a flash, and she turned her attention to surviving this mess. She’d had hundreds of hours of self-defense tutorials. Utilizing those lessons, she studied her surroundings, beginning with the men around her. The man behind the wheel had a face that’d seen way too much sun and was full of ancient acne craters. He was shorter than her and was so slim his collarbones jutted above his shoulders.

  The man in the passenger seat was just as scrawny, and his mouth was permanently open as if he couldn’t breathe through his nose. Maybe he couldn’t. He must’ve sensed Charlene staring because his head snapped around to her. His wild hair whipped up in the breeze, covering his eyes for a couple of beats, before he turned his attention back to the road ahead.

  No, she decided. These two wouldn’t give her too much trouble.

  Diego was the problem. And with her hands tied behind her back, her chances with him were slim. But not completely dead. Not yet anyway. She adjusted her position on her seat so her hands were closer to the side and she was facing more toward Diego. Feeling along the door, her fingers snagged on a splinter of rusty metal jutting out from where the trim used to be. It was her lucky day. Without moving her arms too much, she began rubbing the coarse rope against the metal.

  An hour or so into this journey, she’d been begging for the ride to be over. Now, though, as the painstaking job of cutting through the rope proved to be taking forever, she begged for the trek to take longer. Each time the jeep launched over another pothole, the rusted makeshift blade sliced one of her fingers. It wasn’t long before she felt the dribble of her own blood. But she forced through the pain.

  No pain, no gain.

  God, she’d heard that mantra a thousand times over the years at self-defense lessons. It was never more pertinent than now.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Two more vehicles followed them. Three men were in the one just behind, so she assumed the remaining two were in the last jeep. The middle jeep didn’t have any headlights, which was probably why it was cruising so close. If Charlene had a gun, she would’ve easily been able to shoot them. She’d had a few shooting lessons over the years.

  The driver shifted down a gear, and Charlene snapped her eyes forward. Her heart lurched to her throat as she recognized the lone shed. They’d arrived. No longer caring about caution, she tripled her friction on the rope.

  But when the jeep lurched to a stop at the side wall, she knew she was too late. Barely three seconds later, she was yanked from the jeep. The instant her feet hit the ground, she planted her heels, crouched down, and drove upward with all the force she could muster. The top of her head connected with the chin of the nearest man. He flew backward, hitting the ground as a lump of lifeless meat.

  She didn’t stop to admire her handiwork; instead, she flung herself at the second man, slamming her knees into his groin. He buckled forward at the exact moment she raised her knee again. This time she plowed into his nose, and he too was on the ground, passed out with his mate.

  Charlene took off at a sprint, but seconds later, she howled in agony at the rivers of pain in her scalp as she was yanked backward on the dirt. When she opened her eyes, Diego had a clump of her hair wrapped around his fist and his gun aimed at her forehead.

  That was the second time her hair had failed her, and she decided there and then that if she made it out of this alive, she was cutting it all off.

  Diego screamed something in Spanish, and a cloud of dust was the prelude to the feet of four men reaching her side.

  “Get up, you stupid bitch,” Diego hissed.

  Charlene rolled to her side, allowing herself a close-up view of the man she’d kneed in the face. He was out cold, missing a few teeth, but not dead…unfortunately.

  Before she was fully standing, the four men had her in a grip that she’d have no hope of escaping. They dragged her to a pole beside the shed, and while three men held her in position, the forth cut her ropes and promptly tied her hands back up and secured her to the pole.

  Once that was done, they stepped back with their weapons raised. The headlights of the two jeeps were aimed right at her, silhouetting the six men. It was easy to spot Diego, not just because he was stockier than the remaining five but also because of the confidence in his stance. He didn’t seem at all perturbed that she’d taken out two of his men with her bare hands.

  She, on the other hand, was incredibly proud of herself. “Your men could use a little more training.” She grinned at the two lifeless forms in the dirt.

  “Shut up.” Diego yelled, then stomped forward and slapped her across the face.

  Charlene bit back the scream in her throat. When the stars dancing across her eyes evaporated, she unclenched her jaw and tried to eyeball Diego. “Why should I? Like you said, I’ll be dead soon.”

  As if on cue, the distant roar of an engine had Diego and his men turning their attention skyward.

  Chapter 23

  Marshall breathed a sigh of relief when the convoy slowed down at the end of a road that’d lasted an eternity. He’d been watching the empty fuel indicator for at least ten miles, certain the Ural was about to offer its last gasp.

  While Diego and his band of goons aimed the three jeeps at a distant shed, Marshall drove the motorbike into a thicket of gnarly weeds and cut the engine. He lunged into the bushes and crawled on his hands and knees toward a better vantage point.

  They’d positioned the jeeps’ headlights to capture the show, and what a show it was. Out of nowhere, Charlene reduced two men to pulp, and Marshall had to resist cheering her on. And running in to help her. Her stamina was incredible. He just hoped she didn’t run out of steam before he got to her. She’d need to run like hell once he grabbed her.

  Marshall saw Diego’s cowardly slap across Charlene’s face, and that’s when he decided that the asshole wasn’t just going to die tonight; he was going to suffer an ugly, painful death.

  The sound of an engine had him searching skyward, and his heart slammed into his chest at the site of a lone floodlight descending from the darkness. The whole time he’d been chasing Charlene, he’d assumed Diego was taking her to some kind of secret meeting point, where rich assholes with fistfuls of money would buy her in a bidding war.

  Not once had he considered the possibility of Diego having her flown somewhere.

  This new twist threatened to finish what the motorbike had started—to knock him completely off balance.

  It also showed just how valuable she was. It had him wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into. And Charlene, for that matter.


  He had no doubt that if she got airborne, she’d vanish. He was kicking himself for agreeing to take her to Cuba. He should’ve ignored her plight and returned her to the safety of the US of A. But the debate was pointless. He’d done it now, and that made him responsible for getting her home.

  It was a perfect night. Mild temperature. Clear sky. No breeze.

  Perfect for killing bad guys.

  In his past life, whenever he’d spearheaded covert operations, most of the time he’d had intricate details of the lay of the land. Most of the time he’d had the backup of able-bodied men and top-notch equipment. Not tonight. Tonight it was just him, his bare hands, and a kick-ass woman who was a better fighter than some of his old navy crew. But with a jet closing in on that tiny runway, he no longer had the luxury of time to scope out the area or plan an attack.

  Whoever was on that jet had both the means and the money to get here quick…and that reeked of trouble. It also meant that the second the damn thing landed, the scales tipped in favor of the bad guys.

  It was time to notch this shit up to extraction mode.

  With the men distracted by the incoming jet, Marshall made a snap decision, and hunching over, he raced hard and fast at the closest jeep.

  One hundred yards.

  Ten years ago, he’d have covered this distance in the space of fifteen seconds, and that was with an eighty-pound pack on his back. Now, though, it seemed to take an eternity.

  Fifty yards.

  If one of the men turned now, it was all over.

  The jet’s roar intensified, and it was impossible to hear anything else.

  Twenty yards.

  He didn’t dare look up. He just put his head down and aimed for the closest tailpipe.

  He covered the last five yards with a dive and rolled right up to the well-worn tire. His heart was in his throat as he clutched onto the back of the jeep and pulled his head up to survey the scene.

  The plane looked to be skimming right over the distant treetops. Eight men were still visible. Two were passed out before Charlene, but the rest were more spread out than when he’d last eyeballed them. Two were positioned right alongside the runway. Damn idiots were so close they’d likely get knocked out by the bird’s wings. If only he should be so lucky. Two men were near the far edge of the shed. They had their weapons lowered and were taking a moment to puff on fat cigars.