by Rya Stone
“Hello?”
“You need to get over here,” his brother said. “Right now. Cassie’s in trouble.”
She was a magnet for that. It didn’t change the fact that his blood had turned to ice and his vision swam as he spoke to Clint. “Tell me everything you know.”
“I know you better hurry. A skinny-ass, scared as shit landman just showed up over here saying he escaped from the Neelys, where your girl was shot at. She lost control of the car and slammed into a tree.”
“And he left her?” he roared so loudly Kyle had to have heard him through the phone.
“Hold on, Jase. She was hurt bad and told him to go for help.”
“Who shot at her? Neely?”
There was a long silence, during which Jase’s entire world shrank to one thing. Cassie.
“You need to keep your head when I tell you—”
“Just tell me,” he ground out, his pulse pounding so hard he could hear it.
“Kyle said a man named Coy Martin was there, that he’d shown a—”
Another voice cut in from the background. “Disturbing interest! He showed a disturbing interest in her!”
“Yeah, that,” Clint said.
“Let me talk to him,” Jase said, his gas pedal to the floor as he tore out of town.
“That guy wanted to play with her,” Kyle said frantically as Jase’s darkest fears clawed to the surface. “My Spanish isn’t great, but I swear to God that’s what he said. They told us to come back tomorrow to discuss the lease, but I guess they changed their minds.”
“What?” he croaked out. Why had she felt the need to go after that lease? But it didn’t matter, not now. He had to put the anger aside and focus on the battle in front of him. “Kyle, how badly is she hurt?”
“Pretty bad.”
“Details.”
“I think she hit her head. There was a lot of blood.” Kyle’s voice hitched. “Oh God,” he whispered before quickly getting it together. “So, um, the airbag deployed, but she was so out of it, I don’t even think she knew. I didn’t want to move her but when they started coming for us, I tried. She was like deadweight. Never even opened her eyes.”
“But she told you to go?”
“They started firing again, and she told me to go for help.”
“She told you to find me?”
Kyle paused. “Not specifically.”
He had to ignore it. “Is she shot?”
“No.”
“How do you know? You said you booked it when they started shooting again.” He was almost to the turnoff to the ranch. Which meant he was about to pass the Neely’s. No way was he passing her by, even for reinforcements. “Kyle! How do you know she isn’t shot?”
“I’m not even halfway done,” he said softly.
Jase’s stomach heaved so violently, he thought he might become ill. “Tell me.”
“I ran. I ran right through that thorn wall dividing their property from yours—”
“His hands are all fucked up,” he heard Clint say in the background.
“—but I didn’t run away. I hid. And they didn’t look for me very hard, thank God, so I followed on foot when they drove to the house. She’s there, Jase. She’s in one of the bedrooms. I saw them tie her to a bed.” Kyle’s voice caught again. “She’s on the bed. She’s—”
“That it?” he ground out.
“Yeah, um, here.”
Before he could thank Kyle for the invaluable information, Clint was back on the line. “I’m going in,” he told his brother.
“Not alone,” Clint said. “Not with that leg.”
“It’s fine. Meet me at their gate. Five minutes, and I’m going in.” It had already been an eternity. He ended the call before Clint could protest.
This was it. Oscar had to die now. Whether he killed Cassie or not, the son of a bitch had to die. And if he did kill her, he’d die slow. A huge piece of Jase would die with him. He knew that in the deepest part of his soul.
He parked his truck opposite the Neely tract, holstered his weapon and said a quick prayer that Clint was already halfway to him with more firepower. He checked his watch. He couldn’t wait any longer and went in on foot, keeping to the trees. Clint would approach from the east.
Jesus, how had he let this happen?
There was a fear pushing him now that he’d never taken into battle before. It was a deeply personal fear, and not for himself. This kind of fear got men killed, and he urged Clint on in his head. Come on, man. Come on. His bum leg was already flagging, and he knew he needed his brother. That part kind of pissed him off, and he latched on to that instead of the fear. The well of anger was deep, beginning with himself for ever letting her go in the first place. He gritted his teeth, eased up on his bad leg, and pressed farther into the darkness of the Neely property.
A rustling ahead had him on the ground before he considered his leg. Wincing, he watched as Clint blundered through the underbrush.
That’s not Clint.
Instead of alarm, all he felt was relief that his brother wasn’t the dumb-ass in his line of vision. For a split second, he even felt sorry for the guy, like maybe he was a little slow or something. What else would explain a grown man dragging a shotgun behind him while kicking random bushes and calling out, “You in there?”
He assumed the burly figure to be Joel Neely, Jr., though he didn’t remember him being so strange.
“Come ouuuuuut.”
Right. Either he was still looking for Kyle, or Cassie had escaped. It didn’t matter. The man knew something. What he didn’t know was that he only had seconds to live if he didn’t tell Jase what he wanted to know.
“Jase.”
Reinforcement. And Clint wasn’t alone. Kyle’s eyes were so wide, Jase could see the whites even in the dark. He was certain Kyle’s knuckles were just as white because that shotgun trembled in his hands. Jase gladly relieved him of it.
“They have her!” Kyle whispered. “I—
Jase cut him off with a hand gesture. That’s all he needed to know for now. He nodded to Clint and they both shot forward, leaving Kyle in the brush.
They had Neely on the ground and disarmed so effortlessly, Jase hadn’t even bothered with the shotgun. They dragged him into a patch of moonlight and Jase pressed the foot of his good leg firmly into Joel Neely, Jr.’s groin. “Talk, motherfucker.” he hissed. “Where did he take her?”
“Ughhhhh… I don’t knooooow!”
“He’s lying,” Kyle said. “She’s in the house. That’s where they took her.”
“There you are, you little shit!” Neely spat up at Kyle before gasping anew as Jase applied more pressure to his groin. “Fuck,” the man cried, flinging spittle all over the place.
Clint racked a bullet into the 9mm he’d had pointed at Neely since they’d dragged him, sweating and wheezing from the brush, and slammed the barrel into the man’s fleshy forehead.
“I don’t know where he is!” Neely wheezed. “He told me to find this one. And I…I think he said something about moving her to, uh, to some special location. A secret place.”
“You’re lying.” And he was terrible at it, too. “Tell me the truth or you’re going to die,” Jase said, pressing so hard into the soft flesh between Neely’s legs that the man’s knees jerked up and tried to come together.
“I don’t know shit!”
“Was she alive and lucid the last time you saw her?” he asked, bending at the waist and trying to control his voice.
“He…fuck! I don’t know what that means. What you just said. All he kept saying was that he wanted to…to…what do you think he wants to do to her?”
Jase ground his foot, eliciting a high-pitched scream from the man at his feet.
Dropping down, mostly because his leg was about to give out, he grabbed Neely by the hair and wrenched the man’s face close to his. The man wasn’t simple. He was just a lazy, self-preserving idiot. “Tell me everything, every detail, or I swear to God I’ll finish what your father started thir
ty years ago.”
Neely bared his teeth. “Your daddy’s sister was a whore. She got what she deserved.”
Jase slammed his fist into Neely’s face. “Your father was a rapist,” he snarled. “Runs in the blood, doesn’t it? You’re fucking lucky you didn’t get the chance to lay a hand on my woman.” He punched Neely in the face again. And again.
“Jase!”
Again.
“We have to go!” Clint hissed.
He dropped Neely’s head and looked up. A moon-faced Kyle stood shaking beside Clint. “Jase, leave him. Cassie needs you.”
He rose to his feet and winced.
“He tied up my mama!” the man on the ground sobbed.
Clint jerked Neely to his feet. “You’re coming with us.”
Jase nodded in agreement. The slobbering idiot was their ticket in.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Darkness.
The heavy presence at Cassie’s back pinned her down, pressing her breasts and belly and thighs into the bed.
Warm breath tickled her ear, and her heart kicked it into high gear.
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t see.
And she couldn’t scream because a huge, rough hand clamped over her mouth as soon as she turned her head.
Jase…
It wasn’t Jase.
The size was wrong.
The voice was wrong.
Way wrong.
And that wasn’t a hand over her mouth.
It was a gag.
“Cassandra Michelle Mitchum,” a voice like buzzing flies whispered. “Let me explain what you’re doing here and what is about to happen.”
She couldn’t breathe. Panic washed over her in terrifying waves as she realized the man on top of her was forcing the air out of her lungs. And that wasn’t all. Her chest…it ached in a way she’d never felt before.
Before…
She struggled to remember…
Hitting the tree. And Kyle. His voice in her ear. Oh God, where was he?
The man at her back, the one suffocating her, spoke again. “I decided I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?
Images flashed through her pounding head. Of Kyle. He wants to play. Of Neely wiping sweat from his brow. The way he was looking at you… Of another man holding a machete. That eye.
She screamed around the gag, and her captor pressed his weight into her backside.
“Oh, you don’t want to play anymore?” He made a tsk-tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. “That’s okay, muchacha. I still want to.”
She twisted her neck and winced. The throbbing pain in the back of her head nearly took her breath.
“You’re okay, pretty girl. You hit your head, and there’s bruising on your chest. Nothing to threaten your life.” The relief was short lived because he leaned into her ear and added, “Not yet.” And before she could piece the fuzzy memories of the wreck back together, the point of something sharp and menacing trailed down her face, right at the hairline, and a second muffled scream tore up her constricted throat.
“Not as willing as the other one, but I like it this way, too,” her captor said. “This hair is getting in my way though.”
The man atop her pulled her hair tight, and fresh tears flooded her eyes as the knife began sawing near her neck. No. No! She went perfectly still, afraid any struggle would send the blade slicing into her flesh. She bit her lips in and sobbed, willing her shoulders not to shake. Her safety shield was being shorn away, rendered useless…just as it’s always been. And that realization sent a new terror crawling through her belly. True helplessness. That’s where she was. And where, oh where was Kyle? Had he made it to safety? Was help on the way?
“So much hair. Does El Crotalo like all this? I hope he does.”
He was talking about Jase.
She swallowed down a dizzying fear, heightened now by the realization that she’d cried out his name after the wreck. In those moments of blind fear, he was all she’d wanted. Now she wanted him to stay away. He said he’d give his life for hers, and he’d meant it, despite all that came after. Only now did she understand the gravity of that statement, and in a blinding moment of clarity, she knew she’d do the same for him.
Fingers brushed her back, scooping up clumps of hair, and she felt a lightness she hadn’t felt…ever. “Mira,” he said, running his hands through the shorn locks. “Much better. Now you look at me.”
Still pinning her midsection, he shifted slightly and rolled her over. She surged up, hands flying, nails clawing for purchase. She was promptly slapped. Hard. So hard the seconds of pure black terrified her more than the pain because she couldn’t black out again. She had to fight.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Not good, puta. Now I’ll have to restrain you.”
As he reached around for something in his back pocket, she made another attempt. A fist connected with her left cheek. This time the pain encompassed everything, and it took her a while to realize she’d been handcuffed to the headboard.
She screamed, sobbed, strained. She fought with everything she had, bucking beneath Oscar Martinez as he smiled down at her, the knife between his teeth. His hands moved over her body, from neck to waist, stopping to squeeze a breast, to knead greedy fingers into her hips. Nausea rolled through her, wave after wave, souring her stomach and chilling her blood.
She fought harder.
Oscar opened his mouth, still grinning, and the knife fell to her stomach. “Mmmm, that feels good.”
Horror-struck, she went stock-still. Oscar threw his head back, laughing, and her fear melted into desperation. She thought she’d understood true fear when she came to on the bed with her heart thudding, her stomach hollow. But now…now…it had gone beyond that, to a place where pain was accepted as inevitable and all that remained was the will to survive, no matter how much it hurt.
“You know why I’m doing this?” Oscar asked. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he chuckled again. “You’re a pretty little guera. But when I found you belonged to El Crotalo? I knew I needed more than a taste.”
Do I give him one? Pretend I want it? That might have worked before she’d been handcuffed and rendered unable to escape. What now? What options did she really have left?
“Jason Lucas will come for you, muchacha.”
Oh, God, please don’t let Jase walk into this by himself.
“And when he does, do you know what he’ll find?” Oscar picked up the knife she’d managed to buck off her stomach. “He’ll find I’ve taken something worse than his own eye. I’ve taken yours.”
She whipped her head back and forth, screaming, trying like hell to bite through the cotton cutting into the corners of her mouth.
“The only question is, do I carve it out before I have my way with you—” he leaned close, his breath hot on her face, “—or while I’m inside you?”
Her chest squeezed tight, and all the air left her lungs, hope with it.
The knife traced a circle around her eye. “Which one?” Oscar whispered.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and her breath returned.
“Coy!”
Neely.
No. Not him, too.
Oscar answered without breaking eye contact. “Donde es el guero?”
“I found him!” Neely called through the door. Her heart sank into the mattress. No… “He’s downstairs.”
Kyle hadn’t made it to safety.
Oscar tapped the knife at the corner of her eye. “Decisions, decisions…”
His weight lifted, and as soon as he cleared the bed, Cassie drew her knees up and twisted so she was kneeling. She could barely feel her hands, but thanks to the full moon’s light, she could make out the flowered quilt and an antique nightstand—minus a crochet needle, a letter opener, or anything else that might be useful.
Oscar rounded the end of the four-poster bed and stopped in front of the door. What the hell was he waiting for? She scanned the bedroom. Two windows. A closet. A man in the bathro
om doorway.
A man…?
Jase.
Oh my God.
She blinked, and he was gone. Maybe it had just been an illusion. A mirage. A figment of her warped mind and bleary eyes.
She had no way to wipe the tears, and her lack of sight must have heightened her hearing because she heard the lock click and the door open as if broadcast in surround sound. She blinked and wrenched her head around, just in time to see a blurry, bloody Neely shove the door in.
“You tied up my mother!”
Neely’s abrupt change in demeanor startled her, but didn’t appear to faze Oscar at all, because he calmly replied, “Ah, but you didn’t have a problem when I put your father’s face in the pond, did you?”
She tried so hard not to look at Jase. Did I really see him? In the bathroom? She had to know. Just as she made the decision to confirm his presence, Clint appeared behind Neely and planted a foot in the man’s back.
Neely’s bulk slammed into Oscar, and both men crashed into the footboard. The bed shook from the impact, but her attention was riveted on Jase. Despite the limp, he surged out of the bathroom like the highly trained warrior he was, the shotgun at his shoulder covering both Neely and Oscar.
Clint reached the men at the foot of the bed first and shoved Neely aside to ram a pistol barrel in the face of his father’s killer.
“Clint!” Jase’s shout rang out a split second before Clint grunted and stumbled backward into the wall near the door, clutching his side.
Oscar stood and Cassie’s eyes went wide at the wicked-looking serrated blade in his hand. Neely remained on the floor. Somewhere. She couldn’t see him anymore and could only guess his location from the way Jase shifted the shotgun back and forth as he placed himself between the men and his brother.
Clint shoved away from the wall. “I got Neely,” he growled, holding his bleeding side with one hand, the automatic pistol with the other. “On your knees, asshole.”
Neely obeyed. Then he lunged. It happened so fast, she didn’t even have time to shout a muffled warning before Neely barreled into Jase’s legs. The shotgun skittered across the floor, and the cuffs bit into her flesh. She thrashed, enraged at being held captive on the bed, unable to retrieve the weapon.
