by Janzen, Tara
Nikki watched his fruitless efforts, and without wanting to, she imagined those big hands around her neck, throttling her.
“You’re wrong.” she said, using all of her courage to speak.
“Save it for Delgado.” He whirled away from the window, his gaze searching the shack.
“He’s not interested in my opinions.”
“No.” He laughed again, a dry, mirthless sound. “I don’t suppose he is.”
Her face burned at the crude twist he’d put on her words. She’d had enough. She pushed herself to her feet, sick and tired of being in the dirt, of being called a liar, and of taking the blame for every damn thing that had gone wrong.
“No, he’s not!” she sputtered, taking a step forward. “The only thing I’ve got that anybody in this whole damn country wants is you! You and whatever it is you’ve got stored up in that thick skull of yours! What in the hell did I do?” Her voice rose along with her eyebrows. “The question is what in the hell did you do? Brazia wants you dead. Travinas wants you any way he can get you, and the only way I could get Delgado to even talk to me was to promise I’d bring you to him!”
“Stop shouting,” he said, moving toward her.
“I’ll shout if I want—”
He clapped a hand over her, mouth. “No, you won’t. Now listen to me, Nikki, and listen good.” She pushed at his hand, and he swung her back against his chest. His other arm snaked around her waist, holding her in a relentless grip. He lowered his mouth to her ear and whispered, “There are fifteen soldiers and one crazed colonel out there. The only chance we’ve got is to keep whatever information we have to ourselves. Brazia doesn’t know about your personal involvement with Delgado, and that’s our ace in the hole.” He paused for the space of several heartbeats, his breath rasping against her cheek, the tension and strength in his body overwhelming her feeble attempts at escape. When he spoke again, his voice was rough and low. “God knows if you were mine, I wouldn’t let that butcher have you.”
Nikki’s hands tightened on his arm, but to hold him there, not to push him away. Her eyes drifted closed on a shuddered sigh. She wanted to turn around, and fold herself into his arms and tell him she was his, that she had always and only been his.
But he wouldn’t believe her, not, now. He’d think she was trying to cover herself one more time.
Her head dropped in weariness. She pushed his hands away and walked over to the window. She’d brought them to this, and he had to know the truth. “There won’t be any rescue, Josh. Delgado won’t come. Not for me.”
“Why not? What did you do to him?” Josh frowned. If she’d pushed Delgado even half as hard as she’d been pushing him, he wouldn’t blame the guy for giving up on her. But to abandon her to Brazia? No man would do that.
“It’s more like what I didn’t do.” Her voice drifted back into the room. “I never slept with him, not that he asked. Our relationship is strictly business, and our bargain is simple: I bring you in and he keeps you in one piece.”
A long silence greeted her confession, and Nikki could almost hear him adding up the damning facts one by one and coming up with betrayal. A knot of pain began curling and cramping in her stomach. She’d never had a chance. Travinas had outmaneuvered her at every turn.
“How many people did you sell me out to?” The edge in his voice cut through the tension like a razor.
Nikki gave a slight shake of her head, more a denial of his hate than of his words. By lying to him she had sold him out, but what did it matter anymore? Brazia had them now.
“Do you know why they want me?” he asked.
“The story you have on Travinas.”
“And you’re working all the sides toward the middle.” He muttered something obscene, something she wished she hadn’t heard, and something, oh, so true. “What do you get out of all of this, besides the front-page spread Travinas gave you?”
“My mother.”
“What?”
“My mother,” she said louder, forcing herself to face him. “The woman you wanted me to leave three years ago. She’s dying, Josh, and I want her out of prison before that happens.”
He stared at her, what was left of his emotions icing over into glacial status. He didn’t believe her, didn’t dare or want to believe her. But the summery green eyes meeting his weren’t lying now. A hurtful breath caught in his throat. She’d made her choice. A muscle twitched in his cheek at his effort to keep the pain off his face.
“One life for another, Nikki?” He finally found the awful words. “Pretty nasty business, isn’t it?”
She lifted her hands in a helpless, pleading gesture, knowing there was no way to make the truth less mercenary. “Brazia was going to kill you, whether you surrendered or not. I thought if I got to you before he did, I could keep you alive.”
“By hand-delivering me?” He’d meant to make the words sound scornful, but a measure of his pain got through, making him even madder. When she tried to speak, he cut her off. “Shut up!” He needed to think. He needed to get out of there. But the confusion and hurt filling his mind made it impossible to think. She’d suckered him royally. He paced the shack, working himself into a frenzy, his body shaking. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he turned on her.
“God, Nikki. When did you become such a heartless bitch. After you left me? Or was the whole year a lie?”
His words hurt her more than a physical blow. She felt them slice through her body.
Her hand slipped around one of the window bars, and she held on tight. “I’ll get you out of here, Josh,” she said, her knees weak, her voice wavering. “I promise.”
“How’s that, babe?” he asked, his voice low and furious. “From what I’ve heard, Brazia doesn’t like girls.”
She flinched, but let the slur slide. She didn’t rate too high on her own list, either. “I’ll give him Delgado. I know the rebels’ strength and enough of Delgado’s plans to buy your freedom.”
And my mother’s. Polities didn’t have a place in her heart anymore. She didn’t care who ran San Simeon as long as she got what she wanted. She’d use them all, play them all against one another, the whole power-crazed lot of them. She just wanted Josh and her mother out of it.
“No, Nikki.” He shook his head, his expression reflecting the cold fury in his eyes.
“I’ll make Brazia give you a jeep.” She talked over his dissent. “Head for the border. Don’t go to Sulaco. If he acts on my information—”
“You always did think too fast for your own good.”
“—there won’t be anything left of the place by tomorrow afternoon.”
“So quit thinking and give me a chance to figure out what we’re going to do!” Lord, what a fool he was, he thought. What did she have to do? Actually put the knife in his back before he could walk away from her?
Maybe, he admitted, knowing it didn’t matter one way or the other. He wasn’t going anywhere without her, not tonight. He’d either get her out or make sure they both got shot trying. He hadn’t used the term “butcher” lightly, and Brazia didn’t like women. He’d seen the mad dog’s handiwork once out on the savanna. He wouldn’t let Brazia do that to Nikki.
“Okay,” he said, “here’s the plan. When they come to get us, I’ll distract the guards and you make a run for it.”
“That’s crazy. I’m talking to Brazia.”
“Do you really think he’s just going to let me drive out of here?”
“He might! Which is more of a chance than you’ve got of overpowering fifteen soldiers with guns.”
“No.” Brazia would love having her grovel at his feet, and her subservience would only make him crueler. Damn her. She couldn’t even betray him without screwing it up. If she’d been sleeping with Delgado, he would have come to save her. Any man she gave her love to would risk his life for her. He didn’t have to look any further than himself to know the truth. Fool. Delgado had been their last hope.
Nikki opened her mouth, then snapped it shu
t. There was no reasoning with him.
They glared at each other across the shack, the full moon lighting their standoff with its pale silvery glow. Nikki gave in first, her gaze dropping to the dirt floor and the striped shadows cast by the iron bars over the window. Her eyes flicked back up to his.
“I tried it,” he said. “Remember? Those bars are sunk into cement.”
She glanced around the four bare walls of the shack. There was nothing, absolutely nothing inside except two people desperate to get out.
“The door?” she asked.
“Kicking it out, even supposing I could, would be an invitation to get our heads blown off. They’re camped right out front, probably digging our graves.”
He didn’t want to push the minute of dying any closer than it already was, but she deserved to know how bad things really were. Yet she didn’t deserve to know how much worse they could be. Not for him; Brazia would shoot him without a second glance. Nikki was the one who would suffer.
And maybe, just maybe, he’d get lucky. One small miracle lasting a few seconds might mean the difference between life and death.
“Graves?” Nikki repeated weakly, the full impact of their situation hitting home with that one word.
“Brazia’s standard operating procedure. San Simeon is one big shallow grave from the mountains to Costa Rica. Mostly penny-ante drug dealers trying to take a cut out of Travinas’s lifeline. He’s never allowed Brazia to execute foreigners before, especially reporters, but you and I don’t fall into that category anymore.”
“Wh-what category are we in?” They both still worked for internationally renowned newspapers. They both still carried press identification.
“Sorry, Nikki,” he said, watching her scramble the facts around, trying to come up with an answer. “I gave up my immunity the first time I stepped into the middle of Travinas’s cocaine ring, and you gave up yours when you decided to play his game by his rules.”
Frightened eyes locked onto his. “There has to be some way out, Josh. We can’t just stand here waiting. We have to . . . to . . .” She wrapped her arms around her waist, tighter and tighter, trying to still the panicked beating of her pulse. Graves. She squeezed her eyes shut to block the image, but blackness only made it clearer—a dark hole in the ground, filled by their cold, crumpled bodies. Then his arms were around her, and he was warm and strong, with life flowing through him. “Josh, I have to talk to him. I have to try.”
Remorse and self-loathing flooded him as he held her, feeling her fear, the trembling of her body. His chest swelled with a deep breath, and he measured his words carefully. “Nikki? Brazia doesn’t want Delgado, even if you could deliver him on a silver platter. Delgado doesn’t matter. This isn’t about politics. It’s about power and money and hurting people. I’m—I’m sorry you got involved. I should have realized it all came down to me and not you.”
And he should have. Days ago in Panama, he should have read further between the lines and not have let his memories and his love get in the way. Brazia might have cut him down with a bullet in the back, but Nikki would have been out of it, a useless pawn. Her mother would have died, but her mother was going to die anyway. “God, Nikki, I’m sorry.” His voice broke with all the pain he felt for her, for all the battles she’d fought and lost, for the young life she might lose that night.
Her arms went around his waist, and he felt her tears soak through his shirt and brand his chest. The slender body in his arms shook with silent sobs. He looked down at the tangled mass of her hair, at the dirt streaking her cheeks, and his heart broke with wanting her, with wanting to erase the bleakness from her life. “I should never have let you get away from me.”
Filled with sadness and acceptance, she lifted her eyes to meet his. “It’s too late for regrets, Josh.”
“It’s never too late for regrets, or mine would have gone away a long time ago. But they didn’t go away, Nikki, and I came back to find out why.”
“And that’s the biggest regret of all.”
“No, querida,” he said, his voice hoarse. “This is the biggest regret.”
With one fluid movement, he tilted her head back and sealed his mouth over hers. The muscles in his arms bunched and flexed to hold her closer, and closer still, until her soft curves were laminated against his body from chest to thigh. Her lips parted, granting him the entry he sought with the teasing track of his tongue.
The heat he found in her kiss put the night to shame. She clung to him, pushing him quickly to the edge of reason. An inexorable tightening wound its way through his body, urged on by her soft whimpers and the desperate grasp of her hands on his shoulders.
“I love you, Nikki,” he murmured, holding her tighter. When she lifted her face, he sealed his vow with another kiss, a kiss of sweetness, longing, and more regret than he thought he could bear.
Then their time together was over. The door swung open with a bang, revealing four soldiers with four guns, all of them pointed at Nikki’s back.
Josh wanted to shout and throw himself against the guards. He wanted to create the melee he’d promised, to instigate a shooting spree. But his instinct to protect her was too strong to be overridden by his horrifyingly logical plan. He stepped in front of her, and the soldiers moved inside, surrounding them. One of the men reached for Nikki, but before he could touch her. Josh lashed out with his fist. He connected once, then doubled over with a groan, clutching his stomach where a soldier had buried the butt end of his machine gun. Another blow cracked against the back of his neck and dropped him to his knees.
Pain exploded in his head, fire bursts of light and wells of darkness pleading with him to black out, to slip into the peace of oblivion. He fought the temptation with every ounce of strength he had, forcing his eyes to open and his breath to keep coming.
“Josh!” Her voice came from a great distance, adding her strength to his. With a groan, he struggled to his feet.
In two languages and in a hundred different ways, Nikki told the soldiers what she thought of their combined manhood, rattling off a stream of invective guaranteed to scorch their ears. She whirled on each of them in turn, personally including them in her verbal rampage.
The youngest soldier giggled nervously, and Nikki knew he’d never heard such language come out of a woman’s mouth. But the novelty was short-lived.
“Cállate! Basta, ya!” One of the others shouted her into silence.
Pushing and shoving with their guns, the soldiers prodded them outside into the night. One of the men stooped down and picked up the blindfold and gag Josh had taken off her. Nikki caught the quick action out of the corner of her eye, and her fury skittered into a wall of dread. They were going to die in darkness.
Her mouth went dry. Her life tried to pass before her eyes, but it was too soon. There was too much fear and not enough acceptance of the inevitable. She turned to Josh, her mind groping for answers she’d never find. The guards had already wrapped the blindfold over his eyes and were tying his hands behind him. The light offered by the cooking fire showed a sticky mass of blood and hair at the nape of his neck—the last thing she saw.
The blindfold came around her face, tied and tightened by hands that didn’t care. Someone else jerked her arms behind her back and knotted a rope around her wrists. The guards pushed her forward and down onto her knees.
“Hurry, hurry . . . No! I’ll kill them myself!”
Brazia. Nikki recognized his voice, then immediately tried to shake his image from her mind. She didn’t want her last thought to be of the mad dog.
Last thought! Where was Josh? A groan and the force of someone hitting the ground close to her telegraphed his presence.
“Start my jeep!” Brazia shouted.
Nikki heard a magazine being snapped into a gun. The night was moving too fast. Hurry, hurry. Brazia’s voice echoed in her ears. A trembling from deep inside shook her body. She tried to speak Josh’s name, but she couldn’t form the word and hyperventilate at the same time, and
hyperventilation was winning hands down. Her whirling thoughts careened out of control. She was going to die scared senseless. Not even the pressure of the gun at the base of her skull brought her down to earth.
“Josh . . . Josh . . .”
Her desperate gasp tore through the air—then the shot.
Josh heard the panic in her voice, he felt and heard the explosion, the fall, and he knew the best of his life had ended.
Twelve
Dust turned to mud in her mouth. She spat out the dirty taste and wondered why getting shot didn’t hurt more where the bullet had gone in, and why she still hurt in other places like her arms and stomach. Something was wrong. Had Brazia missed? Impossible. He’d had the gun to her head.
She did a quick check of her senses and came to an undeniable conclusion: she was alive. Then why couldn’t she move? The weight crushing her into the earth shifted and pushed against her, and she pushed back. The weight slid off her with a groan and a thud.
“Josh?” Her voice trembled with a terrible premonition.
“Nikki?”
She jerked her head around toward his voice. If he wasn’t on top of her, who—Brazia! Someone had shot Brazia, but he wasn’t dead either. She scrambled to her feet to get away from him, then immediately dropped back to the ground, suddenly aware of the chaos all around her. Shots were coming from everywhere, with her, Josh, and Brazia in the middle.
“Stay down! Stay put!” Josh yelled.
Lord, she wished she could see.
“Say something, Nikki! I can’t find you!” Seconds after she fell, Josh realized help had come. One of the soldiers had literally run over him trying to escape, knocking him down and turning him around.
“Here. I’m over here.” Her voice came from behind him.
Help had come in time. Nikki was alive. He prayed he could keep her that way.
Shuffling on his knees, he scooted closer to her. “Are you hurt?”
“No. Brazia’s here. He’s alive, but I think he’s been shot.”
“Good,” he said, his breath coming hard from fear, the shock of thinking she’d been shot, and the sheer relief of knowing she was alive. “Lie down and roll close to my back.” He nudged her shoulder and felt her drop to the ground. Bullets whizzed by them, pinging off the vehicles parked haphazardly around the compound. Someone screamed.
