Before they killed her, though, they’d want information. The military didn’t come after a nobody, so they had to assume she was important and important people had information.
Withstanding torture was part of her training, but so far she’d never had to make use of that particular curriculum. Not to this extent, anyway. She’d been hoping to avoid it, but in her line of work it was bound to catch up with her eventually.
While she waited for Camacho to show up, she worked on psyching herself up to face the worst. Accepting her fate was the first step. Understanding there was no hope of rescue or survival was supposed to make it easier, to free the mind to deal with the challenge of keeping one’s mouth shut. Under no circumstances would she make any deals for her life, or believe anything Camacho offered.
She’d face her death with dignity and be proud she’d taken everything they could dish out and never broken. It helped knowing that if she talked she put other people—colleagues—at risk. Her job was to protect people, not throw them under the bus to save herself. She’s win this fight even though it cost her life.
Her mind wandered and she worried about Damian, hoping he hadn’t died either from the bullet or from drowning. She smiled. If he were with her, he’d scoff at her and tell her, ‘Elena, SEALs DO NOT drown.’ She could just imagine the look of disgust on his face, and the disdain in his voice. For a moment, she regretted not having a future to spend with him because now she wanted one.
Camacho made her wait and stew, but by the time he finally showed up she’d put Damian in a compartment in her brain along with anything else important in her life and shut the door. She was as ready as she’d ever be.
“Miss Mitchell.”
His voice made her jump. After all the tension of waiting, his loud voice in the quiet room startled her.
He sauntered in and rested one butt cheek on the corner of the desk, a few feet away.
“Mr. Camacho,” she returned the greeting, working a quiver into her voice. Plan A was to stick to the meek, scared girl scenario. It might buy her some time—for what, she didn’t know. But the more she kept him talking, the less he tortured her, and she was all for that. “What are you going to do to me?” She let her voice finish the question off high pitched on panic.
He cocked his head and studied her. She opened her eyes wide, made a sad, scared puppy face, and let tears well. Then, she broke eye contact and looked down at her lap, working hard to produce tears and let them fall. May as well go the whole nine.
All the while, her heart hammered so fast she couldn’t have counted the beats if she tried.
“Here’s my problem, Miss, and forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t buy into your act.”
She brought her face up to meet his gaze, sniffing for effect. “What act? I’m not acting. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just want to go home.”
“You will not be going home. Not alive, anyway. My problem is this: you’re a very good actress. You convince me you are afraid, you make tears fall. I think you are just a frightened girl. But I think you speak Spanish just fine, and I saw the men you killed at the house, and you fought my men at the river. You know what you’re doing.”
“One of the soldiers killed the men at the house.” It was worth a try.
He stood and moved surprisingly fast. She didn’t even see his hand come swinging out of nowhere and slap her hard across the face.
“Ouch,” she said, swinging her jaw back and forth to work the pain out.
“Now I know you are lying,” he said. “One man was killed with a knife from the kitchen, the other with his own knife. Which makes me wonder, who are you, really, Senorita?”
He loomed over her, squeezing his fingers into beefy fists.
“I’m an accountant. That’s all. It’s not my fault my dad’s a senator.”
“You work for the CIA, no?”
“Yes. As an accountant.”
He snatched a handful of her hair and yanked her head around at an awkward angle. Her scalp burned and her neck stretched.
“I do not believe you.”
“Sorry,” she said, remembering at the last second to add a scared squeak to her voice.
He leaned in until his face hung so close to hers that his hot breath wheezed into her open mouth. “I think I can persuade you to tell me the truth.”
Then he stuck out his slimy tongue and licked her cheek from chin to temple. So much yuck. She’d prepared herself for being beaten or flayed or water-boarded. She’d thought about rape and hoped it wouldn’t be on the table, but how could it not be? It was an age-old use of power and control. She thought she’d prepared for that, too, but licking? That was just weird.
“I guess you’re right, you can persuade me to tell the truth, because I already told you the truth.”
Apparently her default reaction to interrogation was angry sarcasm. She really wanted to unleash on him.
He quirked a surprised brow at her. “You are what they call sassy? Am I right? You have spunk?”
“Not really.”
“Here’s what I think. I think you are an agent for the CIA. I think you found out the senator was taking money from El Jefe so the agency planted you in the senator’s family, then had the senator betray El Jefe, knowing El Jefe would seek revenge. When he kidnapped you, it got you inside. And now you know too much. If the military hadn’t messed things up, you would have escaped on your own.”
“Why would the military come after me if it was such a big elaborate plan to get me inside?”
“Because El Jefe kidnapped a senator’s daughter. They had to respond to that.”
She just stared at him, baffled by the backward reasoning. “You’re insane. Flat out, batshit crazy.”
This time he punched her. Her cheekbone crunched and she bit her tongue, tasting blood. Her ears rang. Fuck. He hit hard.
“I will enjoy you.” He reached down and took one of her breasts in his hand, squeezing it until it hurt, leaving no doubt what he meant by enjoy. “I like breaking sassy women.”
Shit.
“I don’t break easily, asshole.”
“Good. My men will be pleased to hear that. They’ll be happy to help.”
She had to go and open her big fat mouth.
He fumbled with his belt, sliding it out of the loops and pulling it free. Until now, she’d paid no attention to the man’s crotch, but when his actions drew her attention down there she noticed his erection. So he got off on violence. Great.
When he released the erection from his pants, it sprang out at eye level, big, hard, purple, and gross.
In some detached part of her brain two things occurred to her: first, that maybe there was some truth to the urban legend about penis size corresponding to hand size; secondly, that penises were such funny-looking appendages. Without any attraction to the man it was attached to, it was just a thick, fleshy, and very vulnerable piece of meat. Why did men get so fucking worked up about it?
Then she thought about Damian’s cock and that was a completely different story. What that man could do with his cock made her body sing.
However, now was not the time to be thinking about Damian and his magical cock.
“Put that thing away before you hurt someone,” she said, earning herself another blow to the face.
“You have a smart mouth.” He looped his belt around her neck, slipping the loose end through the buckle and pulling it snug. “I think I can put it to better use.”
He stepped in between her thighs bringing his cock to within an inch of her mouth. It stank like sweat and stale piss. She thought she might gag.
Perhaps she didn’t have the fortitude for this kind of torture. She could tolerate being slapped around, some broken bones, cigarette burns, maybe even having her fingernails yanked off. Eventually she’d get numb to it, or at least she assumed she would. The worse it got, the better the prize of death at the end would seem.
This, though, didn’t seem like something worth toleratin
g. She could only imagine how things would escalate from here, and she’d be happy to pass on that thank you very much.
He pulled the belt tight, and like a dog’s choke chain it cut off her air, strangling her. He held it there until the edges of her vision turned black and white stars sparkled in front of her eyes. She opened her mouth and tried to suck in air, but nothing came.
He pitched his hips forward and rested the tip of his penis on her bottom lip. “You behave and do what I want, you get to breathe. You do anything else, you don’t get to breathe. If you’re a good girl, I might even let you live. Understand?”
She nodded. No way in hell she planned to behave the way he wanted. Surviving only meant more of the same. She’d rather die than become Camacho’s sex slave, so she formulated a plan. When he stuck that ugly shit in her mouth, she’d bite it off and spit it out in his face. Hopefully his reaction would be to strangle her and she’d be done.
When he released the belt, she gasped for air, coughing when she sucked in too much and gagged on it. She wished she’d had the forethought to puke on him.
As she sat up and breathed easier, a sound outside the room caught her attention. It wasn’t much, just a muffled thud, but it got Camacho’s attention too. He glanced over at the window at the same time she did. Elena spit a raspberry then burst out laughing at what she saw.
Damian stood outside the window looking for all the world like an avenging angel in camo. She had to assume every guy in the warehouse was dead if he’d made it this far. He stood tall and glorious, pointing his weapon at Camacho, the scariest look on his face she’d ever seen on another human being. If she was Camacho, she’d be terrified, but her heart squeezed at the sight of him. He’d come for her. She just might fall in love with him for that.
“Dude, you are so fucking dead,” she said just as Damian pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 9
Damian just about lost his mind when he looked in the window and saw Elena tied to a chair with a belt around her neck and a dick in her face. But when she looked at him and her face lit up, happy to see him, he felt stronger than ever, like everything clicked into place where it belonged.
He hurried into the room and shoved the dead asshole out of the way so he could get to Elena. He had the urge to empty his clip into the corpse, but he contained it. Elena was more important.
He took her face in his hands—her swollen, bruised face—and looked her in the eyes. “Are you okay? Where are you hurt?”
“I’m fine now that you’re here.” Blue pools full of humor and adoration looked back at him. Real tears slid down her cheeks.
He knelt and slid his blade from the scabbard, and worked at cutting the bindings on her ankles. When he got to her wrists, he grinned up at her and said, “I suppose you had a plan to get out of this?”
She nodded, then whispered, “I was going to try to piss him off enough he’d kill me fast instead of doing it slowly.”
His gut roiled at the thought of her sitting here working that out as the best option. “That’s not a very good plan.”
“It was the best I could do.”
As he finished cutting her free, he offered up the most stable smile he could manage. “Will you let me rescue you this time?”
She let out a snuffling laugh. “Do I look like a damsel in distress?”
“Hell yes, you do.”
“Well then, you’d better do your damn job, hotshot.”
He huffed a laugh, but it turned into a choked sob. He tossed his helmet to the floor and ran his hands through his hair. “Jesus, Elena. I was so scared I wouldn’t get to you in time. I was fucking out of my mind. I’ve never felt that way before. Never. I don’t even know what to do with that.”
With her hands and feet free, she slid out of the chair into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. His arms went around her body and he held on tight, while he buried his face in her shoulder.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “I hoped you were wearing body armor, but I didn’t know. And when you fell in the river and disappeared, I thought you’d drowned.”
“SEALs don’t drown, Elena.”
She giggled. “I knew you’d say that.” She pulled back and looked him in the eye, serious now. “You came for me.”
He took her face in his hands again, using his thumbs to wipe her tears. She hissed when he touched her swollen cheek and he cringed that he’d hurt her. “How could I not?”
“You didn’t have to. You could have called for backup and waited.”
“No, I couldn’t.” He tipped her head up and placed his lips on hers, a sweet, gentle, deeply passionate kiss that made his heart ache with needing her. “You’re not just a mission to me, Elena. You’re far more than that.”
Climbing up to her knees, she kissed him again, a fierce, determined, possessive kiss, as if she wanted to climb inside his very soul. When she finished, she collapsed into his arms. “Can we please get out of this place? I think I’ve had enough of Colombia.”
CHAPTER 10
Elena rested her crossed arms on the edge of the infinity pool and watched the sun blaze a fiery orange inferno as it made its way behind the horizon.
Damian swam up beside her, echoing her pose of crossed arms resting on the edge of the pool.
“Another beautiful Costa Rican sunset,” he said.
“I can’t get enough of them,” she said. “This jungle is way better than the last one.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. The last few days have been great. I could get used to this place.”
They’d hauled ass out of Colombia and driven all the way to Costa Rica, stopping only once for Damian to communicate with his superiors. He reported that he and Elena were safe and where they were headed, that they’d call when they got there and make arrangements from there.
They’d learned her father had been shot in the firefight between El Jefe and the SEALs, and that he’d died making sure El Jefe didn’t get away. Because of him, at least in part, El Jefe would face justice. Elena grieved for her father, but wondered if he’d given his life more to avoid the humiliation of prosecution and jail than as some heroic deed. She’d never know.
She glanced over at Damian then back at the sunset. “Liar. You’re itching to get out of here.”
“I didn’t know I was that transparent,” he dunked under the water and came back up a few feet away, his tan body and blond hair dripping with water turned golden by the setting sun. He propped his elbows back on the edge of the pool. “I don’t like to sit still for long.”
Did he mean literally or metaphorically? He’d been damn cryptic since they’d left Colombia.
“I don’t either, usually. But I’m kind of exhausted after the last couple of weeks.” A massive understatement.
“Yeah.”
She waited for more, but he didn’t offer anything else. The awkward silence was maddening. “It was nice of your brother to let us stay here indefinitely, anyway.”
Damian waved away her comment. “Not like he can’t afford it. The resort’s making money hand over fist, and he never needed the money to start with.”
The small talk was killing her. They hadn’t talked about anything of consequence—including everything that had happened to them—since they stumbled into the resort filthy, bloody, and beat. She’d thought after they got cleaned up, they’d be tripping over words, falling into each other’s arms full of relief and emotion and possibility. Instead, it had been the exact opposite.
“It won’t be long before the Navy and CIA come to drag us back for debriefing.”
“I imagine.”
She couldn’t stand it anymore. If they didn’t talk soon, she’d more than likely strangle him, so she took a deep breath and picked around the edges of the things they needed to talk about. “You didn’t have to stay here with me.”
He swam closer, tucking a tendril of wet hair behind her ear. They’d been at the resort for several days and he had yet to make any physical contact wi
th her beyond a few tender yet mostly platonic kisses or touches. He wouldn’t even share the same bed with her, offering the lamest of excuses, like she needed to heal. Right now, her raw, wounded heart and mind needed more attention than her body. Well, her body screamed for him, but not because of her injuries.
“Yes, I did.”
The first honest words he’d shared with her in days. Hope flickered to life in her heart.
“Why?”
Anger flashed in his eyes, followed closely by something that looked suspiciously like shame, before he looked away. “I failed you,” he said.
He flopped into the water, diving to the bottom of the pool and swimming like a dolphin across to the other side before jumping out onto the deck and plucked a towel from one of the chairs.
Despite her fear of the water, she’d tolerated it—even enjoyed it—as long as he was there with her. But she had no intention of letting him take advantage of her poor swimming as a means of escape. They’d talk, dammit, even if she had to dog paddle across the pool to make it happen.
He’d been working with her, so she’d progressed beyond awkward flailing, and managed to get to the other side of the pool and haul herself out. She snagged her towel and marched after him.
“Don’t you walk away from me.”
He spun at the doorway into their suite. The look of surprise on his face would have made her laugh if anger didn’t fuel her with purpose.
“You’re getting better in the pool.”
Poking him in the chest, she said, “Don’t change the subject.”
He backed into the room and she followed, both of them dripping on the carpet.
“What was the subject, again?” he asked.
From the look on his face—pained, sad, desperate—he understood the subject perfectly, but still fought to avoid it. The scrunched lines between his brows, the haunted shadow in his eyes, the tight, closed-off way he held himself away from her all came into crystal-clear focus in an instant. The attraction and feelings they had for each other couldn’t have disappeared, so for some reason he ran from them or shoved them away.
Damian (The Caine Brothers #3) Page 9
