Gideon

by Cherry Adair

  Had the woman seen them slip behind Sin’s hut? Did she know about his secret room back there? While Riva continued screaming, and struggling against Sin’s punishing grip on her upper arm, she wondered how to use their hostility against both of them. Pit them against each other harder, and they might just forget she was around. Taking her screams up a notch, she yanked and pushed to break his hold.

  Sin shook her hard enough that her teeth snapped together. “Shut the fuck up, woman,” he warned in biting English, eyes telegraphing just how serious the situation was. “Or I’ll hit you even harder.” The implication was that he’d hit her hard before. Not that tap in front of his mother. Nope. He wanted Mommy Dearest to think he’d hit his prisoner hard and often between then and now.

  He raised his voice over hers, and squeezed her arm. Happy to comply, since she was getting on her own damn nerves, and breathing hard with exertion from the act, Riva cut off at mid scream.

  “The prisoners escaped,” Mama said, her tone angry and accusatory.

  Damn. Riva had hoped they’d have more time before anyone was aware of their disappearance. Attuned to the thick undercurrents, she noticed the infinitesimal tightening of Sin’s steely fingers biting into her bicep.

  “Send people to bring them back,” he told his mother coldly. “They can’t have gone far.”

  “You miss the point. They didn’t find the key and unlock the door themselves.”

  “Then I suggest,” he told his mother, frost dripping from every syllable, “you find out who’s responsible, and go and find them. Those prisoners are worth upward of five million US a piece. Don’t waste time bitching. Get them back. And next time, be more careful with the merchandise.”

  It was clear to Riva that Angélica had an angry retort on the tip of her tongue, but instead of spewing it, she seemed to gather herself, making herself even smaller as she said in a respectful tone. “We can still get the ransom from their families.”

  The about-face was masterful and unexpected. It was also, Riva was well aware, not in the slightest bit sincere.

  “Then don’t go looking for them,” Sin told her, voice even and disinterested. “I don’t give a shit. We get the money either way.”

  Even as she kept her tone modulated, Angélica’s evil black eyes darted back to Riva. This had all kinds of potential to slide sideways. Two dogs. One bone. The only problem was that she was the bone, and these damn dogs both looked like they were used to winning.

  “Someone,” Angélica sent a pointed look at Riva, “released them.” She leaned in closer, her spittle making wet contact with Riva’s cheeks and ear. “Is that why you came here? To take my hostages?”

  “The helicopter she was in crashed,” Sin answered for her, voice tight; he sounded at the end of his rope. He was just better at controlling his temper than his mother was. “It wasn’t fucking premeditated. For Christ sake, listen to yourself, you’re paranoid! Do you have nothing more important to do this morning than bother me with household business? If you’re bored, I suggest you clean weapons, or go out on patrol.”

  Riva kept her own expression apprehensive and confused, since she “didn’t speak Spanish.” She read the woman’s angry face. Angélica was livid. Her facial expressions and body language said she wanted to hurt, no, grievously wound somebody. Problem was, Riva couldn’t tell if it was her, or Sin, or both of them.

  Her microexpressions were fascinating. Angélica had prominent canine teeth—a sign of determination to win, a killer instinct. Something Sin had said or done had made her feel threatened. Vulnerable. The Angel of Death didn’t do vulnerable, apparently. Weakness made this woman lash out like a poisonous snake until her victim was dead. And had suffered beforehand.

  A vertical forehead furrow over her right eyebrow indicated stored-up anger related to work. Interesting. Anger about being thwarted at work. Not anger stored up over time related to a personal relationship.

  Her son meant absolutely nothing to her.

  It was the ANLF that was everything to this woman.

  “I want to know who she is, and what the fuck she’s doing here. Now.” She shot Sin a look so filled with loathing and venom that Riva waited for him to fall over stone dead. The switch from malice to benign and back to venomous was so rapid, it was hard to keep track.

  Easily agitated, Mama Diaz was volatile and prone to emotional outbursts, including fits of rage. She was a sociopath, and therefore unpredictable.

  “She claims to be an assassin, here to kill Maza.” Sin said it so deadpan cold that for a moment, Riva doubted Mama would believe him.

  Angélica glanced at her with the unblinking stare of a lizard. Her eyes lingered on the swell of Riva’s breasts as if weighing them, then slid like a noxious oil slick down her bare legs and back up her face. Riva felt as though something slimy and poisonous had just crawled all over her. Mama’s beady black eyes summed her up in a disparaging glance. “You believe her?”

  “Why not? What other purpose could she have for being here?” Compared to Mama, hard-ass Sin was a prince.

  His mother narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “That makes no sense! Why would Maza fly in his own killer?”

  “She hitched a ride, posing as an aid worker.”

  “And this you believe?”

  “Excuse me,” Riva inserted, because no one would stand there not responding if people were talking around her. “Could we please have this conversation in English?”

  Sin’s attention didn’t so much as flicker away from the older woman. “My mother doesn’t speak English.”

  Yeah. Just like I don’t speak fluent Spanish.

  “Notify Maza that we have her. See how much he’ll pay. If he doesn’t want her, find out where her family is. If they have money, we’ll ransom her to them instead.” The older woman raked her with another glance. “She’s clean. Not ugly. Sell her to Vargas if Maza shows no interest or she has no family. He’ll give us two hundred American for her.”

  Two hundred dollars? Riva was mildly insulted. She could sell her organs for more than that.

  Sin snapped out, “No.”

  “What will you do with her? Keep her here to fuck? You want to buy her?”

  “I found her. I don’t need to buy her. I already own her. I’m going to send her to Maza. Let her do what she came to do. If she’s telling the truth, it’s one less obstacle, removed without us losing any men. If she isn’t, Maza’s men can waste their bullets shooting her or the jungle will eat her alive. Either way she’s eliminated.”

  From beneath her straight-cut black bangs, Angel de la Muerte shot Riva a withering look, then returned her attention to her son. “If Maza sees you again, he will kill you,” she warned, tone dire. “The man is está bien loco and you know it. He left you for dead once. If he sees you alive he will make you pray for death and there’ll be nothing I can do to help you this time. Between Maza and this one, you’d better sleep with your eyes open.”

  “I always do,” Sin said.

  Riva figured she’d killed plenty of men with their eyes wide open. Sin Diaz would just be one more.

  “She might choose you as her next target.”

  “You have so little faith that you think I trust this woman? I do not.”

  Ditto, Dick.

  Angélica drew deeply on the pungent, unfiltered cigarette she hadn’t bothered to remove from her lips, as she tried to figure out how she could gain the upper hand in the situation.

  Riva didn’t make the mistake of dismissing her as a bitter middle-aged woman. Looking into Angélica’s eyes was seeing pure evil.

  I rebuke you Satan came instantly to mind.

  She had to fight the urge to cross herself. With a Mexican mother and Italian father, no matter how long ago and far away her upbringing was, she wanted all the talismans she could get to ward off evil.

  T-FLAC intel, studied in hasty preparation for the mission, gave her plenty of stories on Angélica, some factual, some mythical. One of the many substantiated
stories was how the Angel of Death had scooped out the eyes of a hostage as proof of life, after the payment had been made, then she sent the girl home, more dead than alive, to her terrified parents. She’d kept hostages for years, using them as toys, breaking their bones and allowing them to heal in unnatural ways. She shipped one man’s remains home to his family ten years after his kidnapping. Every bone in his body had been broken while he was alive.

  Riva controlled a shudder at the woman’s depravity.

  Angélica was the most dangerous, but not by much.

  Even though the microexpressions of the man who stood before her didn’t reveal it, T-FLAC intel told her Sin Diaz was known for his brutal interrogation techniques, too. Torture. Violent coercion. Unspeakable acts too numerous to mention. He was sexy as hell, but she would not for one second forget he was as lethal as a bullet between the eyes. She’d be wise to ensure those marauding lips and hands stayed the hell off her, no matter how much her vision suggested she would enjoy having him on her.

  Sin shrugged. “Why do we care? With Maza’s top lieutenants now dead, if she succeeds, the SYP will be thrown into chaos, yes?”

  Without comment, Angélica took another deep drag of her cigarette.

  “Without a leader,” Sin continued, “the SYP will be unable to do whatever it is they have planned. Leaving the field open for us. They’ll do all the work and we’ll reap the rewards.”

  Keeping up the sham of not understanding what they were saying, Riva kept looking back and forth between mother and son, and as she did, she began to focus on the disparities between the two.

  Angélica had the face and body of a squatty peasant while her son had the even features and the physique of a well-honed athlete. They didn’t look related. They barely looked like the same species.

  Even wearing combat boots, camo pants, and the open flak vest over his bare chested, Sin looked like he came from privilege, as if he’d been born to it. Riva could easily picture him wearing a stark black tux and a pleated white shirt at the opera. Or crisp white shorts playing tennis on a clay court in Cannes. A vision flashed before her, more clearly than her picturing him at the opera or playing tennis. A vision of Sin in a beautifully cut suit at the head of a boardroom table. All superimposed over the ramshackle surroundings of this jungle hut.

  Taken out of his native habitat he was vaguely familiar, but Riva couldn’t figure out how that could be. She’d never seen him before she opened her eyes after the crash. Not in a picture, or sketch, or live. Could he have really been the son of a famous hostage and looked like his biological father? Was that why he looked so familiar to her?

  Who the hell was this guy? When and why would he have worn either a tux or white shorts in the jungle? The answer was never, which meant her visions were on the freaking fritz.

  Remembering that she was supposed to be struggling against Sin, she resumed fighting to get free of his restraining hand. With a sharp jerk, he pulled her against his side, imprisoning her against the hard length of his body with a vise-like arm, holding her almost immobile.

  Riva smelled his hot skin, clean sweat, and fought not to take a deeper breath. Powerful and elemental, his aroma was a siren song to her hormones. At the brush of his heat against her arm, a shudder rippled across her damp skin. Something inside her coiled and tensed with unwelcome need.

  She didn’t struggle this time. Instead, she mentally made herself disappear, standing silent and dead still. The sultry heat of his body surrounded her like an all-enveloping cloak.

  “When will you take her?”

  “When I’m ready. Go and find something to keep yourself busy, woman.”

  Without waiting for a response, Sin jerked Riva completely off her feet and spun her around, pushing her ahead of him into his shack, then kicked the heavy door shut in his mother’s face.

  The second the door closed, Sin lowered her until her feet hit the floor. He stepped away from her, closing his eyes as he squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  Riva gave him an assessing look. Pain pinched his features. “You ordered me to scream like a deranged girl, don’t blame me for that headache, Diaz.”

  He dropped his hand and gave her an amused, if pained look. “Like a deranged girl?”

  “You know what I mean.” With each high-pitched shriek, the muscles beside Sin’s eyes had contracted as if he was in severe pain. “You and your mother seem to be having a battle of wills. I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with me?”

  Something passed behind his eyes, a fleeting telegraph of his next action, which she completely misread. Grasping her upper arm so that her shoulder hunched under her chin, he propelled her backward until her legs hit the side of the mental bed frame. The skin stretched across his cheekbones as his eyes telegraphed pain and intense annoyance. Another shake. “Can’t you be quiet for thirty fucking seconds?” Hazel eyes glittered green. “Enough.”

  Riva opened her mouth to tell him—

  He crushed his mouth down on hers in a kiss that wiped the pleasure of causing him a twofer of annoyance and pain right out of her brain.

  The kiss was hard enough at first to mash her lips against her teeth. But then, suddenly, he was inside with a sweep of his tongue. The taste of him was startling, metallic, slick, heat and lightning. Pulses long dormant soared to life as he explored her mouth as if he had every right to do so. He used his tongue and teeth, punishing, then more dangerously, passionate and compelling.

  Adrenaline, already racing from the confrontation she’d just witnessed, went supernova in her bloodstream. The kiss shot her hormones into the stratosphere, increasing the rate of her blood circulation, making her breathing ragged and preparing her muscles for exertion.

  Holy hell.

  Sin Diaz was a dangerous man.

  The thrust of his tongue was unbearably intense, and erotic enough to make Riva shudder. She didn’t want the son of a bitch to put his hands on her breasts. No. She didn’t want his touch, but she inexplicably ached for it. His kiss was a powerful aphrodisiac, an elixir she couldn’t resist. His taste, the rasp of his tongue sliding on hers, made her want one simple thing. More.

  Pressing herself tightly against him, she used his hard muscular chest to try to ease the ache of her nipples.

  This. Had. To. Stop. Now.

  Heart tripping unevenly, she hit his chest with both fists as tension burned like a fiery brand in her belly. No. No. No!

  In her mind—damn her visions—a future image shimmered into life. How far it was in the future, she had no idea. Five minutes? Mio Dios, she hoped not. Two hours? Better. That would give her time to change the course of action that had her spreading her legs for him, drawing her breath in anticipation.

  Riva felt a ghost of the powerful surge as he entered her. Heard the phantom sounds as his hips pounded against hers. Experienced a shadow, like a distant thunderclap, of his powerful thrusts as he brought her to a screaming, breathless climax over and over again.

  Her visions were never wrong. They always came true. Could the circumstances leading up to them be changed, and would that change negate the outcome? Possibly. Problem was, she didn’t have visions for herself. This vision was Sin’s future.

  It told her that no matter how much she resisted, how much she fought him, they were going to have sex. Not only were they going to connect, she was damn well going to enjoy it. The future image was so powerful she almost reached an orgasm, as her vision of the future merged with what was happening in the now.

  Her fists unfurled. Her fingers gripped the soft, damp hair on his hot, naked chest as his fingers dug into the balls of her shoulders. No room to move, no way, other than to stand on her toes to better reach his mouth. Eyes squeezed tight, Riva lived a dual sensation as he kissed her in the now, and her mind showed her their future in sensual technicolor.

  The morning sunlight flooding the small hut faded. Cave-like darkness surrounded them, and there was nothing but the feel of him inside her. His mouth sucking hard on her nippl
e, his fingers gripping the globes of her ass as he thrust into her wet, pulsing—

  No, dammit. That was the vision. It didn’t have to happen. She, like the prisoners, could zig instead of zag. She’d make different choices. Make damn sure that never happened.

  In the now, he was only kissing her. His hands were on her shoulders, holding her in place.

  It was just a kiss. His attempt at domination. Using sex to control her. Been there. Done that. Didn’t need a repeat to learn her lesson.

  The hard jut of his penis behind his cargo pants reminded her that her vision could very possibly be about to happen. Sooner rather than later. God knew he was ready enough and so was she.

  Bringing her arms up between them, she slammed up on his wrists, breaking his hold and took a giant step backward, out of reach.

  “Was that necessary?” she demanded, scrubbing her wrist across her damp mouth as his arms dropped to his sides. He dragged in a breath, a predatory gleam in those hot hazel eyes. He made no move to grab her, force her.

  Riva’s heart pounded hard enough to feel the beat behind her eyeballs and in every traitorous pulse point in her body. She could still feel the phantom brush of his hands on her breasts, and the very real wetness between her legs.

  “It did the job of shutting you up,” he told her dispassionately, gaze steady. The quick, pumping tic of pulse at his throat told her he was not nearly as disinterested as he’d like her to believe. “Trust me. I saved you from a fate worse than death out there.” He jerked a thumb toward the closed door. “You should be thanking me.”

  Riva made a rude noise. “Not going to happen.”

  “Stay put. I’m going around back to get supplies, don’t even think of making a run for it,” he told her briskly. “You won’t make it halfway across the compound. Mama doesn’t like you. She’s just itching for an excuse to use you as a punching bag. Make no mistake. She won’t pull her punches like I did.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, saluting smartly.

  He paused, hand on the door handle. “I bet that mouth of yours has gotten you into a shitload of trouble. Stay.”