Desperately trying to free my neck from his grip, my fingers clawed at his hand without success. A harsh, sinister laugh erupted from his mouth, and he lifted a shiny, short blade in front of my face, twirling it back and forth, taunting me. Then, he trailed it down my cheek, along my neck to the hollow at the base of my throat. Even though he didn’t puncture my skin, my heart pounded so hard, I thought it’d rip through the walls of my chest.
With soulless, vacant eyes, he sliced one strap of my sundress and then the other. His hand pressed even tighter around my neck, and I wondered if this was how I would die…at the hands of a nameless man, in a nondescript room, my body buried somewhere in the Yucatan jungle. With one final burst of effort, I tried to lift my leg to knee him in the balls, but the muscles in my legs refused to cooperate. They were boneless, collapsing under the weight of my body held up only by the press of his hand.
Suddenly, the door flew opened so hard it rebounded and almost closed again. With gray eyes the color of thunderclouds, Ryker stalked through the door, his hands fisted at his sides, color staining his cheeks.
One.
Two.
Three steps and he stood next to me, hovering over us like an avenging specter. Not wasting a second, he yanked the man’s hands from my neck. Like a lifeless doll, I collapsed to my knees, bracing my throbbing neck with my fingers and gasping for air.
Ryker shoved the man into the wall, his hand fisted in the man’s shirt. “?Qué mierda estás haciendo?”
“Ella arrojó una botella hacia mi cabeza. Tienes suerte que no la maté,” the nameless man spat, his face the color of molten lava, his eyes flashing, and his hands fisted in the material of his tan pants.
“No importa,” Ryker yelled, along with hundreds of other words I couldn’t begin to understand. He repeatedly slammed the stranger into the wall, punctuating each sentence or thought with the thud of flesh hitting cement.
My mind swirled watching the exchange of rapid-fire Spanish. I took three years of Spanish in high school, and I recognized a few words, but not enough to decipher the conversation. I heard kill, head, and bottle, but the other words meant nothing.
I should have screamed or ran. Instead, I sat unmoving as tremors ravaged my limbs, and air slowly refueled my oxygen-deprived body.
“Find someone else to babysit her,” the man screamed, switching to English as he flung his hand toward me.
“Déjanos!” Ryker tossed the man toward the door by his shirt.
The door to the bedroom slammed shut, echoing off the barren walls and concrete floors. Ryker turned his back to me, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his jeans, and his head bent. Shouts in Spanish and loud crashes filtered through the heavy door.
When the voices stopped, Ryker turned, crouching down in front of me. Breathing heavily, he grazed my neck with his fingertips. I recoiled, not wanting to be touched by him or anybody else. My hands shaking, I jammed my fist into my mouth, suddenly overwhelmed by the reality of my situation. A brutal cartel had drugged and abducted me. I’d be lucky if I walked away from this situation with my life, because I was starting to realize my only way out might be in a body bag.
“Stop,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I need to check your injuries.”
“I’m fine, not that you care.” I crab-walked backward, but I didn’t get far before the cold wall pressed into my back, trapping me.
“No, you’re not fine, and your condition definitely matters,” he said gruffly as he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me from the ground. I kicked him. I elbowed him and pulled at his hair. Nothing worked. He restrained me with minimal effort. The hard planes of his chest were warm against the front of my body, and his heart drummed wildly against his ribcage, which seemed wrong. He should feel icy, cold, and inhuman, because he was. He was a criminal.
Ryker dumped me on the bed. “What the hell?”
Shit. Tears rushed down my face, mingling with the snot from my nose. If I could see myself I’d be horrified, but I didn’t have the luxury of caring about my appearance any longer. I just needed him to leave. I tried to shield my face from him, but he snatched my hands, pressing them into the rock hard mattress as his eyes surveyed every inch of my body. I closed my eyes, unable to witness his icy perusal as though I were an inanimate object.
After seconds that stretched like hours, he released my hands and I rolled to my side, my back to him.
The bed dipped behind me, and he rested his hand on my hip. “You need to eat.”
“For some unfathomable reason, I lost my appetite.” I kicked the tray, but it only budged an inch or two.
“Nobody wants to see you hurt. As long as the U.S. government releases my brother, I’m happy to let you go. In fact, I’ll fly you first-class back to the U.S.”
I rolled onto my back and stroked the tender skin of my neck. It’d be black and blue soon if it weren’t already. “You could’ve fooled me.”
His lips pressed into a firm line, and he sighed in exasperation. “Just behave yourself and this whole thing will be infinitely easier for you. Don’t make waves.”
Did he think I was stupid? I couldn’t believe any word that tumbled from his beautifully cruel lips. “Just let me go and I’ll talk to my dad. I’ll convince him to grant a pardon for your brother or whatever the hell else you want. I have to go home.” My heart pounded against the walls of my chest. “I have to be in school in a couple days. I can’t miss. I’m a teaching assistant. I have a few more months until graduation. I have an internship lined up this summer.”
He slanted forward so his mouth was less than an inch from my ear. “Sorry, Hattie,” he murmured in a soft, soothing voice. “But I can’t have you complicating my plans. When Rever’s released, you’ll be released. Tit for tat. And even if I wanted to let you go, I couldn’t.”
“Sorry?” I shook my head from side to side, strands of hair whipping across my face. “Sorry for what? Abducting me? Imprisoning me? Drugging me? Fucking me in a dirty alley?”
A faint chuckled escaped his lips. “If I said all of the above, would you be happy? Or maybe I should apologize for everything but fucking you.” He cocked his head to the side, and a lock of midnight colored hair veiled his expressive eyebrows. “My memory is hazy, but I think you enjoyed it.”
I gasped. Satisfaction curled his lips into a wicked smile, and my stomach rolled in giant waves. “Shut up. Just shut up. You’re an asshole.”
His lips twitched, and he folded his arms across his chest. “So I’ve been told.”
“I hate you.”
He brushed a kiss across my forehead. An unwelcome heat spiraled through my body and my heart squeezed. My reaction didn’t make sense, so I mentally chalked it up to the trauma of the last few weeks—starting with catching Evan cheating, and ending with my abduction.
“No, you don’t,” he drawled as he rose from the bed.
“I don’t want to see you again. Can’t someone else take care of me?”
He raised one eyebrow, a quick up and down motion that made me uneasy. “Who? Caesar?”
“Caesar? Who’s he?”
“The man who tried to squeeze the life out of your neck a few seconds ago. Or maybe you’d prefer my father. I have a hunch you wouldn’t like him very much either…he has a notoriously bad temper. Do want some tea or broth?”