On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(104)

Michael Evans walked out of the double doors from the hangar building. He was older, thinner, still a monster. He moved over to her, and she couldn’t help but try to get away. A primal fear took over. She pulled at the hold Warren had on her. Every bit of terror she’d gone through in those days with Evans bubbled to the surface.

He bore down on her, using his height to his advantage.

“Hello, whore. I missed you. I was so sad to have to give you up.” He reached out for her.

Scream for me, you dirty whore.

She could still hear him yelling at her as he struck her with the razor-tipped flogger.

She flinched away, her voice leaving her. Panic threatened. A muscle memory of the pain he’d given her flared, and she could feel the skin flaying off her back. She could feel the blood running down to her legs and feet. He hadn’t cleaned her up. She would smell the coppery scent for hours.

And she could feel a soft kiss to each scar. A smooth hand covering hers as words were whispered into her ear.

I loved you then. I love you now. I will love you long after we’re dead and gone.

A quiet voice took over. The screaming one didn’t stand a chance against Alex’s voice. She closed her eyes. He was with her. He was always with her.

Calm down. Be patient. What would her Master want?

He would want her to stay alive. And this time she knew that she could handle anything. She could take the pain and humiliation because Alex would hold her and love her and make her whole again.

And if he got lost, she would be strong enough to bring him back. The mistake she’d made the first time was in not telling her Master what she needed. More than anything, she needed him.

He was here. No matter what happened, he loved her.

And she would survive.

“Fuck you.” He wouldn’t get her submission. That belonged to the man who had earned it.

Evans’s dark eyes narrowed. “You haven’t aged well, whore. You seem to have forgotten your place. I will teach you again. Warren, bring her in. We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”

He turned and walked away as though he knew no one would ever disobey his commands.

“I’m sorry.” But Warren forced her up.

“My husband is going to kill you.” Eve limped along. She was bleeding from her wrists and knees. It wasn’t bad yet, just some scrapes and cuts. She had no doubt that she would bleed freely soon.

Warren stopped. “Jesse killed him.”

It was time for a little truth. Jesse had seemed so sure. And she would have felt something if Alex was no longer walking the earth. “No. He failed. Alex is alive. I was there.”

She hadn’t watched it, but she’d heard how Jesse cursed.

“You’re f*cking lying, but even if you’re not, it won’t change a damn thing.”

Alex being alive changed everything. “He won’t stop until he finds me and kills you.”

Warren seemed to think about it for a moment. “He’s dead. Jesse wouldn’t lie.”

“You didn’t give him a chance to lie. You just shot him. Alex is alive. Jesse failed.”

He shook his head as though trying to grasp the concept. “Then I’ll just have to be his friend again. When Evans takes you, I’ll wait a couple of days and then I’ll call him. I’ll let him lean on me. I’ll pretend to try to find you. He doesn’t know anything.”

Eve shook her head as Warren opened the door and shoved her in. “No. He’ll figure it out. He has everything he needs to know. He knows someone erased a file at the FBI. He knows Carmen Garcia’s name. He’ll start checking into her. He’ll put it together and he’ll be at your doorstep one night. He won’t be any more merciful with you than Evans was with me.”

Warren hurried her along. “You were always the brains of that operation, Eve. Without you, Alex is just a big piece of meat. He’s nothing without you. I saw the way he disintegrated the first time. He’ll be worse now. He won’t be able to think about anything except you, and I’ll find someone to finally take him out. And Eddie will be safe. When he wins the White House, I’ll have a place at his side. Like it should be.”

She was dragged into the hanger. The building was large, easily housing a small Learjet. Evans had come up in the world. She counted eight men walking around the hanger, including one of the men who had watched her the other day in Chazz’s office.

She felt a savage sense of satisfaction. Her Master was going to owe her big time. He was still wearing the same shoes, the very ones she’d attached the GPS to. Oh, she was never going to let him live that down.

And then she saw something that chilled her to the bone.

Stack after stack of what looked to be fertilizer lined the long walls of the hanger. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was something for the farm that seemed to be attached. They were stacked ten bags high and the hanger went on for thirty yards. There must have been hundreds and hundreds of bags. That many bags could be turned into a bomb of unimaginable force.

Evans walked up to her, holding his hands out as though inviting her to a great event. “Welcome, Eve. The last time we were together, I was a small operation. I think you’ll find my brief time in prison has refined and refocused my passion. How do you like me now, whore?”

“Not any better than I did before.” God, what was he going to do with all that fertilizer? She was afraid she knew damn well. And Warren was going to let it happen? She wasn’t sure who was the bigger monster—Evans, who was a sociopath, or Warren, who knew better and still allowed it to happen.