The Vargas Cartel Trilogy (Vargas Cartel #1-3)(12)

“Sorry,” he murmured, his gray eyes simmering with regret. I didn’t understand what he meant, and I opened my mouth to ask, but without warning, a sharp object pierced the thin skin of my neck.

He brushed a kiss across my lips, and my brain became fuzzier and fuzzier as one second bled into the next. Nothing made sense, but then my body swayed and an instant of absolute clarity flashed through my mind.

“You drugged me. Why?” I whispered, my tongue thick and heavy as it rolled over the words in my mouth.

“Because you’re you,” he whispered as my vision faded into nothingness.





Chapter Seven




Present Day



It had been hours since Ryker walked out of the room without explaining anything, leaving me tied to a wooden chair. The room didn’t have a single window, picture, or piece of furniture, except for the chair I sat on and a long wooden table behind me. The silence in the room was deafening; even my breath and the quiet hum of the florescent light seemed loud.

I stared at the white walls and the gray concrete floors as my mind stalked one horrible scenario after another, each worse than the previous. Deviants kept women chained to the walls. Religious fanatics groomed women to be subservient slaves. Sex traffickers drugged women and sold them. Serial murderers abducted women and tortured and killed them. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to beat back my impending panic attack.

I concentrated on the tangible items connecting me to that point in time just like my childhood therapist taught me. My chair was wood. The walls were white. My feet touched the concrete floor. The coarse hairs of the rope chaffed my skin. My bladder was insanely full. Slowly, my heartbeat returned to normal.

Just as the pressure building in my bladder had become too much, and I decided I didn’t care if I soiled myself, the door opened behind me. My muscles coiled into knots waiting for a word. None were spoken. Instead, I listened to the soft shuffle of leather shoes over concrete and faint inhalations and exhalations, moving closer and closer with each passing second.

I could have said something, but I didn’t. I didn’t have anything to say, not yet anyway, and screaming wouldn’t help. I screamed after Ryker left for so long that my throat felt as though I had just finished my first performance as a fire swallower.

“Are you hungry?”

Ryker. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. I recognized his voice. He placed his hands on my shoulders, his front to my back. I could smell him—spice mixed with salty sea air. Fear and loathing in the form of a shudder crept down my spine.

I shook my head.

“Thirsty?” He squeezed my shoulders.

I nodded. I was so f*cking thirsty I couldn’t form the words. I wanted to be strong and refuse anything from him, but I was weak in both my mind and body. Unless I did something about it, I’d become progressively weaker with every passing hour. My throat throbbed. My eyes were so dry that I heard the clicking sound of my eyelids as they slid over my eyeball with every blink. My skull pounded.

He removed his hands from my shoulders, and I blew out a huge breath, lifting my heavy bangs from my forehead. I tried to ignore it, but I could still feel the imprint of his hands on my shoulders. Less than a minute later, he crouched down in front of me, a plastic cup filled with a clear liquid in one hand.

I glared pointedly at my bindings. “Are you going to untie me?” The words came out as a strangled whisper.

He smiled a faint, maddening grin that mocked my very existence. “No.”

One f*cking word. “Are you going dump it over my face or make me lap it up like a dog?”

“No.” He lifted the glass to my lips, and I greedily sucked the liquid into my Sahara-like mouth.

“More?” he asked when he pulled it away.

I tipped up my chin. “You won’t get away with this. Vera knows I left with you.”

He cocked his head to the side, watching me carefully, completely unmoved by my words. Calm amusement lit the savage planes of his face. “No. She knows you talked to a guy at a bar, but she left before we danced or even before you sat down. I made sure of it. I don’t make mistakes. No one can trace you to me.” His lips curved in a smile that was miles from reassuring. “Besides, this is Mexico. The bureaucratic red tape between here and your government will give me months of lead time.”

In one sickening rush, my stomach caved in on itself and the water I drank threatened to reverse its course as I processed his words. “You sent that man to talk to Vera to get rid of her so you could…” I gasped, and the blood drained from my face, leaving me lightheaded. He set me up. He planned everything. This wasn’t a random crime of opportunity. This was much worse. He had targeted me.

“I’ve been watching you for a while.” He stood up, and I hated the lethal grace oozing out of him. I hated I even noticed, but his magnetic charm wouldn’t fool me today. Without alcohol flowing through my veins, he looked dangerous, but maybe that was just my imagination. A black shirt stretched across his chest. The stubble on his face was thicker and blacker than last night, but he was just a man, even if my mind wanted to believe otherwise.

I bit my lower lip until the faint, metallic taste of blood flavored my saliva. “Are you going to kill me?”

“I don’t think it will come to that.” His voice was casual, lazy even, but his eyes weren’t. His gray irises focused on me with hyper-vigilance.