Sinclair Justice (Texas Rangers #2)(32)
“And you don’t think Arturo and Tomás will have every single vehicle stopped and searched when we disappear? You know half of the Mexican authorities are on his payroll. Once they get us back . . .” Jennifer began crying again, burying her face in her pillow. “I’m so tired . . .” she murmured, and then she was asleep again.
Yancy realized she’d taken Xanax from the pill bottle beside the bed. Tomás, the bastard, gave her the meds to keep her quiet when he was gone, and she feared her gifted, honor student daughter had become addicted. It was better than cocaine, she tried to tell herself, but her eyes welled up despite her best intentions.
Yancy stroked her daughter’s bright head, tears falling hotly. She was having a hard enough time controlling her own fear and hatred; how could she keep Jennifer strong enough to escape when she herself was only holding on by a single emotional thread? Then the door opened. Yancy wiped her eyes on her sleeve and turned with a blank smile. “I’m coming.”
The older man eyed the pill bottle beside the bed, the sleeping girl, and Yancy’s tearstained face. Something that might have been sympathy flashed in his eyes. Yancy saw it, realizing he must have a daughter of his own, but she also knew he’d never betray his jefe. He merely jerked his head at the door. Yancy scuttled, only then realizing she’d forgotten to look at Jennifer’s fiesta dress.
As she went downstairs, she saw Arturo enter the hallway and look up at her.
She faltered, recognizing that expression, but merely went down the stairs with that hip-swaying gait he liked. She kissed his cheek, asking him about his meetings, as a good mistress should.
He shrugged. “You saw your daughter without permission? Your meeting with her is not for several days.” Arturo smiled slightly, as if it was no big deal, but she knew that smile shielded a keen, active mind that was always assessing, looking for betrayal or advantage.
Yancy’s fallback with him was the same one that had saved her from many a beating or being auctioned off to the highest bidder: guarded honesty. “I’m sorry, but you know how worried I am about her . . . Do you think maybe we could cut back on her meds?”
His smile became rueful. He shrugged elegant shoulders. “My son insists, and she is his. . . .” He trailed off.
Yancy said bitterly, before she could stop herself, “Puta.”
His smile dropped away clean, as if she’d sliced it off his face. “I’ve been too lenient with you, mujer. You want to see how a puta is really treated?” Grabbing her by the hair, he pulled her into the living room and slammed the door. He ripped her dress down to her waist and shoved her scant bra up to suckle harshly at her nipples, bumping his erection into her as he shoved her back on the couch. He fumbled at his pants.
Usually, she suffered his attentions with feigned enjoyment, but this time worry for Jennifer and fear that her delicate dance was about to come to a violent end combined to make her temper flare. Teeth bared, she leaped back up as he unzipped and kicked him in the shin with her stiletto. She would have preferred hitting him higher, but even in her anger she knew better than that.
His high cheekbones flushed with either rage or lust—she didn’t know or care—and he caught her foot in his hand and used it for leverage, shoving her off balance over the plush arm of the couch. He tilted her hips up, moved her scrap of underwear aside, and took her there, more brutally than she could remember, calling her puta all the while. And to her horror, she heard him chuckling as he did so, and realized her defiance had only inflamed him.
She hated him then, as never before. She tried to shove him off, but he was far larger and stronger, harder than he had been in some time, and finally she subsided.
But this time she made no pretense of response.
This time, with every brutal stroke, she counted the ways she would kill him when she had Jennifer safe.
CHAPTER 7
Emm was still asleep the next morning when her cell phone rang. Yawning, snapping awake from yet another bad dream, she grabbed it. “Hello . . .” She cleared her husky voice and tried again. “Hello.”
A brief silence on the other end was broken by the rich male chuckle she recognized. “I always knew you were a dilettante.” Ross waited. As usual, he was goading her.
She bolted upright. “What do you want?”
“Cranky before we have our coffee, are we?”
How did he know that? She looked at the clock beside the bed and was shocked when she saw it was almost eleven. “I didn’t realize it was so late. I couldn’t fall asleep last night.”
“I can call back later.” Now he sounded genuinely contrite.
She put her feet on the floor. “No, I need to get up anyway and finish some docs for my boss. What can I do for you?”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday and I’ve decided to take the day off. I was . . . wondering if you’d like to go with me to meet a couple of my friends. I think you’d like Jasmine . . .” He sounded almost hesitant, unusual for the arrogant Ranger captain.
She was touched and wary at the same time, but she was so eager to see him again that she agreed before she realized it, “Sure. When and where?”
“I’ll pick you up at eleven in the morning. My friends, the Fosters, have a ranch outside town and they’ve invited me—that is, us—for lunch. They have a new baby boy I thought you might enjoy meeting. See you soon.” He hung up.