Winters Heat (Titan) (24 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Alejandro flashed too many teeth, the cadence of his breaths too quick for their short walk. As he guided her toward her room, his fingers flexed into her arm, cascading in a deviant rhythmic massage. Alejandro stopped at an open door. His rancid odor surrounded her.
Please, walk away
.
Leave me alone.
Her heart slammed into her rib cage.

With a disgusted shove, he shut the door on Mia, enclosing her in the windowless room, alone. She’d take any small miracle. Alejandro abandoning her now would qualify as one.

The lock scraped closed and seemed to seal her fate. Alejandro was perched inches away, only a thick wooden door offering protection. Too bad he had the key. She could feel his evil aura. His boots didn’t retreat. Each heartbeat thumped in her ears, marking the anguishing passage of time. He wasn’t leaving. Her mouth went dry. Panic bubbled like acid in her stomach.

Go away.

The scuffing sound of movement dialed back the oxygen in the room. It was hard to breathe. Was he turning to her? Or from her? A shuffled step. Her mind played tricks. The sounds bounced. Her ear ached to hear what direction he would go.

Silence.

Please go away. Please
.

Another footstep. Toward her or away? She still couldn’t tell.

Her lip trembled. Her hands covered her mouth to drown any wayward weep. Was she strong enough to handle whatever depraved plundering lurked in the sick depths of his psyche?

A sound again. It moved away, as he did. Every ounce of petrified anxiety tore from her chest, a heaving breath escaped. Mia doubled over, holding herself. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

Just kill me now.
This was more than she could take. The room closed in, suffocating her. The air somehow thinned. She gulped at it. She was too weak. Nothing like Colby promised she was. How had she fooled him? It was pitiful how easy it was to back into the corner, begging for the easy way out.

Still holding herself, Mia sunk to the floor. The dim light illuminated the room, but her sight blurred through her sobs. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

This sniveling stuff had to stop
. Channel shock and awe. Find it. Do it. Now.

She traced a finger on the cold tile floor. The hysterical tears slowed to a stream. She could blink them away. Force them to stop. She had no choice. How the hell was she going to get out of this? She hadn’t come up with anything close to a bamboo bazooka.

A wisp of hair tangled over her wet cheek. Mia blew at it, banishing it back to place, but it stayed put. She didn’t make the effort again. Exhaustion weighted her eyelids, already puffy and swollen from irresponsible, self-pitying wails.

Juan Carlos and Alejandro yielded no information to aid her struggle of survival. She should have studied their interaction, searched for weaknesses, and built a psychological profile. But she didn’t.

Where was Colby?

Tracking her to Colombia seemed impossible. How would he know where to find her? She tried to pass along a clue to the man on the phone, but how many white houses with gardens were in this country? A lot.

Colby would have to play
Where in the World is Mia Kensington?
Only with automatic weapons instead of a red trench coat and hat.

Mia winced after she made herself laugh. He was a tough guy with a soft heart. He’d find her.

I’ve needed you my whole life, Mia. And I had no idea.
His words echoed in her mind. Just when everything seemed so fresh and safe, so outrageously optimistic, life laughed at her plans. It had been foolish to fantasize about fairy tales.

The scrape of footsteps drifted under the door. Did she hear Alejandro? Or was that Colby? Her brows pinched, desperate to hear again. The sound of silence blared. Her eardrums nearly exploded. Her mind was Looney Tunes’ playground, laughing at her struggle to remain awake and coherent. Was this dehydration? No, this was delusion.

She should have devoured those stupid sandwiches. Guzzled that water. All she could do was beckon sleep. Her forehead pressed against her folded arms. She scrunched against the floor, trying hard to melt into it and away from here. Colby would come. He would. She hadn’t found him just to let him go. He needed her. Didn’t he? Colby...

The door clamored open, and she jerked awake. She couldn’t get her bearings, feeling near comatose. A monster loomed ginormous. Most definitely not Colby. Teeth glowed in the dark. Foul odors smacked her conscious. A hand grabbed her, forcing a caustic rag against her raw lips.

Mia jerked away, scraping her fingernails into his knuckles. They were so rough, she could’ve ignited a match with a strike to his grated skin—it had to be Alejandro.

He lurched her out the door and sloshed her through the hallways. One confusing turn after another. The fumes from the poisoned rag seared her nostrils. Bitterness abraded her tongue. Her stomach rolled, convulsing. Her eyes slinked side to side without her control, as bright trails from hallway windows decorated her drugged vision.
Oh, this again
.

She slammed into Alejandro’s armpit, smashing to a stop. Her eyes moved hazy and lazy, searching for an answer.

Juan Carlos Silva.

She tried to focus. Tried to study him at his desk. Stupid coffee cup. Stupid cologne. Did he want another phone call? Her lips tingled. She couldn’t feel her tongue or her face or her… Lots she couldn’t feel, but sleep she could, even standing up. The hum in her head lulled her asleep.

***

Rocco adjusted the steering wheel in the Range Rover. Winters sat in the backseat, sandwiched between Brock and Cash, and tried to spread out. The last thing he wanted to do right now was knock knees. Anxious adrenaline raced its course. How did he end up riding bitch?

He ran his fingertip over the recently sharpened edge of the tactical blade. Its serrated claws gleamed. The metal was warm in his grip. He had toyed with the knife handle since they started their steep descent. His hands itched for action, while his mind fucked with him. The job had never been personal, and this was far past that level. Doubt and anger battled, leaving a bitter aftertaste in his throat.

Winters coughed for attention. “If anything goes wrong, if something happens to me, you bring Mia home. No questions.”

Jared ignored him.

Cash rolled his eyes. “Christ, Winters. Nothing’s going to go wrong. We didn’t fly across the globe just to bail on your girl if your pretty ass takes a bullet.”

He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “She’s an important person.”

“Yeah, we gathered that.”

Winters sheathed his knife and ran his palms over his thighs. Too much energy. Too many what-ifs.

Jared turned around in his front passenger seat. “Listen, man, do whatever you have to out there. And we’ll do the same. We know somewhere in your pea brain, she’s important to you, so she’s important to us. End of conversation.”

Jared finished with a curt nod and swiveled forward again. They bumped along a makeshift path. Branches hit the windshield. Winters wasn’t entirely sure Rocco was using a road. But whatever the quickest way from point A to point B was, he was cool with it.

Rocco pulled up hard, parked the vehicle as planned, and they fell out. Cash slipped into the vegetation. Gone. Damn snipers, and typical Cash. Sneaking in. Sneaking out. The man melted into shadows.

Brock had the trunk open and unloaded a cadre of explosives.

Jared moved past Winters. “Let’s go. On my six.”

They hoofed it to the fence line, barreling to the main gate like they were running toward Satan’s open jaw. On the other side, hell waited, machine guns on the ready.

Brock broke off with a hand gesture from Jared. Winters checked his watch. Time wasn’t moving fast enough. They dropped to the ground. Waiting. Calculating. Preparing.

Blast number one hit. The front gates exploded. Shards of wood and fragments of concrete rained down in a cloud of smoke and fire. Before the vibrations stopped, blast number two, smaller and less obvious, rolled through the outer wall. Alarms shrieked. Guards bellowed. Confusion penetrated the perimeter.

Jared and Winters crawled to position, rifles up, scanning their opening. Uniformed men ran toward the main gate, positioned in defensive formations, and ready to take on an enemy they couldn’t see.

Time to duck and hustle
. Jared and Winters sprinted forward, reached the side of the main house, and breached a door. They pushed in. Uniformed maids ran past them, eyes averted. Obviously not their first attack. He swept a harsh gaze back and forth. No tangos worth a bullet.

A quick hand gesture later, Jared veered down a winding hall. Winters listened with angry intent for signs of life, oncoming attack, and Mia through the constant pulse of warning alarms.

The house sounded empty. Jared was on stealth mode. Undetectable, then he disappeared.

Winters moved forward, one cautious step at a time, long gun ready, finger on the trigger. Seeing no traps, he sidestepped around a corner, focusing in the now dark hallway. Sirens still blared.

Winters pushed down a hall, spot-checking each room. Another corner. This place was a maze. A muffled feminine sob stole his breath.

Only one closed door left.

“No!” Exhausted pleas homed him to her. He readied to burst through the door, but instead, tried the handle. It swung open to his real-time nightmare.

Juan Carlos Silva held her by the neck and shook her limp body as he pointed wildly to something outside the window. A number of foreign curse words were tossed at her, and she had the thousand-yard stare of a battle weary soldier. Silva moved her with the ease of a child playing with a doll. Her arms hung flaccid, and her legs wobbled.

Winters’s try-the-handle-first tactic gave him the element of surprise. Silva never even looked his way.

“Get your hands off her neck, Silva.” Winters roared so deep, his voice was unrecognizable.

Silva spun Mia into a choke hold. A knife glinted in the other hand. Mia faced Winters but gave no acknowledgement.
Shit
.

Hell, she couldn’t even focus in his direction. Her head lobbed forward before Silva shook her back to consciousness. The need to kill burned in Winters’s veins.

“How are you in here?” Silva looked around.

All his guards were busy. Big blasts would do that.
Thank you, Brock.

“Pure fucking magic, asshole.”

“Stay where you are.” A nothing-to-lose gleam shined in Silva’s eyes, and his lip curled in contempt.

Winters lowered his weapon.

“I’m surprised. Did you really not expect us? That I’d leave her to a wolf like you?” Winters clucked in mock disappointment.

Silva pressed the knife against her throat. Mia seemed not to notice. “She is yours if you hand me that disk.”

“Nope.” The simple word stoked Winters, made him even more ready to end this with bloodshed.

A blast rocked the floor, followed by the pop of gunfire. Winters smiled. Jared was on the move, clearing their way out.

In more of a show than was necessary, Winters clicked on the live feed of his mic, “Tango located. Second floor. Third room north of center.”

No response in his ear, but he was sure he transmitted. The team was out there. Always watching. Always listening.

“You do not scare me, Winters.” Silva spat his name out.

“Then you’re a moron. You have seconds to make a choice before you die.” Winters backed up to a large wooden hutch, and with an angry shove, he barricaded the door. “Now, you have no way out.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A sharp sting tore her neck, dragging her from a dizzying unconsciousness. She was standing, and no longer in that windowless room. Flashes of Alejandro charging her, hand outstretched, made her double-check she was still breathing. A cold sweat shivered across her body. Her arms and legs did nothing she asked of them. What was happening?

The room came into focus. Brighter than
her
room. Loud clanging reverberated in her head. A massive migraine swirled behind her eyeballs. Tears further blurred her vision, then leaked down her cheeks.

Murmurs. Far away, whispers. She fought to focus. To shake the cotton from her head.

“Mia.”

How familiar the voice sounded. Her name. His voice echoed along with the pounding of her headache.

She closed her eyes tight and tried to swallow against her dry mouth. Instead, she hacked up a cough. Her throat stung again. Burned. Worse this time.

Bitter, ferocious garbles. It wasn’t English.

Silva. Captivity.
Oh shit
. Everything was so slow, but the mental freeze thawed. Just like after the gas station.

“Mia.”

Colby
. His words were far away, in a dream.