The girl let out a breathy wheeze. Her gaze sought out Sullivan’s again, and this time he couldn’t look away.
Mendez smiled. “Let’s see what our prisoner has to say first.” He raised a brow at Sullivan. “Here’s what’s about to happen. If you don’t tell me where Derek Pratt is, Ricardo here is going to fuck our sweet guest. Right in front of you.”
The brunette made a panicked sound.
Sullivan swallowed, his heart constricting painfully.
“So.” Mendez slanted his head. “Where is Pratt?”
Goddamn it, he wasn’t going to talk. He couldn’t fucking talk.
“I’m not bluffing,” Mendez said coldly. “Ricardo . . .”
The guard forced the woman to her knees, then gave her a forward shove so she had no choice but to land on both hands. Ricardo slowly slid her dress up and leered at her bare backside.
“No panties,” Mendez remarked. “See? I told you she was a slut. That doesn’t matter to the buyers, though. I send more than enough virgins their way. Sometimes they like the ones who know their way around a man’s cock.”
When Ricardo undid his zipper, Sullivan’s stomach dropped. Acid burned his throat, ripped his insides apart.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Please don’t do this to me.”
She’d spoken in English, and her accent told Sullivan she was American. Mendez had said he’d grabbed her from a resort. She was a tourist, then. The perfect prey for a sex predator.
“Me? I’m not doing this to you.” Mendez jabbed a finger at Sullivan. “He is. He is going to let this happen to you.” The man smirked. “All he has to do is give me the information I require, and your whore pussy will be spared.” A pause. “Ricardo . . .”
Sullivan’s throat clamped shut. Ricardo was undoing his pants.
“Where is Derek Pratt?” Mendez asked.
Sullivan bit his tongue so hard that blood filled his mouth. The coppery flavor slid down his throat and made him want to throw up.
“Where is Derek Pratt?”
Sullivan’s teeth dug into his cheek now. He was seconds away from shouting out D’s location, and it took all his willpower to control the reckless urge. He couldn’t do it. Because there was more at stake here than just one woman.
Mendez hollowed his cheeks in annoyance. “Fuck her,” he told the guard.
Ricardo locked eyes with Sullivan.
Waited.
When Sully remained quiet, the man’s hips began to move.
Oh Lord. He was going to be sick. He . . .
He should give D up.
Sullivan opened his mouth—
No. You keep your fucking mouth shut, soldier!
He wouldn’t just be endangering D if he talked. D wasn’t the only one living on the compound, goddamn it. Liam lived there too. Cate. Ash. Abby—God, Abby had been ready to pop when Sullivan had gone to Dublin. She must’ve given birth by now. She and Kane had a baby now.
Sullivan watched.
He sat there. And he watched. And he didn’t say a fucking word.
Liam. Cate. Ash. Abby’s baby.
He focused on the people he loved, the people he had to protect at all costs, even if it meant . . . even if—he’d officially gone numb. He watched without really seeing. He heard without really listening.
He was going to hell. Oh Christ, he was going to hell.
But at least the people he loved would be safe.
Sullivan clenched his fists. He kept watching.
Mendez and his men also watched. They watched Sullivan. Who was going to hell. Who was sitting there and . . . and . . . he gasped for air, but it didn’t fucking matter. He couldn’t breathe anymore.
Ricardo finished, standing as the woman collapsed on her stomach.
Mendez knelt beside her with a tsking noise. When he touched her shoulder, she recoiled. “Everything that just happened here?” he murmured to the trembling girl. “It was his fault. He did this to you.”
Sullivan’s throat closed up. He’d done this to her.
He had done this to her.
Paulo moved toward the girl, but Mendez stopped him with a sharp command. “Leave her. Let him see what he did to her. Maybe it will teach him to act differently the next time we visit.”
The four men marched out of the cell without a backward look, leaving the woman behind.
The door shut. The lock clicked.
Silence. Deafening silence.
Sullivan desperately wanted to see her face, but she’d turned her cheek the other way. Tears stung his eyelids as he opened his mouth, and for the first time in more than a month, he finally heard his own voice.
“I’m sorry.” He made sure to disguise his Aussie accent, using an East Coast American one instead. His voice was so hoarse, it was hard to talk. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Her head turned, and the look she wore . . . defeat. Not anger, but pure and total defeat.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if you said anything,” she whispered. “It’s not the first time they’ve done that to me.”
“I . . .” A choked sob broke free, a rush of shame so powerful he keeled over on his side, unable to support his own weight anymore.
It hurt to talk. To think. He almost wished the drugs were still in his system. That way he wouldn’t have to think about what had happened. What he’d let happen.
“I . . . Jesus Christ . . . I let him rape you. I . . .” He was a mess. A crying, blubbering mess. Racked with guilt and shuddering uncontrollably, his vision a blur of hot tears, his stomach contracting with each painful gulp of oxygen he sucked in.
There was a rustling sound and suddenly his head was no longer on the cold ground but resting on a soft, warm lap. She’d pulled him there. She was holding him.
Sully gagged. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey . . . Hey, it’s okay.”
Okay? It was okay? He’d sat there and watched. He could have stopped it but he hadn’t. He’d sat there and watched.
He would never be able to forgive himself for what he’d just done.
Sully wasn’t sure how long he lay there, crying in her lap. The whole time, she petted his hair, stroked his cheek, murmured reassurances, and it was so bloody ironic because he was the one who needed to offer comfort. He’d allowed them to hurt her. He should be comforting her.
Time passed. Minutes. Maybe hours. Eventually his breathing slowed. His sobs subsided. But she didn’t release him. She held him and stroked him, and that tiny shred of human contact was the most soothing thing he’d felt in so fucking long.
“I was on winter break.”
Her soft voice drew him to the present. He didn’t lift his head, but he was hanging on to her every word.
“Some friends from UCLA talked me into it. I didn’t want to come at first.” She exhaled audibly. “My parents died. When I was a kid. So the holidays are always the hardest. I like to be alone for them. But my friends convinced me it would be fun to go to Cabo.” She gave a scornful laugh. “They said it would be fun.”
“I’m sorry,” Sullivan whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Stop saying that. I already told you—it’s nothing that hasn’t happened before. I’ve been here for a week. You must have heard my screams.”
He hadn’t. But he’d also been drugged out of his mind.
“It must be important.”
“What is?” He sat up, but he was too ashamed to look at her. Too humiliated that he’d broken down and allowed her to comfort him after what he’d done to her.
He clumsily leaned back against the wall, resisting the urge to crack his own skull on the concrete behind it. Put himself out of his bloody misery.
“It must be important to you, keeping that man safe,” she clarified. “Darren Pratt, or whatever his name was. The man they were asking you about.” Her brow furrowed. “They really want to find him, I guess.”
Sullivan swallowed.
“Did you ever . . .” Her tone went sad. “Did you
ever think people like this actually existed? Sick, cruel people . . .”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed cruelty,” he said roughly.
In the back of his head, a warning alarm went off. A swift order not to reveal anything else.
He went quiet again.
So did she.
He watched, almost hypnotized, as she began using her fingers to untangle the knots in her hair. Something felt wrong. But he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. He’d been in this stinking prison for so long that his brainpower had slowed. His mind had gone from a sharp blade to a dull butter knife.
“You’re lucky,” she mused. “I wish I’d witnessed cruelty before. If I had, I would’ve been more careful. I wouldn’t have let that man flirt with me or convince me to leave the resort to go to a bar in town. I would’ve been careful.” Unshed tears sparkled on her lashes.
Sully spoke past the lump in his throat. “It wasn’t your fault. Men like these . . . they’re smart. It’s a business to them.”
She looked sick. “Kidnapping women . . . raping women . . . is a business?”
“A lucrative one.”
“How do you know?” Her fingers tackled another knot at the bottom of her long hair. “How do you know so much about these people? Who are you?”
“I’m just someone who knows.”
The prickly feeling at the back of his neck intensified as he watched her slender fingers pick at the knot. What was bothering him, damn it?
“Why are you letting them do this to you?” Her eyes rested on his shirt, the bloodstains at his side, then widened when she caught sight of his upper arm. The stitches, the cigar burn. She worked harder at the knot in her hair. “Why don’t you just tell them what they want to know? Why—”
Sullivan launched himself at her.
She screeched in shock as he knocked her on her back, straddling her thighs and pinning her down. The shackles around his wrists rattled loudly as the chain stretched tight across her throat.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“What are you talking about?” she squeaked.
Growling, he moved the chain away from her neck and grabbed one of her hands. He gripped her fingers and held them up for her to see. Perfectly manicured fingers. French tips.
Every other inch of her was filthy and disheveled. The blood on her temple. The dirt on her legs. But her nails were perfect. They were fucking perfect.
“These aren’t the fingernails of a woman who’s been locked in a cell for a week,” he spat out, squeezing her fingers until she yelped in pain. “You would’ve clawed at the walls. Clawed at the guards. You would’ve fought and your nails would be broken and bloody and dirty. So who the fuck are you?”
Her head shot up without warning, butting him hard in the nose. As pain jolted though his nostrils and blood poured out of them, the brunette rolled out from under him, stumbled to her feet, and sprinted to the door.
His chains restricted him from going after her. He sat up, wiping blood from his nose and spitting out the droplets that had slid into his mouth. Fury sizzled through his veins as the woman rapped her knuckles on the door.
A second later, one of the guards entered the cell. Not just any guard. Ricardo.
The man who . . .
The man who’d pretended to rape her.
Pretended.
A dizzying combination of horror and relief swept through Sullivan’s body. A trick. It had all been a trick. A staged rape, a ploy to get him to talk.
Before he could fully absorb how sick and twisted that was, Mendez reappeared in the doorway, and the woman’s tone immediately grew repentant as she addressed him in Spanish.
“I’m sorry. He figured it out.”
Mendez’s dark eyes shifted from Sullivan to the brunette. “He gave you nothing useful? Nothing?”
“Based on the accent, I’d say he’s American.” She pouted like a little girl. “I’m sorry, Papa. I tried.”
Papa?
Bile rose in Sullivan’s throat. Was this Mendez’s daughter? Had the man actually stood by and watched his own daughter . . .
Sully bent over and threw up all over the floor.
The laughter of Mendez and his daughter was the last thing he heard before the door slammed shut and the lock slid into place.
Chapter 12
Present day
Sullivan regained consciousness to the sound of a soft, persistent thumping.
Everything was dark. He remembered being on the water at dawn, the sun creeping up from the horizon line and casting a pink and orange glow over the waves. Had he made it to shore? He remembered seeing land. He’d seen it. And it had been dawn when he’d approached it, so it should be morning now. Bloody hell, it should be morning.
Why was it dark again?
Had he made it to shore?
He was so bloody confused. The worst of the withdrawal had come at the five-day mark. It had to be at least day seven now. He was no longer shaking, no longer feeling like he was being stabbed from the inside out, but he was still dizzy. Still nauseous.
Oh Lord, he wanted a fix. He ached for it. He craved it more than anything else in the world.
Somehow he found the strength to sit up, and realized what was causing the thumping. The motorboat was stuck, bobbing against a log or a boulder or whatever was trapping the small craft against the muddy bank.
He was lucky. He must have lost consciousness when he’d reached the shore, and if the boat hadn’t gotten stuck, he might be floating in the middle of the ocean right about now. A coast guard patrol could have found him. Mendez could have found him.
It was so fucking dark out. Not even a shred of light—the moon must be hidden behind the clouds. And he was so cold. Shivering now, and he didn’t know if it was because of the temperature or the withdrawal. As his teeth chattered wildly, he groaned and curled himself into a ball, praying that the shaking spell would pass.
He needed to find a phone. Civilization. He had no idea where he was, what country he was even in. When he’d first arrived on the island, he’d thought he might be in Mexico, but that had been six months ago.
His body shook even harder.
He’d been in that hellhole for six months.
As a wave of sickness overtook him, Sully shot into a sitting position, bent over, and vomited all over the side of the boat. But there was nothing to vomit. Just bile . . . and blood. Jesus, he could taste blood in his mouth.
Every muscle, every cell in his body, shrieked in agony. Everything hurt.
Ignore it. You need to get out of here.
The urgent voice in his head was right. Mendez’s people would be looking for him. They could be speeding up in a boat at this very moment. He had no idea how long he’d been out for. At least twelve hours. Maybe more. Maybe days.
Sullivan had never felt so weak in his life as he tried to stand up. Shit. Bad idea. Not just because the boat was moving, but because his head was spinning. A wave of vertigo hit as he attempted to lift his foot and step onto the grassy sliver of land in front of him.
Everything swayed and bobbled and teetered and tilted, and suddenly he toppled over, landing back in the boat. Water splashed over the edge and doused him in the face.
Sully moaned. Goddamn it. He was a soldier. He was one of Jim Morgan’s soldiers, for Christ’s sake. He could do this.
He. Could. Do. This—
His head went foggy the second he tried sitting up again.
And then everything went black.
• • •
Sofia woke up at five thirty in the morning, shooting out of bed as if someone had lit a fuse in her ass. Either she’d dreamed it or she’d just heard a woman screaming. Screaming bloody murder. A high-pitched shriek laced with outrage and—
Nope, she hadn’t been dreaming. She could still hear the screams. They were blasting toward the guest room from the front of the apartment, which told her that Angelina was awake. Awake, and clearly livid about her current predicament. r />
“. . . kill you for this . . . hear me, Jason? He’ll kill you!”
D’s hostage was spewing threats now, bringing a tremor of fear to Sofia’s stomach. The moment she stepped toward the door, the screams stopped and the apartment went silent. Eerily silent.
The men must have sedated Angelina again. Or maybe they’d knocked her out using a fist or a karate chop or some other form of violence.
God. How was any of this actually happening?
She rubbed her weary eyes as she glanced around the spare bedroom she’d slept in last night. D had wanted her and Ash to leave yesterday, but she’d been too exhausted to get on another plane so late at night. Eventually he’d relented and had let them stay until morning, claiming they were safe for the time being. Apparently D had already contacted Angelina’s father, but Mendez had refused to agree to a trade until he verified D’s claim.
The claim being that D was holding the man’s daughter hostage.
D was holding someone hostage. Sofia had known he was a dangerous man, but seeing that danger in action was an entirely different story. She wanted to go home, damn it. Back to her safe little house in the mountains, back to her clinic, her friends in the village.
Swallowing a groan, she ducked into the hall bathroom and washed up, then examined her wrinkled clothing and tangled hair. She hadn’t packed any toiletries or a spare set of clothes—she honestly hadn’t expected to spend more than a few hours in Cancún.
She made do by running her fingers through her hair to brush it, then braided it over her shoulder and stepped into the hall. She jumped when she found D waiting there.
He wore cargo pants and a black muscle shirt that emphasized every hard ridge of his chest, which triggered a surprising spark of heat deep in her core.
How was she still attracted to him? After hearing him describe his history with Mendez last night, she shouldn’t want to touch him. Or kiss him. Or spread her legs for him again.
But damn it, that was exactly what she wanted. Her entire body ached for him. Ached to be filled by him. Maybe it was just the pregnancy hormones? Yeah, that had to be it. That was the only reason she could actually still desire this man.
“We need to talk,” he said in a gravelly voice.