“And we’ll be together tomorrow too,” he says. “Just…be patient with me for another day. It’s not a good story, and the idea of telling you here, when everything’s so raw? I can’t. For you or for me.”
The strain in his voice worries me. This isn’t the strong, confident hero I’ve started to fall for. This is a man with secrets. With a past. With ghosts more terrible than I can imagine haunting him. Though after the past two days, my imagination is a lot more…vivid than it ever used to be.
“I’ll be here, Austin.” I kiss him, savoring the feel of his full lips, the way he wraps his body around mine, even the hard length of him pressing against me. “I’ll be right here.”
Austin
The nightmare’s always the same. I know the room. Even six years later, every detail is seared into my memory.
I’m alone in the dark. Bound to a chair, duct tape gagging me, something tied over my eyes so tightly, no light penetrates.
I can’t feel my hands, but every single cut Gil’s made over the past two days burns with its own terrible fire. My chest. Abs. Back. All the way down my leg. He laughs from somewhere behind me.
Not alone. Fuck.
Gil claps a hand on my shoulder, digging his fingers into one of the deeper cuts. “Smile for the camera, brother.”
Hostage video. I have to dosomething. Trevor will see this, and I can’t let him come rescue me. Gil’s lost it. Whatever his birth father did to him, said to him…the boy I grew up with is gone. The man he is now? Doesn’t give a fuck about anyone unless his daddy says so.
Gil’s footsteps recede, there’s a beep, and then he returns to my side.
“You shouldn’t have sent him, Trevor. I know all of his secrets. I grew up knowing them. Just like yours. You can’t stop me.La justicia está de mi lado!”
Something hits my thigh, and for a split second, I don’t register what it is. But then the pain lances through my leg, and I can’t stifle my strangled scream as I thrash against the ropes holding me to the chair.
When we were kids, Gil excelled at knot tying. I think that was his favorite badge in the Scouts. And the one time I let him test his knots on me—not long after I’d graduated from the Air Force Academy, there was no escape. I had to promise him fifty bucks to let me go. He’s better than anyone.
“Pull all of your American agents out of Venezuela by the end of the week, or I’ll send Perfect Pritchard back to you in pieces,” Gil says, his voice an odd mix of fury and glee as I shake my head as hard as I can, the only signal I can give Trevor. Or anyone. A beep sounds once more, and then he grabs my hair and pulls my head back, exposing my throat.
The knife he presses to my Adam’s apple is sticky with the blood from my thigh. “All you had to do was walk away, Austin. Walk away and let me do my own thing. But no. You came after me. Regretting that now, aren’t you?”
I can’t answer him. Not through the duct tape. But no. I don’t regret a fucking thing. Gil’s a traitor to his country, to the CIA, and to his own family. The one that took him in. Adopted him. Loved him. Worst of all, he turned on his own sister.
The pressure from the blade disappears, and a second later, pain explodes across the back of my skull. All sounds fade into a dull roar, and I wish I could tell Trevor not to come. That I’m already dead. Gil’s going to kill me. Soon.
“Austin?” Cool hands run down my arms, and her fingers are so delicate and gentle, I start to pull myself back from the depths of my nightmare. “Wake up, Danger.”
I groan her name and pull her against me, relishing her curves, the way she molds her body to mine. The faint light seeping in around the privacy curtains halos her face, making her look like an angel. My angel. “Shit. What time is it?”
“A little after eight.”
“Was I…saying anything?” I don’t want to have this conversation until we’re back in the United States, but from her tone…she’s not going to cut me much slack.
“‘Gil.’” Mikayla snuggles closer, laying her head on the pillow so we’re facing one another.
Change the subject.
Except I promised her. That after we slept, we’d talk. “Mik, my brother…”
Before I can admit my truth, my phone vibrates on the nightstand, and I roll over and check the screen.
“Detective Chavez. What can I do for you?”
Mikayla wriggles closer so she can listen in, and I put the phone on speaker.
“Corey Larkin is still in a medically-induced coma, but we searched his hotel room, and under the mattress, we found a slip of paper with the full names of the two individuals who attacked Dr. Salim. We have not located them yet, but we will.”
“What does that mean for us? Is there any reason Dr. Salim and I need to stay in Mexico? We’d like to return to the United States this afternoon if possible.”
