“You have thirty seconds, shit stain. Or my friend here is going to start shooting. And he doesnotmiss.”
I snap my head up, forgetting all about the pain. I know that voice. The slight east coast accent.
“Wait,” Robles manages before he’s shoved back against the wall.
Austin Pritchard fills the narrow doorway, his gaze sweeping around the windowless room. “Get those goddamn cuffs off him right fucking now.” For good measure, he repeats the order in Spanish with his hand resting on the pistol strapped to his hip. A shadow moves behind him. No. Two of them.
Reyes pulls a small key from his pocket. His hands shake as he unlocks the cuffs. I’m too weak, too sore to do more than let my hands fall to my sides.
“Leo, can you walk?” Austin asks.
I stare up at him, convinced he’s a figment of my sleep-deprived brain.
Gentle hands frame my face, and the scent of wild orchids and orange blossoms replaces the stench of sweat and blood clinging to me. “Leo? Put your arm around me. Please. We need to go.”
She’s here. I didn’t think I’d ever see Domina again, but she’s touching me. Draping my left arm over her shoulders. Trying to stand with me held against her.
“Get your ass up, dude,” Trevor shouts from the hall. “Got to go.”
Austin takes my right arm, and together, he and Domina get me vertical. But when I try a step, I collapse. My head barely misses the corner of the table. Domina cries out, and it’s like a knife to my heart.
“Legs are numb,” I grit out. “Sorry…”
“Take this and stick close to Trevor,” Austin says. “I’ll get Leo.”
I’m too dizzy and tired to focus on what he passes to Domina. Only on the fear in her eyes before she rushes into the hall.
“Guess I’m in bad shape,” I say when Austin slings my arm around his shoulders and hauls me up.
“You look like shit.”
In the hall, Trevor leads the way, drawing down on anyone we meet. Domina follows, a pistol in her hand aimed at the floor. The whole place is nothing but gray cement walls, harsh lights, and echoes.
In the main room, four men stand shoulder to shoulder, blocking the elevator. “Move or you each lose a testicle,” Trevor says. Domina raises her gun, and he adds, “Or worse.Imight spare your lives, but she won’t.”
“Get out of the goddamn way,” Austin snaps. He pulls his Glock from the holster. “President Garcia doesn’t have operational authority over you assholes, but he can still make youdisappear.Then again, so can we. You want to fuck around and find out?”
The men exchange glances—I think, as my vision isn’t completely clear—and the one on the left nods. “Step aside,” he orders. Domina presses the elevator call button, and the four of us put our backs to the doors, Trev, Austin, and Domina still ready to shoot at any moment, until they slide open.
But by now, I can feel some of the tension leaving Austin’s shoulders. He knows they won’t stop us. I don’t understand how he can be so confident—or how he and Trev are even here—but I don’t care. Domina’s safe, and that’s all I need.
No one says a word as the elevator climbs. Three dings before we’re back to ground level. In a small, plain room, a single man sits behind a desk reading a magazine. “Anyone dead down there?” he asks, his voice completely monotone.
“No,” Austin and Trevor say in tandem.
Satisfied, the man returns to his reading.
The sun blinds me the second we step outside. Letting my head fall forward, I stop struggling against my heavy lids. I’m breathing free air. And I’m not alone.
* * *
“Leo? Please wake up.”A gentle hand strokes my cheek, and I turn toward the touch. “You need to drink something.”
A car engine rumbles all around me. The regularthump, thump, thumpof tires hitting seams in the pavement. I’m lying on something soft. In the back of a car? My eyes are so dry, I’m not sure I can open them.
“Trevor?” Domina asks. “When do we worry?”
“Awake,” I rasp. “Kind of.”
