“Leave him for now,” Cesar ordered. “I have business with Gigi, here.”
Yeah. This wasn’t going to end well. And of all the things she could imagine happening next, it was going to be worse.
Glennon fought her captors and used the twisting and turning as cover to see what had happened to Triumph. She didn’t want the men to know she had any attachment to him. If Cesar figured that out, he’d use it against her, and right now, her top priority was to distract the man from her rescuer as much as she could. What happened to her was not his fault, and technically, he shouldn’t even be here, let alone suffering for her choices.
Keeping him safe would be tricky. Cesar was a true sadist. Whenever Guillermo had someone who needed extra punishment, this was the man who not only volunteered for the job but reveled in it. So even a glimmer of attention in Triumph’s direction would ping his beacon. Triumph trying to protect her was bad enough. Maybe it would pass as some sort of white-knight gesture, but it was better if she tried to direct Cesar’s attention away from him.
She was moved from one building to another. This one was also empty of people, but it had the crudities of a dwelling. A table with chairs. A camp stove. A bed with a thin mattress but no linens. It didn’t appear anyone had lived here for some time, but that wasn’t what she was here for, and she knew it.
While he was Guillermo’s second, that just meant that when Guillermo didn’t need him as a bodyguard and henchman, he did whatever he was told to do.
Since she’d entered cartel life, it had not gone unnoticed by her that Cesar watched her. He never touched her sexually, but he wanted her. Guillermo knew it too. She’d seen his aroused reaction to the man’s hot, oily stares at her, and he enjoyed how it tortured Cesar to want her but not be able to touch her. Hemight dole her out to others, but allowing his right-hand man to partake was the one line he hadn’t crossed.
Punishment? Perhaps. She wasn’t aware of Cesar ever having angered Guillermo, but the cartel jefe didn’t tell her everything. Maybe there was something that went back farther than her arrival that kept the assassin on a short leash.
That didn’t mean Guillermo hadn’t used it as a threat to her from time to time—do what he wanted, or he’d give her to Cesar. She’d pushed buttons sometimes, but never that one. She’d even heard him string the man along, hinting that maybe he’d get a chance to sample her, but Guillermo had never followed through.
Time had just run out on that.
Once inside the hut, the two men held her in the middle of the space. Out of her peripherals, she scanned as best she could, looking for anything she could potentially use as a weapon. About the only thing would be the camp stove—to pick it up and throw it—or one of the two rickety chairs at the small table. Otherwise, the room was stripped clean.
Cesar closed the door of the hut. He struck a match and lit a kerosene lantern he had brought in from outside. Once lit, he pulled one of the chairs away from the table, setting it on the seat. Then he pulled the second chair into the middle of the space, directly in front of her.
He sat, sprawling his large frame in the chair, and lit a cigar with a second match. The chair creaked with his movements, and a little gremlin inside her head snickered, praying it broke under his weight. Hopefully, she kept the daydream off her face. No sense poking the demon.
Eyes trained on hers, he lifted the cigar to his mouth, inhaled off it, let it simmer, then exhaled. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. His pace suggested he had all the time in the world to wait her out.
Minutes passed. She stared back, unflinching. At some point, he was going to burn her with the cigar. That was a given. Otherwise, why this little show for her benefit? He might even resort to the lantern, or even to lighting the camp stove, to burn her in other ways. He was a great improviser, but he usually worked with methodical precision and purpose.
Terrified, she might be, but she would do everything in her power to keep it from him. Would she break eventually? Most likely. Everyone had a breaking point. But she would hold out until she absolutely couldn’t anymore. He wasn’t worth her fear.
He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, cigar held between his knees in one hand. Apparently, he was done waiting.
“Guillermo is missing you, Gigi.” There was no emotion in his voice.
“He can’t be that disappointed by my absence. After all, he tied me up and held me captive in one of his safe houses. That’s not exactly the action of a loving fiancé.” The words might be those an ex-girlfriend might say, lamenting the end of the relationship, but she mirrored Cesar’s own lack of emotion.
“That was for safety.”
“Really. Mine? Or his?”
Cesar’s nostrils flared slightly. If she hadn’t been watching closely, she might have missed it. Interesting. She’d hit on a truth. Knowing who she was now, Guillermo was afraid of her.
“You really don’t have room for defiance. If you think this situation ends well for you, then you’re fooling yourself.”
“I have no delusions about my situation, Cesar,” she snipped.
He leaned back in the chair again and raised the cigar to his mouth. After another drag in and blow out, he nodded at the two men holding her, and they propelled her between his legs and onto her knees.
“Oh, I think things are much worse than you suspect them to be. ‘Little spy,’ that’s what he fondly calls you, isn’t it?”
Her heartbeat tripped over itself. Fuck! How did they know? Was one of the men a plant after all?
Steel was the most obvious choice. He was Guillermo’s brother. They might be half brothers, but he’d worked for the cartel. She’d seen some of what he was capable of. He could have lied about how he felt toward the man and his family.
Demon? She couldn’t see how that was possible. What would he get out of it? Money was always a motivator, but somehow, it didn’t feel right.
Triumph? Instantly, she felt her heart cracking. She knew reaching out to him was dangerous. Could he have turned her in to Guillermo? Or could he have notified the CIA and then been convinced to reel her in? That would mean one of her contacts, probably her handler, had been touched by the cartel.
