Page 52 of Dangerous Liaisons

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Two more guards stepped into view from the dining room and three more appeared in the hallway’s arched opening on the left. Jesse ignored the pounding in her head and forced her mind to compute the odds. She could take the two closest men before they got off a round. As for the others, Cole would be caught in the crossfire and she would succeed in killing him this time. If she and Cole got lucky enough to get out in the confusion, there was no telling how many more guards Perez had, or if they could escape the compound the way they’d come in. By now, Perez would have men patrolling the fence. Chance of escape ran in the negative triple digits. Her training echoed in her head: watch, wait, and conserve energy. Better opportunities would arise. Be vigilant and ready.

An unarmed man stepped into the room from the archway and said in perfect English, “Drop your weapons.”

The man’s six foot four height and two hundred and fifty pound bulk were daunting, but it was his obsidian colored eyes that sent a shiver up Jesse’s spine. This man took pleasure in inflicting pain—and he ran the show.

She reached to unstrap her Beretta, but froze when the CR-21’s shifted onto her. She lifted her hands in a ‘hands off’ gesture. “You want us to drop our weapons or not?”

The man glanced at one of the guards and motioned toward her with a jerk of his head. The guard lowered his weapon and hurried to her. He stopped three inches away and leered. Jesse lifted a brow when he locked gazes with her and reached with one hand for her gun. He yanked the Velcro strap away from the Beretta, slid the gun from the holster, and drew the barrel up her inner thigh.

Jesse looked over the guard’s shoulder at the big man. “Your men need to get out more.”

“They’ll have plenty of entertainment tonight.” He motioned for another guard to approach her.

Jesse flicked a glance at Cole. Hands raised, he watched the scene impassively.

The guard who approached pressed the barrel of his CR-21 against her temple. The guard who had taken her gun, stuffed it into his waistband, then plucked the glasses from her face, nearly pulling off her ears. She grimaced at the jolt of pain. He tossed the high-tech wear to the man in charge, who caught them with a flick of his hand. Mr. Obsidian turned them under his scrutiny, then slid them inside his suit jacket. The guard faced Jesse, showed yellow teeth in a wide grin, then grabbed each side of her ops vest and yanked it open.

Jesse said in Spanish, “I bet all the girls love you.”

His lips thinned, then a satisfied glint appeared in his eyes as he grabbed the collar of her camouflage fatigue shirt. Jesse didn’t think even his large hands could tear the shirt’s reinforced neck, but she was yanked forward as the fabric tore down her back, burning the back of her neck when he yanked it off her.

She felt the eyes of the men on her and straightened as she shifted her gaze to the big man. “A sports bra. I wear less to the beach.”

The guard reached for the waistband of her pants.

Jesse maintained eye contact with Mr. Obsidian. “The pants will come off eventually, but I’ll kill him first.”

“Halto,” he said.

The guard stepped back and shot Jesse a belligerent look. She shrugged.

“Take them off,” the big man said.

Jesse undid the pants and let them fall to the floor. Yep. Boy-shorts were the panties of choice tonight. It wasn’t like she needed a thong for Cole’s sake. Nothing had happened between them and, the way things were shaping up, she wouldn’t be getting another crack at him anyway.

*****

After four hours, handcuffed and bouncing around in the back of a six-by-six, two-and–a-half-ton military truck with eight guards, the truck came to a jarring halt. Rain had started two hours ago and now poured from the sky, pounding on the canvas roof above their heads. Back at the hacienda, after stripping her to bra and panties, they had taken Cole’s weapon, shirt, and pants. Jesse had counted nineteen cigarette burns on his chest, arms and insides of his thighs. With his hands handcuffed behind his back, the muscles in his broad shoulders stretched taut. His legs looked like sin itself in those Calvin Klein boxer briefs. Calvin Klein. Mr. All American wore designer underwear.

Two men appeared at the back of the truck and threw the rear flap onto the canvas roof. Cole rose, and Jesse followed to the open rear of the truck. Cole hopped to the ground ahead of her. He had remained impassive throughout the capture. Her initial relief had metamorphosed into anger, and she realized a small part of her hoped he would go out, guns blazing. Selfish, she knew, if she didn’t make it back, Amanda would be alone and broke.

Memories of her mother, and the day she announced Amanda’s sentence at Berkline Hall, unexpectedly surfaced. Jesse hadn’t uttered a peep. She’d simply walked away and never come back. When Mom died, Jesse hadn’t attended the funeral. Rushing in, guns blazing. The guns had been silent that time, but the war raged on. Cole hadn’t been wrong.

Jesse paused at the lip of the truck bed and grimaced at the pungent odor of drying cocaine being reduced to crystal. She surveyed her surroundings. Four guards with CR-21’s stood in an open area of hard-packed gravel surrounded by four single-story buildings with corrugated tin roofs. Two guards held cattle prods. Dense jungle grew in twisted chaos along the edges of the asphalt compound. Beyond the trees, the sky had begun to clear low on the horizon, showing a red, angry sun.

The guard behind her jabbed his rifle into her back. She hopped down beside Cole. Warm, choking rain instantly drenched her. The guard in charge motioned toward one of the windowless buildings. Another guard shoved Cole from behind. He shot her a questioning look. She shrugged, and he started forward. She followed. A guard hurried past and opened the door, hunching against the downpour. They herded her inside the building first. The stench of urine, feces, and rot hit her like a punch. The door slammed shut with a metallic clang. All sunlight disappeared, and the light that shone from bulbs in wire cages protruding from the ceiling filled the hallway with the dim, yellowish hue of sickly, manmade light.

Jesse glanced back. Four guards stood behind her, but Cole was gone. She faced forward. What would Emma Peel do? Emma would save herself, then find him—like she should have done the first time.

To the left, cells lined the wall, some with bars, others with solid metal doors, a small window at eye level, and a flap for food at the floor. A grimy face appeared behind the grating of one cell with a solid door. He whimpered then disappeared, mumbling in incoherent Spanish.

A gun barrel jabbed the middle of her back. Jesse cast him a deprecating look. Another jab in her kidneys sent a jolt of electricity through her. Pain seared clear to her insides and her muscles convulsed. Electricity hammered her body as the floor rushed closer, then smacked her cheek. Her muscles shuddered in violent spasms. Pain exploded in every cell. She thrashed uncontrollably under the discharge for what seemed like forever. The sizzle came to an abrupt stop and her vision grayed.

Jesse lay twitching on the cold, dirty cement, gulping for breath. She struggled to remain conscious and take control of her body, but even her tongue hung out of her mouth like a dead calf. At last, the spasms subsided, but she remained limp. Jeers penetrated the ringing in her ears and the stench of burned flesh overpowered the prison stink.

Two men gripped under her arms and dragged her down the hall. They stopped three cells down and heaved her inside. She rolled up against a mattress. One guard stood in the open cell door with a shit eating gin, smacking the cattle prod in a palm. Bastard had used a prod meant for a thousand-pound bovine.

Jesse shifted her gaze to his, and said softly in Spanish, “I’ll come for you first.”

His eyes widened, then flicked to his comrades before he sneered and replied in broken English, “We come back later and play.”

“Cobarde,” she said in disgust, repeating in English, “Coward.”

He slammed the door shut. The clang reverberated through the cell like a gunshot. The guard with the key stepped forward, inserted the key, and twisted. The lock engaged with a smooth snick. The lock sounded well maintained, hard to crack.

The head guard laughed, and his friends lowered their weapons as he withdrew the handcuff key from a breast pocket and tossed it over her shoulder. Jesse didn’t take her eyes off the men, but heard the dull bounce of the key as it landed on the mattress. She followed their retreat until they disappeared back up the hall, then closed her eyes, and waited for the trembling inside her to stop.