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Her teeth chattered from fear, and her eyes hurt from the flashlight’s beam. She’d only been down there for less than a day, yet her legs could barely hold her as the man pushed her forward. He was as unpleasant to look at as she’d suspected. His face was crisscrossed with scars. His eyes were small and beady, and his scraggly beard reeked. She tried but failed to contain a shudder when she saw the blackened stumps inside his mouth.
If the rest of these men looked like Rolly, she might just throw herself overboard and take her chances with the sharks.
“Take your hands off me, you beast!” she objected as she struggled to break free from the man’s grip. She realized fighting back would probably backfire, but there was no need for the man to grope her backside if he was trying to get her up the ladder.
“Bring her up here, you useless ball sack!”
She had not dared look up, but when her captor shook in fear at his captain’s command, she made herself lift her gaze to the opening overhead. All she could see were powerful long legs and a pair of sturdy boots. One hand was holding a terrifying tommy gun, which was currently trained in her direction.
She was going to die.
All this planning, so many months of working out every detail of her escape, thwarted in less than a day. She’d weep if she could make tears, but she hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. The thought of the humiliating empty bottle she’d brought to relieve herself had kept her from taking a drink, even if it was only avoiding the inevitable. God, so many degradations, all made moot by this smelly bastard currently kneading her rump. But the smelly bastard was not the one in charge. That man was currently waiting for her above deck.
From somewhere in her mind came a conversation she’d overheard, one between two of the many women her brother often brought to their house.
Always find the most powerful man in the room…and make sure he knows what you’re willing to do for his protection.
The women had been speaking about Santo, and the thought disgusted her at the time. She’d judged those women, thought them weak, but now here she was, at the mercy of a group of men who would have no problem raping her or worse. She had to be practical.
“Come up here,” the captain demanded in a rough voice. He lowered the muzzle of the gun sliding its leather strap over his shoulder. She didn’t think that meant she was in any less danger.
“You heard him,” Rolly said, shoving her hard with his one good arm, but still hissing in pain. “I’m going to gut you for this,” he warned, groping her shamelessly.
Rosalía was not an innocent flower. For a few years, she’d been in love with her best friend, Silvia. And the two of them had their fill of each other for months, before Silvia was sent away to boarding school. More recently, even under her brother’s watchful eyes, she’d managed to take lovers, like Santo’s bodyguard, Jacinto.
She was a sensual being, and she felt no shame about her love for sex. She liked it rough, she liked it sweet, and she liked it often. But this situation would not result in a fling with a man who’d never hurt her or a few hours of exploring her friend’s body in the privacy of her bedroom. These were violent men. Violent men who probably saw her as nothing more than an inconvenience to quickly discard. She had to be smart. She had to keep her wits about her.
Shakily, she grabbed a rung of the ladder and made her way up, determined to get herself out of this. Rolly’s captain certainly sounded intimidating—he sounded like a villain—but Rosalía had experienced her share of men like that, Santo being one of them. There were dozens of runners infesting the Caribbean Sea, all eagerly procuring alcohol to take up north to the States. She’d even encountered a few American gangsters when they came to do business with her father. Most of them had been horrid, and she figured any man who worked with the likes of Rolly would be just as disgusting. She braced herself for more unpleasantness as her head popped up into the night air. After being cooped up in that nearly airless hole for so long, her lungs craved it. She stopped her ascent to inhale deeply, a little dizzy from the relief of breathing the oxygen. Before she could get her bearings, the man handed off the gun to someone behind him and hauled her out of the hold as if she weighed nothing.
“Hey, that hurts,” she groused, but there was no breaking free from that vicious grip.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man asked furiously. The punishing hands trapping her were attached to strong, muscled forearms. And when she dared to breathe, she noticed that unlike Rolly, her newest captor smelled pleasantly of tobacco and clean sweat. A white cotton shirt covered what looked like a very wide and strong chest. “Answer me,” he shouted in her face as he placed her on the floorboards.
Unsteadily, she whipped her head around, trying to get her legs under her. A fearful sound escaped her when she saw the crew of the yacht tied to the stern, pieces of cloth shoved into their mouths. One of the men lay on the deck with a pool of dark liquid around his head.
“Dios mío,” she whispered shakily, not daring to look at the man in front of her. He was so much taller than her that the top of her head barely reached his chin. There was another man behind him, shorter and very blond. His nose was crooked like it had been broken, but he was beautiful. He reminded her of sculptures she’d seen of Roman youths. But this man was no angel, not with the way he trained a gun in her direction.
“You’re a fucking disgrace, Roland,” rumbled the captain.
“She caught me unawares, Cap, but I’ll teach her a lesson once I’m cleaned up.” Rolly’s voice was full of menace.
She didn’t cower at the words but kept her eyes on the wooden slats covering the floor of the yacht. One of the hands keeping her in place fell away, and the next thing she knew, there was a loud cracking sound, followed by a yelp from Rolly. When she glanced up, she realized the captain had backhanded the man.
“What in the hell, Cap?” Rolly cried, and she shivered at the display of violence.
Rosalía finally dared to lift her eyes and look at the captain’s face. She was unprepared for what she found. A hollow opened in the pit of her stomach as she took in his handsome face. His angular features made him look hard, but no less attractive. He was a rough man with thick black hair and eyes the color of the sky. They were stormy now, staring down at Rolly. The captain’s nose was very long, like the beak of a hawk. It made him look sinister. But what kept snagging her attention was his mouth. It was a vivid red and almost too wide. Beautiful even with those full lips twisted into a furious sneer. Even in her awful conundrum, she could not help but think that the captain was…attractive.
“Tie her up, you useless piece of shit,” he roared, pushing her in Rolly’s direction.
Rolly snatched her hands and, with a painful wince, reached for some rope with his bad arm and quietly tied her wrists.
“It’s too tight,” she complained as the captain barked orders at two other men who quickly descended through the hatch. Rolly ignored her, making the knot even tighter. “Ouch,” she cried from pain, making the villain laugh at her.
“What do I do with her, boss?” Rolly asked, shoving her hard. She wished she’d done more damage to the cabrón.
“Shove a rag in her mouth and tie her to the mast,” the larger man ordered as he moved toward the opening leading to the hold.
“No, please!” Rosalía pleaded after him. “Please, sir, don’t leave me here.” She had no idea what was to happen to the Hippodrome. Who knew how long it would be before they were found? For all she knew, they’d kill the rest of the crew once they’d taken the rum. The captain ignored her pleas and called to the good-looking blond who was holding the machine gun.
