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A hard hand locked around Maggie’s wrist, jerking her down, as Joe pulled her around the side of the car and toward the long shadows cast from the junk piled along the walls.
She expected gunfire. Pain. Blood.
“Get them.” The order was harsh, commanding, but the sound of bodies moving behind them was the only indication that the Fuentes gang was in pursuit. The fact that they weren’t firing guns yet made her even more nervous.
“I’m going to assume you are going to be difficult about this,” the voice sighed as a bright light suddenly flared and began sweeping through the garage. “Don’t risk your lady’s life, Agent Merino. Give us the package and we will leave as quietly as we came in.”
Maggie felt the tenseness of Joe’s body, just as she heard the lie in the stranger’s voice. They would never make it out of there alive, no matter what they did.
“Jose, kill them now. You are making Roberto’s mistake in attempting to play with them,” a younger voice hissed. “Finish them off and we leave.”
“Shut up, Santiago. Roberto was less than the piss running down his father’s leg. He had no concept of the lessons Carmelita tried to teach us, whereas I paid careful attention. I will defeat this American dog on my own terms. Is this not so, Agent Merino?” He laughed slyly. “There is no triumph in a quick death. A humiliating life is another matter.”
Maggie had a feeling Jose had no intentions of allowing them either choice. She could hear it in his voice, feel it in the tension whipping through the room. She stayed down, pressed against the side of an old washer, with Joe in front of her, completely hiding her. She bit her lip, fighting back her harsh breathing, forcing herself to stay utterly silent as the flashlight swept through the garage.
Crouched low, with decades’ worth of junk heaped around them, Maggie bit her lip as the sound of footsteps neared. They were searching around the stacks of accumulated boxes, appliances, and miscellaneous junk heaped six to eight feet from the sides of the large garage. It was a mess. Thank God.
She held her breath as the footsteps passed and moved away, the bright flare of the light skirting inches in front of where Joe crouched.
“Agent Merino, we can do this the easy way, or we may do it the hard way. If you make me exert effort, then I will take your woman and play with her a bit before I allow her to die. I will let you live long enough to watch. Or you can hand over the package easily, and you may just walk away.”
Maggie shuddered at the offer as Joe reached back, gripped her wrist again, and they began moving slowly through the shadows, hunkered low, working around along the side of the garage toward the far wall. The direction they were going would have them coming up behind the men standing at the doorway. If they moved further into the garage, then there was a slim chance for escape.
“How disappointing,” Jose finally sighed. “But I’ll enjoy punishing you for the effort I must make.”
Joe moved quickly along a row of boxes before pushing her between a higher stack and an old dresser. There was a maze built through the stacks of junk, haphazard and less than safe, but with a few hidden passageways that seemed more by accident than by design.
They moved into the narrow tunnel, easing slowly behind the dresser as the sound of footsteps began to near their hiding place.
Joe paused behind the dresser, crouched, and waited as the footsteps passed before moving slowly out of the impromptu tunnel and into a mess of old clothes hanging from a long rack. Maybe being a pack rat wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
“Americans are so interesting.” Amusement filled the voice that spoke from just in front of the rack of clothing a second before the glare of a flashlight illuminated the floor. “Come out, my friends, let us talk for a bit.”
As the rack of clothing began to move, Joe kicked into action. Before Maggie could do more than gasp he pushed her back behind the heavy dresser and opened fire.
Maggie scrambled through the unnatural tunnel, her hand fumbling behind her as she attempted to reach the revolver tucked into her back pocket.
She had just moved to the other side of the dresser when the boxes that lined the tunnel crashed around her, and cruel fingers reached in, latching into her hair.
“No!” Her fingers formed claws as she tore at the fingers holding her, fighting the grip as she was jerked from the safety of the boxes.
“Redheaded whore!” a heavily accented voice hissed at her ear as one arm was jerked behind her back, her hand pressed against her shoulder blades as she cried out in pain.
“Do you hear her cries, Merino?” the voice called out as the gunfire was silenced. “I have your whore now.”
She was shaken like a rag doll as she fought against the pain ripping through her shoulders and her scalp. She was dragged through the dimly lit garage and brought to a stop next to the man she had met in her home, introduced as Juan Martinez. This was Jose Fuentes, not Martinez, and he was just as frightening now as he had been the year before, when he met with Grant.
“She’s very pretty, my friend.” Jose gripped her jaw in his hand, twisting her face around until she was forced to stare up at him. “I warned Grant when he married her that he had chosen one he could not tame. I was correct in this assessment, was I not?”
She fought his hold, tears filling her eyes from the burning pain tearing through her shoulder as her captor twisted her arm more forcibly behind her back.
“Let her go, Fuentes,” Joe snapped. “She doesn’t have what you want.”
Jose Fuentes held her head in place, refusing to allow her to look over to Joe as he glanced to his side.
“Ah, there you are, Agent Merino.” His smile was sickly evil, a twisted parody of humor. “It is very kind of you to join us.”
“Jose, get the package from him and we will leave,” Santiago snapped. “We have no time for these games.”
