Page 83 of Colombian Chemistry

Shit.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Irene

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My wrist throbbed from Pedro’s tight grip, but I struggled against him anyway.

“Let me go!” I demanded.

He answered by pressing the tip of his knife deeper into my skin.

I froze, and my gaze flicked to Marcus.

“Don’t fucking hurt her,” Marcus growled, his gun fixed on Pedro.

“You’re gonna want to point that thing somewhere else,” Pedro said as he pulled me in front of him. “You wouldn’t want me to get nervous, would you?” He slid the knife against my skin, and I gasped when I felt it break through. A trail of warmth from the trickle of blood made its way down my neck.

Marcus narrowed his glare and didn’t twitch a muscle. “Let her go.”

Pedro tightened his grip on me. “Lower. Your. Gun.”

Marcus’s jaw ticked. “No.”

“You two thought that you could, what?” Pedro said. “Break in here, release her father, and walk away to some happily ever after?” His hearty laugh wafted his cigar-smokey breath into my nose.

“Yeah. That was the plan,” Marcus said.

Pedro’s laugh deepened. “I’m Pedro-fucking-Perez. No one waltzes in and steals from me. And you... you’ve been a royal pain in my ass. You’ve killed more of my men in two weeks than I’ve lost all year to the other cartels. And I haven’t heard from my lieutenants in over twenty minutes, so I can only assume you killed them too. I don’t like losing men. It costs me money to hire new ones and train them. And I don’t like losing money.” His grip on me tightened with his anger. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back so I could take pleasure in killing you myself.”

“Is that so?” Marcus said.

“Oh, yes.” Pedro grinned. “That’s so. You’re going to put down your weapon and surrender yourself to me, or I’m going to tear open the throat of this sweet little thing you seem so fond of.”

“You won’t kill her. If you kill her, then Dr. Saltzman won’t make you one single drug. You’ll lose billions.”

Pedro exhaled a sigh through his nose. “True. He is priceless to me—my little secret. No one knows about him, or I’d have every cartel in Colombia here trying to steal him away. But even though I need him, which means I can’t kill her, that doesn’t mean I can’t do other extremely unpleasant things to her. She doesn’t need these beautiful blue eyes to be of value to me. Do you, sweetheart?”

My stomach churned at the thought of him taking my eyes. I had a thing for eyes, and he’d basically just spit out my worst freaking nightmare.

Stay strong, Irene. Just do whatever you have to do to survive... and save Marcus.

“You wouldn’t,” Marcus spat, holding his ground.

“Oh, I would. And much worse. So, you have a choice. You can put your gun down and surrender yourself to me, or I’m going to carve up every inch of her beautiful face.”

“If I surrender, how do I know you’ll keep your word?” Marcus said.

My eyes bulged at his response.

Surrender? What? No!

“Contrary to what you may think of me, I am a man of my word. If you surrender, I will fulfill my initial promise to her father that she live here unharmed by me or any of my men. Irene will be cared for and want for nothing.”

Yeah. Nothing but my freedom.

Marcus twisted his lips while he thought. I knew he had some other plan that didn’t involve his death or my torture, so I waited for him to make his move.