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It isn’t long into my mission that I find myself getting distracted again. Leo Corleon isn’t the only man with his eyes on me. While Jaguar seems happy to sit back and watch, I feel like a bleeding piece of prey, hunted by his lieutenants. Just how many of them seek to betray him?
Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem in much of a hurry to ferret them out. I meet his gaze and catch him wink. Simultaneously, a hand lands on my shoulder.
“He wants you out front.” It’s the blond again. She cuts her eyes toward the front of the house. “Now.”
I look back at Jaguar skeptically. Just what the hell he’s up to? He doesn’t think to enlighten me as the seconds tick by. Instead, he smiles at a simpering bimbo even as I stand and start to follow the blond.
She hurries me through the atrium and inside, toward the foyer. “Just out there,” she says, stopping short. With a nod of her chin she urges me along. “Hurry up. He isn’t the kind of man who waits.”
“For what?” I snap back, but she’s already scurrying out of view, her errand completed.
Damn Jaguar. I consider sauntering back to the pool and telling him to go to hell. I even take a step toward the terrace, but I sway and have to brace my hand against the wall. A wave of dizziness hits me all at once. Nerves?
A stubborn bit of rebelliousness makes me square my chin and head for the front door, even as my knees buckle. Jaguar doesn’t scare me. I’ll face whatever he has in store.
Just as I near the front entryway, someone moves to block my path.
“Where are you going?”
I stiffen at the familiar, guttural voice. Horatio.
“It appears your boss has ordered me outside,” I say. “Let me guess? Another…”
I break off as another wave of dizziness nearly knocks me over.
“You stay,” Horatio says. “I ask.”
He lumbers toward the pool and tells another man in Spanish to watch me.
Suddenly, Jaguar and his sadistic game are the furthest things from my mind. God, it feels like my brain is going to explode. I stumble to the stairs and sit on the bottom step. The world seems to sway and buck beneath me. When I’m wrenched to my feet, I can’t tell if it’s my lack of balance or…
Someone has their arm around my shoulder, dragging me forward. Then into a pool of darkness and warm, fresh air.
“J-Jaguar…?” My voice comes out slurred and high-pitched.
“Get the bitch in!” someone hisses. They’re male but not Jaguar. Their voice is older, raspier.
Alarm shoots down my spine. Something is wrong.
I struggle to regain my balance, but the figure holding me, shoves me forward. Weightless, I land on my knees, tasting blood as my chin smacks off a firm surface. The material beneath me is too soft to be the ground. It’s not stable, lurching beneath me and throwing me forward.
“Keep quiet, you little bitch,” someone rasps into my ear, a different voice than before.
“Get her blindfolded. We need to move.”
Fabric presses over my eyes, blinding me. A heartbeat later, something thin worms into my mouth. A gag.
“Go!” the man beside me shouts. “Hurry up!”
We must be in a van. It lurches again, jostling me against the unseen interior. My stomach churns, and I gag, choking back vomit.
A familiar smell cloys in my nostrils. Cologne? Pedro’s…
Is this yet another of Jaguar’s tests at my expense?
Before I know for sure, the world goes black.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
