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All this time, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t trust Jaguar further than I could throw him—but it was a lie. I’d naïvely thought him incapable of this—cold, brutal evil. How could a man who claimed to want me to bear his children, let one of his bastards violate me in the next breath? The rage from betrayal rips through me, and I feed off it. I cling to it. It’s all I have.
Even as Bastian shoves a finger inside me, I breathe.
“I won’t tell you a damn thing. You think this can break my loyalty to him?” I force out a laugh that becomes a double-edged sword as tears fall from my eyes to undermine it. “Do what you will. You know he’s watching.”
“Don’t listen to this stupid bitch,” Boaz snarls. His shoulder flexes, and then…black! Pain rips through my skull, and I hear my cry echoing weakly off the walls. “Tell us where the fuck he took you! Where is the safe house?”
I picture the house in California. It must be important to him if he tasked his men with trying to beat it out of me. A new property, perhaps? One purchased off the grid. He drugged me to bring me there, but not when I left.
The mystique, I suspect, is all part of his test.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie. “Ask Jaguar himself.”
Another finger is shoved into me beside the first, and my resolve breaks. I can’t endure more of this—I can’t. It shatters me, ripping me back to my past as a frightened little girl, forcing herself to turn violence into affection.
I try to focus on hate. I let it ground me enough that I can ignore any damage done to my body. It’s the emotion that saved me from Diego, and I welcome it as a useful tool against Jaguar.
“You’re wasting your time,” I tell them, hating how hoarse my voice sounds. How broken. “Pain alone won’t shake my loyalty to him. You’ll just have to kill me.”
“I say we take her up on that offer,” Boaz snarls. His hands go around my throat again, squeezing so hard I see stars. Bound as I am, all I can do is flail, unable to fight. Scream.
Gradually, my vision blurs, though I doubt he’ll truly kill me. But if I lose consciousness, who knows what they’ll do to my body in the meantime…
Fight, Pita. Fight!
Suddenly air! I gasp a lungful as the pressure on my neck loosens, and Boaz recoils. But something is wrong. There’s water dripping onto me from somewhere. Wet, warm water…
A thud echoes from nearby, and a voice calls out, followed by a loud pop. Then a groan. And silence, broken only by a familiar voice that drips into my ear.
“Can you hear me, Lupe?”
I barely can.
Only because I can’t stop screaming.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
I’ve never wished for death, even during the worst depths of my relationship with Diego. I still don’t. I’m just prideful. After going so long without letting myself fall under the spell of another man, my battered psyche stings. I’d give anything to not feel so broken ever again.
I crave the fragile stability I had just a few days ago when Franco was my only concern. I’d sell my soul to get that back... And I’d give up far more to put as much distance as possible between me and the man I find when I peel my sore, aching eyes open.
He’s seated beside me on what must be a bed. I recognize his masculine scent, and it, paired with the eerie gentleness of the fingers raking through my hair, helps paint a mental image.
“I can smell the anger on you, chica,” he says softly, continuing to stroke my scalp. “You are safe now, but Horatio had to drug you. You were in no state to be moved otherwise. You were hysterical.”
I wait to hear the typical mocking tone that infects his voice. I wait for him to deliver some cruel praise for surviving his trick. I wait.
“It is not often that I admit when I was wrong,” he adds, in a tone much deeper than what I’m used to. There is no taunting in it, still. Just the low, raspy hum of a predator capable of untold violence—but, for whatever reason, he’s keeping himself restrained. “Once again, I underestimated what my men will do in your presence. They were wild dogs, spooked by the bastard pulling their leash—who, in this instance, wasn’t me. I will not rest until I find out who.”
My heart pangs. This isn’t right. He should be gloating, not…
Confessing?
“You should know that Pedro is missing.”
He says it so tonelessly that it takes my brain a second to process. No.I heard him wrong. Voice breaking, I try to speak. “What—”
“It seems he didn’t leave the airport after arriving in Texas,” Jaguar continues over me. “They must have ambushed him there and used his phone to contact you.”
