Page 84 of Too Lethal to Love

Linc was right. That text wasn’t just a taunt. It was bait.

Kane gripped the dashboard tighter. If Chris didn’t drive faster, he’d jump out and cover the remaining blocks on foot. Lacing his hands on top of his head, he fought to control his emotions. Impulsive decisions would get them killed, but shit, if he didn’t get to Beth quickly, everything he’d learned in training would be moot. At least she wasn’t on her way to Mexico—yet. That was a small miracle. But American soil didn’t make the Diablo cartel any less deadly.

“One minute out.” Chris glanced his way. “Hold on,brother. We didn’t let Scarlett get kidnapped to another country. We won’t let that happen to Beth.”

Kane nodded. Beth had better hold on too. He didn’t want to spend Christmas, or any day after that, without her.

“I got surveillance,”Ryan said through the mind comms. “But I can’t pinpoint any hostiles.”

Kane cursed. “The Diablos must have figured out that we have weaponry they can’t combat or explain. The pussies are hiding so they don’t get hit with our cyborg voodoo magic.”

Nic laughed. “Cyborg voodoo magic?”

“Yeah. It’s what Beth calls our superpowers.”

Linc shrugged from the back seat. “We don’t need superpowers to fight. And if they want to hide, we’ll take the fight to them.” He cracked his knuckles. “Mexico was fun when I got to bust some noses in between shooting V-Strikes.”

Sweat broke out on Kane’s forehead despite the cold temperature. Mexico hadn’t been fun. When he’d seen Jenna nearly dead and beaten…

He slammed that thought down hard. Jenna’s battered and bloody image slid away. His sparkly sugarplum dancing under the Christmas tree took her place.

No regrets.

He finally understood what that meant. He regretted keeping his distance the past few weeks from Beth, of not holding her when she needed him. Of skulking in the shadows to watch her when he could have been in her arms. What he didn’t regret? Asking Beth to marry him. He should have confessed his love too.

He’d fucking remedy that as soon as he held her again.

Beth spat out the remaining vomit in her mouth. The smell from the puddle of puke she left by the desk engulfed the room. “I’ll give you anything you want. Just tell them to leave her alone.”

But was it too late? Evangeline didn’t move as she hung there from the hook in the ceiling her arms were tied to. The toes of her heeled boots scraped the concrete floor. A fluorescent light directly overhead illuminated the blood gushing from her nose. More stained her pink sweater. Steroids and Biceps surrounded her as if deciding who would get the next shot.

“Please stop,” Beth cried. Nobody deserved to be brutalized like that. The leers on the thugs’ faces said hitting her was just the beginning of their sadism.

Evangeline whimpered behind the dirty gag in her mouth. Steroids pulled out a knife.

The enforcer slammed the door. “Do you still need a break,Cazampulga?There’s another hook in the ceiling. Your friend might wantsome company.”

Evangeline’s muffled scream echoed like a prelude of worse to come in Beth’s ears.

“Please,querida.” Her stalker hissed at his brother as he knelt next to her. “Do as he says. I don’t want you harmed.”

A whimper squeaked through her lips as she turned back to the computer. The classified data she swore she’d never reveal threatened to burst through her fingertips. She curled the fingers on her uninjured hand to keep from typing. There had to be another way to stall for time until Kane and the VIPER team arrived.

The enforcer pressed the tip of his knife into the top of her arm and dragged the blade down an inch. She gasped as her sweater tore. A half second later, she screamed as red-hot agony bled through her skin.

The stalker slapped the weapon from his brother’s hands. “You promised you wouldn’t cut her.”

“I know you’re too smart to let a woman come between us, brother.”

Beth breathed through the pain in her arm. Her wrist. Her head. Her heart. But she refused to let the Chavezes scare her into submission. There was only one man she’d relinquish control to, and it wasn’t the alpha devil brother. It wasn’t his obsessed brother either. He may be as brilliant as Scarlett, maybe more since he’d eluded her, but based on the sibling dynamic she’d witnessed, he was the weaker of the two.

And weakness made a prime target.

She turned up the tears for her stalker. “Are you going to let him do that to me?”

“No,querida.Just give us the formula and we can be on our way home.Mi madreis eager to meet you and start planning our wedding.”

She touched the cut on her lip. “Your mother is going to have to wait. I can’t walk down the aisle looking like this.”She looked away from the brothers, unable to mask the contempt in her gaze, and slowly scanned the room. “Where are we anyway?”

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