Page 10 of Strike Fast

“Alone?”

“Yeah. She tried to escape the other night and damn near made it, so we’ve been training her to be more obedient ever since.” He flashed a satisfied grin. “She’s a slow learner.”

Carlos grunted, his fingers flexing around the head of his cane, that familiar, deep ache shooting through his leg. “I want to see her.” This bitch had nearly ruined him and he wanted to see her suffering. “Show me.”

He followed Antonio through the living room, past the naked couple collapsed in a heap in the corner, and out onto the back porch. The brain-numbing noise of the music muted once the back door was shut.

As they walked across the grass of the private backyard, Carlos glimpsed the outline of a wooden shed tucked amongst the trees near the rear fence. Even though it was eleven at night the humidity was high enough to have him sweating by the time they reached the outbuilding.

At the base of the wooden steps, Antonio switched on a flashlight, illuminating the heavy chain and padlock on the weatherworn door. He unlocked it and shoved it open.

The smell of hot, stale piss nearly made Carlos gag. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to cover his nose and mouth as he peered inside. His eager gaze followed the beam of light to where it revealed a naked, dark-haired woman lying on a filthy bare mattress in the middle of the floor.

She was chained to the floorboards by a metal collar around her neck. They’d hogtied her, hands and feet bound together behind her with rope.

Couldn’t be too unbearable, since she appeared to be asleep. Then again, they’d probably drugged her with something. “Wake her up,” he ordered, his heartbeat drumming in his ears.

“Hey,” Antonio said gruffly, stalking over to nudge her bare leg with his boot.

The brunette stirred and raised her head slightly. Her features were distorted from the bruising and swelling, but it was definitely her.

Victoria Gomez, the Mexican-born reporter from Houston who had not only exposed him, but almost cost him his life when a rival cartel had targeted him because of a story she’d broadcast. Three of Carlos’s best men had died in the shootout trying to protect him, and every day the pain of the healed bullet wounds in his right leg reminded him of the suffering she’d caused him.

“Wake up, bitch,” Antonio snapped in Spanish.

The woman cracked one dark eye open, the other swollen shut. It took a moment for her bleary gaze to focus on them, but when she did she glared up at them with such hatred and malevolence it sent an involuntary shiver up Carlos’s spine. Excitement blended with the buzz of warning at the back of his head.

Seeing her bound, naked and helpless sent a rush of power through him.Shewas the victim now, and deserved everything they did to her.

He took a step forward, intending to bend down and grip her jaw between his fingers so he could stare into her eyes, but his foot slipped on something. Looking down, he saw the wet sheen on the old wooden boards near the edge of the mattress and nearly gagged before he jerked away from the puddle of piss.

“For Christ’s sake, clean her up,” he snarled to Antonio, retreating to the doorway.

Disgusted, he limped down the steps and wiped the bottom of his shoe on the grass. Fucking nine-hundred-dollar Italian leather, and now he’d have to throw them out. No way he’d wear them again, now that they’d been tainted by that bitch’s piss.

When he turned around, Antonio had dragged a hose out from behind the shed.

Standing in the doorway, his chief enforcer opened up a jet of cold water on the bitch. She shrieked and ducked her head to try and shield her face, but that was all she could do to protect herself.

Antonio held the flashlight in one hand as he continued to hose her down from head to foot, leaving her dark hair plastered to her head and naked body gleaming on the soaked mattress. Carlos’s dick hardened and a bolt of excitement flashed through him. Even half-starved she had a body on her that would net them thousands.

He would use her before they sold her, once his men had enjoyed her for a while, but not now. He would never touch her when she was so filthy and repulsive. When he was ready for her he’d have her scrubbed clean first, waxed, her makeup and hair done up, and wearing some sexy lingerie he could cut off her with the blade he always carried with him.

More blood surged to his swelling cock as he imagined the expression on her face when he pulled the knife out and advanced toward her while she was bound and helpless. It had been a long time since anything had excited him half as much.

When she was prepared the right way, and tied to a bed in some luxury hotel in New Orleans, then he could savor every tiny cringe as he unwrapped her, enjoy her terror and loathing as he did whatever he pleased to her. Whatever pleasedhim.

Only after he’d taken his fill would he sell her, so that he could have his revenge and show her the price for exposing him, plus make a profit on her.

And if she died before that happened, it wasn’t the end of the world. One less loose end for him to worry about.

Smirking as Antonio finished hosing her down and shut off the water, Carlos stalked back up the steps, his cane loud on the wood in the enveloping silence. The bitch wasn’t so gutsy now, soaking wet and shivering in her miserable prison, pinkish rivulets of blood trickling down her wrists and ankles from where the rope had cut into her flesh during her struggles to free herself.

“That’s better,” he said, standing at the edge of the waterlogged mattress to tower over her. He liked seeing her helpless and shivering. Not so brave now—

She whipped her head around and spat at him, the wad of saliva landing with a revolting splat on the toe of his left shoe.

He clenched his jaw as primal rage roared through him. No one disrespected him that way.No one. He took a menacing step toward her, cane raised, ready to bash her sneering face in, then stopped at the last moment because of the look on her face.

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