Page 69 of Winters Heat

Surrender. It’d keep him alive.

He rolled onto his back and slowly raised his hands, giving them the chance to take him alive. Damn, his arm throbbed. This surrendering shit sucked.

Winters watched plumes of smoke drift through the air. The gunfight was over. The carnage ended. Titan would be far enough away. Mia was safe. That was all that mattered.

An armed man approached, with an automatic rifle directed at Winters’s head.

“Up. Up. Stand up,” the man shouted with a thick accent.

God, Winters hated these fuckers.

“All right.” He kicked his empty weapon away and rolled to his knees. Blasts of agony tore through his muscles. The tourniquets accomplished their goals, but he’d need medical treatment.Rapido, that was for damn sure. Chances were slim to impossible it’d happen.

“Hasta.Up. Up.” The man jutted the business end of the automatic rifle into Winters’s chest. Better his chest than his head, though his vest couldn’t do anything about point blank rapid fire.

His head spun, and his vision fought from fading to lights out. Bright explosions fired, and he saw stars. He closed his eyes tight against the splashes of color. If he passed out, he was a dead man.

He gulped smoky air, tasting gunpowder, and pried his eyes open, snarling. He felt like a gutted animal. Shot up, cut open, and bleeding out. Pain bubbled. Blood seeped as he hoisted himself up to stand.

Motioning to his loosening leg tie and fresh blood. “May I?”

“Si.”

They didn’t want him dead. At least this second. “Gracias.”

Gracias? Gracias, assholes would’ve been better.

He tightened the fabric ties, wobbling and bobbling.Stay up right. Stay clear-headed.

The man jabbed him in the chest again, and his legs buckled against a loss of balance.Shit. Things were worse than he thought.

The head asshole-in-charge motioned to two others, let out a string of commands, and turned away. Two men grabbed him under his arms, lifted him like a bag of shit, and hauled him along.

Hell, this was far from ideal. His ties could handle only so much abuse. Their group moved through a gaping hole, where a front door once hung, and into the house. Smoke stained the walls, and blood soaked the carpet. It was silent except for their bump-bump-bump of boots beating over expensive flooring.

They moved up the stairs. With each jarring step, his pain didn’t register. Fuck. That was a bad sign.

Finally, they stopped. No words exchanged. No explanation, threats, or pat downs. A simple push into a black hole, then a lock scraped secure. He smacked the tile floor. His eyes screwed shut. Lightning strikes reverberated through his limbs, circling toward his nauseous stomach.

After a long list of curses, the agony subsided, and he propped on his elbows. It was hellhole dark. He stretched forward, hoping to find a wall and define the room. After failed attempts, his fingertips found plaster, and he propped against a rough wall. With his uninjured arm, he found a switch and flipped it. A light glowed orange.

A small room. A bed. Another door. He crawled toward the door with the energy required to run a marathon.

It was a bathroom. With towels and a place to assess his wounds.

He pulled up to the counter and tried the faucet. Success. Winters splashed water on his face and draped himself over the sink. The dim light burned in the bedroom, and shadows fell long in the bathroom. The plumbing leaked on the floor. The estate was old, and the plumbing didn’t have a chance. But the water still ran from the tap. Thank God.

He soaked a towel, then wiped the debris from bloody wounds. His arm was only a flesh wound. It bled but didn’t need a tourniquet. He released the wrap and flexed his bicep. More blood leached. Pressure was still needed. A bandage. Some dressing. Anything to clot the hole in his arm. He grabbed a flimsy, threadbare towel, tore to the right size, and wrapped it around his bicep. Makeshift Band-Aid number one, complete.

His legs burned, shaking when his weight pressed down. But he could stand and crawl. That ruled out bullet-shattered bones. And he was still conscious. More or less. So no major arteries were hit. He couldn’t complain about that luck.

Winters examined his right thigh. A through and through. Both openings leaked. The tourniquet helped, but more blood loss wouldn’t sustain an effective escape.

His left calf pulsed blood, despite the tie off. An entry hole but no exit.Shit. He looked around the sparse bedroom and bath. The accommodations sucked. No first aid kit, not that he expected one. He leaned back on the counter and rubbed the nape of his neck.

A headache pounded, gaining violent momentum. First requirement to stay alive, he needed to hydrate. Drinking the South American water wasn’t high on his list of things to do. But adding dehydration to the list of shit gone wrong was futile.

He spun the metal faucet handle, stuck his head under the stream, and drank. The water eased the unrealized flame in his throat. It reinvigorated him. He stood upright on throbbing legs. The room spun.No good. More water, then time to figure out how the hell to fix his legs.

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