Page 52 of Resisting His Target
“No,” she said.
He pulled out a cell phone, flashing her a picture, Selena’s eyes round and full of fear. Hysteria threatened Jackie’s composure. She felt every mile that separated her from her daughter like a dagger through her skin.
Levi put his phone away and tucked her arm in his, slowly walking her toward the stage, where Doug’s new wife still spoke. “She’s okay, for now. If you behave yourself, they’ll both be fine. Do you understand?”
She was disembodied, floating above herself. The convention around them moved in slow-motion. The deafening noise of the crowd now melted away. “Yes.”
“You will tell them you ran away,” he said calmly. “That you were drunk when you drove your car off that cliff, and you ran from the scene of the crime. Doug, of course, knew none of this. He was blameless. You must make that very clear.”
“Okay.”
“Have you met Victoria? Lovely woman. She’s expecting you. She’ll introduce you, act as if you were an expected guest here to dispel the rumors surrounding your disappearance. They’ve been a real bitch in the polls. Say you were depressed. Unhappy. Doug tried to get you the help you needed, but you refused. Understand?”
She was fighting back tears. “Yes.”
“No crying. You have no reason to cry. If you can’t be convincing, the little girl dies.”
Jackie lifted her chin. “Sorry.”
He eyed her appraisingly. “Good. If you do as you’re told, we’ll bring you to your daughter in Mexico. But if you so much as say one wrong thing, so help me God, I pick up this phone and she dies. You got that?”
She nodded. “Yes, Levi.”
“Good. You’re on in five minutes. I know you’re going to knock it out of the park.”
32
Sloan floated in a sea of searing hot pain, his mind in and out of consciousness. He didn’t remember where he was, only knowing the lack of awareness was better than the alternative. His head was yanked back by his overgrown hair, his neck agonizingly overextended, and he gagged on his own blood, the strength of the metallic taste a testament to his wounds.
“Open your eyes!” his attacker commanded. “We’re just getting started.”
That voice made him remember. SVX. He barely managed to crack open his swollen lids, the corrugated steel walls of the shipping container coming into view. A work lamp with a bare bulb hung high on the wall in front of him, figures in the shadows who occasionally spoke.
But this guy was his tormentor.
Time twisted and bent, leaving Sloan in a canyon of timelessness that echoed his cries. He would die here today, or tomorrow, or whenever they gave up on the chance he might talk. There were worse things to die for than the life of a child.
“I can do this all day, frogman.” The man kneed Sloan in his abdomen, which had already sustained more than a dozen traumatic blows.
Sloan saw stars, bending over as much as his restraints would allow and throwing up the small amount of bile that had collected in his stomach since the last time. “Whatever floats your boat,” he croaked. The back of his head exploded with pain, the base of his skull hit hard with a fist.
“I’m not stopping until you give us the girl.”
A shadow spoke. “He’s not kidding, Mr. Dvorak. Make things easier on yourself and give us the information we need.”
Sloan slowly lifted his head, noting it was far more difficult than the last time he’d done so, and grateful for the adrenaline that allowed him to move at all. “Information?”
“The girl, Selena,” said the shadow. “Tell us where she is.”
He grimaced, forcing himself upright and his shoulders back. He lifted his chin, meeting the stare of the tormentor. This man might have been a SEAL, or a Ranger, a Marine. Someone who once fought for justice and now fought for anyone willing to pay. Disgust bubbled through his bloodstream. “Razorback was right. You guys are the scum of the private security industry.”
A powerful series of blows slammed his head sideways, then back. Punches pummeled his abdomen and side, a cry rushing out of his lungs at the crush of his tender kidney. His chair fell sideways, his arms strapped behind it.
The pop of gunfire filled the container. This was it. He was going to die. The shadowed men had enough of his antics, convinced he would never give up Selena’s location. A sense of relief washed over him. The pain was going to end. He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, someone was speaking in Spanish. The tormenter lay dead on the ground in front of him, two bullet holes in his forehead and a growing pool of blood on the floor of the container. Sloan couldn’t turn his head to see more than that.
Footsteps ran in and stopped at his head. “Sloan?”
