Chapter Twenty-One
JOSHUA
I stayed right where Nash put me with both hands over my ears as I tried to drown out the sound of almost endless gunfire.
I’d never heard anything like it before, but it wasn’t the noise or the smell of smoke in the air that terrified me…
it was knowing that the man I’d fallen head over heels in love with, was out there, facing murderers.
Tears of dread ran down my face, and I angrily swiped at them, praying for Nash to make it through the attack.
They’d come here for me, and my man had bravely pulled me to safety, then gone right back out to fight the vicious killers.
When the noise stopped, I could barely comprehend it. I caught the end of someone saying, “All clear.”
I was still shaking when the door was ripped open so violently, I accidentally knocked the back of my head on the shelf, rattling jars, leaving me seeing stars.
I shook my head, ready to chastise the figure who stood silhouetted in the doorway but then remembered how grateful I was that he’d returned safe from harm, and free of bullets.
I let out a relieved breath, thanking God that Nash was okay and started to get up, when the figure swung an assault weapon in my direction.
I cocked my head, wondering what the hell he was doing, when I heard a low voice, I didn’t recognize.
“Get the fuck up, Calder,” the man growled softly as he closed the door. “Make it fast, you piece of shit.”
I scrambled out of my sitting position and stood slowly. “Who are you? Where’s Nash?”
The man chuckled, gesturing with the muzzle of the gun for me to exit my tight quarters.
“Me? I’m Special Agent Turley of the DEA, and Nash…
well, he’s dead. Did you really think he could survive when facing a superior man?
All those pricks think they’re so much better than me, but I just proved what bullshit that is.
” Jealousy bled through the man’s words, but it was what he’d said so casually that made my heart skip several beats.
I gasped as I slowly replayed them. “Nash is dead? You killed him?” Pain, like I’d never felt before, slammed into my chest.
“If you make another sound, you’ll get a bullet in the back of your head just like him.” The cruel words were laced with menace, scraping over my breaking heart like dull knives. “Now, move, Calder! Someone wants to meet you.”
I slowly walked toward him and when I was close enough, he grabbed my bicep and yanked me out of the pantry with a punishing grip, shoving me in front of him.
“Go to the garage door and make it fast.” His hissing voice was barely more than a whisper as he painfully prodded my back with the muzzle of his semi-automatic.
I glanced around, holding back a sob as I searched for any of Nash’s men. Slowly walking over to the garage door off the kitchen, I opened it feeling my heart breaking as I thought about Nash, lying dead somewhere, killed by the monster behind me.
I wasn’t expecting the violent shove Turley gave me the minute the door was open and barely stopped myself from faceplanting onto the hard concrete floor that rushed up at me.
l crashed onto my hands and knees, jolting as I landed, making lancing pain radiate from my hands all the way up to my shoulders.
He shut the door behind him as I struggled to get up.
My head jerked back as he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked me to a standing position.
I wobbled where I stood but lifted my chin as I faced him, refusing to behave like a victim.
This man—this monster—worked with a cartel who’d sent killers into my home to destroy my family.
He’d killed Nash. I hated him and the men like him.
Turley wore all black, dressed in similar clothing and gear to the kind Nash and his team wore, but the loathing in his expression looked nothing like those men.
I wondered how he hadn’t been recognized by someone in the house but forced those thoughts to the back of my mind the second he shouldered his rifle and drew a handgun.
“Move!” He swung the muzzle of his weapon, pointing to a side door I hadn’t noticed until now.
I walked toward it, and he followed close, pressing his weapon against my back as I reached the door.
“Open it, you little fucker.” I bristled at the expletive, but did as he’d ordered, opening the door.
I was almost surprised by the fresh night air that rushed in.
“Get outside!” I stepped out into a space which opened up under the hillside home.
I stayed quiet as he followed me out and shut the door behind us.
“That way!” he said, pointing to the fence separating the safehouse and a neighbor’s yard.
I walked toward a hole cut low in a thick hedge, no doubt cut by Turley himself.
I realized it was probably how he’d gotten into the house unseen by Nash and the others.
Thinking of Nash made my heart hurt so badly, I was having a hard time holding back tears.
I wasn’t going to let this man know how scared I was, though.
However, when I crawled through the gap, a short, Hispanic man waited for us on the other side. He sneered at me, and I felt a ripple of fear rush down my spine.
“Is this him?” he asked in heavily accented English.
“That’s Calder,” Turley said from behind me. “Just like I promised, Rojas. Didn’t I tell you I had a present for you?”
Rojas? So, this was the man who’d taken over the Sanchez Cartel…the same man who’d sent killers to murder my family. And somehow now, I was nothing more than a present to him, a sacrificial offering.
The Mexican nodded and smiled; I felt my stomach do a slow roll at the sight of rotting, brown teeth. He stepped close, breathing fetid breath in my face as he reached out to touch my cheek. I flinched, ducking away as I realized he was trying to brush tears from my face.
He let out an ugly snicker. “Muy bonito, Turley. My sicarios will have fun with him before he dies.”
“Let’s go. You still need to pay me, and I don’t want to hang around this area. Once they realize he’s missing, they’re going to search the entire neighborhood.”
“Si, amigo,” Rojas said. He looked at me and smiled again. His grin was twisted and ugly, making me want to run. “Come on, it’s time to have some fun, pajarito.”
Little bird. Something so sweet and delicate, it could be crushed in a cruel hand.
I hated Rojas using the Spanish I understood, to terrify me.
I stumbled after Turley on shaking legs as he led the way across the neighbor’s back yard and around the side of the house, much like Nash and I had done the day we’d escaped from the men at the gym.
When we reached a side gate, Turley started to move past us to take the lead, when Rojas suddenly rounded on him. “One more thing, amigo.”
When Turley stopped and turned to him, I saw the gun in Rojas’ hand. He pointed it directly at Turley’s face. His eyes opened comically wide. “What the hell are you playing at, Rojas?” he bellowed.
“You said you wanted payment, Turley. Here it is.” A split second later, Rojas shot him right between the eyes.
I watched in horror as Turley’s lifeless body dropped to the ground in front of us.
I stared at the dead man for several seconds, then dragged my gaze away from the horrific sight, glancing back at Rojas.
He waved the gun toward the gate. “Open the gate, bonito. I don’t want to keep my men waiting.”
I shivered in revulsion at the implication of his words, feeling utterly devastated as I remembered how Nash had been there to save me the last time I was threatened with rape or something worse.
He wouldn’t be able to save me this time.
I was shaking as I stepped over Turley’s body and opened the gate to the pool with Rojas pressing the gun muzzle into my back. As I stepped out onto the path, my heart raced when I saw the BearCat.
Clifford had parked the vehicle in front of the safehouse about fifty feet from me.
Agents Snow, Prince, Clifford, and Dr. Reeves stood beside it under a streetlight, looking alert and searching, obviously having heard the gunshot but they weren’t looking in my direction.
I didn’t know why. The urge to scream for help was almost overwhelming, but Rojas must have anticipated it.
Before I could open my mouth, he pressed the gun to the base of my skull.
I stopped where I was and closed my eyes waiting for my life to end.
Instead, he shoved me hard and I stumbled, barely missing a statue without tripping.
“Apurate!” Rojas hissed, grabbing my arm as he ordered me to hurry, yanking me through two neighboring yards and toward a Land Rover parked around a corner in someone’s driveway. “?Entra!” he said the moment we got close enough for the electronic key chip to unlock the doors.
I opened the front passenger door and slid inside, half tempted to relock the doors before Rojas could climb behind the wheel. My fear of being shot through the window was the only reason I chose not to.
He climbed into the car and looked over at me with a lizard grin.
I shied away from his hand when he reached for my face again and was stunned when he punched me instead of wiping away tears this time.
Blood spurted from my nose as pain exploded in my head, making me see stars. The laughter that followed was cruel.
“?Límpiate!” Pain was all I knew as he ordered me to clean myself.
Tears poured from my eyes joining the blood and mucus dripping onto my sweater.
I reached under it and grabbed the hem on my tee to staunch the bleeding with it.
As I pulled the shirt free from my pants, I touched the waistband of the jeans, instantly remembering the slim knife Nash had slipped into a sheath.
I knew that using it now, was the only way to survive, even if the man I loved hadn’t.