Chapter Six #3
Suddenly aware that all eyes in the room were on her, Ami jerked her attention back to the matter at hand.
She sucked in a bolstering breath and manufactured a shaky smile.
“Kolin.” She looked directly at the only man who had shown a glimmer of kindness toward her.
“I’d like to take a walk now. Would you mind—”
The rest of the words trapped in her throat when someone grabbed a handful of her hair, snapping her head back. Carlos, she realized, terror claiming her all over again. He jerked her against him and pressed his face close to hers. “You disobeyed me,” he snarled. “No one disobeys me.”
“I—I just wanted—”
“Shut up!” He tightened his fist in her hair. “When I’m finished with your punishment you won’t forget to obey me again.”
She cried out as he jerked her backward, toward the bedroom that was her prison. Begging for help would be pointless. None of the other men would dare defy Carlos. He was the second in command.
“Carlos, please…I…”
He shoved her into the room. For one second she prayed he would slam the door and leave her be. The next second she knew that was not going to happen. He slammed the door behind him and moved toward her like the evil predator he was.
Fear sent her stumbling backward. Her heart stuttered to a halt in her chest as the fury in his eyes turned to a sinister gleam. Her throat closed in fear. He was…
He slapped her hard, knocking her off her feet.
“You may have Michal fooled,” he bellowed, “but I know what you’re up to.
” Her jerked her to her feet when she tried to scramble away from him.
“You’ve come back to finish the job you started two years ago.
” He pounded his chest with his free hand.
“I know this. I am not blinded by your whorish temptation.”
She tried to claw his fingers away as they closed around her throat.
The coppery tang of blood leeched from her lip into her mouth.
“Stop,” she whimpered, his punishing grip very nearly overpowering her ability to speak.
She tried to knee him in the groin, but he twisted away from her feeble effort.
He slammed her against the nearest wall and jabbed the barrel of his weapon into her temple.
“Who sent you here?” he demanded, his face only inches from hers, the stale smell of whiskey on his breath.
She tried to shake her head. To deny his accusations. But his brute strength pinned her helplessly to the wall.
The barrel of the weapon bore more deeply into her skull. “You will tell me or you will die.”
“Laissez-la partir.”
Though she didn’t understand the words, the stone-cold voice belonged to Michal.
“I said, let her go,” Michal repeated.
Relief flooded Ami, making her legs so weak beneath her that she collapsed to the floor the instant Carlos released her. Her chest ached with the harsh banging of her heart.
Carlos turned on Michal. “She makes you weak,” he accused, the pitch of his voice rising to match his fury.
Ami cradled her bruised throat with her hands, gasping to fill her lungs more fully with life-giving air, but her gaze was locked on the two men squaring off only a few feet away.
Carlos still held his gun in his hand. Michal stared him down, his own hands empty but clenched into hard fists at his sides.
“Your orders are only to see that she does not escape,” he said firmly.
Carlos waved his gun at her. Ami gasped and curled into herself protectively. “She makes a fool of you, my friend. She was sent here to destroy us…just like before.”
Michal’s dark gaze remained steady on Carlos, his composure never faltered. “That is for me to decide. You—” he moved a step closer to Carlos “—will never touch her again. Is that understood?”
For three long beats Ami wasn’t sure if Carlos was going to back down. His fingers tightened around his weapon as the face-off continued for another seemingly endless second, then he said, “You will regret this day, my friend.”
Carlos walked out of the room, not waiting for Michal to say more.
Thank God. A sob burst loose from her chest. She closed her eyes and tried hard to hold back the tears, but it was impossible. If Michal had not arrived when he had…
Strong arms suddenly scooped her up. She tried to escape, but he held her firmly against his chest. What was he going to do with her?
Fear pumped through her veins once more.
She stared up at Michal and tried to make her lips form the words to ask that very question, but she didn’t have the strength.
He carried her into the bathroom and settled her on her feet.
She seized the opportunity to put some distance between them, moving around to the far side of the sink.
She pressed against the wall, trying to make herself small and unnoticeable.
Some of the panic had receded, but the fear lingered still.
He planned to kill her…he’d made no bones about that.
She couldn’t fathom why he’d bothered to save her from Carlos.
Unless…he wanted the honor for himself.
She shivered uncontrollably. That was it. He’d said as much. It would be his decision. He would no doubt do the deed personally.
Emotion brimmed behind her lashes as she thought again of her sweet baby and the idea that she would never see him again. Another sob wrenched from her heart.
Michal moved toward her, trapping her between the wall and his powerful body.
Her fingers fisted against her sides, the urge to run or to fight so fierce she could scarcely resist the impulse to do one or the other.
He growled savagely beneath his breath in that language she thought to be French.
She didn’t understand the words, but he looked furious.
Her breath caught as he reached toward her.
That dark, dark gaze collided with hers. “Don’t move,” he ordered softy but, even tempered, the tone echoed with the danger that emanated from every square inch of him.
As gently as if she were an injured child, he cleaned her bleeding lip with a damp cloth, dabbing tenderly.
Stunned by the act of mercy, she could only stare at him and watch the startling metamorphosis of emotions on his face.
This close she could see the tiny lines that marred the smooth complexion of his skin.
Lines that spoke of years of close calls with death and wielding that same power over others.
The hard set to his chiseled jaw told her more about the unyielding determination he possessed than any words could have.
His entire body was honed to lethal perfection.
And yet the tenderness exposed in the beard-shadowed, granite-like features of that same face shifted something deep inside her.
He could kill her in an instant, but instead he was making her come.
The breath hissed past her lips. It was him that she’d been dreaming of…even before the episode in the ER with the injured Israeli man…before the startling conversation with Jack Tanner.
Michal Arad was the man she’d dreamed of making love with so often that she’d been unable to commit to Robert.
The dark image that had haunted her dreams had rendered the possibility of a future with the real, flesh-and-blood man in her life impossible.
Robert hadn’t had a chance, she realized ironically. He’d been competing with a ghost…
A ghost from her past.
“They all want you dead,” Michal murmured as he studiously worked to soothe the bruised skin of her throat with the cool, damp cloth. That dark, dark gaze lifted to meet hers. “What am I to do?”
Later, when she could think back on that moment, Ami couldn’t say what made her do it—some long-buried instinct or self-protective urge—but she thrust her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest and sobbed.
She didn’t want to die.
Somehow she knew that though he appeared to have the most reason to want her dead, he was the only one who could save her.