CHAPTER 5
MARGARITA
I can still taste him.
"Stop shaking," I whisper to myself in the dark. "Just stop."
I am not weak. I’ve dug bullets out of cartel enforcers while they screamed obscenities at me. I’ve walked through literal blood to get to work. But this is different. This is a biological hijack.
"It was just a tactic," I say aloud to the empty room, the vibration of the floorboards humming under my boots. "It wasn't real."
I stumble away from the wall, backing into the corner where the shadows are thickest. I bring the back of my hand to my mouth and start scrubbing my lips with frantic, rhythmic sweeps.
I rub until the skin feels raw, thin, and burning, desperate to erase the sensation of his coarse stubble scraping my chin and the oppressive heat of his breath.
The friction doesn't help. The harder I scrub, the more the blood rushes to my lips, making them swell and throb. It’s a literal biological reminder of exactly what just happened.
I accidentally bite my own lip in the process, the sharp sting of pain grounding me for a fraction of a second.
A single tear escapes, leaving a trail of salt on my tongue, and it just pisses me off.
"Get him off me," I mutter, wiping the wetness away roughly. "Bastard. You’re a surgeon, Margarita. Act like it."
My legs give out. I slide down the rough concrete wall until my ass hits the floor, tucking my knees against my chest. I wrap my arms around myself and rock just slightly, letting the scratchy texture of my blood-stained scrubs ground me in reality.
My medical brain kicks into overdrive, a defense mechanism I’ve relied on since residency.
I start mentally listing the neurochemicals flooding my system right now.
Cortisol. Adrenaline. Oxytocin. That’s all this is.
An adrenaline spike. My pulse is clocking at roughly 110 beats per minute because my sympathetic nervous system is trapped in fight-or-flight, and the wires got crossed with arousal.
I trace the raised scar on my own palm, cataloging the physical realities of my own body to remember who the fuck I was before I ended up in this concrete box.
"Adrenaline spike. That's all it is," I tell my kneecaps. "It’s just biological."
I am not his. I am a captive. I’m a hostage holding onto my sanity by a thread. I stare at the flickering orange glow spilling from the hallway light under the heavy steel door, listening to the ventilation fan growl somewhere up in the ceiling.
Then the heavy bolt on the door slams back.
The metallic crack sounds like a gunshot going off inside the small room.
The door swings outward and Damon stands there.
His massive shoulders nearly touch both sides of the doorframe.
He hasn't changed clothes. He still smells like a coming storm and fresh gun oil.
He doesn't step inside right away. He just leans one massive hand on the doorframe, his leather-gloved fingers tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the steel. The sound is maddening.
"Get up," he says. His voice is a gravelly command that leaves absolutely no room for debate.
I freeze, my heart leaping straight into my throat. The sheer physical dominance of the man is suffocating. He is bathed in the harsh, yellow glare of the corridor lights, his heavy wool coat absorbing the shadows.
"We aren't done," he adds, his flat gaze tracking over my huddled form. "Don't make me drag you."
I don't move. I stay tucked in the corner, staring at him.
He watches me with dead, unreadable eyes, stripping me of the tiny shred of dignity I managed to scrape together on the floor.
He jerks his chin toward the hallway, a kingly, wordless command for me to fall in line.
I clench my fists around my knees, my knuckles popping loudly in the small space.
I refuse to give him the satisfaction of easy obedience.
"Where?" I ask, my voice sharper than I feel. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
Damon’s jaw ticks. "I said get up, Margarita."
When I stay planted on the floor, he decides he’s done asking.
He takes two long, predatory strides into the room.
Before I can even scramble backward, he reaches down, hooks a massive hand under my armpit, and hauls me to my feet like I weigh absolutely nothing.
He holds me suspended there for a second, my heavy combat boots barely grazing the concrete floor.
His face is inches from mine, radiating a furnace-level heat.
His grip is so tight I can feel the individual pressure of his calloused fingers bruising me right through the thin cotton of my scrubs.
"You’re going to be useful today," he growls, the faint creak of his leather shoulder holster vibrating between us. "Stop fighting. You’re only hurting yourself."
I wrench my face away, glaring at the wall. He snaps his free hand up, catching my jaw and forcing my face back to his.
"Look at me when I talk to you."
I glare into his black eyes, hating that a tiny, fucked-up part of me feels safe when he holds me this securely. He drops my jaw, keeps his iron grip on my arm, and marches me out into the hall.
The brutalist architecture of his fortress is an endless maze of gray poured concrete and sharp angles.
It smells heavily of wet cement and ozone.
He doesn't loosen his grip on my arm for a second as he practically drags me down the corridor. His thumb occasionally brushes against the highly sensitive skin of my inner bicep with every step, sending unwanted sparks of static electricity straight up to my brain. A guard stands at the intersection ahead of us. As we approach, the man snaps to rigid attention. I look directly at the guard, trying to catch his eye, projecting a silent demand for some kind of intervention. The guard immediately averts his eyes to the floor, terrified of even looking at Damon’s property.
"Walk faster," Damon commands, noticing my lagging steps. He yanks me forward. "This is my house. Remember that. Don't look at them. Look forward."
The rhythmic thud of his combat boots echoes off the walls, masking the erratic patter of my own. We turn a corner under a faulty, buzzing fluorescent bulb and he shoves open a heavy steel door with his shoulder.
He pushes me inside, and the sight of the room makes my brain short-circuit.
It’s a state-of-the-art medical bay. It’s blindingly bright, lit by massive overhead LED panels reflecting off endless surfaces of pristine stainless steel.
Rows of glass-fronted cabinets line the walls, packed tight with high-end surgical tools, advanced pharmaceuticals, and neatly stacked trauma kits.
There is an autoclave humming quietly in the corner, filling the air with the sharp, clean scent of isopropyl alcohol and sterilized metal.
It’s an upgraded, high-tech, obscenely expensive version of my underground clinic.
I step away from him, drawn to a stainless-steel Mayo stand.
I reach out, running a single finger over a perfectly arranged tray of sterilized forceps.
The touch is mourning. This is my world, my aesthetic, my domain.
And he colonized it. He took the one thing I was good at and built a cage out of it just for me.
"Do you like it? I had it built for you," Damon says, walking past me to stand next to the priMargarita examination table. "Everything you need is here."
I cross my arms over my chest, defensive and bristling. "It’s a cage with better lighting."
He ignores the barb. He reaches down and gestures toward the side of his black shirt. A dark, wet stain is spreading across the fabric right over his liver. The edges of the shirt are already stiff with dried, flaking blood, but the center is a fresh, expanding circle of dark crimson.
"The stitches are pulling," he says flatly. "Clean it up."
I stare at the blood. He isn't asking a doctor for help. He is a master ordering his captured asset to perform maintenance. He pulls a heavy, serrated combat knife from his belt in one fluid motion and tosses it onto the metal counter right next to my hand. The steel clatters loudly against the surface. It’s a silent, arrogant warning.
"It burns," he adds, his eyes locking onto mine. "Do your job, Doctor."
I look at the knife, then at the tray of surgical instruments.
My hand hovers over a #10 scalpel. For one vivid, intoxicating second, my brain generates a crystal-clear image of picking up that little blade and burying it straight into his carotid artery.
I imagine the spray of arterial blood hitting the pristine white LEDs.
My stomach churns with the adrenaline of the thought.
I glance up. He is watching my hand hover over the scalpel, a dark, knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Go ahead. Try it," he dares me, his voice dropping an octave. "I'd have your wrist snapped before you broke the skin."
I swallow the bile in my throat. He knows I won't do it. He wants a reason to break a bone. I pull my hand away from the scalpel and grab a pair of heavy trauma shears instead.
"Just fix me," he says, the smirk vanishing.
I force my brain into clinical mode. This is anatomy.
This is just meat and tissue. I snap open a box on the counter and pull out a pair of blue latex gloves.
I pull them on, the sharp snap of the rubber hitting my wrists sounding final and loud in the quiet room.
I turn away from him, gathering the supplies I need from the cabinets.
Betadine. Sterile gauze. A fresh nylon suture kit.
Local anesthetic. I rip open a sterile gauze packet with my teeth out of pure habit, my hands moving fast and efficient.
"Sit down," I order, pointing the trauma shears at the exam table. "I need you to be still."
Damon doesn't argue. He hops backward onto the stainless-steel exam table. "This is going to hurt," I warn him.