Chapter 18
Pain was all she knew.
Willow existed in a world reduced to the burning agony in her shoulder, the copper taste of blood in her mouth, and the zip ties cutting into her wrists.
Time had become fluid. She couldn't tell if she'd been in this cell for hours or minutes.
Everything blurred together into one endless moment of hurt.
“I'll ask you again,” Morales said, his voice maddeningly calm. “Who sent you? CIA? DEA? Answer me, bitch!”
Lifting her head, she forced herself to meet his eyes. “Go to hell.”
The backhand came fast, snapping her head to the side. Stars exploded across her vision, and fresh blood filled her mouth. She spat it on the floor between them.
Morales sighed, disappointed. “You're making this harder than it needs to be. I don't enjoy hurting women. But I’ll do what's necessary.”
“Then you're going to be disappointed.” Her voice came out rough, damaged. “Because I'm not telling you shit.”
He studied her for a moment, then gestured to one of his bodyguards. “Check her shoulder wound. Make sure she hasn't bled out yet.”
Rough hands grabbed her, and when they pressed against the gunshot wound, Willow couldn't stop the scream that ripped from her throat. White-hot agony consumed everything, drowning thought, drowning resistance. She heard herself making sounds—animal sounds, broken and desperate.
When it stopped, she was gasping, tears streaming down her face. Hating herself for the weakness. Hating Morales more.
“There,” he said softly. “That's better. Now. Let's try again. Who sent you?”
Through the haze of pain, Willow's mind worked. She needed to buy time. Needed to stay alive long enough for—what? Rescue? Levi was probably dead. The patrol had overwhelmed him, killed him, and left his body in the jungle. She was alone here. Alone and dying and—
No. Stop. Don't think like that.
“I'm a contractor,” she said, forcing the words out. “CIA. Tracking your operations.”
“The CIA.” Morales smiled. “Interesting. And the other one? The man who's been destroying my facilities? Also, CIA?”
She wanted to lie. Wanted to protect Levi even if he were gone. But Morales would see through it, would know, would hurt her until she told the truth.
“No,” she said finally. “Contractor, too.” It wasn’t a lie.
“Ah.” Morales's smile widened. “The CIA can’t send their own, so they send contractors. I wondered when the CIA would come for me.” When he leaned closer, she could smell cologne and cigarette smoke. “Tell me about him. Your partner. What's his specialty?”
“Demolitions.”
“Obviously. I've seen his work. What I want to know is, where is he now?”
She met his eyes. “Dead. Your patrol killed him.”
“Did they?” Morales studied her face. “You don't look like someone whose partner just died. You look like someone who's waiting for rescue.”
Shit. She'd miscalculated. Let hope show on her face when she should’ve projected grief.
“He's dead,” she repeated, putting everything she had into the lie. “You won. It's over.”
“If he's dead, then you have no reason to protect him. Tell me his name.”
“I don't know it.”
“Everyone has a name.”
“He used a call sign. I knew him as Berserker. That's all.”
Morales laughed in genuine amusement. “Berserker. How fitting. A man who destroys everything he touches.” He circled behind her, and she felt his hand on her wounded shoulder.
Not pressing, just resting there. A threat.
“Last chance. Tell me everything you know about the CIA’s operations in Venezuela, or I will make you wish you'd died in that plane.”
She closed her eyes. Thought about her father's house in Seattle. About flying over the Sound with nothing but sky ahead. About Levi's smile, the way he'd kissed her before running into danger to buy her time.
About how she'd wasted that time and gotten captured anyway.
“I don't know anything about their operations,” she said quietly. “I’m a contractor. We were put together by chance. He used me for transport. I used him for protection. That's all.”
“You're lying.”
She wasn’t. She dropped her head, and tears fell to her blood-soaked lap. “Believe what you want.”
Morales's hand tightened on her shoulder, and Willow braced for the pain …
The explosion came from somewhere above them. Massive. The whole room shook, and dust rained from the ceiling. Then another explosion, closer, and the lights flickered.
Morales spun toward his bodyguards. “What was that?”
One touched his earpiece, listening. His face went pale. “The fuel depot. It's … something hit the fuel depot. And the armory. Both are burning.”
“Patrols?”
“Responding now. But sir, the explosions … they were too precise. Too controlled. This is—”
“A diversion.” Morales turned back to Willow, and something in his expression had changed. Gone cold. Calculating. “He's alive. Your contractor is alive, and he's here.”
Hope exploded in Willow's chest—bright, painful, impossible to suppress.
Levi. Levi was alive. Levi had come for her.
She had to help. She had to escape this fucking mess.
He came for her, and she was going to leave with him.
The thought of forever screamed through her mind until Morales swore beside her.
She had to delay … “No,” she said, but the lie was transparent now. “He's dead. I told you—”
“You told me what you needed me to believe.” Morales drew a pistol from his jacket. “But I'm not a fool. The CIA sent operatives to kill me. And now, you're both here, thinking you can—”
The lights went out.
Total darkness. Complete. Disorienting.
Willow heard movement. It was the bodyguards shifting position, weapons jostling and probably raised. She heard Morales swearing in Spanish, heard someone fumbling in the darkness.
Then another explosion, this one directly above them. The basement door. Someone was breaching the basement.
Gunfire erupted in the corridor outside. Suppressed shots, professional, precise. Two thumps like bodies hitting the floor. Then silence.
Footsteps. Coming closer.
“Get between me and the door,” Morales ordered his men. “If anyone comes through that door, kill them.”
Willow's heart hammered against her ribs. She couldn't see, couldn't do anything but sit bound to this chair and wait. Was it Levi? It had to be Levi. But what if it wasn't? What if it was Morales’s enemies? God knew he had enough.
Something hit the cell door hard. A shoulder, maybe. The door shook but held.
Morales pulled Willow's chair back and positioned himself behind her. She felt cold metal press against her temple. His pistol.
“Tell your friend to surrender,” Morales said quietly in her ear. “Or I'll kill you right now.”
“He won't surrender.”
“Then you'll die.”
“Go to hell,” she growled.
A short burst of suppressed gunfire preceded the door exploding inward.
Through the darkness, a figure appeared in the doorway. Backlit by flames from the stairway behind him, with his weapon raised, moving with the lethal grace of someone who'd done this a thousand times.
Levi.
Battered, bloody, covered in soot and grime. But alive. Actually, impossibly alive.
And his eyes … she could see them even through the smoke. They were the coldest thing she'd ever witnessed. Not anger. Not rage. Something beyond both.
“The contractor,” Morales said, and she heard satisfaction in his voice. “Finally.”
The bodyguards opened fire. Muzzle flashes strobed in the darkness, deafening in the confined space. Willow saw Levi move—not away, but forward, using the doorframe for cover, returning fire with controlled precision.
The gunfight lasted three seconds.
Both bodyguards went down. One shot in the head, one in the chest. Professional kills. No wasted ammunition. No hesitation.
And then it was just Levi, stepping into the cell, smoke curling from his suppressor. His eyes found hers, and something in his expression cracked. It was just for a moment, just long enough for her to see the fear beneath the ice.
He'd thought she was dead. Or dying. And the relief of seeing her alive nearly broke through his control.
“Don't,” Morales said, pressing the gun harder against Willow's temple. She felt the cold circle of the barrel, smelled gun oil and sweat. “Drop the weapon, or I’ll kill her.”
Levi stopped. He didn't lower his weapon but didn't advance either.
A standoff. Two men, two guns, and Willow between them.
“You came for her,” Morales said, and now, there was amusement in his voice. Cruel satisfaction. “How touching. The CIA sends assassins, but this one has a weakness.”
“Levi … don't …” Willow tried to say, but her voice came out as a whisper.
“I'll make you a deal,” Morales continued. “Her life for yours. You put down the gun, step away, and I let her go. You have my word.”
“Your word means nothing,” Levi said. His voice was empty. Dead. The voice of a berserker, not the man who'd taught her to build demolition charges and laughed at her terrible jokes.
“Perhaps. But what choice do you have? I kill her now, or you surrender and maybe—maybe … she lives.” Morales shifted, bending behind her, his breath moving her hair. Willow felt the gun move slightly, readjusting aim. “You have five seconds to decide. Five. Four. Three—”
Willow moved.
Not much. She couldn't do much, bound to a chair with a shoulder that screamed with every breath. But she'd been a pilot for twenty years, had survived plane crashes, had learned to act in the split-second between disaster and death.
She drove her head back as hard as she could and connected with Morales's face. It felt like his nose. She felt it compress and the cartilage crunch. Not much force. Not enough to do real damage. But enough to make him flinch, make the gun shift away from her head for one precious heartbeat.
Levi's shot was instantaneous.
The bullet took Morales in the shoulder. It wasn’t fatal, but it was disabling, and the gun clattered from Morales’s nerveless fingers as the bastard stumbled back and clutched the wound, crying out in Spanish.