Chapter 6
When Shana sobbed, it was only partly an act. The tears streaming down her cheeks were real. She let her chin drop and hunched her shoulders, shrinking back into the seat. The man laughed and said something to his friends and then they all laughed.
They sounded pleased with her response. It was what they wanted. Squeezing her eyes shut, she vowed to hurt each one of them the instant she had the chance. It was difficult, but she unclenched her fists.
Now she had to hope her pathetic tears would inspire a relaxation of their vigilance over her and an opening for her to escape—and maybe do some damage to one or more of them in the process.
She felt Dane’s influence—like he was in her head coaching her.
She nearly smiled, but remembered her pose and remained cowed.
But now the cowering was entirely an act. She felt certain that she could stave off the worst of whatever they had planned until she escaped. The plan held enormous appeal. Maybe Dane was rubbing off on her too much—her ego was getting big. And so was her confidence.
The bubble of doubt in her chest came as she thought of Dane again. She knew he was all right. He had to be. She refused to contemplate what happened to him and where he might be. Dane had to be okay.
She had to escape. On her own. Because she realized with a red-hot fierce fear turning to rage that maybe he needed her help more than she needed his.
She clutched the rage to her breast covering her heart, protecting it from any mind-weakening fear or worse—anguish—concerning Dane’s fate.
Everything in her churned with the scalding anger.
Once they landed, the men hustled her into a waiting limo. After only a minute in the hot wet jungle-like air she felt chilled, sliding into the middle of the leather seat of the icy cold vehicle. She shivered. The man that crowded in next to her laughed.
“Don’t worry. I think you are a special guest.” He laughed again.
It wasn’t too hard for Shana to act afraid.
The corner of her soul that was scared to death caused her heart to beat too fast. She braced herself on the inside.
She forced fear onto her face at the same time as she marshaled her angry vigilance and observed everything about the place and the men.
They drove through a crowded city where Shana caught glimpses of a brilliant turquoise ocean, but they were driving away from it—westward.
The city buildings thinned and the road went uphill—northwest of the downtown area she figured—until they entered a walled compound along a long drive and into a garage.
Before they pulled inside, she noticed the north side of the compound bordering a heavily treed area.
The two men in the front seat got out and both came around to open her door and pull her from the back seat. The stifling air of the lush environment hit her. She breathed deeply—or as deeply as she could of the heavy air—as they walked her in cuffs toward a gate and through a garden.
They took her through a wrought iron gate to a lavishly landscaped pool area in the back of what she supposed was the main house. It looked more like an office building, made of cement and going up three stories.
Flanked by her three thug captors, she stood facing an older, well-dressed gentleman, a severe-looking but attractive younger woman, and a younger man with a sinister grin. Shana still acted cowed, but the role was starting to leave an acid taste in her mouth. It was difficult to hide her rage now.
The conversation between the older man and the woman was too rapid for her to follow, but it ended abruptly.
The woman turned to Shana with cold dark eyes and smacked her across the face hard enough to make her stumble.
The surprise and sting of the slap exploded any semblance of cowering.
Shana squared her shoulders, stood straight, and thrust her chin high as she shook off the two men who’d been holding her.
The sickening taste from a warm trickle of blood inside her lower lip made her spit. Directly at the woman.
The woman jumped back at first, and before she had a chance to reverse direction and attack Shana, the young man took hold of the woman, laughing and admonishing, still in Portuguese.
Shana’s escorts took hold of her again, gripping her arms tight, causing the cuffs to dig into her wrists.
She gritted her teeth. She could still taste the blood.
She decided not to spit again. For the moment.
The older man raised his brows at her and spoke in decent English. “You are a spitfire, I see.”
He smiled at his own witticism and the younger man laughed. Even her escorts chuckled. Only the woman glared, still in the grips of the young man. Shana needed to know who they all were. She waited for the introduction rather than ask.
“You have angered my niece, Gabriela. She assumes you killed her brother, Bento Tavares. And you have imprisoned her brother Aldo.” The man reached out his hand and patted Shana’s cheek. “But I know it wasn’t you—it was your partner. He is the wild one.”
Lucky for Uncle Tavares he took his hand away before Shana could bite into it.
The effort of restraining herself was enormous.
She knew they wouldn’t hurt her. She knew their end game for her had nothing to do with killing or maiming or even torturing.
And the thought made her blood race like liquid fire.
“Or maybe it was the police. They were doing their job. No?” The young man spoke.
“This is Erico Tavares, my son. He understands the nature of our business. My poor niece is less tolerant of the dangers since she became orphaned some years ago and is now brotherless. She would like revenge,” Uncle Tavares said with a pleasant smile.
“I am Henrique Tavares, CEO of Tavares Enterprises,” he paused then added, “and ruler of the Tavares family. I am the one who decides your fate.”
Shana ignored the icy tingle along her skin at the ruler reference. She shrunk herself into the role of helpless female.
“I didn’t kill anyone. I was trying to help my friend—”
Gabriela wrangled free from her cousin and spat back at Shana. It missed. The woman had a lot to learn.
“Gabriela has yet to learn that there are many forms of revenge,” Uncle Tavares said. He was no longer smiling, but rather assessing. “We know you are with Scotland Yard, my dear.”
“Not anymore. They fired me. I’m a beach bum—with my boyfriend. I followed him because I thought he was cheating on me. No, I knew he was.” She spoke with venom in the direction of Gabriela to generate any girlfriend identification there might be.
Erico laughed and Uncle T. scoffed and clucked, back to his veneer of harmless patriarch.
“You are a very good storyteller,” Erico said. “What happened next?”
“I don’t remember—someone hit me.”
“You are a useless coward,” Gabriela shouted and made a move forward.
Erico caught his cousin by the arm and held her with some force. He was turning out to be an ally of sorts. Not particularly reliable in the long run, but Shana was working minute-to-minute now.
“My family has no money. What do you want with me?” She gritted her teeth anticipating their answer, but she figured it would be useful to have them admit it to her. When she got out of this, she would make a perfect witness.
“Very good question. What do you think, Erico? Is she everything your cousin Aldo said she was?”
“So far. I will continue to evaluate her.” Erico looked her up and down.
She felt naked in her black t-shirt and jeans, but she didn’t react. His smiled lightly as if they were thinking of playing in the waves along Ipanema beach instead of contemplating holding her as their whore-slave. Or selling her.
Shana held back the flare of her nostrils and assumed as neutral and passionless a demeanor as she could manage.
If ever there was a time for self-control, this was it.
She thought of Dane. Of what he might do, how he would behave.
He would be cooler than these three Tavares relatives, making them seem like mere snowflakes next to his glacial attitude.
“Later. There will be time. We’re expecting guests soon,” Uncle T said. “Take her to her… quarters.”
“Do not touch her,” Erico said to the men, stepping forward and reaching out to touch her hair.
Shana couldn’t help the flinch. The gesture reminded her too much of Dane and for the first time a deep red searing ache of sorrow and loss shot through her.
“Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.” He said it in a way that meant she could count on being hurt by someone else instead.
The three men she came in with tugged her wrists to turn her around and they took her inside the open glass doors to a back hall. They walked her through a steel door into a long gray corridor that must be a wing of the building she hadn’t seen.
The long hallway looked like the inside of an office building with unmarked doors at regular intervals.
She counted them until they came to a heavier door, unlocked and went through it to a cement stairwell, again making it seem as if they were in a high-rise office building. Except the stairs went down.
She continued observing her surroundings and tried to revive her role as the scared helpless woman by crying and whimpering her way down the stairs.
They walked her down three flights while she struggled to stay helpless.
Based on the confrontation with the Tavares clam, she thought she might have one ally, Erico Tavares.
But she wouldn’t book fifty bucks on him to come through in a pinch, and she hoped to hell she didn’t need to bet on him with her life.
Uncle Tavares—she preferred to think of Henrique Tavares, the self-proclaimed family ruler, this way—went out of his way to seem indifferent, but she would bet a million bucks he was far from it on the inside of his steely control. An image of Dane flashed in her mind at the thought.