Chapter Twelve #3
She had to assume he already knew the answer.
He enjoyed a lot of fine wine, but he’d chosen that specific bottle.
It wasn’t for the sake of nostalgia, and it wasn’t a coincidence.
“Kirk sent me to the restaurant and told me what to order. He also told me to be myself when I met you. But you weren’t what I expected. ”
Alvaro put his hand on her throat, gently, and pressed his thumb to her carotid artery. “What did you expect?”
In that moment, she needed to be honest. He would sense a lie.
“I thought you would be mean-spirited and small-minded. But you were cultured and charismatic. Interesting.” Seductive. “You made it easy.”
His grip on her throat tightened. “Easy for you to fool me?”
Christina shook her head and forced herself not to clutch his wrist defensively.
Holding his gaze, she leaned into his grasp.
In his eyes, she saw the danger lurking there.
The edge to him was razor-sharp. “You made it easy to be around you. To be attracted to you.” And to her shame, she had been before she knew the truth.
What did that say about her? “It wasn’t all an act, not in the beginning. ”
“It wasn’t all real either.”
“I was always afraid.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Of me?”
“Of being discovered. Exposed. Of what you would do to me if—when you found out.”
“Legitimate fears.” His thumb pressed harder to her artery. “What about your backup to the hard drive?”
“Backup? There’s just the hard drive.” The lie flew from her lips without thinking.
“The only problem with that answer is I know you’re not a fool.” He let her go and opened the drawer of the nightstand, took out a tablet and offered it to her. “Log in to your cloud storage system, where I’m sure you have it backed up.”
“But I don’t.” Although the data was indeed backed up, on two different clouds, if she gave one up too easily, he’d would be able to tell she was hiding something else.
Alvaro moved his free hand to her knee. Slid his palm up her thigh to the spot where he shot her and tapped the wound lightly.
In the silence, her nerves ratcheted up with each passing moment.
“Log in,” he finally said, his voice low but hard as steel, “and the US marshal you’re so eager to protect gets to live.
I’ll leave him alone. Continue to pretend that it’s not backed up and I’ll torture him first. How long do you think that Boy Scout will last before I break him and he begs for mercy? ”
She took the tablet, brought up the website and logged in.
He snatched it back, reviewed the files and initiated a transfer of everything from the cloud to his tablet. “Once the transfer is complete, I’ve got to go to your place to get the hard drive. It had better be there, exactly where you told me.”
“It is,” she said. “I promise.”
“Your promises mean nothing. Unlike mine. I always keep them. I’m leaving Hector to babysit. I’ll make sure he stays downstairs. But if the hard drive isn’t where you say, I’m going to give him ten minutes with you.”
Ten minutes for her to break more of the toad’s bones. “Would that be to punish me or Hector?”
Alvaro smiled.
She tried to flash one back in return, but she couldn’t quite get her mouth to obey. “Are you going to shoot me here when you get back? Or are we going to take a drive to another abandoned tunnel?”
How much time did she have?
“Not here,” he said, lightly, amusement still curving his lips. “Rio will decide the time and place. I imagine it’ll be somewhere in Missoula. El Jefe wants to speak with you, face-to-face, and then watch me kill you. But I never said anything about shooting you.”
“You said a quick death. I imagined mercy for giving up years of surveillance footage.”
“Then you imagined wrong. I’m not a merciful man, and quick is a relative term. A person’s death can be drawn out for days. Even weeks.”
Horrible scenarios whirled in her mind, the dread of what was to come making her nauseous. “Then how will you do it?”
There were terrible ways to go. Drowning. Being buried alive.
“After everything you’ve done, what do you think you deserve?” His smile faded, his eyes growing dark and somber.
The question was rhetorical. But he just stared at her as if waiting for a response.
“I don’t know,” she said, knowing any answer she gave wouldn’t be good enough.
“I brought you into the cartel. I vouched for you with Rio. Protected you. Championed you every step of the way. And what did you do?” His tone turned scathing.
“You stabbed me in the back.” His jaw tightened along with the muscles in his neck, sending a chill through her.
“I gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it. ”
He stroked her cheek with his knuckles, and she strained not to flinch.
“So, when I kill you, it has to be up close. It has to be the most personal, most intimate kind of death. Not with a bullet. Not with a blade. Not with a garrote. Nothing between us. I’m going to use my bare hands and squeeze the life out of you.
” He trailed a finger down her throat. “Slowly. While I look into your eyes, and my face will be the last thing you ever see.”