Tate.
Fury snarled though her veins, surging her upright. The sudden motion knocked her off-balance, and she teetered, falling with the hard smack of her cheek against the concrete floor.
Pain burst behind her eyes. Overhead lights burned into her skull, and the scuff of rubber soles sounded near her head. She recognized the floor, the unforgiving glare of the fluorescents, and the reek of death that lived in the walls.
She couldn’t let the basement chamber claim its next victim.
Must get up. Protect him. Save him.
Rolling to her back, she immediately noticed her guns were missing. She tried to move her legs and couldn’t. Tried to focus her eyes and couldn’t. Tried to sit up and only made it to her elbows. The room was empty before her. All the activity was at her back—the guttural screams, the scrapes of multiple shoes, and the rattle of chains.
Swimming in a thick soup of lethargy, vertigo, and nausea, she mentally prepared herself. Given the rawness in his voice and the scent of blood and urine, the torture had been going on for a while.
“Welcome back.” Tiago stood behind her, bending over her head so he could smile at her upside down. “Still can’t move your legs?”
She couldn’t fucking feel her legs, and she was two seconds from retching all over his shoes.
He prowled into her line of sight, his shirt smeared with crimson stains and his index finger tipped with a razored claw.
The claw he used to carve pictures into flesh and muscle.
She despised him with such deep, searing, vile hatred it vibrated her bones and popped blood vessels behind her eyes.
“What have you done?” She choked on the bile rising in her throat, blinking back tears as she fumbled to shift her useless body toward the scene behind her.
Blood. It was everywhere, dripping from deep cuts in the hanging slab of breathing meat. The dissection was gruesome, and though she’d seen his macabre handiwork before, she still went into shock. Her nervous system shut down. Her lungs froze up, and her mind struggled to process the rivers of red and the stench of carnage.
She looked away and forced herself to move. Crawling on her belly, she dragged her legs behind her and lost a heeled shoe in the process. Desperate to get to him, she couldn’t stall the burning tears, the wretched sobs, and the violent shaking in her arms as she inched forward with strenuously slow movements.
Too much blood. I’m too late.
When she reached the sticky dark pool at his feet, she angled her neck to look up, up, up and…
She stopped breathing.
The slaughtered body was too thin, the hair too long and black, and the trousers too baggy and unfamiliar.
Not Tate.
Not Tate.
That man isn’t Tate.
Her relief was so profound and overwhelming she lost control of her stomach and vomited across the floor.
“You never appreciate my artwork.” Tiago stepped around her, easing her away from the puke and onto her back. “You look like hell.”
“Fuck you.”
His chuckle was worse than any response he could’ve given. She was here for a reason, and like all the other times she’d been in this room, she wouldn’t leave unscathed.
The man’s wails weakened, ebbing into silence. He must’ve passed out. Or died. With his back to the wall, his head hung toward his chest, eyes closed. Chains wrapped his wrists and suspended him from the ceiling, and his chest… She was certain if she looked close enough she’d see bone in the trenches of some of those cuts.
She glared up at Tiago. “You’re a monster. A butcher.”
“You’re a whore. Now that we got that out of the way…” He gestured toward the door. “Armando is waiting.”
Horror spiked through her heart as she followed his gaze.
Tall and pear-shaped with an overhanging belly, Armando caught and held her glare. He smoothed a hand over his greasy hair, his grin a rictus of yellow teeth.
“Waiting for what?” Her question didn’t need an answer. She knew. Deep in the pith of her miserable existence, she knew.
“He discovered the spy.” Tiago approached the mutilated man and inspected the carved designs. “This was one of my new recruits. Turns out, he works for the competition. Came here to steal from me.”
He pulled a gun from his pants, aimed it at the man’s bowed head, and fired.
She averted her gaze as the bang reverberated through her chest, making her shoulders twitch.
“To reward Armando for bringing him in,” Tiago said, holstering the gun, “I told him he could have anything of mine for one night. Guess what he chose?”
Me.
She closed her eyes and tried to temper her runaway breaths. Spasms ignited in parts of her butt and midsection, but feeling still hadn’t returned to her legs. There would be no running. She wouldn’t even be able to kick in defense or clench her thighs together.
She calmed herself with the reminder that it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been Tate hanging there, carved up and dead. She wouldn’t have survived that.
But she could survive this. Just like all the times before.
“I know you’re sick.” He crouched in front of her and slid the other heeled shoe off her paralyzed foot. “But you’re a trooper, Lucia. Spread those pretty legs and show him a good time.”
She didn’t have use of her legs, but she had a wealth of aggression in her bones. Her body was dying, but her spirit sang with life. Her muscles would give, but her mind would not.
Armando would rape her while Tiago watched. She would spit and punch and cry until Armando hit her hard enough to knock the wind from her.
Then they would do it all again.
No matter how hard she fought—and she would—the result would be the same.
This was happening.
Because that was the way of things.
CHAPTER 20
Hours later, Lucia hung upside down with a shoulder jabbing her unbearably sore stomach. Her body was too broken to obey her commands, so one of the guards had to carry her to the apartment.
She’d been punched in the gut so many times the nausea had gone silently numb. Every bone, tissue, and tendon throbbed with fire. Her legs were heavy dead things attached to joints made of sand and dust. Her skull pounded rhythmically. Her swallows felt like serrated blades, and molten lava tunneled between her thighs and buttocks.
Armando had brutally violated every hole in her body. He’d bitten her breasts and thighs, kicked her ribs and face, and repeated the torment until she lay curled in the fetal position with her arms around her head.
His cruelty had been so severe Tiago had to interfere several times to stop him from crossing the line.
But lines had been crossed. All of them. The wreckage was so complete, so excruciating, her body didn’t feel like it belonged to her. It’d become a burdensome, pulsating prison of pain. It had failed her. Over and over again.
Her arms dangled toward the oily pavement, and the shadows of surrounding buildings rocked with the guard’s heavy-booted steps.
Then those boots paused, and an impatient hand dug through her pockets and found her key.
The scraping sound of her door urged her to move her limbs, but she couldn’t. She’d left the last of her strength on the floor in that basement chamber.
But it’ll be okay now. Tate would be waiting for her inside, like he did every night.
At that thought, her traumatized heart stirred to life, beating with urgency. She needed Tate so badly. Needed the protection of his arms, the comfort of his voice, and the affection in his kisses.
He was smart enough to stay hidden until she was inside with the door shut. So she didn’t worry when the guard stepped in, dumped her on the mattress, and set her guns and shoes out of reach on the floor.
When the door clicked shut behind him, she released a shredded breath and listened.
Silence.
“Are you there?” She didn’t hear Tate’s foo
tsteps, didn’t feel his touch, didn’t sense his imposing presence in the dark.
“Tate?” she whispered, rolling to her stomach with a painful heave.
The continued silence closed in around her, swelling her throat and heating her eyes. “Tate… Please, I need you.”
She knew he wasn’t here, but she kept calling for him, kept hoping.
Where was he? Was he safe? What if he’d left town? Maybe her test results had come back and there was nothing he could do for her. Would he return to Texas without saying goodbye?