“Tell me what happened.” He seethed, but he spoke clearly. His soulless eyes narrowed on me. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but my throat was too tight to utter a sound. The weight of his menacing stare bore down on my chest, crushing the air from my lungs.
“Answer him,” Raúl coaxed in a shockingly soft tone. “I won’t let him hurt you, corderita.”
Little lamb. It sounded like an endearment in his low, rumbling cadence. If I was a lost, vulnerable lamb, then the terrifying beast holding me tightly to his chest should’ve seemed like the big bad wolf. Maybe he was, but he was turning his predatory ferocity against the men who threatened me rather than eating me alive.
I focused on his luminous eyes and took a deep breath. His masculine, earthy scent suffused my senses, and a blanket of calm enfolded me. He was as wild and dangerous as the deepest parts of the jungle, but there was safety if I remained hidden in his shadow.
“Daniel followed me up to the penthouse. He knew I had biometric access, so he got in the elevator with me. I thought I didn’t have a choice. He scared me this morning.” I stuck as close to the truth as I could, keeping any hint of a lie from revealing my complicity in the plan.
Raúl made a low grunt, as though he was locking venomous words in his chest. I understood that he wanted me to continue. There would be no interruptions.
As I sank into the safety he offered, my courage slowly returned. Righteous purpose suffused me with renewed strength. I didn’t want any interruptions. I had to tell them everything I could to help them save Carmen.
“As soon as we got to the penthouse, Daniel drugged Carmen. He said you would go looking for her at his house, but a man named Arturo would be waiting with an ambush. He thinks you’ll all die trying to save her, but he’s taking her to someone else.” I cringed, remembering the horror in Carmen’s eyes when she’d heard the man’s name. “She looked scared.” That particular truth slipped from my lips on a whisper, but I hadn’t intended to say it. Guilt bubbled hot in my stomach, pushing up through my chest to sear my heart.
I knew that fear: the absolute, helpless dread of inevitable violation. Pain that reached so much deeper than the physical damage they inflicted. Sadistic men took little pieces of a woman’s soul every time they took their pleasure in her unwilling body.
That same fear had driven me from my home, fueling my reckless flight to freedom. But I hadn’t found freedom. I’d only found more agony inflicted by cruel men. I’d been captured for their callous use and dragged into this criminal underworld. I seemed to be locked in a nightmare, unable to escape men’s grasping, greedy hands, no matter how far I ran or how much I sacrificed.
“Did he say who he was taking her to?” Raúl prompted, pulling me out of the vortex of my guilt and saving me from saying something incriminating.
“Miguel Armendariz.”
A purely animal roar—something between rage and pain—cut straight through my chest. The anguished bellow tore my attention from Raúl, and I realized the dreadful sound had come from Stefano.
As I stared into his maddened black eyes, I suddenly understood. Carmen wasn’t his trophy. Maybe she had been when he’d first captured her, but the desperately deranged man looming before me wasn’t simply angry that his toy had been stolen.
I never would’ve imagined the insane kingpin to be capable of caring for someone else, but he might even love Carmen.
My boiling hot guilt surged, singeing my insides.
What have I done?
“You have to get her back,” I begged raggedly, desperate to undo my awful sin. I found Raúl’s eyes again, imploring. “I tried to stop him. I swear I did.”
His thumb brushed over my cheek in a gentle, soothing caress, but his jaw was tight with his own strain. The small scar on his upper lip drew deep on a scowl.
I can’t let Raúl die.
Even if I’d never see him again, I couldn’t be responsible for his death. Because as soon as the men left to rescue Carmen, I would have to run. My part in Daniel’s plot would be discovered when they got her back. I needed to be long gone by then, or even Raúl wouldn’t be able to save me from Stefano’s wrath.
If my huge protector didn’t turn on me himself when he realized my betrayal.
“Daniel said Arturo is waiting to ambush you at his house,” I said quickly. “You can’t go there.”
“That’s exactly where you’re going, Raúl,” Stefano barked. Murderous energy practically pulsed off him in dark, suffocating waves, but he appeared to have gathered his wits again. “I’m going to get Carmen back from Armendariz. You’re going to kill Arturo. I won’t risk him running off if he has time to learn that their coup has failed. I want him dead within an hour.”