Take (Deliver 5)

They were Mexican cartel.

When he burst through the front door, he barreled into Boones.

“What are you doing out of your room?” He ran his hands over Boones’ shirtless torso, front to back, shoulders, legs, his frenzied search fueled by fear.

“Calm down.” Boones gripped Tiago’s arms, hindering his hunt for injuries. “I’m fine. Not a scratch.”

His hands shook as he stepped back and locked onto Arturo’s eyes behind Boones. “Search the property for survivors and bring the old truck around from the back. We’re going to need it.”

“Si, Jefe.” Arturo headed toward the door with a rifle.

“Arturo.” He waited for eye contact, trying his damnedest not to fall apart in front of his guard. “Thank you for keeping Boones safe.”

With a stiff nod, Arturo lumbered out the door.

“We need information.” He combed the room littered with dead bodies and found one breathing.

The man lay on his back, his face and stomach soaked in blood as wet gurgling sounds wheezed from his mouth.

Boones stared down at the injured man and ambled toward the kitchen. “I’ll get the sharpest knife.”

Twenty minutes later, every inch of skin had been flayed from the squealer’s chest. He didn’t survive the torture, but Tiago now had a location and an identity.

The orchestrator of the attack was the comandante of a Mexican cartel. Hungry for money and power, they operated without borders, trafficking worldwide in drugs, prostitution, stolen cars, and contract murders. But it wasn’t enough for them.

The comandante wanted Tiago’s gun smuggling routes. Tiago had refused every offer and negotiation over the past couple of years, and thus, infuriated the ruthless, brutal man.

A man who now had Kate in his custody.

Tiago rose to his feet and stared down at the gore he’d strewn across the floor. Boiling rage lined his insides and scalded his throat, the taste of death coating his tongue.

During the skin-flaying session, Arturo had returned carrying Blueballs, the only survivor. The tattoo-eyed guard had been shot in the stomach and lived long enough to explain that he, Samuel, and Alonso were on the night shift.

Iliana and Juan had wandered off to fuck when the attackers arrived on foot. While Tiago’s guards were picked off one by one, a van showed up. The occupants captured Iliana as she tried to race back to the house.

The same van that had taken Kate.

Blueballs had managed to wheeze out every detail while Boones worked tirelessly to save his life. When he died, Tiago knew Blueballs hadn’t betrayed him.

Another concern was Tate, but a check on the video footage of the shack verified Kate’s friend hadn’t been touched.

The cartel had known exactly who to target. They knew Kate’s capture and ultimate death would hit the deepest, most vulnerable part of Tiago.

There would be no negotiations.

The comandante would make contact in the form of body parts. Proof of Kate’s death.

Normal behavior for a violent, power-hungry criminal group.

“You’ll get her back.” Boones cleaned away the blood from Tiago’s trembling hands and shoved a clean shirt against his chest.

Tiago looked at him and Arturo, the only two left standing.

They seemed nervous amid the storm whipping off him, as if waiting for him to pull his shit together, anxious for a plan.

“Right. Okay. This is what we’ll do.” He outlined a strategy, called in fifty of his best men in Caracas, and sent them to a small town a couple of hours away, where Kate would be held.

Then he strapped on as many weapons as he could carry and rose out of hiding.Taken.

Again.

Kate might’ve laughed at her absurd misfortune if she weren’t so fucking terrified.

Handcuffs shackled her arms behind her, and the hood over her head confined her within a black, sightless world.

Sweat coated her skin, made worse by the chills that came in feverish waves. She licked her cracked lips, tasting blood. Probably from the fist that had knocked her out in Tiago’s room.

Where was she? Who had taken her? What happened to Tiago?

She’d woken in the back of a moving vehicle. It had traveled another hour or so before stopping here.

Here was some kind of city, an urban area. She couldn’t see through the hood, but she smelled the asphalt, felt the heat of it beneath her bare feet. The sounds of motor traffic rumbled nearby, as well as in the distance.

Men surrounded her, marching along in heavy boots, their deep voices firing words in Spanish.

Her insides buckled to the point of nausea. Her lungs couldn’t gather enough air.

The cold metal of guns prodded at her from both sides. When her toes caught on a curb or a crack, someone pushed her from behind.

After a few minutes, the crumbly concrete underfoot smoothed into polished cement, and the scuffing of boots echoed off walls that closed in around her.

She’d just entered a building.

Ushered forward by barking shouts and urgent hands, she was forced into a jog. She imagined a winding hallway with countless turns and stairs going up and down.