“It’ll last two weeks, sending a signal every thirty minutes. It only uses the battery when I’m moving.”
Oh, the creative and illegal things one could buy on the web’s black markets.
Van sawed his jaw side to side. Was he loosening it up to snap at her? Or was he thinking through her plan?
He blew out a breath and looked her firmly in the eye. “I’ll do it.”
Amber gripped his hand as relief fluttered through Camila’s veins.
“Tate.” She met his frigid eyes. “You’ll track my position through the chip?”
He blinked, nodded. “Two weeks…You’ll most likely be in the belly of the operation before the battery dies.”
She hoped. “If I’m successful, if I kill him, I’ll contact you, and you won’t need to do anything.” She rubbed her slick palms on her jeans. “If you don’t hear from me, you’ll have the location of the operation and—”
“We’ll save you.” The conviction in his voice vibrated through her.
“No.” She matched his tone.
She picked at her cuticles, forcing her shoulders to relax.
“You and the others…” The freedom fighters. She smiled at that, because she knew she could count on her team. “You’ll finish where I failed.”
TWO DAYS LATER, CAMILA SAT on Tate’s bed, transfixed by the contours of muscle playing across his back as he dug through a mountain of dirty clothes. His sex appeal aggravated the nervous energy twitching through her, but she couldn’t look away. There was something she wanted, something Tate could give her.
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m listening.” He shook out a wrinkled shirt, sniffed it, and tossed it back in the pile.
Van would arrive in three hours—three hours until she surrendered her freedom. Maybe only for a couple of weeks. Maybe forever.
The gravity of forever had plunged her into hours of introspection, creeping paralysis through her limbs and gnawing at her resolve. She wasn’t putting herself in chains simply for the cause of justice. There was a darker motive. A selfish desire to overpower the fears that haunted her. Her enslavement had wrought a deep dissatisfaction with her own life, and though her body had healed from the trauma, her bleeding soul demanded she do this.
With a roll of her tongue, she sought out the new filling in her molar. Indiscernible to the eye, the composite material felt foreign and obtrusive in her mouth. The GPS chip, however, instilled a sense of confidence in her plan. Seeing her movements on the software program and knowing Tate would be tracking her made her feel a little less alone.
She thought about giving Matias’ contact information to Tate. If Tate didn’t hear from her, he could pass along her last known position to the one person who might increase her chance of survival.
But she didn’t want to go into this with that seed of hope. Didn’t want to find herself tied to a bed in a pool of her own failure, waiting for someone who might not come for her. Matias had already abandoned her once. For that to happen a second time? The destitution that would follow might very well kill her. He was the only person from her past she had left.
Therein lay the root of her loneliness. Van had given her a taste of how depraved men could be. Matias had shown her how to turn innocent love into a lifetime of bitterness. The only sex she’d experienced had been quick, unsatisfying fucks.
She’d known Tate for six years, and now, in her final hours of freedom, she wanted to know him on a deeper level.
“I’ve never made love.” She held her breath.
He paused with his hand in the pile of clothes and glowered over his shoulder, his eyebrows drawn together. “Wait…so you are a virgin?”
“No. I’m—” She straightened her spine. “I’ve never had sex with someone I know.”
Strangers, all of them. No connection. No emotion. Just sex. She blamed herself for that. She didn’t let people in, didn’t trust anyone outside of those she lived with.
His lips pressed together in a grimace as he turned away.
Was he judging her? Self-righteous anger burned beneath her skin.
Digging at the bottom of the dirty clothes pile, he smelled another shirt and reared back with a pinched face.
“This one should work.” He tossed it at her.
It landed on her lap, and a waft of mold and sweat hit her nose. Jesus, did he have a month’s worth of wet towels in that pile? For a guy who was fussy about hygiene, he had some strange abhorrence to doing laundry.
He joined her on the bed, lifted a lock of her hair, and sniffed it. “You stink, but not enough.”
“What?” She slammed her teeth together and immediately slackened her jaw, remembering the expensive electronics in her molar. “I haven’t showered in three days.”
She’d spent hours working in the garden and running outside, letting herself get sweaty and dehydrated. A glance at the mirror earlier confirmed she looked appropriately filthy and starved, like a girl who’d been locked in Larry McGregor’s barn for a week.
“I’ll smell straight-up offensive after I put on this shirt.” She set it aside and met his eyes. “You’re evading my question.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
No, she hadn’t. She didn’t want to demand it. “It’s different, right? Better when you have sex with someone who cares about you?”
He leaned forward, elbows braced on his spread knees, and stared at her out of the corner of his eye.
As secretive as she’d been about her one-night stands, he was even more surreptitious, sneaking out at night and stumbling home in the early hours of dawn, refusing to tell her where he went. Maybe he was searching for something, too.
“You care about me.” She looked for a flicker of affirmation, any indication of soften
ing in his stony expression, and found none. Her stomach sank. “At least, I thought you did. I mean, I’m grateful you’re not fighting me on this plan, but why aren’t you?”
“Let’s not do this, Camila.” His gaze ping-ponged between her and the floor.
“Which part?”
“All of it.” He rose, stepped away, then hesitated, changing direction mid-stride to stand over her, hands on his hips. “I won’t ruin our friendship by muddling it with sex. Nor will I let you walk into”—he waved an arm, seemingly wrestling for words—“into a place resembling Satan’s fiery asshole thinking you don’t have my support. I’m here for you, and I’ll be here when you return.”
But what if she never came back? What if she died, forgotten and alone, having never experienced the kind of love that connected two people in the most intimate way?
He crouched before her and gripped the backs of her calves, his hands warm and welcoming on her skin. “Is there a chance in hell I could talk you out of this suicide mission?”
“No.” Definitely not.
“So what’s the point in trying? It’s not like you need my approval.”
His push back would’ve shown she mattered. Maybe she wasn’t the center of his universe, but it would’ve been nice to feel…what? Commanded? Forced? Reined in by someone who loved her enough to care about her wellbeing? Maybe she just wanted to be fucked so hard she felt it emotionally, spiritually, instead of just physically.
A lump knotted in her throat, and she swallowed it down. She was letting her emotions run rampant, twisting her into a jumble of contradiction. Had he opposed her mission, it would’ve pissed her off.
She’d been chained up, beat up, kicked down, and held in the dregs of her weakest point. But she never stopped fighting, never gave up. She’d mustered what little courage remained and chose to live, to learn, to hate and kill, to do whatever it took to not just overcome, but to evolve.
He knew all that, and the intense gleam in his eyes said he was confident she’d do it again.
“I would’ve showered,” she said with a soft smile, “if you wanted to tie me up and fuck me.”