Devastate (Deliver 4)

But this morning was different.

The feel of his fingers sliding across her skin set her teeth on edge. She didn’t want him touching her, resting his gaze on her nudity, or telling her she was perfect.

What she wanted was Tate. Him on top of her, around her, locking her in the circle of his arms, and keeping everyone else out. Just him and her and the heady glide of their lips.

She’d said goodbye to him, but he wasn’t going anywhere. She was certain he wouldn’t leave until he got what he came for.

Her.

Not a future with her. No, his dream of the future was Camila.

Lucia just wanted a future. Period.

They were both fucked.

“Tiago?”

“Hm?” He nuzzled her neck.

“What if there’s a cure your doctors aren’t aware of? If you’d let me see another physician—”

“Did you know seventy percent of plants with anticancer properties exist only in the Amazon?”

Her blood turned to ice. “Cancer?”

“You don’t have cancer.” He slid a hand to her collarbone and traced the shape of it. “I’m feeling generous this morning. Would you like to hear a story?”

She doubted anything he told her would bring her comfort, but information was a weapon. “Yes. Please.”

“My father was a pharmacist and an expert in medicinal botany. When he died, I brought his medical team here, to work for me.”

Why would his doctors go from saving people to assisting him with kidnappings and torture? Maybe they were never the saving kind of doctors.

Except they’d saved her.

“The rainforest,” Tiago said, “produces thousands of variations of seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark, and flowers that have healing attributes. Only a small percentage have been discovered by modern man. But as you know, my doctors aren’t modern.”

The medical team of four men were in their sixties and seventies, with thick indigenous accents native to a land she couldn’t place. Their skin, the darkest pigmentation she’d ever seen, bore picturesque scarification—different designs and words than that of Tiago’s, but the welts appeared to have been cut with the same brutality. They reminded her of an ancient civilization, rich in culture and ceremony.

“My doctors know what ails you.” He dragged the backs of his fingers across her abdomen. “And they’ve developed the only known antidote for it. Keep that in mind next time you try to seek a second opinion.”

She already assumed he had the only antidote and often wondered if her illness was a byproduct of the crash in Peru. While chained in the back of a truck with a dozen other slaves, she’d felt the jolting, crashing fall as they tumbled off a cliff, heard the twisting of metal and agonized screams, and smelled the blood. After that, she remembered nothing.

The year that followed had been a drug-induced haze of surgeries and coma-like sleep. She had a scar across her abdomen but didn’t know what damage lay beneath the marred skin.

The strange part was that her illness didn’t surface until three years ago—seven years after the last surgery. Maybe the fix Tiago’s doctors put in her was failing? The medicine erased the pain, but she couldn’t go longer than twenty-four hours without another injection.

“What did you learn at the sex club?” Tiago asked.

“It was a quiet night.” She’d been too busy riding a blue-eyed god to overhear the conversations around her.

“Tell me about the men you were with.”

“There was just one. One of my usuals.” The lie floated effortlessly off her tongue.

“Did he fuck you here?” He feathered his touch across her lips.

“Yes.”

“And here?” His hand spread over the front of her panties, his fingers pressing against the satin crotch.

She nodded.

“I envy him.” His voice, scratchy with desire, rasped at her ear.

Such an odd thing to say, since he didn’t do more than touch her. Did he ever have sex? She never saw him with a lover and knew he didn’t allow anyone else in his room. Yet he was so easily aroused and constantly hard.

He was also distrustful and paranoid and never took unnecessary risk. Maybe he thought sex was too risky. It was, in a way. At the peak of climax, when the body let go and the mind lost all reason, a man was at his most vulnerable.

If she could lure him to the edge of orgasm, she’d use his distraction to stab her thumbs into his eyes and crush the sockets. It was a plausible way to kill a man, right?

Problem was, after spending eleven years with him, he hadn’t shown a single moment of weakness.

Twenty minutes had passed since she received the injection, and the pain had retreated into the sickly place inside her. Her heart rate found a normal tempo, and feeling returned to her legs.

Tiago, who was always attuned to her state of health, nudged her off his lap. “Let’s go see to our newest victim.”

Her insides twisted anew.

He led her to the hall and waited as she dressed. When she tucked the Berettas in her jeans, she let her hands linger on the grips.

She could shoot him. His guards would fire immediately, probably before she even squeezed the trigger. But maybe, just maybe she could get a shot off before she died.

It was a hopeless paradox. On one hand, she wanted to die, ached to end the endless misery. On the other, if one of his guards aimed a gun at him, she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the traitor to protect Tiago.

If Tiago died, she couldn’t access his safe, didn’t know how to locate his doctors, and wouldn’t be able to find a cure before her organs failed. His death would bring the onset of hers, and as much as she wanted that, there was a brighter, stronger yearning inside her.

She wanted to live.

Her contradictory train of thought circled back to the armed guards. If she were willing to shoot his men to save Tiago’s life, the same must’ve been true for them. This wasn’t an operation rooted in loyalty. She suspected Tiago’s men were indebted to him somehow, and like her, it was in their best interest to keep him alive.

Tiago’s gaze fell to the vicinity of her hands on the Berettas at her back, and she tensed.

A ghost of a smile, deprived of amusement, touched his lips. “Try it, Lucia.”

“I’m not stupid.” She lowered her arms to her sides and stood taller.

“No, you’re not that.” Offering his arm, he escorted her to the basement

and the kidnapped victim who waited.

CHAPTER 13

Two hours later, Lucia left the sobbing victim chained to the floor in the chamber. As she stepped into the hall and tossed the condom in the trash, she tried to embody the cold precision of a blade, sharpening her expression and steeling her posture. But despair swelled an unwieldy pressure behind her eyes, and every breath was a fight to keep the tears away.

Armando had been the cameraman, and as he followed her out, his probing, over-staring eyes produced a stampede of goosebumps across her nude skin.

“When are you going to milk my nuts?” he asked in Spanish.

The gun was already in her hand, so it only took a fraction of a second to aim at the nuts in question.

“Another time then.” With a grin, he lumbered toward the stairs.

She waited until he was out of sight before lowering the Beretta and pulling on her clothes.

Today’s victim was a middle-aged married man and father of five, who had come to Venezuela on a religious mission.

And she’d just raped him.

If she had any humanity left before she’d stepped into that room, she didn’t now. But despite the man’s wretched crying, he wasn’t broken. If his wife paid the ransom within three days, he’d live.

Lucia dragged the balaclava off her head and let it fall to the floor. She was the one who was broken, and if she lived three more days, she wouldn’t deserve it.

Footsteps approached from the stairs. She holstered both guns in her jeans and turned to find Tiago strolling toward her, flanked by two guards.

He gave her a cursory once-over. “Was it convincing?”

The victim had wept prayers to his god, begged for his virtue, cried for his wife to forgive him, and in the end, ejaculated in the condom, inside her, with a self-loathing howl. As far as torture went, he was emotionally wounded, and the camera caught every second of it.

“Yes.” She breezed past Tiago, anxious to escape the basement. “If his wife has the money, she’ll pay it.”

“I know why you did it.”

Her breath caught. Did what? Rape that man? Or did he know about the one she killed this morning? Oh God, did he find out about Tate?