When I ignored him again, El Cuchillo cursed under his breath. It was clear my lack of crying and pleading was getting to him. He was probably used to meek, cowering women, terrorized and huddled at his feet, begging for mercy. I huffed a dry laugh.
Meek and cowering? Not this girl. Not in a long time. Not since Jag brought me back from the brink of death.
“Raoul, traerme mi cuchillo.”
That got my attention. I stiffened and opened my eyes to glance over at Cuchillo, the one man I despised more than any other. The word cuchillo meant knife. I knew the translation simply because of Jag’s references to the sick bastard’s name. I asked and he explained the meaning behind the San Antonio drug lord’s title. Besides, the knife tattoo every single man in the house proudly wore on his forearm was pretty much a dead giveaway.
El Cuchillo was going to cut me. Apparently, he earned his name for a reason.
Chills shot down my spine. My raw, ragged throat tightened and my pulse roared in my foggy head. As much as I didn’t want to show weakness, I wasn’t sure I could remain strong if El Cuchillo began cutting me. Nerves attacked my stomach, twisting it into knots, nausea welling up fast. Terror caused me to tremble from head to toe. I was freezing, yet sweat collected between my shoulder blades, making the flat surface beneath my body slick.
My lip quivered when Raoul handed a long, shiny blade over my bound and prone figure to his boss’s outstretched hand. There was no doubt Cuchillo did it on purpose to instill fear in me. To allow the victim to see the deadly weapon before it was used on her flesh. To put gruesome visions in my head so my mind would break before he even got started.
He wanted me afraid.
He wanted me to beg.
He wanted me broken. Destroyed. Ruined.
All so he could film the horrors inflicted on me and send the video to Jag. To break the powerful Boss and bring him to his knees.
El Cuchillo was so wrong. Boss wouldn’t break. He would gather all of that rage and use it. He would bring his wrath down upon every single man in this house and then some. Jag wouldn’t stop until he had his bloody revenge.
The rust-skinned man with the dead, black eyes leaned over my face and grinned. He ran the back of the knife against his cheek, the metal scraping loudly on his unshaven face. Without saying a word, Cuchillo made several lightning quick slices and I gasped. The fabric covering my body slid away, leaving me bare.
“Raoul, puedes irte.”
Raoul slipped out of the room, leaving me alone with my worst nightmare.
“So much perfect, supple flesh,” he murmured. The creepy bastard dragged the tip of the blade from my collarbone, between my breasts, and down my abdomen. The pressure wasn’t enough to break the skin, but it was enough to scare me shitless.
I bit back a whimper and inhaled a shaky breath, concentrating on not moving a single muscle around the knife point.
“Where to start.” His greedy eyes flicked up and down my body as he hummed a song. The sick excitement reflected those lifeless pits had me swallowing back the urge to throw up.
Cuchillo’s gaze locked on mine. I held his stare despite my internal voice screaming for me to turn my head and look away from the monster.
“Let’s improvise, shall we?”
With the first touch of blade on skin, every intention I had to remain strong fell apart—and I screamed.
7
Jag
“Shade, tell me what’s going on.” I paced next to my car like a caged tiger, my phone to my ear, waiting impatiently for my employee to respond.
“Nothing, Boss. None of Los Guerreros have come close enough to our location to dispose of them without alerting the entire compound.”
“Son of a bitch!”
Calm the fuck down, Jag.
After taking a deep breath, I explained to Shade about finding Miri’s friend and what she knew about Miri.
“So either we need to move soon, Boss, or we wait for Los Guerreros to extend their search perimeter out,” Shade said.
“Exactly. I’d like to take some of them down before going in. We’ll be sitting ducks running across the flat expanse of lawn with all of those armed men outside.”