On his left, One-Mile heard the click of the lock. He swiveled his head, opened the one eye he could, and lay deceptively still, waiting to see who came through the door. That would tell him how much effort he’d need to exert to trip the thug du jour and stomp his larynx until the gunman suffocated.
But it wasn’t some armed-to-the-teeth asshole who entered the room but a delicate Hispanic beauty who looked twenty, max. Her entire body trembled as, tray in hand, she cleared the door. Immediately, it shut—and locked—behind her. She jolted at the sound.
“Who are you?” The raspy slur of his voice barely sounded human.
She didn’t look at him. Fuck, he probably should have saved his breath. Besides Montilla, only a handful of people in this shithole spoke English, and his Spanish sucked.
As she set the tray on the nearby table, she shook so hard the dishes rattled. She finally met his stare. Her brown eyes were wide and full of terror. “My name is Laila, Señor Walker. Emilo is my…um—how do you say?—my brother-in-law.”
So she was Valeria’s sister? The one the EM team had tried to rescue during their first mission, before they’d been ambushed?
“I am sorry,” she rushed on. “I have not used my English in too long.”
The guys who brought his meals usually had a face as attractive as a pug’s ass and a wide sadistic streak, so sending in a pretty, unarmed female was definitely a new tactic.
He didn’t trust it, but he played along. “Are you going to untie me so I can eat or feed me yourself?”
“I have been sent to feed you, see to your bath, and”—she swallowed hard—“any other comforts you may desire.”
Her answer rolled around in his brain. Translation: drugging, starving, and beating him hadn’t worked, so they were going to force this frightened woman to sex him up so he’d get happy enough to betray his bosses back home?
One-Mile nearly snorted at that bullshit. He would have—just before he set her straight—if he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure Montilla and his thugs were listening in.
Instead, he played along…for now. “What do you have under that lid?”
Laila lifted the dome. “Water. Cold beer. Tortilla soup, refried beans, homemade flan…”
More than he’d eaten in one sitting since he’d been taken captive. And the food actually looked fresh for a change.
On the far side of the tray, he also caught sight of the needle with the drugs. “That my after-dinner cocktail?”
A guilty flush stole up her cheeks. “That is up to you.”
Somehow, One-Mile didn’t think she meant they’d pump him full of shit if he wanted it. But if he proved uncooperative… “I see. How about we eat first?”
“As you wish.”
With a gentle hand, she helped him stand, then guided him to the room’s lone chair. Patiently, she stood over him and fed a straw through his swollen lips, past his sore-ass jaw, and waited until he’d managed to swallow half the bottle. He eschewed the beer, slurped the soup down as she guided it—one slow spoonful at a time—into his barely open mouth, then fed him a few beans before finishing with some flan.
Since that was the most he’d eaten in weeks—or was it months now?—it didn’t take much for him to get his fill. But consuming everything took a long damn time. He did his best to stay patient and use the time to figure out how he could benefit from this change of circumstance. Short of threatening a female half his size and trying to use her as a shield to fight his way out, he wasn’t seeing it. Besides, Emilo wouldn’t have sent her in here if she wasn’t expendable.
Gently, Laila wiped his mouth with a napkin, then helped him to his feet. “Would you care for a shower now?”
“And a toilet?”
“Of course.” She looked up at a camera in the corner of the room. Another internal door buzzed open, and she led him inside. It locked shut behind them. “I am allowed to untie your hands in this room.”
He held them out and scanned the place. Sure, he’d been here before, but the memories were always hazy since the trips had come after the needle. But his captors had made certain there was nothing he could use as a weapon and no way to escape.
Slowly, she unwound the bindings from his hands. Blood rushed in, tingling and painful, as full circulation returned. Vaguely, he wondered…if he managed to find some way out of this hell, would he ever fully recover?
Why fucking care? It was unlikely he’d ever escape, so torturing himself with this train of thought was pointless.
For the first few days in captivity, he’d hoped the Edgingtons and Joaquin Muñoz would bust in here with the rest of the EM crew and save his sorry ass. But no. First, they probably had no idea where he was. Hell, he didn’t, except that he was a long way from Acapulco. And second, why would they? It was no secret how much Cutter hated him. He’d thought for a while that maybe Logan liked him and Hunter trusted him somewhat…but they more or less thought he’d raped Brea, too. Why would they save him when it was easier to replace him?