away in time, and fighting a goon half again his size tonight with little thought.
But the picture of Gabrielle’s dejected face pummeled him with steel fists. He’d had no idea until now how much it was going to hurt to lose her.
Carlos crossed the room to pick up the paper bag with a box of condoms that had been a waste of money and tossed the bag next to his duffel on the way to the bathroom. He stripped out of his clothes and climbed into the shower, cranking the water temperature up so high he couldn’t see through the steam.
The scalding water badgered his muscles, but images of Gabrielle’s terror-filled face after the explosion kept breathing life into his dark thoughts. He didn’t realize he was squeezing the bar of soap until it snapped in half.
If anyone else harmed Gabrielle, he’d…
Carlos took a breath and rolled his shoulders, trying to not think about what he’d do.
He already missed her desperately. How was he going to let her go when all this was over? Music filtered into the bathroom from the bedroom. The shower curtain had a clear strip across the top where he saw the door open all the way just before the lights clicked off.
A puff of candlelight glowed on the other side of the shower around the sink. His vision adjusted just as he guessed what might be happening. What he hoped like hell was happening.
The shower curtain slid open a foot and Gabrielle stepped in. Gloriously naked.
His heart pumped hard with hope.
“I got a little candle off the food cart that probably won’t last long,” she said just loud enough for him to hear over the water battering his back. “Is this okay?”
Carlos studied her, wished he could see her eyes that televised her emotions. “Does this mean you made a decision?”
She chuckled. “No, I took my clothes off and came in here to tell you I wasn’t going to make love with you. To use your words, ‘for someone so intelligent, you can be pretty dense.’ I’m angry, not stupid.”
“What do you mean?”
“We both know my future is up in the air. I’m not giving up a minute with you.”
The smile warming his chest reached up to touch his lips. “What do you plan to do with your minutes?”
She moved forward until he could see the glow of white around her irises through the steam.
Her fingers closed around his erection.
Carlos drew in a breath. “Careful, woman, or we won’t need those condoms I picked up while I was out.”
“Really?”
The enthusiasm in that one word pinged a tender spot inside him.
“And here I thought”-she paused and sheathed him-“I had the only one left.”
He sucked in sharply at the jolt of pleasure from her touch. Water poured across his shoulders and sluiced between their bodies. He wrapped her in his arms. “You’re incredible.”
“The funny thing is, I feel like I am when I’m with you,” she whispered.
“Never doubt it.” He wanted to be careful with her tonight, not let the beast still roaming inside him loose. He dipped his mouth down to kiss her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, loving him with each nip of her sweet lips.
She tasted like wicked honey. When he roamed his fingers over her slick body and slowed to toy with her breasts, she moaned her appreciation.
He reached down and scooped her up. Her legs went around his waist.
His heavy groin ached from the strain of waiting, holding back from driving into her until all he could feel was Gabrielle. No rage at the hand he’d been dealt, no fury over how close she’d come to dying today.
He wanted to feel just her.
With his hands underneath her, he pressed a finger inside. She clenched against him.
“Carlos?”
“What, sweetheart?”
She rubbed against him. “I am so ready. Now.”
He lifted her, gently positioning the tip of his erection to ease inside, slowly, carefully. The need to drive into her clawed at him.
She wiggled her bottom, forcing him close to the frayed edge of his control.
“Carlos, stop being so careful. I’m not crystal. I don’t want slow and easy. Don’t hold back on me tonight.”
Merde. The buried fury roared to life.
DURAND OPENED THE solid-metal door and entered the outbuilding on his property within sight of his home. He called it a granero, the shed, back when he brought his sons here to discipline them. When he’d had sons to be proud of. But this was not like most sheds. Constructed to match the house right down to the stucco finish, this building was eighty feet long and fifty feet wide, with rooms for extracting the truth.
No one was allowed inside without him or Julio. Durand’s right-hand man stood next to a bloated body dangling from chains hooked to the ceiling.
Julio had gotten a man unknown in the region inside a group of local antidrug zealots over the past year. On Durand’s behalf, Julio offered the man a great deal of money to convince the secret group to create a special team that would bear arms against the Anguis. He gave the man a bag full of money to prove to his followers he had financial support.
Men showed up slowly until an Anguis soldier appeared the night the leader called for a show of arms from everyone.
Durand walked over to take a look at what his trap had caught. “Dios, Julio. He smells dead. Is he?”
“No.” Julio prodded the body with a sharp stick.
“Por favor.” The plea floated from the body as if spoken by a ghost. For a man closing in on fifty-eight, Ferdinand was a strapping guy, still fit and strong. Or he had been until spending the last twenty hours with Julio.
Now his eyelids were shut and puffy red lumps. His swollen and yellow skin looked like that of an obese alien.
Durand breathed through his mouth and stepped up to the body. “Ferdinand, spare your son this. Tell me all you know of Mirage.”
“I…told…him.” Ferdinand’s words fluttered.
Julio shook his head. “He gave us nada.”
Why were some men fools? Durand shrugged. “Bring his son.”
“Nooo,” the old guy cried.
Julio reached for a chain running to a hoist mounted to the ceiling and pulled the hook on the end over to a metal box eight feet square and four feet tall. When he opened the box, Julio pushed the hook inside, fitting it into a metal loop, then walked over to the wall and pressed a button.
A wail spewed from the box harboring Ferdinand’s twenty-nine-year-old son.
“What a waste,” Durand told Ferdinand. “I could have used a boy like yours with my men. You work for me, what, fifteen years? Why would you betray me like this?”
Durand shook his head, disgusted.
Raised from the box, Ferdinand’s son howled in pain from the moment the chain tightened until Julio dropped him just close enough to let the pads of his bare feet touch the concrete floor. The son was turned away from his father. He wore only a pair of filthy shorts now soiled from his having been in the box over twenty hours. Dried streaks of sweat and grime fingered across his dirty body, but he no longer had enough water in his system to perspire.
Durand stepped in front of the young man and wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell. He made a mental note to give Julio a raise.
“Agua,” the young man pleaded in a hoarse voice.
“Julio controls your water,” Durand explained. “First, tell me what you and your father have told Mirage about me.”
“I no know…what you mean.” The voice was rough as nails scraped over rusted metal.
“Julio, turn him around so he will see we are busy men and have no time to play games.”
Julio spun Ferdinand’s son, who squinted at his father. His eyes bulged. “Papa, Papa. Wh-what you do to
