“I’m not afraid. I know I’ve got a chance to change your mind.” She was standing in front of him so close the muzzle of his gun was pressed against her bare stomach. “And you want to do it.” She could see the pulse leap in his temple. “Do what you want, Rakovac. Anything you want.”
“Whore.” His cheeks were flushed and his lips full and slightly parted. “Oh, I’ll do what I want. You’ll scream for me, Catherine.” His hand closed on her breast. “And it might as well start here and now.”
Ignore the pain. Watch the gun in his left hand. He might have a second to respond.
“How do you like that?” His teeth sank into the lobe of her ear and brought blood.
Good. Perfect. His movement had brought her mouth to press against his neck.
Her tongue ran quickly over the back of her front teeth.
“You’re not answering, bitch.” He was panting, gnawing at her like an animal. “Tell me: how much of this you can stand for your son?”
She had the cap off the tooth. She opened her mouth, and her teeth sank deep into his neck!
He jerked away from her. “What are-” His hand lashed out at her.
She had to get the cap back over that tooth quickly. Done.
Now it would take three seconds.
The gun. She blocked it as he started to raise the weapon.
Three seconds.
He only made it to two seconds.
Rakovac’s eyes glazed over, the gun dropped from his nerveless hand. He was staring at her in horror.
“Is the pain starting?” She was panting as she took another step back and gazed up at him with glittering ferocity. “Hu Chang promised me that it would be excruciating. He said, ‘Don’t worry, my friend, it won’t be as long as you would like, but for him, it will seem forever. A fitting prelude to the hell where you’re sending him.’”
Rakovac was looking at her in bewilderment. He tried to speak, “Hu…Chang…”
“As I said, an old friend from my days in Hong Kong. He made his living concocting very lethal poisons and undetectable delivery systems for them. I did a favor for him once. When I went to him four years ago and told him I needed his help, he was happy to oblige.”
Rakovac suddenly moaned and staggered back.
“Ah, now it’s hitting. It’s mamba venom mixed with one of Hu Chang’s more painful additives. At first, he didn’t want to use it. I told him to replace one of my canine teeth with a hypodermic containing the poison, then cap it. He was worried that the cap might break and loose the poison into my system.” Her smile was tiger bright. “But we worked it out.”
He was trying to stagger toward her throat.
She took a step back. “I knew that you’d be searching every orifice if you ever got your hands on me, and it had to be a part of the tooth and completely hidden. I had to promise to come back to him and let him replace it with something a little more stable right after I’d used it.”
His face was growing red, livid. He was starting at her with hatred…and fear. “Hurts…hurts…stop…it.”
“Did you stop?” she asked through set teeth. “Did you stop the taunts and the torture? You took my son, and you hurt him. I don’t even know all the ways that you hurt him yet. When I find out, I’ll probably want you to live for a hundred years so that I can keep you writhing with agony.”
He was panting, his eyes bulging from his swollen face. “Stop…it.” “The venom attacks the respiratory system, Hu Chang’s additive adds heat to the mix. He promised you’d feel as if your lungs and every nerve in your body were on fire. Is that how it feels, Rakovac?”
He groaned, his hands reaching for her throat.
She took another step back. “Yes, I can see it does. Do you feel helpless? That’s how you like your victims to feel. I wanted you to feel helpless.”
He was sinking to his knees. Tears were running down his cheeks from eyes that were almost bulging from his face. “Please…”
“Please what? Please forgive you for taking and hurting my son? Please stop punishing you for doing it? No way on earth, you bastard.”
He was reaching blindly for the weapon he’d dropped to the floor.
She put her foot on the gun. “In five minutes, it will be over. But those minutes will seem like a millennium. Hu Chang promised. I could have made it quicker, it would have been safer for me. But I had to have at least this much time.” She bent down and looked into his eyes. “You’ve lost everything. I’m going to ruin all your fine plans. I’m going to take back everything you stole from us. I’m going to make my son’s life so good that he’ll never even remember what you did to him.” He understood, she could see that realization through the twisted agony in his face. “So suffer, Rakovac. Suffer…”
Chapter 18
Catherine was still standing over Rakovac’s body when Eve ran into the room.
Eve stopped short, her gaze flying from the dead man on the floor to Catherine. She looked…barbaric. Half- naked, her long hair lying half-over her breasts, a trace of blood on her lips. No, more like pictures she’d seen of the ancient goddesses in battle.
“Catherine…?”
“He’s dead,” Catherine said regretfully. “I wanted it to last longer.” She shook her head as if to clear it. She picked up the gun on the floor and turned to Eve. “I was coming after you. Are you hurt?”
“No.” She picked up Catherine’s shirt, which was lying on the floor, and crossed the room. “We’re all fine. Czadas is dead, too. Joe and Venable are right behind me. Joe was cursing a blue streak when I ran up here ahead of him.” She shrugged. “I made Venable give me a gun. I had to make sure you were safe.”
“Joe? How did he-Later.” She lifted her hand to her head. “I can’t seem to think right now.” She slipped into the shirt Eve was holding for her. “My son is alive?”
“Yes, Luke is alive. Kelly says he’s a survivor. He’s with her now.”
“Then it’s over, isn’t it?”
“It’s over.” Eve buttoned Catherine’s shirt. She couldn’t blame Catherine for being dazed. She had obviously gone through hell in the past hours, but no more than the hell she had endured for the last nine years. “Or it’s the beginning. It depends on how you look at it.”
“Yes, that’s a good way to look at it. That’s what I told Rakovac.” She looked down at Rakovac’s face, still twisted with agony. “He ruined the last nine years for Luke and me. I can’t let him take anything else from us. He’d win. I can’t let him win.”
Eve gave her a quick, hard hug. “Not you. That’s not going to happen.”
“I didn’t want this to happen to you and Kelly. I thought I was going to keep him away from you.”
“It didn’t happen. You couldn’t know. Don’t think about it right now.”
“How is she?” Joe stood in the doorway.
“Good enough.” Eve nodded at Rakovac. “He’s dead.”
Venable pushed Joe aside and strode into the room. “I checked the car out front. There was a computer, but I didn’t see-” He was searching Rakovac’s pockets. He pulled out a keychain. “Thumb drive! This has got to be it. I’ll go to the study and check it out on his computer.” He jumped to his feet and ran out of the room and down the stairs.
“You didn’t find what you needed at Rakovac’s house?” Catherine asked.
“It was purged. Venable says we can get it eventually, but we need it now.” Joe crossed to look down at Rakovac. “You got him. How?”
She smiled faintly. “I struck him with my fangs. Mamba venom.”
“A fitting end. I thought you’d have made preparations. You wouldn’t have just gone in without a plan.” His glance shifted to her face. He reached out and took both her hands in his and looked into her eyes. “Did it feel good, Catherine?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then forget about the bastard.” He squeezed her hands and turned away. “I’ve got to go down and check with
