Rather than leading her to the porch, he ushered her along the side of it. As Matias climbed the short flight of steps to the front door, Nico kept her in the concealment of the shadows ten feet away. She ducked behind an overgrown bush beside the railing just as Matias knocked.
A mewling noise sounded from the darkness on the far side of the porch. Then it mewed again in a harrowing appeal for mercy—the weak cries of a dying animal.
Her breath came in gasps, and the hair on her nape rose. Nico gripped the juncture of her neck and shoulder with warning pressure.
Matias turned toward the cries, and the muscles across his back visibly stiffened. What did he see? A cat? Dog? She tried to block the mewling out of her head by focusing on Nico’s grip.
Matias shifted back to the door as it opened. Nico dropped his hand.
She angled her neck, peering through the branches to see whoever stood just inside the house, but Matias’ broad shoulders obstructed her view.
A handgun was tucked in the back of his jeans. Another one sat in a noticeable shoulder holster. His hard-packed body flexed beneath his t-shirt, but in the next heartbeat, his entire demeanor changed.
His hips loosened and his stance relaxed in a picture of suave arrogance. He crossed a foot over the other and propped it on the toe of the boot. With a forearm braced on the door frame, he lifted the other to slide his thumb over his bottom lip.
Wearing a sexy as fuck smile, he rumbled the Colombian greeting. “Qué más pues, señorita?”
“My, my, aren’t you a handsome one?” a woman purred in Spanish.
Tension shot through Camila’s shoulders and neck. Was he here for this woman? To capture her? Seduce her? Maybe this was a brothel of slaves.
Trust his reasons and keep him alive.
“I have an appointment.” He continued in the native language.
“I might be more your flavor, no? Spend some time with me and find out, viga.”
Her Spanish was so thick Camila struggled to translate it. Viga? She thought it meant superior muscles.
“I have particular tastes, yeah?” Matias moved his hand toward the vicinity of the woman’s chest as his eyes swept past her.
Scoping the place?
His fingers stroked something on the woman, something Camila couldn’t see but had no fucking trouble imagining. She felt her damn eye twitching and couldn’t stop it.
Nico gripped her wrist. Without looking at him, she nodded and forced herself to relax. Matias had said he needed to get through the door. Evidently, that required fondling another woman’s tits.
He continued the flirtatious conversation in Spanish, telling her how sexy she was, how bacano her tits felt, and that her lips were more deadly than his .40 cal. He wooed and winked and charmed the panties right off her skank ass. Hopefully, not literally. Camila still couldn’t see her beyond the door.
Camila kept her finger off the trigger and her breaths steady, but Nico didn’t let go of her arm.
“I have an appointment.” Matias rolled the syllables in Spanish.
An appointment for what? A prostitute? The idea of him fucking other women was ridiculous. Saving them, though? That made so much more sense. But who was he saving them from? Whoever had arrived in those luxury cars? An icy chill rushed through her core and chased the heat from her limbs. She glanced at Nico, but his attention was locked on Matias.
“You’re no fun,” the woman said. “This way.”
Matias followed her in and closed the door behind him.
“Fuck,” Camila whispered, shoving Nico’s hand away. “Are there slaves in there? Is this a whore house?”
He launched to his feet, dragging her with him, and pivoted toward the side of the house.
A second later, a solid dark shape darted around the corner from the backyard. Ski mask. Slender build. Large knife in hand.
Frizz. She recognized the metal buckles crisscrossing his black shirt.
“Back door?” Nico asked the other man in a hushed voice.
Frizz shook his head, blue eyes glowing in the dim light from the porch. Jesus, he looked different with his stitched lips hidden and his crazy hair tucked away. He looked…normal. Young. Really fucking young, like late-teens. He was just a baby.
Had he been rescued from slavery himself? If so, why would he torment the slaves at the estate?
He held up two fingers and pointed across the yard at the shadowed tree line. Identifying the location of the men Burd had brought?
Holding down three fingers and a thumb, he pointed his knife at the house.
Nico nodded and turned toward her, whispering, “Three men and a woman inside. Shoot anyone you don’t know. Try not to kill the female.”
What the fuck? The gun rattled in her hands. “Why would I kill anyone when I don’t know who they are?”
Those people could be undercover DEA or FBI or just a family trying to survive amid the violence. They could be the good guys.
What if that wasn’t it at all? Maybe Matias’ cartel captured women who ran slave rings and sold them as punishment. Her heart pounded. Could she hope for such a possibility?
Nico lifted a hand to touch the mask on her face and stopped before making contact. “You’re about to find out.”
Frizz slipped around them and crept onto the porch, his steps silent and movements graceful. Nico followed, and she stayed on their heels.
They froze at the sound of a wane cry coming from the dark corner of the stoop. Definitely a dying animal.
Frizz moved first, slinking toward it. Thank fuck, the boards didn’t creak, but she braced for it, tensing for any noise that might give them away.
She stepped where Frizz stepped and stopped beside him, her eyes straining in the absence of light as she tried to make out the floating shape.
A lamb. She sucked in a
