Enraged.
From the moment Antonio Andrade pulled the gun on the driver, flashbacks to the time she was taken from the CDC crashed through her mind. Here she was again at the mercy of a madman.
“Get on the plane.”
His steely voice ordered behind her. Full of menace and in a tone that was impossible to ignore, she turned slowly to face him.
The gun was no longer raised and his arm was relaxed by his side. With reluctance, she lifted her gaze and wasn’t surprised to see the candor in his inky blue eyes. Antagonism seemed to be their default interaction from the time they met twelve hours earlier. Somehow, she disliked him on sight, and it appeared he’d formed negative preconceived notions about her too. Not that she could blame anyone really. Charly carried the honor of being the person who’d sprung Raul Ortega from his CDC confinement, and, apparently, she also carried the distinction of allegedly creating Z-92—the mutated version of the weaponized Ebola virus.
When she remained motionless, Antonio prowled toward her, eyes narrowed.
Charly held her ground, eyes defiant.
Invading her space, he lowered his head, his mouth inches from her own. “Don’t think,” he said quietly. “That just because I won’t shoot you, I don’t have my own ways of making you get on that plane.”
“Does that include clubbing me over the head and dragging me by my hair like a caveman?”
“Don’t give me ideas.” He straightened his posture and adjusted the fit of his suit jacket. It was a wonder he was not melting under the Mexican sun at high noon. Who in their right mind would wear a dark blue suit in this heat? But other than the telltale sweat on his forehead, Antonio Andrade appeared as cool as a cucumber. As though he hadn’t just threatened the driver of Joaquin Alcantara who had been their host and rescuer from the Mexican Army.
He tucked his gun inside his suit jacket then adjusted the cuff of his right sleeve in a bored manner. “I’m getting tired of this game.” He looked in the direction where the Land Rover disappeared. “And we need to leave. Now.”
Charly snorted and gave a careless wave of her arm. “And I want you to take me back to the Alcantara hacienda.” Her lips curled mockingly. “Now.”
“You realize once you get back on U.S. soil, they’ll throw you in prison.”
“And I can clear my name.” She didn’t need to explain anything to this bastard.
A brief surprise flashed through his eyes before he quickly disguised it.
“You do realize you’ve technically kidnapped an American citizen,” she countered.
Movement in her peripheral vision drew her attention to a person stepping down from the stairs of the Gulfstream. A hefty man a head shorter than Antonio approached them. Judging from his dark khakis and dark shirt, he looked like one of his security detail. Or his goon. Charly’s bravado faltered as she was beginning to realize that Antonio wasn’t a billionaire who played by the rules. At this moment, he looked like a mob boss.
“Problem, chefe?” the man said, eyeing Charly with hostility.
The pulse in her neck quickened and breathing became difficult.
She took a step back. This was becoming a tiresome refrain. She just wanted to be a virologist, dammit.
“Nothing I can’t handle.” Antonio smirked.
Charly bristled. “Sure about that?”
Before she could take her next breath, the man in his stupidly expensive suit charged forward and tossed her over his shoulder.
For the second time in the space of less than ten minutes, Charly was rendered speechless and a tad breathless.
And pissed off.
“You son of a bitch!” she screamed. The backs of her legs were clamped tight so she couldn’t even kick him. Hanging upside down made her dizzy, and the lunch she’d eaten not an hour ago, backed up in her throat. It didn’t help when he quickly negotiated the steps up to his plane.
Antonio started barking orders in Portuguese.
Charly could pick up enough of the language to understand its meaning.
But she had more pressing issues in her stomach to think about more than anything else.
When Antonio set her vertically with a smug look on his face, Charly had the sweetest revenge.
She puked all over his expensive suit.
That woman was a menace.
Of all the suits she had to ruin, it had to be the one made by his close friend. It may not be one of his Italian ones—those could burn for all he cared. Those were easy to obtain with money unlike the custom-made suits he had tailored to his specifications with a concealed gun pocket.
They definitely came in handy.
He glanced at the soiled jacket he’d discarded on the floor. Merda, that was his favorite one. He was in the bedroom on the Gulfstream 550 that had its own toilet and shower. Sonya, the flight attendant, had unpacked the remainder of his clean clothes and hung them in the closet.
When CIA officer John Garrison offered him a deal that would help absolve Antonio’s company from the Z-91 virus mess, he jumped on it. In exchange for flying the special ops team into Mexico to retrieve the bioweapon, Garrison promised him transparency in the search for the perpetrators of the man-made virus. Better still, Antonio was assured access to the virologist Dr. Bennett.
Antonio wasn’t expecting an infuriating woman he had the oddest desire to throttle every time those disapproving crystal blue eyes landed on him.
He remembered the way she scrunched up her nose in his presence. Like he was gum on her shoe she couldn’t wait to scrape off. Although he did give her little to like about him, Antonio wasn’t about to sweat over that either. He needed one thing and one thing alone from Dr. Bennett.
Her fucking cooperation.
Then he would decide what to do with her. Maybe send her back packaged in a bow to the U.S. government. Whatever happened to her after was none of his business. But, by God, she was going to help him flush out the traitor in his organization. She was
