A smell filled her nostrils and soaked her brain with the need for caffeine. Bo stood over the bed holding two steaming cups of coffee.
"I hope you don't mind," he said. "I took the liberty of making coffee."
She inched backward, despite having nowhere to go, retreating like a frightened animal.
"It's not poisoned," he said, extending the cup toward her. "You want me to take a sip?"
Nicole hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. She was thirsty and hungry. Her stomach grumbled, as if hearing the thought.
Her captor put on a warm face. At least that's how she interpreted it. The expression looked uncomfortable on him, like a hungry tiger attempting to be sympathetic to its prey.
"You're not the one I'm after," he said. "I am going to kill Dak, but I'll let you live. Probably."
She didn't like the way he added that last part at the end. She didn't believe him, not entirely. Nicole wasn't stupid. Her career in the tech industry lent no knowledge of hostage situations, but she'd seen enough on television, in books, and in the news on occasion to understand that he would keep her alive as long as she was useful. Once that usefulness was gone, she was expendable.
"You want the coffee or not?" Bo pressed, interrupting her thoughts. "I'd hate for you to get a caffeine headache."
"Why do you care?" she hissed, still staring suspiciously at the proffered mug.
"I don't. But if you start getting cranky with me because you're head's pounding, then I'll have to take more drastic measures. And I don't want to do that."
She considered it for another twenty seconds, then reluctantly took the cup.
"There you go," he said cheerfully, then helped himself to a seat in a light blue chair next to a black dresser.
Nicole looked down at the dark brown liquid. She let the aroma fill her senses.
"It's okay," Bo said. "It's not poisoned, though if I was in your position I would wonder the same thing."
What's the difference, she thought. I'll end up dead one way or the other. Poisoning would be bad for a minute or two, then it would be over.
Resigned to her fate, Nicole took a sip from the mug. It tasted just like she usually made it, maybe even a touch better. She swallowed, then greedily took another sip, and a third, slurping the hot liquid through her lips.
"See? Not bad, huh?"
She didn't respond. She was too angry. And her right hand was still cuffed to the bed.
"What's your plan?" she asked between sips. "Obviously, you're going to use me to lure Dak here."
"Obviously." He took a sip of his coffee and grinned devilishly.
"My apartment isn't a big place. No room to maneuver in a fight, unless you're planning to shoot him when he gets here. And if you did that, someone would hear the gunshots." She held back mentioning that Dak's friend Will might come with him for backup. There was no way to know that for sure, but if Dak was smart, that's what would happen.
"You're correct, for certain. Though the suppressor on my pistol would make certain no one on the street heard anything."
She'd forgotten the silencer. "Still a lot of people down there who could give a positive ID on you. You'd have to disappear pretty fast."
"That's also true, which I have covered, but I see where you're going with all of this. I'm not luring Dak here. Right now, if he's still alive and managed to slip through the colonel's ambush, he will probably be on his way out of Portugal, heading here. When he arrives, we will be gone."
Nicole didn't like the sound of that.
"Gone? Where are we going?"
"There's a small town east of here. It's in the mountains. Honestly, it's little more than a sparse village. Out there, no one will be around to interrupt our confrontation."
"So, a showdown at high noon, then?"
"Something like that. I will have the advantage, of course. He will ride in like the knight in shining armor to save his lost love. And he will die."
Several unpleasant thoughts pierced her mind. She wondered how he would do it. Sniper rifle? Explosives?
"You'll shoot him like a coward? Pick him off when he arrives?"
Bo shook his head. "No, nothing like that. I don't need to kill him that way. And honestly, Dak deserves better. He deserves a fighting chance."
"You would fight him straight up?" She sounded dubious.
"Of course. Dak only bested me on rare occasions when we trained together. On his best day, I would give him a thirty percent chance. But he hasn't been training lately. He's probably rusty. I'd say his odds of beating me now are more like one in twenty. If that."
Her eyes flamed and nostrils flared. She'd finished half the cup of coffee, but suddenly didn't feel much like the rest. The smell of something cooking in the kitchen—toast, from what she could tell—didn't appeal to her growling stomach.
"So, when you're done eating and drinking your coffee, we'll head out to the mountains. On the street, if you make a scene or try to get help, I will shoot you. No one will know what happened. With all the noise down there, not a soul will hear the muted sound of my pistol. You will collapse in my arms and I will yell for help, insisting someone has a gun. Chaos will ensue. People will run in a panic. And I will melt into the crowds and make my way to the rendezvous point without you."
He leveled his gaze at her, piercing her armor with his icy blue eyes. She couldn't find a bluff, try as she might.
"I would prefer it not go down that way. That's up to you. Live and watch
