Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“Larry McGregor?” Van raised a brow.
“Triangle choke. Killing him would’ve been easier than knocking him out.”
“Jesus, Camila.” Tate’s chest rose and fell. “What if you’re outnumbered?”
“That’s where the tracking device comes in. I know a guy. A dentist.” She opened her mouth and tapped the molar that would cost her fifty grand to drill tomorrow. “I’ve had him on standby to do a special kind of dental restoration.”
“A GPS chip in a dental filling?” Van rolled the toothpick between his lips. “Smart. But the battery life—”
“It’ll last two weeks, sending a signal every thirty minutes. It only uses the battery when I’m moving.”
Oh, the creative and illegal things one could buy on the web’s black markets.
Van sawed his jaw side to side. Was he loosening it up to snap at her? Or was he thinking through her plan?
He blew out a breath and looked her firmly in the eye. “I’ll do it.”
Amber gripped his hand as relief fluttered through Camila’s veins.
“Tate.” She met his frigid eyes. “You’ll track my position through the chip?”
He blinked, nodded. “Two weeks…You’ll most likely be in the belly of the operation before the battery dies.”
She hoped. “If I’m successful, if I kill him, I’ll contact you, and you won’t need to do anything.” She rubbed her slick palms on her jeans. “If you don’t hear from me, you’ll have the location of the operation and—”
“We’ll save you.” The conviction in his voice vibrated through her.
“No.” She matched his tone.
She picked at her cuticles, forcing her shoulders to relax.
“You and the others…” The freedom fighters. She smiled at that, because she knew she could count on her team. “You’ll finish where I failed.”
TWO DAYS LATER, CAMILA SAT on Tate’s bed, transfixed by the contours of muscle playing across his back as he dug through a mountain of dirty clothes. His sex appeal aggravated the nervous energy twitching through her, but she couldn’t look away. There was something she wanted, something Tate could give her.
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m listening.” He shook out a wrinkled shirt, sniffed it, and tossed it back in the pile.
Van would arrive in three hours—three hours until she surrendered her freedom. Maybe only for a couple of weeks. Maybe forever.
The gravity of forever had plunged her into hours of introspection, creeping paralysis through her limbs and gnawing at her resolve. She wasn’t putting herself in chains simply for the cause of justice. There was a darker motive. A selfish desire to overpower the fears that haunted her. Her enslavement had wrought a deep dissatisfaction with her own life, and though her body had healed from the trauma, her bleeding soul demanded she do this.
With a roll of her tongue, she sought out the new filling in her molar. Indiscernible to the eye, the composite material felt foreign and obtrusive in her mouth. The GPS chip, however, instilled a sense of confidence in her plan. Seeing her movements on the software program and knowing Tate would be tracking her made her feel a little less alone.
She thought about giving Matias’ contact information to Tate. If Tate didn’t hear from her, he could pass along her last known position to the one person who might increase her chance of survival.
But she didn’t want to go into this with that seed of hope. Didn’t want to find herself tied to a bed in a pool of her own failure, waiting for someone who might not come for her. Matias had already abandoned her once. For that to happen a second time? The destitution that would follow might very well kill her. He was the only person from her past she had left.
Therein lay the root of her loneliness. Van had given her a taste of how depraved men could be. Matias had shown her how to turn innocent love into a lifetime of bitterness. The only sex she’d experienced had been quick, unsatisfying fucks.
She’d known Tate for six years, and now, in her final hours of freedom, she wanted to know him on a deeper level.
“I’ve never made love.” She held her breath.
He paused with his hand in the pile of clothes and glowered over his shoulder, his eyebrows drawn together. “Wait…so you are a virgin?”
“No. I’m—” She straightened her spine. “I’ve never had sex with someone I know.”
Strangers, all of them. No connection. No emotion. Just sex. She blamed herself for that. She didn’t let people in, didn’t trust anyone outside of those she lived with.
His lips pressed together in a grimace as he turned away.
Was he judging her? Self-righteous anger burned beneath her skin.
Digging at the bottom of the dirty clothes pile, he smelled another shirt and reared back with a pinched face.
“This one should work.” He tossed it at her.
It landed on her lap, and a waft of mold and sweat hit her nose. Jesus, did he have a month’s worth of wet towels in that pile? For a guy who was fussy about hygiene, he had some strange abhorrence to doing laundry.