Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
His hand tightened, yanking her forward. She fell with a yelp, her cheek pressed against the cement as he unlocked the shackle on one of her wrists.
Oh, thank fuck.
She rolled her stiff shoulders, started to rise, and heard the clicking sound of handcuffs latching onto something.
“You just saved your head.” The comandante lingered in the doorway, staring down at her. “Until I reach Restrepo, you are ours to enjoy.”
He slipped into the hall, and her stomach turned inside out. She scrambled away from the other man, but the snap of her arm yanked her back.
The son of a bitch had handcuffed her to his wrist.
“This is a mistake.” She scooted on her back and stretched her free arm out to the side, floundering for something to grip, a heavy piece of steel, something sharp, anything she could brandish as a weapon. “Restrepo will kill you if you rape me.”
Her fingers gripped the leg of a steel shelving unit. She pulled, and he pulled her back by her leg, dragging her across the floor.
At the center of the room, he dropped her feet near the door, dove on top of her, and ripped off her panties with a violating fist.
“No!” She thrashed beneath him, smacking at his greasy face and kicking her legs. “No! Stop! Get off me! You’ll regret this.”
He was thinner, smaller than Tiago, but still twice her size. She couldn’t get leverage, and even if she did, she was fucking handcuffed to his arm. Where would she go?
Didn’t stop her from putting up the biggest fight of her life. She went crazy, bucking, screaming, scratching, and biting. She lost her mind, flailing in a fog of desperation and horror.
Seconds felt like hours, and her body started to give out, draining energy fast.
He forced her thighs apart with his knees and unzipped his pants. She released a blood-curdling roar, and his hand clapped over her mouth as his other fisted his swollen dick.
She sank her teeth into his fingers. He bellowed, face red, and reared back his arm.
Her heart slammed. She saw it coming and instinctively closed her eyes, knowing she couldn’t dodge the impact.
He made a choking sound, and a hot wet drizzle dripped across her thigh.
She opened her eyes to a sharp object protruding from his chest.
Her brain couldn’t make sense of it, and he seemed to share her confusion as he stared down at the serrated steel edge that stuck out several inches beneath his breastbone.
Then it moved, slicking upward in a vertical line, cutting his torso from bottom to top.
Blood poured in a bright red stream from the wound, from his mouth, bubbling down his chin.
She gulped, gulped, gulped, with no sound. No air. Her pulse throbbed so loudly it created a vacuum in her ears.
The blade pulled free. Life leaked from the man’s eyes as he tipped to the side and hit the floor, unblocking her view of the door.
Tiago stood over her, glaring at the dead body before leveling her with force of his terrifyingly potent presence.
A machete dangled from his hand, magnifying the fury and testosterone pouring off him. Brown eyes darkened into hues of feral. Speckles of red splattered the shadows on his face. God, that strikingly beautiful face, all brutal angles, sculpted lines, and dangerous scars.
The air left her lungs in trembling gasps.
He’d abducted her, fucked her, pissed on her, scarred her.
And saved her.
She squeezed her legs together and shook beneath the press of his power. The most arresting kind of power—lawless, savage, protective.
He wore a black leather jacket and jeans, both stained in blood. No telling how many people he’d slaughtered on his way here.
“I’ve never been more happy to see you.” She pulled her feet under her but couldn’t stand. Not with her arm handcuffed to the dead body.
Tiago knelt between her legs and trapped her fingers between his and the floor. Then he swung the machete, cutting off the man’s hand.
Bile hit her throat. The sight and aroma of so much gore numbed her brain and chilled her from the base of her skull to the tips of her toes.
Wriggling the handcuff from the severed limb, he circled the rotating arm all the way around, which left it unlocked and hanging from her wrist.
“I’ll remove this later.” He gripped the cuff still attached to her.
“With a key, I hope.”
A big hand lifted to cradle the side of her face, commanding her gaze to his.
“I almost lost you.” He swallowed hard.
The jog in his strong, muscular throat reminded her this brutal, hardcore criminal was human.
She’d been taken from him, nearly beheaded and raped, and the starkness in his eyes told her he knew. He knew exactly the sort of horrors she’d just evaded.
“You weren’t too late or too slow.” She touched her forehead to his, replaying the words he said about his wife’s death. “You don’t need to put me back together. You didn’t fail.”