At last, he reached the main road, the pavement giving him license to open the gas and fly. She tightened her arms around his waist, hugging his back with her entire body as he bent into the wind.
If a cop clocked him for speeding, he would just have to ride faster and outrace the patrolman. He wasn’t stopping for anyone or anything.
His pulse revved with the roar of the engine, the bike vibrating between his legs. For the next hour or so, he didn’t pass another motorist. Vacant fueling stations and diners blurred by. No cop cars in sight.
The dark nothingness pushed his thoughts into dangerous introspection. He had one goal—arrive before twenty-three hundred. Beyond that, he was terrified of what was going to happen.
Torture was barbaric and uncivilized, but it was effective. Whatever these people wanted, he most likely wouldn’t be able to surrender it.
They were going to make him hurt.
Would it be more than he could bear? Probably. Would he survive it? Maybe not. But he’d been trained for this. Trained to put labels on his thoughts and compartmentalize his feelings, all in an effort to gain a sense of control in a situation where he had no control over the process or the pain.
Lydia directed him off the main highway. From there, he took narrow back roads through a desolate wasteland. The few buildings he passed were closed-up and crumbling. The skeletal remains of a ghost town.
He wasn’t familiar with this part of Texas. While it seemed they’d been traveling southward most of the journey, there had been a number of turns, and he didn’t know how much time had passed.
As the clock ticked toward twenty-three hundred, did he have thirty minutes left? Five? None?
The uncertainty pushed him faster, his pulse racing with urgency.
She touched his forearm and motioned to veer right just as a turnoff came into view. It was an entrance to something, the property encircled by a tall, unkempt chain-link fence. The enclosure served more as a boundary marker than a security measure.
Moving closer, he spotted a large industrial building in the distance. No lights or signs of life. Weird.
He sped through an unmanned gate and passed several empty parking lots. The property appeared to be vacant. Until he circled the side.
At least a dozen vehicles sat along an old loading dock. She indicated for him to park there, and the moment he turned off the engine, he yanked off the helmet.
“What time is it?” He twisted, hauling her off the motorcycle with him, hurrying her along. “Call off the strike.”
She reached around him and grabbed the key from the ignition, pocketing it.
His palms slicked with sweat as she removed her helmet. His mouth dried as she shook out her hair, taking her sweet-ass time. His blood pressure climbed as she pulled the tablet from her pack.
“Look at that.” She smiled at the screen, her accent thickening. “Two minutes to spare.”
“We’re here. Call it off.”
Her incisive gaze traveled down his body. “Remove your clothes.”
Lydia held the smile on her face, but inside she felt cold. Merciless. There was no room for anything else. Cole Hartman was a doorway, and she would cut her way through him to reach the other side.
His nostrils flared, and his neck corded, muscles and veins straining against his skin. He planted his boots wide apart, seething, damn near shaking with fury and fear.
Yes, fear. He was a battle-honed tough guy, but he had a weakness. An aircraft full of weaknesses. In his line of work, he knew better than to get attached to people. That was his own fucking fault.
“We had a deal.” He stepped into her space, his rock-hard chest in her face.
Christ, he smelled good. Wild and earthy, like the dusty wind on a dark road. Dangerous and sexy, like the brawn flexing beneath his shirt.
He was gorgeous beyond all sense of the word. With that chiseled body and those fathomless brown eyes, he could crush a perfectly good heart.
Good thing she didn’t have one.
She glanced at the clock on the tablet. “One minute.”
His lips curled back, baring straight white teeth in the moonlight. And dimples. A pair of them bracketed his enraged scowl, forming deep divots in his beard. Cute. Like a furious grizzly bear.
With a snarl, he reached over his head and grabbed the back of his shirt, yanking it off in that way men did. Tattoos covered his sinewy arms and sculpted chest. Almost as many as she had. But where her ink glowed with color, his were black, the images impossible to make out in the dark.
He held her gaze as he toed off his boots and unbuttoned his jeans. He didn’t look away as he shoved down his pants and kicked them off.
“Call off the drone.” He regarded her with an unflinching glare, fully nude and chillingly stoic.
As much as she wanted to look down, she didn’t check out his body. She refused to break eye contact. Not even as the door opened and armed men spilled outside.
“Your friends are safe.” She watched his expression relax a half-second before it hardened again. “Show Mr. Hartman the live video.”
Someone appeared at her side. Without glancing, she knew it was Mike. No one looked at her like he did, the heat of his gaze flickering over her, searching for injuries.
He already knew she was unharmed. The technology in her helmet had allowed them to communicate while she was away. But he wasn’t rational when it came to her safety.
He was insanely overprotective.
Holding a laptop, he pivoted the screen toward Cole. It showed the Colombian cartel jet coasting at a distance ahead of the drone. A moment later, the drone veered off, changing course, the strike aborted.
Cole stood motionless, except his eyes. They tracked the screen, his expression showing no hint of relief.
It had taken months of digging and a Hail Mary plan to locate the cartel’s private aircraft. They had multiple hangars in South America, all of which were monitored for activity by her team. She’d hoped Cole’s most powerful ally, Matias Restrepo, would make the journey to Texas, but she hadn’t known when or who would be with him.
She’d lucked out when the whole damn crew boarded that plane.
Without a word, she grabbed Cole’s clothes and strode toward the building. Her fifteen-man team moved in around him, heavily armed and highly trained. They were hardened soldiers, their backgrounds diverse, spanning from criminal to retired military. But they were all here for the same reason. A paycheck.
Could they be bribed to switch sides? Not easily. But everyone had a price. If Cole made the right offer, maybe he could gain an ally among her crew.
For that reason, no one would be allowed near him unless she or Mike were present.
She entered through the loading dock, confident that Cole wouldn’t give them any problems. If he tried to escape, they would shoot to wound, not to kill. He was worthless to her dead.
He was also too smart to run. Without clothes or transportation, he wouldn’t get far in the desert.
Past the loading ramps, she turned into a spartan corridor. Dust coated the concrete walls and floors. Overhead, stark fluorescent lights illuminated layers of sand that had crept in from outside and gritty powder left over from the raw materials that had once been hauled in and out of this building.
Years ago, a manufacturing company used this warehouse to split and carve granite blocks into monuments, mausoleums, crypts, and headstones.
She’d needed a secure, out-of-the-way place to do this job, and this was what she got. A building where tombs had been made. Fitting.