She appeared to be the one in charge here, but this job was only one piece of a bigger operation. An operation that was controlled and funded by someone else. He’d figured out that much when he asked her about Thurney Bridge. She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
That meant someone else had hired the hitman who attacked Rylee. Someone else was responsible for killing Rylee’s neighbor and two motel clerks. Lydia hadn’t been involved.
He shouldn’t have felt so relieved, but dammit, he couldn’t ignore the lightness in his chest. The hope. Irrational fucking hope that Lydia was more than just a criminal for hire, that maybe she had a forgivable reason for threatening his friends with a hellfire missile.
Dangerous thoughts.
He couldn’t get attached. His only priority was survival, and if it came down to it, he would choose his life over hers.
He would choose Danni’s life over everyone and everything.
They knew where she lived. But he couldn’t dwell on that. He trusted Trace to protect her. There was no one on the planet who would keep her safer than her husband.
Resting his head against the wall, he drummed his fingers on the box of supplies. Lydia had given into his demand for a toothbrush, and the guards weren’t happy about it. She hadn’t stabbed needles under his fingernails or waterboarded him to death, and the guards didn’t appear to be happy about that, either.
Other than her obvious relationship with Mike, she wasn’t in sync with the rest of her team. They wanted to torture him for the information while she seemed to have a different agenda.
When she looked at him, he didn’t see his demise shining in her eyes. Quite the opposite. The flush in her cheeks, the quiver in her legs, the blatant sexual attraction that radiated from her pores—she wanted him.
But it could all be part of the act.
Sexpionage was a common practice among intelligence services all over the world, especially in Russia. It was a filthy tactic to elicit information, executed by trained ravens and swallows who had little left of their humanity.
Lydia had a red swallow inked on her chest. Was it a clue? It seemed too obvious, but if she was a hired swallow, she had only one objective here—to compromise him sexually. She certainly dressed the part, and it would explain why she hadn’t tortured him. Her beauty alone would bring a weaker man to his knees.
But beneath the evocative cleavage and overdone makeup, he detected something softer, something akin to…kindness. An unfeeling sex spy wouldn’t give her target a toothbrush and medical supplies. Unless that was part of her act? A ploy to seduce him into trusting her?
He pressed his fingers to his brow, his head pounding with the music and the weariness of his thoughts.
What a goddamn mindfuck.
The kicker was he could give them what they wanted right now. He could bang on the door and tell them who bought the stolen hard drive from Marie Merivale. But the moment he gave it up, he was a dead man.
They had no intention of letting him walk out of here. The only thing keeping him alive was the information in his head.
He had to escape.
So he remained silent, biding his time, waiting for an opportunity to make his move.
That opportunity lay with Lydia.
If she intended to fuck him into compliance, he would be the one doing the fucking.
He would fuck her until she sobbed his name, surrendered to his will, and begged him for more.
Over the next two weeks, the guards dragged Cole out of the dark, tossed the same pair of unwashed jeans at him, and forced him to move the rock pile from one pallet to the other. Back and forth, every day, he hauled granite, strained muscles, and slowly lost his mind.
A meal waited for him at the end of each godforsaken chore—canned tuna, microwaved burritos, a hodgepodge of processed crap. Anything was better than hot dogs, and he needed the calories.
Each day, he gained weight and rebuilt his strength, but the tedious labor wore on him, putting him on edge and stoking his temper.
The guards fed on that, pushing him when he walked, taunting him when he stumbled, and growing meaner by the hour. Their numbers had doubled, at least ten of them present at all times, while Lydia’s appearances dwindled to nothing.
In the beginning, she showed up while he ate, dressed in her tantalizing rockabilly fashion and flanked by half a dozen armed men. It was always the same. The same demand in the same detached tone. “Tell me who bought the stolen intel.”
He maintained his silence, which seemed to infuriate her to the point that she stopped coming. He hadn’t seen her in days.
By the end of two weeks, he had enough.
His patience waned as the guards shoved him toward the waiting pallet of rock. His blood boiled as a boot connected with his spine, hurrying him along. He staggered, righted his balance, barely remaining vertical. His teeth clenched.
If he attacked, it would give them an excuse to retaliate. The motherfuckers wanted a fight, their hunger for blood burning in their eyes. They baited him endlessly for it.
He could take down any one of them without breaking a sweat. But not ten of them at once. He was outnumbered, and they were armed. Challenging them would be a fool’s quest.
Mike stood off to the side, arms crossed over his chest, watching. Always present, he never participated in the harassment. He never stopped them, either.
Where the fuck was Lydia? Was she watching from a hidden corner of the warehouse, delighting in his misery? He thought he would have more time with her, to analyze and manipulate her. That plan went to hell when she stopped showing up.
He was running out of options, out of patience. Inch by inch, he lost his self-control. He felt harried, wired, crackling like a lit fuse, burning down to detonation. It was only a matter of time.
Dragging in a deep breath, he resumed walking. Something had to change. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, spend another goddamn day hauling rocks.
He was done.
Just like that, a switch flipped inside him. His feet stopped moving, planted shoulder-width apart, his arms hanging at his sides. He didn’t tense, but he braced for it, ready, waiting with fire seething in his veins.
“Move.” Someone shoved his back.
He didn’t budge.
When the next shove came, he ducked, spun, and slammed his knuckles into the face behind him, willfully initiating an explosive chain reaction of violence and fury.
He hammered his fists, connecting with flesh, but no amount of skill or training could defeat their numbers. Within seconds, his back hit the concrete, his ribs taking the brunt of the blows as men fell upon him, weapons aimed, and mouths grinning through the blood.
They didn’t want to shoot him. They wanted to beat him to a pulp.
Manic energy surged through him, clouding his vision. Octane pumped his heart. Blood and sweat slicked his face. His knuckles throbbed, and his eyes burned from the impact of raining fists. Still, he kept punching, fighting, and roaring through the bone-crunching agony of their strikes.
Until the report of gunfire shuddered the air. A single shot, fired from across the warehouse. Everyone froze.
His pulse thundered, and his lungs crashed together. Then, one by one, the weight of ten men lifted off his body.
He lay on his back, staring at the rafters through blood-soaked eyelashes. Everything hurt, and he relished it—the madness of the pain, the rush of adrenaline, and the utter freedom in unleashing his temper. He savored it almost as much as the sound of her clicking heels heading toward him.